<strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">SENTHAYNATRIX LITERATOR</span></strong>(http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=563156)<br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Statblock</div><div class="spoiler_body">Female Neutral Kobold Alchemist, Level 1, Init 2, HP 8/8, Speed 20 (30)<br/>AC 15, Touch 13, Flat-footed 13, CMD 10, Fort 2, Ref 4, Will 1, CMB -2, Base Attack Bonus 0   <br/>  Light Crossbow (10 normal, 5 iron, 5 silver (carried, rest in pack)) +3 (1d6, 19-20/x2)<br/>  Morningstar 0 (1d6, x2)<br/>Cold Iron Dagger, Cold Iron (1) 0 (1d3, 19-20/x2)<br/>  Lamellar Cuirass (+2 Armor, +2 Dex, +1 Size)<br/>Abilities Str 8, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 18, Wis 12, Cha 10<br/>Condition Mounted</div></div><br/><br/>It had been a harrowing trip for the kobold. Senthaynatrix hadn't budged from the environs of the University town in close to a decade. Now, she'd spent five days learning all the truths about riding a donkey that no book ever written could fully make a reader appreciate. The first part of the journey, she grudgingly admitted, had not been so bad...Except for the donkey.<br/><br/>Clinging tightly to the hellish, smelly beast with its nauseating gait, she had worked her way down the bank of the Lesser Moutray southwest to Courtaud without too much difficulty, then skirted the foothills of the Tusks, passing between them and the dark branches of the Shudderwood in the company of a group of traders who didn't begrudge a scholar of the University, "even a short one" as company. They were a wholly different sort of folk than the people of the University, their jokes (if she was right about when they were joking) were cruder and their laughter was heartier than the students or Masters she was accustomed to. They did respect her privacy; they were men of the world but still touched by the skepticism and enlightenment of Lepidstadt, and while they might have speculated on her circumstances, they didn't wave religious symbols in her direction or mutter to themselves while giving her suspicious looks and clutching their weapons.<br/><br/>If only she could have said the same about all of her traveling companions since!<br/><br/>Their leader had even had the decency to warn her that the folk of Tamrivena might not take kindly to her...Though whether he did so for her benefit or so that his caravan wasn't troubled because of her was something she now questioned. He'd had some things to say about travelling south alone ("Or anywhere, for that matter,") but she assured him that she had pressing business. A colleague's funeral to attend.<br/><br/>And of course, in that disturbing way of would-be country prophets, everything he'd said had more-or-less come true.<br/><br/>A small group met on the road east of Tamrivena had encouraged her to abandon her initial plan to ride upstream to the Vistear and then follow it west again to Ravengro. Instead, they'd suggested that she come with them overland directly south. Quicker, they said. More direct, they said. Of<em>course</em>they were bandits. Of course they were! For once, the care she'd taken with her hood, cloak and gloves paid off, proving in full the value of Master Serephen's advice about hiding her nature. The idiots had assumed she was an elderly halfling or something, and were quite unprepared to deal with a descendant of dragons when she revealed her face and breathed fire rather than acceding to their dagger-drawn demands. Even the cursed, blessed donkey had managed to be helpful for once, kicking the idiot who had tried to grab her reins. In the end, both parties had fled each other in what she assumed was near-equal terror, but she was still worried she might meet one or another of them along the road any day.<br/><br/>The last thing Senthaynatrix needed was to be accused of being a tiny dragon (or even a kobold, if the ignorant bumpkins knew what such a thing was) in the middle of a crowd of these superstitious idiots who made signs of warding at her because she might be something as dangerous or outlandish as a<em>gnome</em>, gods forfend. She skirted the northeast edge of the forest until she could make her way back to the road to the Vistear, staying near but apart from another group of travellers the whole distance. Of course, this had drawn notice, scholar's robes or no, and a few of the burlier, more slope-browed specimens had come over to her tiny fire to make sure she wasn't something dangerous.<br/><br/>Which of course, she was. But not to them.<br/><br/>She knew she wasn't riding the donkey well. Her tail ached from being kept high so her robe masked it, and it were best not to even think about how her thighs were doing. It was all she could do by the dawn of the fourth day to get herself back up on the beast. Still, she was getting quite tired of the probing when one or another dropped back "to see if she was well." They weren't quite convinced, she thought, and worried less about how she was doing and more about what she might be.<br/><br/>"I'm fine. It's an old family curse."<em>...having to deal with the likes of you.</em><br/><br/>"No, I'd best not. It manifests as a skin condition which my colleagues have assured me shouldn't be contagious<em>any longer</em>." Yes, yes. Cringe and draw away. "I'd as soon not show you what it has done to my face, I hate being pitied..."<em>Although I should be pitied for having to put up with your foolishness.</em><br/><br/>After a certain point she simply gave up on compounding intelligent, believable stories for them...They went glaze-eyed quickly enough, and instead relied on being angry and in mourning, in equal parts. Senthaynatrix was on her way to a friend and colleague's funeral, at her age, and deserved respect and some silence to deal with her emotions. Yes. And wasn't in any fashion related to any sort of monster which would eat your babies. If you had any with you.<em>Now go away.</em><br/><br/>She'd tipped the ferryman too much, she was sure. He wouldn't shut up about the many<em>interesting</em>folk he'd brought across the river in the past day or so, and glancing back at her thoughtfully as if planning to add her to the list. Hopefully he would regale others by describing as a tiny, huddled scholar of the famous University and not<em>what kind of freak are you who doesn't show your face or hands</em>. The cold mist made her shiver atop the donkey, and she kept her gloved fists clenched around the reins atop its stubborn shoulders, half-worried that she was going to fall off if she tried to dismount.<br/><br/>This river, then the church, which shouldn't be too difficult to find in a little village like Ravengro...And then, perhaps, after meeting Kendra she could rent a room...Surely even such a benighted little village had an inn! ...and get a night's undisturbed sleep without worrying about bandits, beasts, or skeptical fellow-travellers sneaking up on her. A room with a fireplace, definitely. So cold.<br/><br/>The little kobold shivered again, thanked the ferryman for the offer of his flask but declined it. Ah, and there's the church rising out of the mists, and he even points it out, since she let slip that she was here to attend a funeral.<br/><br/>The polite thing to do, she decided, was to be thankful, but terse. Some humans seemed to mourn by broad histrionic displays, others more quietly, withdrawn. The latter seemed more reasonable and the former was out of the question, if she didn't want someone trying to make a pair of boots out of her in this unlettered hinterland.<br/><br/>She was late. Curse all stupid robbers and stubborn donkeys which wouldn't go as fast as they could. But not, perhaps, too late. The tiny crowd was full of the sort of folk with which she associated the professor...Well, the<em>non-academic</em>folk, at least. Several of them stood out, and had help doing so as the townsfolk reflexively seemed to draw away from the strangers. A dwarf, there, almost at as much risk as herself, perhaps, but making no attempt to hide it...And was that an elf? It had to be, his ears were practically twitching. Not too late after all, then. And there, that would be the professor's daughter. A face not unlike Lorrimorr's own might once have been, as she gauged the human process of aging, but with that subtle delicacy more often found among human females of learning. She sighed slowly, bringing her mount up the hill at a pace which was slow more due to the mount's own tiredness and manifest unwillingness to ascend slopes than any effort on her part to show restraint or respect.<br/><br/>Curse it, she was going to have to get off of this thing again, soon, wasn't she?<br/><br/>She tugged on the reins, the beast all too readily halting at her signal, then raspily cleared her throat. "I beg your pardon, gentlefolk. I hight Ssenthaynatrix, Masster Philossoph and Alchymisst by appointment of the Universsity at Lepidsstadt...And, s-sadly, ersstwhile colleague of Masster Lorrimorr." Even if he never did credit her in that one paper, he'd still seen her installed at the University, something she could never have achieved...Would never have known to try! ...on her own. Yes. Where Rasilanythrylax had left off her education, the professor was certainly responsible for taking it up and moving her along.<br/><br/>Senthaynatrix reaches a white-gloved hand into her cloak, almost by reflex grasping the cased scroll that documents her appointment, but instead tugging out the more mundane note tucked in beside it, no doubt a twin to similar correspondence received by many of the others here, inviting her to this sad little gathering. "I am here to pay my resspectss, and thosse of my colleaguess."<br/><br/>To unfamiliar eyes, Senthaynatrix presents a slightly peculiar (and extremely small) figure. The grey-blue robes and hooded cloak of a Lepidstadt professor seem over-large, hiding details, though there's something<em>wrong</em>about the way that hood sits on her head. In fact, not a bit of her flesh is visible; her hands are gloved in white and her hood drawn forward and down to such an extent that it's almost surprising she can see.  The donkey looks innocent enough, not terribly laden by her weight, although it might complain more about the cased travelling clinic she has laden it down with. At least the glasswork was well-padded; so far she hasn't heard anything clinking along her travels save the few bottles of carnicolor liquid thrust into the bandolier she wears beneath her cloak. There are crossbow bolts in that bandolier as well; sensible, given the small, light crossbow balanced across her saddle-bow...Not at all an unreasonable precaution for a traveller on the roads of Ustalav.