With the first rays of sunlight flowing over the horizon, a new day of work in the mines began. The mole Hrali entered the barracks to equip his digging equipment and put on his mining outfit. A pair of sturdy pants, steel-capped boots, a helmet, gloves and a pair of goggles just in case. Next, he grabbed a few tools and his most prized possession, a faintly glowing, enchanted pickaxe. Usually, digging through hard rock like granite or basalt with a simple steel pickaxe was extremely hard and tedious work, but with a few magical augmentations he would breeze through any rock of any hardness with no problem whatsoever. Of course it had been difficult and expensive to find a wizard and pay them enough to enchant his pickaxe, but it had been worth every penny.

With his beloved tool on his shoulder, a smile on his lips and a joyous whistle, Hrali left the barracks and went to the entrance of the main shaft. The skies were clear, the air warm and fresh, this day would be another wonderful late summer day. Many of his coworkers would be quite frustrated and grumpy because they had to work in the narrow, stuffy darkness of the mines, but the mole didn't mind. His kind was made to dig and dwell underground, his heart rejoiced whenever he entered the elevator to dive into the depths of the earth. A fox and a reindeer joined him as he stepped onto the suspended platform. "Good morning, Hrali. Happy to go down again?" the fox greeted him with a tired smirk. 

"As always, Leon. There is nothing better than the comfy feeling of having a mile of rock above your head", Hrali replied. The other two workers chuckled sleepily, both happy that they just had to work for a few hours before they were allowed to spend the rest of their day on the open, wide surface of the earth between the singing birds and rustling trees, away from the oppressive darkness.

The doors closed and the platform started to move with a worrying creak. The mechanism always sounded like it was about to fail, but luckily it never did, and there were some other safeguards to safely catch the platform in case something went wrong. The light of the dawning day faded and they were swallowed by the dim twilight of the elevator platform's single magic light. The rhythmic and soothing rattling of the transport mechanism accompanied their journey, and it took them about a quarter of an hour to reach the final level of the mine. The doors opened again and offered them a fascinating but claustrophobic view of the mine's central chamber.

Only a handful of magic lanterns immersed the busy place in a faint orange haze. The sounds of machinery filled the air, the cracking and shrieking of the rock grinders, the clattering of the rubble elevator, the hissing and huffing of the steam engines, which unceasingly provided the force to drive the other machines, drive the pumps removing the incessantly accumulating ground water and drive the ventilators to pump fresh surface air into the stuffy caves. The main product of the mine was copper ore. In its refined form, as pure copper, it was a sought-after resource, needed for the construction of many modern technologies and used as one of the most important catalysts in arcane devices. However, once in a while they also found geodes containing magically infused crystals, another unsteady but very lucrative source of income.

Hrali went over to a group of people standing around a wooden table and staring at blueprints and cave maps. One of them, a bat foreman, looked up and spotted him. "Morning, Hrali. Good to see you."

"Morning, Lemmia." 

The foreman walked up to him and gave him a fist bump. She smiled at him radiantly, she also felt at home deep underground, just like the mole. "So, what are your plans for today?" she asked him curiously. Hrali grinned, from the sound of her voice he already knew that she was about to give him some extra work. 

"I wanted to head to the east tunnel and assist the strip mining efforts, doing some digging and constructing supports," he said and warily waited for her response. 

"Tell me, would you be willing to do some exploring and prospecting instead? We have dug a new tunnel to the northeast, and I need someone to scout the area and determine whether it actually contains any valuable ore and crystals," she offered him. 

Hrali relaxed and nodded enthusiastically. He had expected a worse task, something like helping to clean up debris or similar menial, sweat-inducing labor. "I'd love to do some prospecting. Anything I need to know about the new area?" 

Lemmia chuckled and shook her head, "No, nothing yet. That's why I want you to find out for us. You know best what to do. Have fun exploring!" 

The mole thanked her and began his journey into the new, unexplored depths of the mine. He met a few familiar faces as he traversed the freshly dug and already explored part of the tunnel, he waved at them and they waved back, exchanged some brief greetings. At some point there were no more people and no more lanterns, everything went black and he had to rely on his non-visual senses to find his way around. This was actually the main reason why a mole was sent to prospect, they had bad eyesight anyway, but they had an exceptional sense of hearing and touch. With every step Hrali took, with every motion of his body, he heard and felt the noise and vibrations echo and resound in the cave around him. He could literally see nothing, but the echoes of the ground told him everything he needed to know, made him see the environment as an colorless image in his mind. He never stumbled and walked at his normal walking speed. This was where he felt most at home, this was what he loved doing most, this was something that no one else could do as well as he did.

Hrali finally reached the end of the tunnel and stopped right in front of the wall, his pink nose just an inch away. He knelt on the ground and hit the rock with a small hammer, not to break it, but to cause a stronger, cleaner echo within the rock and find out if there were any hidden caves or chambers around him. Even for someone like him it took a lot of practice to find and correctly interpret the irregularities in the sounds he received and in the very subtle tremors he caused. He had to continue hammering on the ground for two more minutes, attentively listening to the reflected noises to slowly create a picture of his surroundings in his mind. The mole's head instinctively turned to the left, his little eyes stared into the abyssal darkness, he couldn't see it, but he knew that there was a chamber hidden behind the wall just a few strikes away. He put away his small hammer and grabbed his trusty pickaxe, started to work on the stone and made it crumble under the strikes of his magic-infused tool.

The mighty hacks of the pickaxe made much more noise than the small hammer, a cacophonous clanging, screeching and clicking that drowned out and distorted all fainter sounds, filled Hrali's sharpened and sensitive mind with a violent white noise. However, his intuition proved to be true and he uncovered a small chamber. Nothing spectacular, just a bubble of trapped air surrounded by insignificant rock, no copper, no crystals, just plain, hard granite. The mole wasn't disappointed, though, but rather pleased that his senses were still working and that he could trust them. With this certainty in mind, he repeated the process and located the next point of interest in his vicinity.

Time passed, the mole spent two hours with listening to the echoes of the stone and creating new passages to new locations in the yet unexplored part of the mine. He discovered a few more featureless, unimportant pockets, two narrow tunnels leading deeper into the mountain, and some things that made all his work immediately worthwhile. He came across two huge adjacent geodes, pockets of crystals enclosed in granite, and both of them were wonderfully large and filled with big crystals from the very bottom to the uppermost top. The magically infused crystals emitted a soft glow, creating an enchanting environment with shimmering reflections and warm colors, and Hrali spent a few minutes in boundless, speechless amazement. He was the first person ever to discover these chambers of riches and one of the very few who were allowed to experience them in their full, mostly undisturbed glory. He squatted down and marked the position of his discoveries in a little notebook. Another of his talents: he never got lost underground, regardless of how confusing and dark the labyrinth around him was, and if given a map, he could point to his current position with great accuracy.

The second discovery was less spectacular, but similarly important. He managed to find a vein of copper ore, and with his sharpened senses he found out that there was a pretty big deposit very close to his current position, another huge success in his prospecting. Elated and happy with his successful discoveries, Hrali went back to the very beginning of his exploration and explored another path opposite to his first path. He dug into the wall and started a second search for more riches, but was gravely disappointed. This time he found nothing, not a single gem and not even the narrowest copper vein, just more and more empty, damp cracks, crevices and caves. After two hours he was about to throw the towel, but then he noticed something strange while smacking his hammer against the rock. There was another chamber, but it sounded strange, unlike anything he ever heard before. The strange vibrations intrigued the slightly exhausted and disappointed mole, even made him gasp with excitement.

With rekindled vigor he worked his way through the rock, created one last passage to find out what curiosity lay hidden so deep underground. The tip of his pickaxe crashed through a wall and an intense, warm light momentarily blinded Hrali. The glare impeded his other senses as well and he clumsily stumbled around until he hit a wall and awkwardly fell to the ground. Excitement and embarrassment filled him in equal parts, luckily no one else was here to see him in such a situation. His curiosity had grown immensely. Why was there a mysterious illuminated chamber inside miles of rocks? What purpose did it serve? What kind of discovery had he made?

As soon as his mind adapted to the new situation, the mole slowly got up and had a good look around. The place looked like a basement, there were stone shelves filled with engraved tablets and an altar standing in the center, the illumination came from a couple of magic lanterns, probably a very expensive, ever-lasting kind that drew its energy straight from the core of the earth. Hrali walked to the altar and saw that it was covered by countless inscriptions in many different languages, some of them so strange he couldn't recognize a single symbol, some of them languages he had heard of, but didn't speak, and somehow even words in his own native tongue. He began to read the words and sentences he understood, and they felt like they had been written several centuries ago.

Apparently something or somebody had been sacrificed on this altar. There were several mentions of a scaly being and of gold, a graphic description of the sacrificial process that was less cruel than expected. The sacrificed creature hadn't been killed, but put in a state of infinite stasis. Finally there was a remark about a hidden chamber. Hrali scratched his head and smiled, there was another one? If there was anyone who could find it, it was him. Full of boundless curiosity, he pulled out his hammer and listened, discovering the mentioned secret chamber within a single strike. He had hit against a seemingly solid stone wall and realized that it was in fact a hidden stone door.

Hrali inspected the smooth stone and eventually found a small hint of a mechanism underneath, a box containing the lock which kept the hidden door locked. He didn't have the nerve to search for a switch, lever or key to activate the opening mechanism, so he grabbed a chisel and opened the lock by force. Several forceful hits were enough to make the mechanism yield and the locking lug disengage. Now he just had to get a good grip on the door and shove it open. With one paw in the broken lock and the other braced against the stone, the mole pushed it open. The door was heavy and screeched when it was shoved across the floor, but it was surprisingly movable, although it had probably been immobile and unused for several centuries. The chamber hidden behind the secret door wasn't lighted and contained only a single item of interest, a large sarcophagus.

The mole rubbed his paws and beamed with a smile. After two hours of seemingly fruitless efforts he had made a discovery unlike anything ever before in his life. Yet, the sight of the sarcophagus made him slightly nervous, there were so many stories about them and they usually ended in someone being cursed. Hrali saw that there were many inscriptions on the hull and tried to find out if he could find any he could understand. They were the same languages as on the altar, and there were a few passages in his native language. They urged the user to be careful with the sarcophagus during transport and gave some general advice on how to handle it. Surprisingly enough, they explicitly stated that there was no danger in opening the sarcophagus whatsoever, a statement that surprised the mole in its clarity and made him even more suspicious.

However, this reluctance was temporary, and Hrali just couldn't curb his excitement any longer. He had to open it up and find out what was inside. This was just too exciting! Like a child receiving a gift, he tried to tear it open, but the hull of the sarcophagus was really sturdy and exceptionally well crafted. Neither his paws nor his tools would be able to penetrate it, so raw strength was not an option. But there was a lock on the left side, which might be a more suitable target for his attacks. It turned out to be just as sturdy as the casket and resisted all brute-force attacks, but fortunately Hrali always carried a set of lock picks with him. He slipped a tension bar into the lock and began to feel the mechanism inside it with one of his picks. The locking mechanism was exceptionally well designed and almost pick-proof, but it didn't stand a chance against someone with his tactile abilities. Pin by pin, the mechanism gave way and surrendered to his final attack. Now he knew why there were no curses on the sarcophagus, it was so well protected that it was highly unlikely that anyone without the correct key could open it.

Finally the casket sprang open and revealed a strange creature. The sarcophagus had held a golden kobold, she was completely naked and asleep in a dreamless stasis. Hrali carefully grabbed her wrist and felt her pulse, there was no heartbeat and no other signs of life, and yet her body looked alive and hadn't deteriorated at all. Then a sudden jolt rippled through her body, she coughed and gagged, and her golden eyes opened. Her muscles twitched uncontrollably and violently threw her out of her sarcophagus. The mole jumped in and caught her before she could fall to the ground. She struggled, choked and coughed a little more until she finally calmed down and recovered from her unexpected resurrection.

The kobold freed herself from Hrali's aiding embrace and a very broad smile formed on her muzzle. She enthusiastically spoke something in a language that was completely unfamiliar to the mole, and he promptly expressed his lack of understanding, "I'm sorry, but I don't understand you." 

Surprisingly, she did understand him and quickly switched languages, "Oh, of course. I just said that I am so unbelievably happy that you have freed me, my dear savior. I owe you with my life!" 

"Wait, how do you know my language?" the mole blurted out in confusion. 

"I was sacrificed and the spirits infused my mind with all the languages you can see on my prison. I don't know how it works, but I know that it works!" She gave Hrali another big, ecstatic hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Now, who are you, what are you and why are you here?" the mole asked her as he freed himself from her clingy embrace. 

The kobold explained everything, "I'm Yrea and I'm an ore kobold, a gold kobold to be precise. I was trapped here because the people who owned me didn't want me to fall into other people's paws. Tell me, are you a descendant of them here to claim me back?" 

Hrali gave her a befuddled stare, there were so many things in what she said that were completely new to him. "No, I'm just a regular miner. Name's Hrali. I just stumbled across this place by accident. What the hell is an ore or a gold kobold anyway?"

Now it was Yrea's turn to be confused, "That's odd, you don't know ore kobolds? Don't they exist anymore? Has my kind become extinct?" The thought kept her busy for a while, then she went on to explain what she really was. "A gold kobold is a golden kobold who produces eggs covered by a shell of pure gold. I'm all about gold, and my owners described me as a walking magical transmutation machine. I eat rocks to sustain myself and my body transmutes part of it into gold." 

"This sounds too good to be true!" Hrali gasped. 

The voluptuous kobold giggled and showed off her nude, golden shimmering figure. "If you want I can show you that it's true," she told him with a slightly lascivious smile. "But to produce an egg, I need someone to stimulate me." 

The mole flushed, his reddening cheeks glowing warmly, but their color completely concealed by his dense black fur, and he awkwardly pointed at himself. Was she hitting on him?

"Yes, I'm asking you to fuck me and fill me with your sperm. Since you aren't an ore kobold, this won't result in a real, fertilized egg, but it is required to stimulate the growth of an empty egg. Consider this and the egg as a thank you for freeing me. So, what do you say? Are you interested?" Yrea offered brazenly and gave him a suggestive wink. 

Hrali was too surprised by the offer itself, it rarely happened that someone just offered him sex in such a casual and brazen manner. However, he also had to admit that he loved her looks, the smooth, golden scales, her short, voluptuous body with ample breasts and wide thighs. She looked expensive and beautiful, and he nodded. This was too good an offer to pass up.

"Splendid!" Yrea squeaked and grabbed the mole, helping him out of his pants. She kept her eyes locked on his and smiled with a mixture of endearment and lust while her paws automatically opened his belt, pulled down his pants and freed his dick from its confines. 

Hrali wasn't exceptionally well endowed, he just had an average, nice pink member which quickly throbbed to life in the kobold's grip. He groaned softly when she gently stroked him, skillfully rubbing his swelling dick with her paws. She had experience with this kind of thing, and apparently the centuries-long stasis in a sarcophagus deep underground hadn't affected her abilities in the slightest.

"Do you like this?" she asked him with a smirk. 

The mole bit on his lower lip and groaned, "Yes, this feels good." 

She removed one paw and guided his dick to her muzzle. Her long, slender tongue darted out and playfully coiled around his girth. Hrali gasped and got even more aroused when he realized just how long her tongue really was. It just wouldn't stop sliding out until it had wrapped itself four times around his dick, and then she tugged on it and tightened the embrace of her prehensile muscle rhythmically. The experience felt strange, but the pleasure was wonderful. The mole made fists and his groans became a little hotter and lewder.

Then she finally wrapped her lips around his meat and swallowed his entire length without any trouble. No gags or struggling, just a satisfied sigh when she got to taste and experience the mole's dick in all its glory, her tongue still wrapped around it and constricting with relish. Hrali sluggishly put his paws onto her smooth head and tenderly grabbed her golden, curved horns. He closed his eyes and just felt her blowjob with every bit of his sensitive body, felt the wonderful warmth and tightness of her throat, her wriggling, coiling tongue and her hot breath. His next, unexpectedly guttural groan was more like a rumble emerging from deep within his body.

It didn't take very long before the skilled kobold made her partner cum. A few more intense tugs and strokes, a little movement, her throat tightly squeezing and stimulating his tip. "Oh dear, I think I'm going to..." Hrali didn't get much further, because the sneaky female had grabbed his balls and gave them a tender but determined squeeze. The mole grunted in surprise and his body tensed up, a mighty climax shaking both his physical and mental form. He drained his load into her muzzle, his dick twitching and squirting sticky ropes of cum over her tongue. 

Yrea swallowed his semen with a highly pleased sigh, her tongue squeezing out every single drop. Then she disengaged with a satisfied smile on her lips and lustily glowing eyes. "Care to return the favor?" she cooed softly. The voluptuous female fell onto her back, spread her legs and revealed the whole glory of her golden shining genitals to him. 

Hrali just stared at her for a moment before he shook off his daze and nodded eagerly. "Gladly!"

He went down between her legs, grabbed her thighs and felt her surprisingly soft and smooth scales. He had imagined that they would feel metallic and cold, but they were wonderfully warm. Yrea's plump vulva was right in front of his face, throbbing enticingly and leaking her juices. Hrali curiously sniffed at it and received a nose full of a strangely metallic, yet wonderfully smooth scent. Then he finally opened his mouth and licked her swollen lips, tasting and exploring her pussy. The golden scales of her abdomen reflected the warm light of the chamber into his eyes, they sparkled and glittered as her body moved underneath him. She groaned with lust and put her paws onto his head, pushing his face further into her wet cunt.

"More!" she demanded eagerly and Hrali indulged her. After having had his first taste, he did do everything he could to repay the kobold for her wonderful blowjob. He shoved his tongue into her damp channel, curled it around and rubbed it against the sensitive walls. He wasn't the most experienced in this, but he made up for it with zeal and made it even more enjoyable when he added a finger, vigorously rubbing and stroking her swollen clit, a bead that looked like a frozen drop of gold. Yrea moaned only softly at first, but finally rewarded his passionate advance with deep cries of pleasure. Her body trembled and shivered, the mole must've hit a sensitive spot inside her.

A silly idea struck the male. What if he treated this situation like lock picking, always changing his methods while attentively feeling her enjoyment? He wrapped an arm around her thigh and pressed it against his head so that he could listen to her body, her heartbeat, her breath, her groans and even the twitching of her muscles. Hrali curiously stimulated different parts inside her vagina and listened closely to the reaction of her body. With this rather lewd and curious method of trial and error he finally discovered an area that was particularly sensitive. He had never heard of the g-spot before, but he had found it nonetheless and licked it as vigorously as he could. The kobold howled with pleasure and her body arched, she honestly hadn't expected the mole to be so proficient. It got even better when he did the same to her clit, trying out different methods of stimulation, stroking, rubbing, twisting and pinching her erect pleasure nub. Finally he found the perfect combo and made the woman completely forget herself.

A few more licks and strokes and the kobold came. Her vagina tightened and convulsed, squirting a few gushes of her juices directly into his face. Hrali didn't mind it and continued to lick and rub her with a naughty smile on his lips. He really enjoyed this, it felt like lock picking, but it was much more rewarding. Yrea howled and cried in ecstasy, her golden body squirming and writhing in the mole's firm grip, her tail flailing violently until it wrapped itself around his torso. She wanted to stop him, but she was already caught in another orgasm, her orifices twitching and pulsating again.

After the mole had fervently stimulated her throughout her second orgasm, he gave her free. He brushed the mess on his muzzle off with the back of his arm and gave the kobold a raunchy smile. She looked at him with dreamy golden eyes, breathed and panted heavily, her expensive body shining with a thin layer of perspiration. "This was amazing! How did you do this?" she asked.

Hrali gave her an unsure chuckle. "Well, I tried something and it apparently worked." 

"This was the best orgasm I've had in ages. Maybe even one of the best ones ever." She tried to get up, but her legs and body refused to obey her command, she writhed on the ground but didn't get anywhere, causing her to burst out in a fit of giggles. "Yeah, this was stellar. Now, do you want to take it to the next level?" she purred seductively and sensually spread her legs apart, revealing her sopping wet, ready pussy. "Come here and make an egg with me!"

Hrali nodded and went down on her, moved further up her body. He sensually traced her voluptuous shape with his fingers, ran them over her golden scales, across her midriff, up her ample tits and to her shining nipples. Her buds looked as if they were made of pure gold, but they were still soft and delicate, sensitive too, for he made her moan when he gently rubbed and pinched them. The mole finally embraced her completely and wrapped an arm around her neck, approached her muzzle and pressed his lips on hers. She gave him an enraptured smile, a lusty coo escaped her and she eagerly accepted his advance, returned his favor and fervently made out with him. "Mmmh, how lovely. I didn't think you were such a romantic," she purred. "I thought you were a miner." 

"One doesn't exclude the other," Hrali responded and kissed her again. 

His member was hard and fully erect, ready to be thrust into the golden kobold's prepared opening, but he just rubbed it gently over her vulva, teasing her. "I also love to feel and hear the world around me. There is nothing that gives me more joy.", he whispered into her ear and gently pressed his ear against her head. Then he pushed his shaft into her, claimed her wet channel and made her howl with pleasure. He shivered at the intensity of her voice, felt the vibrations of excitement ripple and shake her shiny body. Her tight love channel, unused for decades or centuries even, eagerly welcomed his pink member, felt wonderfully warm and tight.

Hrali began to thrust, slowly and passionately, while planting kisses on her neck and cheek, making his way back to her moaning muzzle. He stifled her noises by indulging her with another kiss that was even deeper and wetter than the previous ones. Closely intertwined, they enjoyed each other's company, his hips incessantly thrusting and spearing his dick into her opening, his and her paws exploring each other's bodies with lustful curiosity, exploring the smooth, shimmering scales and the dense, silky pelt, stroking and caressing. Her thick, powerful tail curled around his long, but much thinner, rosy appendage, making their union even more intimate.

Grunting and groaning, ever warmer and sweatier, the two neared their climax. Once again, the mole used his tactile abilities to feel his partner's arousal, to feel how close she was and act accordingly. He was guided by the shivers and trembles running through her body, the lewd tremolo in her voice and the sound of her heartbeat. Finally, Yrea's voice broke, she forcefully broke their kiss and gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, her body tensed up and she came. Hrali felt her vagina tighten around his member, stimulating him even more, and he fiercely thrust into her three more times, powerfully disrupting her orgasmic contractions and catapulting her to even higher pleasures. She let loose a guttural groan, a cry from deep within her body and mind. The intense power in her voice made him cum as well, made him unload his semen into her channel and into her womb.

Exhausted from the act, he collapsed on the kobold and buried her under his weight. They both were out of breath, panting and wheezing, with enraptured smiles on their faces. She grabbed his head and guided him into another kiss, and so they spend the aftermath of their mutual climax with more stroking, fondling and kissing. Hrali relished every second he stayed locked in her embrace, his dick still twitching and throbbing as it unloaded the last trickle of his ejaculation into her cozy love channel. "This was wonderful, Hrali!" she praised him, and the mole blushed. 

The color of his reddened cheeks was hidden beneath his black fur, but his voice trembled with excitement and joy, "This is the last thing I would have expected here in the mines, so deep underground, but I will never forget it."

They eventually disbanded their union and sat down leaning against one another. "So, how does this work with the egg?" Hrali inquired. 

Yrea contentedly rubbed her scaly belly and cooed, "The important part is done, now we just have to wait. It takes a few weeks, usually about twenty to thirty days, for the egg to grow big enough so I can give birth to it." 

"By the way, what happens in the meantime? You are free now, where will you go? And how do I get the egg when you're gone?" 

"This is a great question. I considered staying down here and making myself comfortable. I'm an ore kobold, the dark underground is my home. However, it would probably be good if you didn't tell anyone about me," she threw a worried look at the mole. 

Hrali nodded quickly, "Of course not! There are too many people out there who would see you and immediately try to lock you away, just like your previous owners who had the audacity to lock you in a sarcophagus."

She gave him the happiest, gladdest smile and a spontaneous hug, "There really couldn't be a better savior than you! I would love to stay with you, but I can't." The mole's heart glowed warmly and he felt like a hero.

Hrali suddenly remembered something, got up and fetched his notebook. He looked for his latest entry, where he had mapped the area that led right to this altar room. A few erasings and alterations later he had changed his notes to make this area look as unattractive as possible, not that it was attractive to start with. There were no resources and no points of interest in this area except the room he was sitting in right now. Yrea gave him a curious look and tried to figure out what it was he was doing there. "What are you writing? Hopefully nothing bad." 

He gave her a smile and laughed, "I'm making sure that nobody else wants to explore this area. Hopefully that will make the others avoid this place so you can live your life in peace." 

"Oh, how clever!"

"Thanks. Also, I think I need to go now. Work's calling and they're probably already wondering where I am.", he excused himself. 

Yrea nodded understandingly and her face lit up when she suddenly discovered something inside her sarcophagus. Moments later she returned with a golden piece of egg shell. "It's not an entire egg, but at least it is something. Here, take this for now," she pressed it into his paw, then she added with a curious and slightly timid look, "Tell me, are you going to visit me from time to time?" 

The mole nodded, "I will try to fit you into my schedule. I've got some ideas how to hide my absence, and it shouldn't be too difficult. So, yeah, expect me to visit once or twice every week. Unless, of course, that's too often for you." 

Yrea was visibly happy about his suggestion, "No, this is perfect!" 

One more hug and then he left the chamber to return to the base. He had some good news to tell, and another even better news to hide. His new responsibility for the golden kobold worried him a little, but he was sure it would work out in the end.