Crystal Kobolds

Well the kobolds must've not seen me until after I yelled, "not food, have food". It said, "copper? copper? How dare you take kobold as slave!" These guys have not seen many others... The worst part is though it seems this group I'm with is VERY trigger happy. Between Eval and Skrel they splattered one. I knew they were good fighters, but I never imagined they were braindead... This cavern is some kind of den to them by evident of the traps alone. We encroach on their turf, then attack when WE spooked THEM in THEIR home. Sickens me how much blood these two were after. It was funny though, when Skrel tried to intimidate one, he just got mad, started raging, and called Skrel a fur-lizard. One of them used some sort of sonic breath attack or something. I kept yelling to my group to stop as some other battle was happening in the background. One of the others that Eval dropped managed to complement him saying, "good bow, good hunter, but must free brethren" They apparently thought I was a slave to the others! The indignity! I managed to call out to them, "not slave, friend" and they seemed to get the message. Kniana even offered heals but they didn't seem to understand the concept until I pointed to were a wound should have been. Turns out that the one she cut just a bit already had his crystal hide healed over insanely fast. They all seemed to have a layer of natural crystal about themselves! There was still more crashing and a fight going on in the background and most the kobolds took off to that. I did have to warn one more that was a bit away that we were friends and their battle need more help in the background.
They were fighting one of the crystal elementals that we had seen out front of the mine. From what I saw the damn thing turned one of my kin, so to speak, into a red paste with a single splat! I saw Skrel try to take his sword to it only for the crystal to glance the blow. It clicked pretty fast that sharp things wouldn't help so I TRIED to cast Stone Discus from my cave whistle. Well, now I know about the type of interference the natural crystals cause. When I cast they started to hum strong enough for me to feel, and instead of forming into a projectile the stone formed a 15lb boulder around my hand and whistle. The crystal kin yelled, "no magics, no magics!" While I was dealing with that Skrel pulled out a morning star and cracked open the elemental pretty readily. The whole crystalline body of the thig started to glow to the point I was expecting a magical explosion. The Kobolds pounced on it and devoured it's shiny insides. They all kind of staggered away after their feast While Kniana helped me to get this boulder off of me.
 
After about a quarter hour later I was free from that stupid spell mishap. The others looked around the cavern a bit during that and we ended up following a path to find what I would assume was the Crystal's den. As we walked in I saw them burying about five eggs that glowed like the crystal in this mine. Do they not have a proper den dug into the earth?? They just have their eggs out in a fairly open cavern?? Do they even have an overseer??? We were stopped at the entrance of this area by one with what looked like healed over arrow holes in his chest. We talked a bit to try to figure out what was going on around the mine. Their grasp of language was.. primal so there is still s0me confusion, but I think I managed to get an idea for the group.
I told them we were looking for a special big crystal. that was about the best description I could come up with for them. We also talked about the surrounding passages. There was a bad tunnel behind us with many of them dead. Whatever they were hunting "turned kobold into crystal" and "ate crystal". It "tastes bad" and is a "bad eat" from the deep somewhere. It doesn't have any legs, slithers, and doesn't have a big mouth? I'm not sure what this thing is. We also asked about the other tunnel. There's a big room with a large crystal, bad food, and a hungry crystal? They describe it as it can see you, but you can't see it until it's too late. A man came and had his hand turned to crystal. Must've been the guy Skrel mentioned in Brentwood before. But the tunnels have collapsed with water and both ways are bad. He seemed to be uncomfortable with all of us so close to the eggs, so I thanked him and my group comes together to plan.
 
We walked back out to the larger area and discussed what we think the kobolds meant. We kind of pieced together that there was two creatures that were reeking havoc on my Crystal kin. While we were talking one of them came back out and I followed him back to the battle site. He said he was gathering brothers' "voice stones". I watched as he performed a little ritual anointing a liquid on the fallen's head before using his claws to pull out two palm sized stones from it's throat. He pockets these voice stones. I asked about them and he showed me by striking them together to create a sonic burst that disturbed the ground. Apparently they are a natural growing thing for them and they use them for protecting their eggs. He also triggered one of their traps to show me. The thing just fuckin ERUPTS out of the ground throwing debris everywhere and slamming 6 of these stones together! After the ringing stopped It looked to be a type of bear-trap mechanism rigged with stones. Pretty sophisticated for what I've seen of these guys. We talked a bit more about what was in the caves. He said that "big hunter became food". A crystal lizard with small wings that they used to worship had no chance and was no more. EXCUSE ME WHAT THE FUCK YOU ARE TELLING ME THAT A YOUNG CRYSTAL DRAGON, A GOD, GOT EATEN BY SOMETHING IN HERE! I didn't say anything but I was shook. They now stay in their den for safety from this new hunter. It is slow, but ambushy and warned me to not go near it. He handed me a pair of the throat stones and I gave him a piece of my acidic Alchemical Coal. Mutual protection type thing. I also inquired about why they stay with what seems like such dwindling numbers. They talked about sun being bad, and how this is their home. I offered to give some rudimentary goggles to help against it. They seemed very reluctant to leave especially with the eggs, but they would talk with their group. Understandable, but this seems like a dying warren to me.
He went off to continue this ritual with the other bodies, and my group came back together. Not before Skrel tripped off another one of the beartraps though. I had to explain to the group about their stones and a bit more about their situation. They said something about going to one of the cave ins and I made mention about how Bessy is a digging beetle. I also made mention of the Deep lords beetle that buried itself. Kniana apparently is the only one of us who can't really see down here so the group does a little dance of casting Light, offering a torch, yadda yadda. We make it so she can see. I'd offer to make a pair of darkvision goggles, but I'm not sure how often she'd use them past this. We ended up continuing on the other corner of the main room to look at what we're dealing with. I say that we should lure the assumptively two beasts into each other and let them fight so we could take them both down easier. WE kept walking for awhile before Skrel and I find a nice outcropping of crystal. He wiggles a small one loose that Lilly grabbed and pranced away and got a decent one of his own. I came by afterwards and saw one a bit deeper down stuck a bit more and managed to pry loose an excellent highly refined 700gp crystal. Exactly what I was here for. I hope to find more in here. About this time we ended up reaching a bend in the cave with an audible humming going on even causing ripples in the now puddles of water that where getting more common. Eval seemed fairly distraught in being is the earth such as this. Just reminds me of home. Well, home when we had a few drainage issues, but home none the less. Kniana also seems uneasy and said that no one has been here for quite some time.