>>5444503You and few Drow—the more pious or interested, including Sengar and Jhamrius but also Hamaraska—leave these Drow to their drunkenness. Sengar looks back with particular regret to be missing such festivities, but Jhamrius nudges him and he follows with the rets of you to a quieter corner of the ancient and newly-hallowed tombs.
You clear the ground and set down your pack to kneel upon it., Form its interior, you produce your usual candle, which—with a small puff of breath from your firelung, you light. While the dark elves watch with quiet interest, eagerness, and unease, you speak the ancient words which you learned in Bloodrise:
“Oh Lords and Ladies of Eternity and Infinity, oh Lords of the Endless Black, oh Ladies of the Deep Flame. It is I, your prince! It is I, your servant! Your first among sons and daughters beseeches you, and I offer up this great tribute, in hopes you will hear me, and guide me, and make me a part of your Grand Design.”
A silence follows—a deeper silence than mere lack of sound, as if resonance itself is stilled by an absolute inertia.
“I seek an audience with the Lord of Endings,” you whisper.
“And you have earned it.”
The response travels through the halls and chambers of the Drow funeral-caves without echoing—a voice without equal, without aftermath or shadow. Every word that The Emperor of Entropy speaks is the final word.
“Did you hear that?!” Sengar yelps.
Hamaraska the Lancer shushes the flightier warrior, and pats their beloved centipede to soothe it.
“Lord of Endings, most holy and unholy God of Death,” you acknowledge, bowing your head low as the shadows shift and warp in the firelight, forming the silhouette of a great and spreading cloak—of dark wings.
“You have done well,” Death responds. “It has been a long while since a servant of my estranged siblings ahs paid such… Generous tribute.”
“Your praise honours me,” you say.
“What are they saying?” Sengar asks.
Jhamrius elbows the talkative Drow in the ribs.
You maintain your composure in spite of this clownishness by the recently-redeemed atheist. His curiosity is natural, after all, and you ARE speaking the True Speech, as is good and proper.
