Building a Kingdom as a Kobold-Chapter 85: No, It’s not paranoia!

"It Always Starts With Someone Walking the Wrong Way."

It started with a bucket of radish guts and someone putting it in the wrong compost pile. Which wouldn’t normally mean anything. People make mistakes. Buckets get heavy. Labels fall off.

But yeah, I have been here long enough to know where this is going.

So when I saw the man angle toward the "burn-off only" pit and toss half a bucket of wet vegetable mess into the ash channel, I paused.

Then I kept watching.

He didn’t look nervous. Didn’t flinch. Just moved on like nothing had happened. Which meant he wasn’t clueless. He wanted it to look normal.

Too normal.

I stayed behind the half-built grain cover and noted his steps. He moved like someone who’d practiced how not to draw attention.

"See something?" Embergleam asked from behind me, voice soft.

I nodded, slow. "He’s not from here."

"He dumped radish into ash."

"So you noticed too."

I swear this isn’t paranoia!

We tracked him through the field margin. Quiet. No alerts. Just eyes.

The man circled the treeline at a casual pace, looping past the goat pens and toward the ruins beyond the grain stores. It wasn’t a suspicious route—not at first glance at least.

Then he paused.

Right next to the collapsed storage silo. Brushed at the ground. Reached into the old stonework. Lifted something.

A hatch. A trapdoor, hidden by debris and soot, too clean underneath to be old.

He didn’t hesitate. Slipped inside, pulled the hatch closed behind him.

Ok, I got you now.

Back at camp, I pulled the squad.

"Underground structure," I told them. "A hidden entrance."

Splitjaw blinked. "So we’re going under."

"Yes."

"Finally."

Quicktongue adjusted her belt, already sliding tools into her sleeves. "How many potential exits?"

"Unknown. Tunnel’s curved. But there’s support bracing and recent drag marks."

"Someone’s been carrying things," Embergleam said. She wasn’t asking.

"Looks like it."

That got everyone moving.

Quicktongue and I went in first. She bypassed the latch with a four-tap knock and a smirk like she was unlocking a stubborn pantry. The trapdoor creaked open without resistance.

Inside, it smelled like dry stone and old cinders. Not rot. Not monster. More... old facility. Someone’s idea of secret infrastructure.

The slope took us down at a shallow angle. Embergleam’s torchstone threw long shadows against the walls. There were markings—not language. Not flameprint. More like... sketches. Spirals that didn’t finish. freewebnσvel.cѳm

One even looked like Scribbles’ old ward patterns, but flipped. I didn’t like it.

We reached the first bend and stopped.

There were voices ahead.

Not loud. Not hiding either.

I held up a hand. Everyone froze.

The voices echoed from behind a half-closed wooden panel. Reinforced hinges. Light internal barrier.

"—close to a stable result," one voice said. "We need a sharper cut on the next one."

A second answered, quieter. "Spine held. Limb tension was the issue. The rhythm’s off."

People.

Real people.

Quicktongue frowned. "No alarm traps. No pressure locks."

"Too confident," Embergleam said.

Splitjaw tapped a fist softly against the wall. "Want me to knock?"

I shook my head. "We check the rest first. Then come back."

We marked the chamber and moved deeper along a side tunnel. It looped around the central chamber, revealing a set of narrow alcoves. Each one had discarded gear, some scrap parchment, and residue marks.

At the far end, another door.

This one was different.

No markings. No handle.

Just a single spiral etched at eye level. Reversed. Incomplete.

The door clicked.

Splitjaw raised his axe.

The panel opened.

Inside was a larger chamber. Round. Reinforced with mineral layering, not wood or stone. The floor was patterned—like a flameprint, but fractured and twisted, with core lines all bent toward a raised dais in the center.

A table. Not wood.

And an altar.

Bone. Or something carved to resemble it.

I stepped inside.

A single journal sat on the dais.

We didn’t touch it yet.

Embergleam circled wide. Glare held back, watching the corridor.

Quicktongue pulled out a silver thread line and started mapping angles.

Splitjaw just stood near the table, frowning.

"Doesn’t smell like bone," she muttered. "But I don’t like what it does smell like."

"What does it smell like?"

She looked at me, grim.

"Us."

We stayed five more minutes. No movement. No change.

Then we slipped out the way we came.

Back at camp, we didn’t talk right away.

Not until I looked up at the map Glare had marked out on a spread of canvas.

All the sightings. All the mimic traces. All the spiral copies.

And at the center of it all?

That village.

That tunnel.

That table.

But for what?

I didn’t have the answer.

Not yet.

But I knew we’d find out.

---

We waited until nightfall before going back in.

Didn’t feel brave. Just practical. If someone was running a mimic-echo lab under a village they were pretending to protect, then odds were good they didn’t expect a kobold fireteam with trust issues and a penchant for breaking doors.

We left Glare up top to watch the perimeter. If things went loud, he’d trigger the flareburst. One shot meant fallback. Two meant fire.

Quicktongue went first. Again. She didn’t even look smug about it. Just muttered something about the hinge squeak being louder than last time and made a note in her sketchbook as she slipped through.

The central chamber was unchanged. No new footprints.

We took the side tunnel again—back toward the voices.

They hadn’t moved.

Still talking. And still building.

I edged toward the door, crouched low, and peered through the sliver of gap between hinge and frame.

One had a chain looped over his shoulder with a crystal bracer clipped to the end. The other held a chisel and was carving something into a slab.

That slab held names.

Ashthorn. Splintjaw. Flicktongue. Emburgrim.

How dare they! I’m pretty sure I could sue them for copyright infringement.

Quicktongue stared at the list for one long second. Then pulled back, face tight.

Splitjaw cracked his knuckles. Loudly.

Inside, the two voices paused.

"Someone’s outside," one said.

We didn’t wait.

Splitjaw kicked the door clean off the hinge. It bounced off a wall. Chaos followed it in with a bang-flare grenade that filled the room with smoke and regret. I dashed left, flanked wide.

One of the robed figures raised a warding charm. Embergleam snapped her fingers, and the charm fizzled—overloaded by a spikeburst flamepin she had hidden up her sleeve.

The second one reached for the slab.

Splitjaw got there first.

He ended up across the room with a broken chair leg embedded in his ribs. Not lethal. But very motivational.

"Talk," he growled.

Neither did.

Quicktongue secured their wrists with flashbinders and pinned both to a support beam with more rope than necessary.

Then she approached the slab. Studied it.

"Look here. This one says ’Splitjaw variant: +discipline, -improvisation.’ And this one says Sovereign variant: +compliance, -independence.’"

I looked at the bound figures. "- independence? Really?"

Still no response.

Splitjaw leaned in. "We can do this nicely."

The one with the bracer spoke. "You’re already late."

"To what?"

He smiled.

Horrible, toothy, and very satisfied.

"To the field test."

The chamber trembled.

I spun.

The slab was cracking.

Not because of damage.

Because something inside it was waking up.

"Back!" I shouted.

But the air had already changed. Thick. Vibrating with mystical intent.

The slab split open.

And something crawled out.

It was shaped like me.

Almost. The firemark on its chest glowed with factory-fresh confidence.

It looked at me.

Then at Splitjaw.

Then it spoke.

"Orders?"

Its voice was my voice. Without breath. Without heat.

The robed figure on the floor started laughing.

Splitjaw stopped that with a jab to the neck. Not fatal. But he stopped laughing.

The fake stepped forward.

Embergleam triggered a flame trap.

It stepped through it.

No hesitation. No fear. It didn’t even burn. Just absorbed and mirrored the fire, pushing it outward in a warped reflection.

Chaos threw a vial. It exploded in a flash of boiling smoke.

Still no stumble. No confusion.

This thing didn’t learn.

It had already been taught.

The fight started for real.

Splitjaw took point. Charged low, broke a support beam over its back. The copy staggered but didn’t fall. It twisted, countered with a strike that mimicked Splitjaw’s own shoulder rush—but two beats too slow.

That gave Quicktongue the angle. She fired a tripline bolt into its leg. It caught, jerked, and tangled—but the thing didn’t go down. It bent. Unbent. Shoved forward like a marionette with faulty strings.

Embergleam hit it with a refracted burst. Chaos flanked with a smoke curtain.

The fake moved like me.

I stepped in.

Slid under its guard. Slammed a torch-rod into its side, right at the hinge between torso and legplate.

The rod snapped.

Didn’t matter.

I wasn’t trying to break it.

I was trying to tag it.

The flare ignited.

Bright.

The fake staggered. Hissed. Moved wrong for half a beat.

Splitjaw followed up.

Hammered it with a grounded elbow that cracked its shell. Chaos surged in and lobbed a flash seed into its jaw.

It reeled.

Embergleam finished it.

She stepped forward. Touched its chest. Whispered a word I didn’t catch.

The fake stopped.

Shivered.

And folded.

Inward.

No scream. No burst.

Just silence.

Then it was gone.

Ash.

The slab cracked fully.

No more voices.

No more constructs.

Just us. Breathing hard. Covered in dust.

Splitjaw spat. "That was new."

Quicktongue wiped her brow. "That was too new."

Chaos collected the remaining fragments. "They’re using templates. But they don’t understand context."

I looked at the bound robed figures. They were unconscious.

Glare’s flare burst lit the sky above.

One flare.

Fallback.

I nodded to the others.

"Let’s go."

We left the chamber. Sealed the tunnel with three bombs traps. Marked the entry point.

Back at camp, I sat near the well.

Didn’t talk. Just stared at my hands.

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