Tag the Kobold: Roooommmmbbbaaa Racers!

“Come, come. I have something to show you, fren Tag,” Pipsqueak beckoned to his friend as the brown kobold led him down the stairs. He was excited about something, and Taggart wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it made him mildly nervous.

 

“Yes, but what is it?” Tag asked as the sun reflected off his red and yellow scales through an open window. It could be almost anything with Pip, but hopefully, this time, it wasn’t another roller coaster.

 

Pipsqueak led Taggart outside to a paved sidewalk. Awaiting them were two round, six-inch-thick objects assembled from random scrap pieces. Small wheels underneath supported the devices, along with what looked like scrub brushes. The wooden body of the device was probably originally part of a barrel. The strange objects were wrapped in blue cloth to give them a slight bit of color. A small canvas sack sat on top of each.

 

“Look! Pipsqueak makes koboldy-friendly rides with pieces of old Mega Sweep,” the brown kobold exclaimed, looking at his friend. “We can ride them, and you no feel sick!”

 

“You made these for me,” Taggart inquired, a bit touched as he looked at the new rides. He wasn’t sure how they worked or even what they did, but he’d try them out. “How do they work?”

 

“You sit on them like this,” Pipsqueak demonstrated by stepping onto one of the devices and sitting cross-leg on top. His red and yellow kobold friend followed suit on the opposite ride. “Then you throw dirt from the bag.”

 

“Like this,” Taggart asked as he threw some dirt from the bag in front of his device. After a moment, the ride surged forward, cleaning up the mess.

 

“Yeh,” the brown kobold responded, throwing out dirt. His ride moved forward to quickly clean it up. “Now we race!’

 

Taggart was still a bit nervous riding the machine down the sidewalk, but after a few minutes of racing, he got the hang of it. Together, the kobolds rode their rides, throwing dirt around to make them move forward. Passersby were annoyed at all the dirt thrown everywhere as the riders slowly descended the sidewalk. A lousy throw ended the joy ride when it caused Taggart’s machine to veer off course into a flowerbed, getting stuck.

 

“Maybe if we didn’t have to throw dirt around they would steer better,” the red and yellow kobold suggested as he tried to pull his ride out of the mud. He didn’t know anything about engineering, but maybe they could find someone that was.

 

“Then how would it know where to go,” Pip questioned as he tried to help his friend dig the device out. “Magical direction finding dirt.”

 

“What about some sort of steering handle to direct them where to go or a rail system like that roller coaster,” Taggart suggested, trying to help.

 

“Yeh! Steer them with the wheel, then we can go anywhere,” the brown kobold exclaimed, suddenly feeling inspired. Pushing his ride down the sidewalk, Pipsqueak shouted, “Come! We fix them now!”

 

“Wait up for me,” Tag yelled after him as he tried to keep pushing his device mount.