It wasn’t much of a campsite, just a little cleft of mostly-level ground with some marginal shelter from the wind. But with daylight dwindling and a bank of dark clouds fast approaching, it was the best they were likely to get before the weather hit. Krissik, being a kobold, didn’t much care about the daylight – he could see just fine in full night and even underground, after all – but the weather was another matter.

There wasn’t enough room for each of them to set up tents, and there wasn’t enough time, either; the wind was already starting to howl past the cleft, eddies tugging at their clothing. Without even discussing it, the four of them paired off, the women wrangling one tent while Krissik assisted Kepi. Of them all, Kepi was probably the least threatened by the weather, but that wasn’t saying much and the vanara wasn’t dallying. He got the poles and canvas sorted out, Krissik hammered pegs, and just as the rain started to rise from a few erratic drops into a full-blown squall, it was done. Kepi urged him in, an instruction with which the kobold was only too happy to comply, while he himself went to confer with the other two.

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