[@bloonewb]

"I haven't seen any kobold like that. Hmm. Mazdak, what about you?" Ternoc reached for his parchment once again, writing down another note. 

"Afraid not, Rebat. We have plenty of kobolds in Hekaga, and if this Rama was around here, I wouldn't know. I'd suggest a scrying spell or asking some of the kobolds who live here. If he is here, maybe he's hiding out in the southern neighborhoods. Of course, those districts are so crowded that if Rama wanted to be lost, he would be very hard to find. And to be fair, you are rather dark-scaled for a kobold, Rebat."

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[@Eviledd1984]

"Can you be a bit more specific? I don't mean to judge, but abandoning a child is pretty bad. You'd have to have one hell of a reason to justify that. And if you had to leave your abusive husband, couldn't you have taken your son with you?" Kara explained, feeling the slightest tinge of anger. Smith's life would have been far better with both parents raising him, especially given how horrible his father was. She didn't think that Leonore meant any harm by her actions, but that didn't mean she wasn't wrong.

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[@SilverPaw]

Adykon had finished writing a letter when a knock came on the door. So much had happened in the last few months; the war against Rughoi, his daughter Kara falling for Smith, correspondences from his daughters Aura and Orna, and various issues with Kos, Larek, Veax, and Caex. His adult children certainly led interesting lives, although none of them could compare with his. 

He had been born in an impoverished and Diminutive Duchy on the edge of a wasteland, and he had grown up in austerity. His family's land had been poor, its soil marginally fit for goat pasture. In spite of this, his father Cayosin and mother Iskra had sent him to school for just long enough to ensure that he was literate and proficient in basic math. Not long after reaching adulthood, he was drafted into the duke's army to fight in a long and pointless conflict, a war which had taught him how to survive, as well as show him more of the world away from his family's petty farm. Although it was violent, he strangely found that he had enjoyed the ordeal, in spite of the scars it left on his chest; in fact, he wore those marks as badges of honor.

The duke won his war, but at the cost of its treasury. Adykon was let go, whereupon he became a mercenary. For years, he traveled from place to place, banding together with other adventurers in ad hoc parties, disbanding when their job was done. He rarely stayed in the same place twice, rarely slept in the same bed twice, and rarely slept with the same female twice. And those ladies loved a man in armor. One of then, a dancer by the name of Vaeri, had a son by him, although he didn't know that he had begat him on her until much later. This transient life continued on and on for Adykon until one day, he had received a call from a mage named Arcantas. The old wizard had asked for Adykon to retrieve a stone idol from the Lost City, a vast ruin in the middle of the continent. 

Teaming up with Vaeri's daughter Rhiga and several other adventurers, they retrieved the idol, only to quickly learn that it was part of a wider conspiracy to take over the dracon realms in the name of the dark god Dememoras. Over the course of the next year and a half, Adykon fought against this great evil, eventually sealing Dememoras into a dark gem which was placed into the core of a carefully-guarded vault. During the struggle he had met his wife, the sorceress Aerta. Following his victory, Adykon was given a grant of land from the kings of Minbenthac and Naugoa in the fertile valley, where he built his farm, started a family, and tried to live a life of peace and quiet. Over two decades had passed since Dememoras' defeat, and life only seemed to be getting less peaceful, not more, a fact which weighed heavily on Aerta. 

For his part, Adykon enjoyed the mix of home life and adventuring, and felt with great justification that the best of both worlds was at his fingertips. One one hand, he was still very much a farmer and father of his household. On the other, he was still the formidable adventurer. At age 55, he still had at least four decades of adventuring to go before time began to slow him down, and he had only grown more formidable with age; he had recently learned how to cast combat-oriented spells at least as well as his wife could, making him into something of a magical fighter. 

For her part, Aerta balanced the life of a mage, mother, and adventurer as best as anyone could. She averaged one egg a year, and was quite happy to be with her husband. Almost every second of her waking life had to be planned carefully in order to ensure that she'd be able to oversee the farm along with her husband, raise her many children (she had over twenty and counting, all by Adykon), practice her magic, deal with unexpected problems, and still have enough time to relax. She took this latter time very seriously, and Adykon knew it. The pink-skinned sorceress was in the living room in the lotus position, her white-soled feet pressed against one another. She hovered in the air just above a blue carpet with the symbol of a hollow golden rectangle adorning its center. This put her quite close to the front door, but as she was deep in meditation, Adykon decided to get the door instead. 

He opened it and found a young adult male dracon looking up at him. Yssil looked every bit the part of a tired traveler, and his armaments made it obvious that he was coming to Adykon with a martial proposal of some kind. Perhaps there had been an attack by a dragon. Maybe there was a threat from Dememoras' cult. Worse, he could be coming to warn Adykon of an impending assault on the farm. For all the possibility of doom and danger, Adykon kept a calm demeanor. No matter what Yssil could potentially tell him, he had almost certainly faced worse before.

"Hello there. I guess you've come to me seeking some form of help or an opportunity. Come in, please. Whatever you need, I am sure I can assist you." Aerta's eyes slowly opened as her husband spoke to the visitor, but she said nothing yet.