>>5324403The Novice nods eagerly, and grabs hold of your belt, pulling you along, unresisting, to where, Glowie waits for you. There, you find her in her natural form, undisguised: a great worm, with vaguely serpent-like head but for her four eyes and twisted mandible-mouth. In place of her thick tail and squeezable, bounceable rump, there is only the many-legged trunk of the serpentine form of this glow-worm princess. Despite this, and a distinct… Bloating… She bobs towards you and leans into your body, pressing her forehead lightly to your chest and quietly, softly humming; the psychic resonance reverberates off of your own presence, ‘royal’ greeting ‘royal’.
“You are… Well, I trust?” you ask her.
Glowie, unable to speak as you know it in this form, merely nods.
“Better than ‘well’—she is IMPROVED, and her brood especially.”
You turn to the Novice, gloating once more, and bid her to explain.
“By my estimation, Glowie is entering a new stage of her life-cycle—preparing to cocoon herself, and to molt into something more akin to her mother, the ‘worm queen’ you described.”
You look to Glowie in surprise, and she merely nods again.
“It seems to be necessary for her to lay the eggs,” the Novice explains. “And these eggs… I anticipate between five and as many as a DOZEN viable offspring, EACH of them approximately a third dragon by genetic composition. These will be the MOST draconic beings since the Great Green Dragonborn, and they will hatch not soon after the first hatchlings of my father’s—and your mother’s—project.”
“How will they compare?” you ask, morbidly curious.
The Novice rattles with terrible glee.
“Not as pure, not as completely ‘dragon’,” she says, “but if I’m right… What we’ve accomplished… They will be JUST as terrible in their own way. Venomous and poisonous, psionically-potent, and capable of growing FAR faster than the traditional Dragonborn. Your doubly-degenerate monster-spawn might even beat the first wave of Dragonborn to adulthood!”
“I thought you were wary of our ‘replacements’?” you ask the Novice, patting Glowie reassuringly when she looks up at you inquisitively, perhaps a touch concerned at this phrasing.
The Novice scoffs.
“You cannot blame a great craftswoman for taking pride in her work,” she asserts “And anyway… These advances can be applied in reverse, as well, to advance our Reptilian Master Race.”
