Three

More of my story. Not much else to say.

Chapter Three

Lidda hastily looked over the helmet.  "This is bloodbane's mark, I'm sure of it.  It seems that the same cult which we just killed the last of had sent a few of their agents to destroy this town.

"But, it's so unlike him to do that.  The tales tell of the great deceptions he played upon his many victims.  He wouldn't have just charged in and destroyed something... his worshipers weren't like that."

"Obviously," Brom commented, flipping a dagger over in his hand, "They were looking for something."  The man used his dagger to push away some of the charred bits of brick, and under it lay something glinting.  Something silver.

Brom lifted it up, and it was seen by all.  The silver crown had many gems in it once, but now they had been taken off - apparent by the depressions in the silver.  "What would a crown be doing here?"

"I don't know," Milian said, drawing his sword and taking his shield off the sling on his back, "But I don't like it.  Kobolds are clever enough, they can't all have been destroyed; hence we have not destroyed the cult that we thought we had."

Diliane tapped her foot thoughtfully, fingering her big sword as the words of a spell came to her.  "Get ready for a fight," she whispered a few moments later, as her eyes widened and the sword came off her back.  "The kobolds are watching us."

Milian and Dilliane burst into motion, leaping into the air with swords held high as the chattering voices of kobolds rang through the air with a chilling tone.  Lidda let a crossbow come off her hip, and, knowing that kobolds were rather unperceptive, raced into the crowd which was preoccupied with fighting the others.

To even Brom and Adran's sharp eyes, it seemed that Lidda was dead within a heartbeat.  She waded into the tide of kobolds half her size, then began to slowly sink down.

They found otherwise when the kobolds suddenly stopped.  All eyes were accusingly pointed towards another.  The kobolds began to loudly argue in their guttural draconic tongue.

"What are they saying?" Brom asked.  Dilliane nodded in his direction, and indicated that she was listening.

"They are deciding which of them just killed the other one."

Adran's eyes widened.  "Lidda!"

The doppleganger was there, sure enough.  She was disguised in a kobold form, but a distinctive mark was found upon her forehead.  She held Lidda's crossbow, wore Lidda's clothes, and was killing the other kobolds one by one while distracting them with loud shouts and accusing fingers.

Adran fired arrows up into the air, raining them down upon the hapless creatures.  They fell as the missiles rammed into their bodies one by one, and over a hundred kobolds died within only a few moments.

Brom rushed in, throwing a dagger into the crowd then yanking it out of the body of the dying reptilian.  Dilliane shouted to Brom and Lidda, "Get out of there now!  I'm going to light them up!"  Brom leaped into the air and flipped over backwards, nimbly landing on a stone crag and sliding down with his sharp knife, forged of magic, digging into the surface.  Lidda assumed her true form once more, moving out of the group as she did.

Dilliane drew her sword and held it forward, pointed towards the center of the kobold group.  A bolt of lightning flew forth, hit the center kobold, and spread out around, shocking each one and scorching them all into the ground.

Within moments, every kobold was dead.