>>5198230Your accidental creation sheds its skin, crying out in horror and twisted exhilaration as demonic taint and chimeric strength fill its bloody, sinewy form. It looms, hunchbacked and hobbling, and advances towards you and Henzler with head held low and eyes aglow. You take a step back, reaching for the sword-cane you now keep at your hip…
But then it explodes. To your shame, you hear yourself scream at the sudden shower of viscera, shielding yourself with warding magic and with your arms against the accompanying rain of bone fragments and misshapen, twisted antlers. When you open your eyes, you see that Henzler has undone the deer-thing with a single gesture of her outstretched arm, wrapped and elongated by a great tentacle-like structure emerging from the same overwide sleeve.
It occurs to you that, had she not been so swiftly enthralled by you, she might well have been able to utterly ‘undo’ The Dragonborn in the same way, and his deep-rooted fear of this human fleshweaver begins to make a great deal of sense.
“Well,” Henzler says after a moment, “this provided some insight into what NOT to do with your farmers, I suppose. Sometimes, that can be just as important. I think I even see where we went wrong…”
You do not listen to her continued mutterings, instead rushing to Roth’s side. ALhazred, too, is shortly upon the scene, having heard the commotion.
“Is the Dragonblooded One alright?” he asks.
Roth’s face is swollen, neck kinked. He lives, but he has also been perforated by several antlers. You feel his body, ripping away his clothes and removing his amulet to do so more effectively… And nothing vital has been hit, nothing IMMEDIATELY lethal. Still… He is in bad shape.
‘Ah fuck…’ Irinnile says. ‘The old bastard, like, just can’t catch a break, can he?’
You’d planned to end your evening by diving into the minds of your Hawksong thralls, but these unexpected events throw your plans into disarray. Roth requires medical attention, and while Henzler could perhaps use her biological magic to help stabilize him… Well, waiting out the day with your best warrior in such a shape, so close to human settlement and surrounded by such conspicuous monsters, it presents its own problems.
What do you do?
>Stay the night anyway, and check in with your thralls while Alhazred and Henzler work to keep Roth stable, then depart before most of the humans are awake for your rendezvous point>Seek out a hiding-place deeper in the woods before continuing your plans for the evening; it is nearly dawn, and you will not travel again until the next evening, for security’s sake>You can check in with your thralls later—you must hurry, to bring Roth to proper Reptilian medical attention and to hide the Dragonborn and your other assets in the caves before the sun rises and the humans wake>Write-in 