2- Counting Kobolds

Kreelow grew rapidly. That's not impressive considering he was born a Kobold, but regardless within a year of his hatching and encounter with the Great One he had quickly reached half the size of an adult.

Now with wiry limbs and a slender, almost decorative looking tail, he looked the part of Kobold instead of tiny lizard.

Due to his name coming from the Great One herself, he had been treated well by his kin, even being taught the basics of how to make the Humans give them shiny things for other shiny things. It went something like this-

First: Find a shiny with the sparkly glowy bits. To a Kobold, this is accurately what they know it as. To humans however, these are known as Magic Stones. They can be formed almost anywhere there is mana, typically in monsters or caves.

Second: Haggle. Haggle as greedily as you can to get the shiny things. Though most often a Kobold is told that the shiny copper ones are the shiniest and most valuable, that is not the case. The currency is about the same as that of America on earth. Coppers being pennies, silvers being dollars, and golds being hundreds. Simple enough. Though rare, platinum and Electrum are 100 and 50 golds worth respectively. Usually the Kobolds got a copper or two, maybe some silvers.

And the third and final step: Tell them nothing of where you found the shiny sparkle rocks. That way they give more shiny things for them. Shiny things appease the Great One.

Kreelow caught on to the value of shiny things and pretty things instantly due to the narrow minded focus of every Kobold- Pleasing their dragon overlord and collecting the pretty things to decorate nests.

The noisy dragon worshipper tribe he belonged to often went to hunt, and returned with small game. Food was the best thing next to shiny things, so when hunters returned with even a morsel it was a celebration.

Though most furs and bones were used as bedding and building material. Turns out, even the smallest monsters are useful for something. Slimes, though lacking intelligent thought, could be used to dispose of inedible materials that were worthless to the treasure loving lizards.

Goblins were frequently clashing with them however.

Kreelow could not help thinking that if the goblins were such an issue, why would the Great One not end them and have a crunchy goblin snack? While most Kobolds are satisfied with the answer "Because She is the Great One!!", there was an itch behind the scales on his scalp that no claw could reach to scratch.

And one day, after about two years since hatching, a human offered them a strange, un shiny leather thing, with whitish yellow slices of something in between. It said to them in common: "This is called a Book! It's very important, very. If you learn reading you can get more shiny things for your Great One!"

None of the adults even looked at the human. Why would they? It's just a boring leather thingy. Not shiny or pretty. But Kreelow was in a trance. His yellow eyes were narrow and focused on the book.

"How many shiny things, is book worth, Hoo man." In broken common, the young Kobold held out the small, orange magic stone he had gotten deep within the caverns. Most stones were colored based on element- orange being fire.

"Just that one is fine! Yes, very fine!" The human quickly snatched it and pressed the book into the grasping claws of the adolescent, before vanishing. This was the norm- humans didn't like staying to chat after getting something to sell.

The book was illegible. Well, to Kreelow at least. Obviously, reading was not a common Kobold thing to do. It was insane even, to think that a Kobold would have anything to do with dusty old leather bound tomes.

Kreelow did know numbers. There were Eleventy (110) Kobolds in his tribe. Maybe his elders knew how to read words on books?

Thus the small Kobold, went to find his tribe elder. To learn reading.