Chapter 418: Life 30 - Chapter 11 - That's the Oasis you Need, but not the one you Deserve Right Now.

Controlling my instinct to run away from the sex-starved stoned gnomes, I stood my ground.

“What do you want Vorrick?” I asked.

“Just welcome you to heaven,” the crazed veteran said. His eyes swam everywhere on me. “Tell me, why in Wyxnos’ infinite wisdom these idiots let a woman ride on the cars?”

I crossed my arms and stared at him. He couldn’t keep eye contact. His pupils were dilated and his eyes bloodshot. “Things changed back home, Vorrick. What are you doing here, living among the kobolds? And what nonsense about heaven is this?”

He opened his arms and cackled, “Listen, children! Listen to us! We were wrong! By Wyxnos’ shadow, we were wrong! The kobolds are not our enemies! They are our friends! Follow me, you’ll see!”

The newcomers and I were boxed by the other gnomes and the pack moved up the hill toward the last set of palisades. This last section seemed to be their Royal palace as armed kobold guards stood next to the gates. But they opened the gate to us and we went through unchallenged.

The hilltop was surrounded by a ring of rocks. On the very top, a tall stone house and by the scent trail, it was the kobold [Queen]’s palace. We stopped before the line.

“From this on,” Vorrick explained, “You’ll be subject to Wyxnos burning punishment. This is to atone for our sins before we became enlightened and arrived here. We are the salvation of our people, the future of gnomekind. You may choose to stay beyond these rocks and endure the punishment until you die, or go back down there and live your life in service to repay for your crimes. The choice is yours.”

He walked past the ring and started to squirm in pain. Other gnomes among the veterans entered and screamed in pain, returning back down where we watched the scene unfold. I knew what that was. The ring of stones marked the boundary between this shit-hole and a magic zone.

I crossed and confirmed my expectations. I’d acclimate fully in an hour and a half but the magic levels here were higher than in the outside world. Something told me the magic was coming from below but aside from my feet hurting more than my head, it was only a hunch.

This hilltop was out of the dead magic zone even though for geometrical reasons it should be. I jumped up, clearing the roof of the stone building. I saw it had a garden in the middle with vibrant green trees and statues, but the magical zone extended as far as I could leap up. I raised a hypothesis that this anti-magic zone might be donut-shaped but the hole in the donut was too small if it was just this building. Too conspicuous too.

Other gnomes entered, inspired by my antics, and immediately fell on the ground, screaming as their flesh bubbled and burned. Vorrick expected it and crouched next to them.

“Do you want to repent or return to safety! Call for Wyxnos’ mighty name if you do!”

The gnomes gurgled and shrieked. This crazy guy was a total asshole. Now I understood how normal gnomes reacted to mana infusion (by literally having their tissues boiled by mana) and how some could survive. Those that had Perks saved for a “rainy day” bought {Arcane Magic Resistance}, the others died. Furious, I dropkicked Vorrick away and rolled the gnomes back across the line. My deal with the kobolds didn’t include gnomish traitors.

“You crazy asshole!” I shouted at him. “Why do you want them dead!”

Vorrick rubbed his shoulder where my foot struck him, “You do not understand, stupid woman!” He roared. “Wyxnos hates us! Wyxnos hates us for our sins of stealing his treasures! The carcasses, the bodies, the items we secreted away in our caves, we were STEALING FROM OUR LORD!”

Oh, boy, I wanted so badly to do a murder on him. “Wyxnos does not care! This place should not exist! He didn’t even know the Scavenger Gnomes were alive! And when I confronted him, he ran away, the coward! What’re a few bodies when he’s the one stealing them by the thousands! And he still got all the feces he ever wanted, maybe that’s why his head is so full of shit!”

“BLASPHEMY!”

Vorrick’s guttural yell was followed by a frenzied feral fecal gnome rushing at me. The flaps of his loincloth rose as he jumped at me, giving me a prime view of his tiny wiener. Scavenger gnomes had short dicks, maybe part of the mutation that gave them the drug-oozing glands. Even when compared with total body size in proportion to a human, they were shorter than average. It only made me even more disgusted.

I grabbed Vorrick’s arm and used {一教 (Ikkyo)} to pin him down laying flat on his stomach, holding his arm up in one of my hands. Then I {Backstabbed} his back with my hell as I kicked his spine until it broke. The other gnomes were either horrified if they were newcomers who didn’t jump in the magic zone, or cheering if they were on drugs.

“Wieners” don’t Use Drugs, said William S. Sessions, Director, FBI. I remember it well from the arcade. I totally support that.

> For killing level 36 Vorrick, you earned 98,877 Exp (Base 39,551 x10 Fast Learner x0.5 Rank x0.5 Class Rarity) < -- This tiny Exp award was bigger than his... nevermind.

The commotion caused some kobold guards to come out of the “palace”.

“What is happening here? Why are you killing your own kin?” They asked, confused and disgusted by my act. I believed these kobolds formed tight family bonds.

“Wyxnos be praised!” Another drug-addled gnome shouted. “Vorrick is redeemed!”

The rest of the old prisoners started to cheer as if the dead guy won the lottery. Utter madness. But I could use that.

“Do you want to be redeemed too? Please come over here,” I invited the stoned gnomes.

“No! We still have too much to repent!” They lied. Bunch of addled hypocrites.

“Answer us!” The no-nonsense kobold Royal guard ignored the gnomes and brandished their spears at me. “What did you do with the prisoner?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

So they were still prisoners.

“I was helping this guy go to Wyxnos!” I lied as I beamed a winning smile at the kobolds. The damn little lizards pretending to be dragon heirs didn’t care or notice. I blame facial blindness.

Contested Charisma test failed.

I blame the System too.

The kobolds, however, blamed me. They pointed their spears at me, again. “Come with us and don’t have any stupid ideas. You’ll explain it to the [Queen].”

“Sorry, us gnomes only have stupid ideas, it seems,” I sneered with my back to the crowd in the dead magic zone.

I raised my hands and walked, leaving the gnomes to their own devices. The guys that burned in the magic zone took little actual damage but I knew the pain was unbearable without a high resistance. They would have the equivalent of a second-degree burn all over their bodies. They’d need a lot of water and rest to recover but their lives weren’t endangered.

What was really endangered was our livelihoods back in the caves. If the vehicle returned to the cave garage like a steampunk batmobile made of trash, we were all considered dead. Poor Grenniana would think I died. But the gnomes didn’t care much for the dead. It was just another aspect of life, with them being born and die by the dozens every day.

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The sandstone “palace” wasn’t built for gnomes or kobolds. It was built for normal people, which in our tiny-sized point of view, meant giants. The doorframes were tall and wide, the rooms too large. Now that I think of it, normal people would have a hard time fitting inside some of the gnome caves. The architecture resembled a mix of Middle-Eastern and Asia Minor influences, with brutalist rooms almost perfectly square, pointed doorframes, and columns embedded in the walls.

I was curious about the statuary garden in the middle but I only glanced at it. The statues seemed to be human-sized. The guards led me to the throne room, where no throne existed. Instead, it was covered in lavish and well-preserved furs and illuminated by magical lights.

Magical.

Lights.

Fuck it.

The [Queen] sat on a pile of furs wearing silk robes that would put my best weaver priests to shame. Even to me, it wouldn’t be a trivial task to weave such fine embroidery.

“Welcome, prisoner,” she said with a pleasant hissing voice. “I sense great power in you. How could a gnome achieve your titles and level, is a mystery, yes?”

I think she meant my {Appraise} results.

“I traveled around a lot for a long time. And here I’m restricted, I can't use my full powers.”

“You promised me magic crotch juice, strange gnome. I want it!” She licked herself again.

Oh, boy. Here we go. It was payday time. I didn’t want to expose myself and I believe I didn’t have what she wanted. But…

“Wait. Why do you think I am a strange gnome?”

The kobold [Queen] stood from her furs and walked around me. She sniffed me, going as far as to lick the poop dust from my forearm (I refrained from using my pseudopods to clean poop. I was waiting for a shower). After walking two full circles around me, she stood right in front of me.

“You look and smell strange. The other gnomes don’t have bulges in their chest and your hips are too wide.”

I laughed, “Oh, that’s because I’m a female. The other gnomes are all males,” I stated pointing with my thumb behind me.

She widened her eyes. Standing in front of me, she came forward to lick me. I flinched. “Do you lay eggs?” She inquired. I denied. “You lie! All females lay eggs!” She shouted and pointed at her furs.

I saw some stained round white-ish pebbles in the furs behind where she sat. It was a nest. I held my breath because I found the little dino eggs so cute.

“Do you lay eggs?” She repeated, annoyed.

“Your eggs seem very healthy,” I praised.

I think she did the kobold equivalent of blushing. “I need magical gnome juice. It makes eggs even healthier. Give it to me now! You're a special gnome, you 'gives' better juice!”

We went in circles. “I don’t think I have it. I am a female.”

The [Queen]’s patience ended. “Liar! Female gnomes never leave the caves, they stay inside nurturing eggs! Never in two hundred years of my life, I’ve seen a female gnome! They are all bloated, you aren’t bloated, you don’t lay eggs, you are not female!”

The King of all misunderstandings. These stupid junkie gnomes half-assed their explanation of their society and how it backfired on me.

“Female gnomes don’t lay eggs… Okay. Here’s the thing. The egg grows inside you, then you lay it, the shell hardens, right?” She nodded. “Well, our gnome eggs don’t ever harden, so if we lay them earlier, they just pop and the baby dies. So the female gnomes nurture their eggs inside them and lay the baby when it's finished. that’s why they get bloated because they carry their eggs inside them. I’m not bloated because I cannot lay eggs. I’m defective,” I lied.

The queen didn’t bite the bait. Completely pissed, she shouted, “Liar! Guards!”

I could’ve gone muderhobo on them now. I didn’t for a few good reasons. One, I wanted a raptor for myself. Two, I wanted to learn the mysteries of the kobolds and understand the mess they had going on here. The more I knew, the more I could squeeze out of Wyxnos later for this literal shit show. Three, I felt bad for the kobold babies inside the eggs. I didn’t know if they would hatch with only ambient heat and the kobolds weren’t reptiles. They had heat control like dinosaurs and dragons. So I let the guards seize me but I tested if I could break free. It would be easy so I downplayed my true Strength.

The Queen ripped my pants off, leaving me naked between waist and ankles. I had my good shoes back. She lowered herself next to my crotch and split my pubic hair with a clawed finger.

“Is this a combat wound?” She asked with a hint of pity. “Was your magic wand cut off by your enemies?”

I used {Titan Skin} to blush violently. Lowering my head, I mumbled, “You found out my shame.” Not a lie. “Shame” is a synonym for whatever she was touching.

She stood up. “You poor thing!”

“Gnomes that don’t have the ‘magic wand’ usually develop these chest bulges if they don’t have it by the time they grow up,” I explained.

“They did that to a child!?!” The [Queen] was outraged. “Release her. And get her a loincloth.”

I let her have keep misunderstanding. If she didn't want to belive I was a female gnome, I wouldn't change her mind.

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Ten minutes later, I was wearing the same loincloths as the other prisoner gnomes, sitting next to the [Queen]’s nest telling her tales of my adventures around the dead magic zone. Once she finished listening in silence for a long tirade, she spoke.

“This place, this desert, is very important to the Gods. Lost stuff comes here and is converted into energy to keep the world moving. Without this place, the world would be in great jeopardy! It is our sacred task to keep intruders from stealing God’s gifts for the world. You gnomes are the worst offenders. You steal things into your caves and never take them out back to the desert. Here in Pumpees, we kobolds give back to the sands all we take. Our dead, our raptors, even our sacred poop the desert likes so much.”

Pumpees was the name of the kobold settlement.

I had to hold back my laughter when she called poop sacred. But she had a point, why the fuck the gnomes didn’t dump stuff in the sand? They clogged a lot of tunnels with refuse. Every time I got another piece of the puzzle, things got even stupider.

Stupider. Is that a word?

“You said sacred task. Who gave it to you?”

She smiled. “Our God! Follow me. You earned the right to see God in the garden.”

Which God? One of the minor ones in the Pantheon? Who was Wyxnos covering for? Was this a feud or a game between two major gods? I was curious, formulating a thousand theories as we went to the inner garden.

The vegetation was lush and small channels carried water everywhere. Clear, crystalline water, my pseudopods told me. Flowers, fronds, ferns, bushes, trees. It was hard to see in this almost jungle-like environment. The magical density in here was higher, almost like a natural {Mana Wellspring}. The damage I took was higher too, but still manageable. We pushed through a few branches and bushes before we reached the statues in the middle. Most of them were broken except for one.

“This is our God! He gave us our sacred task!” The [Queen] proudly said.

It was a statue of a tall and stern man, standing with his back straight, wearing glasses, and dressed in an impeccable Armani suit.

I lost it. “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...”