>>5432522You hesitate for a moment. Maybe it would be best to seek <Guidance> first? In fact, perhaps while you are casting the spell, Hamaraska and their bug-friend will simply… Return? You don’t actually KNOW that anything bad has happened to the elf…
But no. Look at these pensive faces. The Drow are obviously no strangers to loss, no soft-hearted and sentimental surface-mammal. Tender hearts do not survive the world below. Still… They feel fear, though they may hide it, bury it, work through it. So too do they feel hope, when moved to do so—you’ve SEEN the rapturous joy of possible salvation from these dire and deadly climes lift their weary spirits. And now, they look to you for that hope…
And imagine the political goodwill, the missionary potential, of vindicating such hope?
“Stand guard,” you command. “Await my return.”
“What are you—?”
Jhamrius holds out and arm and guides Azonia back. She resists on general principal, but half-heartedly, resenting his attempt to impose himself more than the actual order. She, like all her compatriots, is more concerned with watching you transformation.
This is the first time you have deliberately cast <Dragon’s Wings> in a field setting. You know this line of transformative spellcraft is still in its early stages, for you; biological manipulation is not your primary focus, and you so often rely on the Novice Fleshweaver to enable its reliable deployment. Even now, though, she is with you: her Amulet of the Dragon around your neck, bolstering and aiding you as you summon forth the magic from within, and the blood swirling within the amulet and deep in your father’s ancestry. With a roar of victory and fleeting pain, you will your burgeoning fin-wings to grow and expand into something larger, mightier, more articulated. You stretch your draconic wings to a gasp from the Drow, and flap them once, then twice.
“Junior Novice,” you command in True Speech, and the whining creature turns his head on hunched neck towards you. “Fetch.”
He understands your intent, and dares not disobey. Your loyal (?) hunting-hound precedes you into the narrow, vent-like crawling-tunnels above. You follow, grateful you did not assume your <Dragonshape> in full—even now, at your current size, your wings make it difficult to squirm through the tight spaces in the rock. It’s enough to make you wish you had more precise control of stone and earth… But here, an imprecise <Earth Tremor> could mean death, and a <Wall of Stone> is best used as an escape-measure.
