“Watch where you step” Mica warns the others. “The floor is trapped around the animal symbols with blades coming from the walls.  The lever does something with the door as well.”  Even if the traps were broken, he wasn't taking any chances.  Mica keeps inching toward the Kobolds, careful not to step on any traps.  He carefully reaches into his pack and pulls out some dried meat from his rations, holding it out toward the Kobolds. “Here, take some.”

Mica, make a persuasion check, please.  Lives hang in the balance....

Mica persuasion: 14.

.

Quote from LAXGunner >>

Mica persuasion: 18.

Whew! 

Ran looks at that traps on the floor after Mica points them out, and nods.

"These ones don't weigh much," Ran says. "They might be able to run across them without triggering them."

((Apologies for not being able to get to this sooner... Nalomanterys speaks Draconic and reveals what they said in the previous posts))

"They said they have not been able to reset the traps yet and to come back tomorrow..." He stifles a grin, apparently believing their words without any thought that they might be deceptive. 

Continuing in Common, he continues, "Kobolds are known to be religious fanatics, so be careful. I am quite sure there are few local gods friendly to our presence."

Finally, in Draconic, he says,

"There are few anyone or anything friendly to our presence." Meili was panting after the sudden exercises and words came out more sour than she meant. She brightened up, though, at the last notion.

"We are safe then? Would be nice to simply walk around a building for a change. I wonder who do they take us for - red wizards or snakes?"

That was said quietly - Meili had no intentions of interfering with kobold taming.

A brave kobold steps forward, sniffing at the bit of jerky proffered by Mica.  Snatching it away and taking a nibble, he seems to give the others the 'all clear' sign.  The kobolds relax, somewhat, though they do not put down their weapons nor come closer than the end of the hallway.

Nibbling on the jerky, the lead kobold responds to Nalomanterys in Draconic:

Nalomanterys dutifully translates the squeaking for his allies. He then responds to the Kobolds and takes the time to translate his own questions for his allies as well ((ie not putting them in spoilers))

"The metal men? How long ago was this? Were they dressed in yellow or did they carry a yellow banner? Which direction did they go when they left?" He waits for an answer after each one before asking the next, so as not to bombard their feeble minds with too many questions. He gestures to Mica to offer them more food after each answer.

[Assuming Nalomanterys continues to dutifully translate...]

"Yellow?  Nah.  They wore black metal.  With some kind of bird on it," the kobold says, making a flapping gesture with his little hands.  

"Hey, Ximxo, you've got one of those skins lying around here, right?" he hollers to one of the kobolds in the back.  That creature scurries away, only to return, accompanied by a scraping sound on the stone floor.  He emerges from around the corner, displaying a breastplate of the Cormyr Company proudly.

The lead kobold throws his hands up in the air.  "Which way did they go?  Everyway.  Broke into all the shrines, disables or set off all the traps, took all the cubes.  Where does that leave us?" he asks, seemingly interested to hear your answer. 

"Great Lord Dark Helmet set down clear instructions:

"Keep the ruins clean;

"Check and maintain the traps;

"Don't interfere when big-folk try to claim the cubes;

"Collect any cubes from big-folk corpses, reset the traps and continue.  Until the breaking of the world."

"No one ever took all the cubes before.  What are we supposed to do?  For generations, Dark Helmet clan has guarded this place for our great lord.  This is some serious stuff we need to figure out."

Mica gives Nalomanterys a questioning look as he gestures at him, but after a quick peek into his pack, he reluctantly hands the Kobold more jerky as the Wizards talks with them.  “Shrines? That’s where the yellow banner thought the keys to the magic lock were.  Are there more shrines nearby, can they show us? And who is this Dark Helmet they work for, is it one of the snakemen?”  He asks Nalomanterys the questions, trusting the wizard to pick the right questions to ask.

Ran looks around. “What are these cubes they’re yammering on about?”

[Assuming Nalomanterys translates the latest questions...]

"Yes... nine shrines.  Nine shrines for nine cubes.  What are the cubes?  Well... they're the cubes.  You big folk all want them for some reason.  Willing to die for them, over and over and over.  Who can say why you big folk would be so crazy for them.  But Great Lord Dark Helmet knew, and put us kobolds to work protecting them with the shrines."

"But now all the shrines are empty... kobolds have no jobs."

The kobolds laugh when Mica asks if Dark Helmet is a snakeman.  "No," he says at last.  "Snakemen came later.  Now they work for Dark Helmet, too.  The Great Lord Dark Helmet came to this city many lifetimes ago.  He killed all the gods here and put all the big folk to work.  Then he killed them too."

Ran tries to make sense of the kobold's story. He's no idea what these cubes are they keep mentioning but Dark Helmet sounds interesting.

He looks over at Nalomanterys. "Ask them where Dark Helmet is now?"

In response to the question about Dark Helmet's whereabouts, the kobold struggles to describe concepts that it barely understands.  Eventually, it becomes clear to Nalomanterys that the kobolds see this 'Dark Helmet' as something akin to a god, an immensely powerful being that defies the very notion of being defined to single point in space and time.  Despite this, the kobolds also simultaneously believe that Dark Helmet has been here, in physical form, at various points in their ancient history... just not within any of their lifetimes.

Ran looks around at the others and shrugs, making no sense of what the kobolds are on about. 

"That letter mentioned shrines having a key to unlock the obelisk, right?" Ran says. "And these little eggs know about nine shrines with cubes everyone wants. Cubes could be the keys, right?"

He looks over at the kobolds.

"What say you show us to the shrines?" he asks in common, before looking over to Nalomanterys to translate.

"What, now?  Have you looked outside?  It's raining pigs and turtles out there."

Nalomanterys, happy to flaunt his polyglottal prowess, continues to translate all the questions and answers. After the last Q&A, though, he turns to Ran and says: "It sounds like the Cormyr Company got all the cubes and saved us the time... It sounds like we would be better off finding where the mercenaries are keeping them."

As saying it aloud sparked an idea, he turns back to the kobolds and asks, "How long ago did the 'big folk'' find the last cube?" He wonders if its collection was linked to the change in the death curse he and Danica felt... yesterday?

The kobolds, having come from different shrines, differ on their opinion of when the cubes were all collected.  The consensus, after some arguing, was that the cubes were gathered at least a tenday ago.

Mica can’t help but chuckle at the Kobold's screeching and arguing. “If the mercenaries have the cubes, that means the red wizards have them.” He looks over to Eligos “But where are they keeping them?”  

He nods to Ran “If they are the keys to the lock, maybe we go check out the obelisk, see if they managed to find a way in.”  He looks over at the Kobolds. “You want a job? Help us get the cubes back from the big folk that took them.”