>>5379159>>5379186>>5379207>>5379295>>5379334>>5379401Your mind drifts, as it so often does, to Davora the Herbalist—your deceased slave, attendant, and lover. She paid for your successes with her life, to secure a future in which in her people could have dignity in even an Age of Darkness. What would serve her ambition, and yours?
You pay a visit to the North-Merchant and eh Translator (and the resident Drow) at the greater of the two captured dwarven company-towns. It is a three-day trek through the mountains, but one you’ve made before; it is becoming almost familiar. Once there, you hold an audience, another impromptu sermon.
“Dwarvesssm” you address them directly, in the same Northern Common-tongue in which you you’re your usual audiences, “Sslavesss are tools. YOU are toolsss. As craftsssmen and minersss, you know the value of a tool. A tool should be maintained, kept in good working order. To do otherwise isss wasteful.”
You pause.
“Work hoursss will henccceforth be reduced, and monitored, in all the Bloodrise. No dwarf shall be worked at hard labour for longer than ten hoursss without a break, nor at moderate labour for longer than fourteen.”
For a human, even a Reptilian or kobold, this might seem a punishment. For the dwarves, who you understand have been worked far harder and are TECHNCIALLY capable of far more if pressed, it seems a small but appreciable respite. The young and impressionable, in particular, praise the wisdom of the Dragonborn, guided as you must be by the Dark Gods’ own calculus.
Collective punishment is important, though. If one member of a family rebels, then it could be said that treason runs in their blood. You do not free the family of the deceased slave-miner—not until their punishment has concluded. In your Bloodrise, there is a right way and a wrong way to make an injustice known.
Your days become dominated by such cases. You hold trial as a judge beyond reproach, settling disputes between races, clans, and classes, and between individuals. Your judgement becomes the law of this land, each proclamation setting a precedent, and all of them seen as the will of the Dark Gods themselves. You may be more of a governor, but you truly begin to feel like a king here. To those dwarves and elves ignorant of the Grand Design of the Serpent Priesthood, you may as well be.
No peace holds forever, though. For you, disturbance comes in the form of three simultaneous events, each heralded by a messenger.
