>>5345738“I do not understand,” you hiss. “What are the elves doing here? Is this… Some elven afterlife?”
Your heart sinks to think that Paeris would abandon your people’s faith, or that the once-godless Drow would return to their own gods-of-old, who betrayed them, rather than embrace the new faith which you brought to them. Are their souls the purview of some foreign God of Light, to be damned in the Age of Darkness to come? Have you failed them, lost them to an unknown elf-god?
>NOT QUITE.You recognize the voice—a voice like an erupting volcano, like an exploding star. It rocks your entire being, and you see that the shining star-god who now embraces the three elves has set his sights on you, even as the three dead elf-men seem ignorant of your presence.
“The Serpent Ascendant?”
Indeed, it is his voice emanating from this ephemeral elf-being, with silver skin and wearing a cloak of feathers coloured gold in some places and blood red in others. Upon his head sits a crown of bones and blood, and further feathers. His form is unfamiliar, mammalian, but…
>CORRECT.…But it is him.
>I AM NO GOD OF LIGHT, BUT THANKS IN PART TO YOU, I AM A GOD OF ELVES.You understand now, as the Serpent Ascendant takes the three dead assassins and begins to rise, up into the empty and dark sky above. These three males who died in service to their ambition and to yours, who died gloriously and at a moment of astounding success, and you fought and struggled to the end, are to dwell in the Eternal Darkness of the Black Sky, where son, moon, and stars hold no sway, and the only light eternal is The God of Glory.
You awake, having entered torpor at some point, to find the Master of the Insightful Eye gone, the candle burned down. You slept in an uncomfortable pose, legs crossed and sitting upright, and yet you feel… Not just refreshed, but satisfied. You know that Paeris has achieved a reward to which many Reptilians aspire. Not only that, your faith has gained some traction with the souls of the dark elves! But… What does this new transformation of The Serpent Ascendant and his realm mean, for your own race?
