>>5320387>19The kobolds quail and cry out in terror as they feel your Fearsome Presence pour from you, submerging them in ancestral terror and veneration. Dozens of small reptiloids fall to their knees, loyalist and burgeoning rebel alike. Ivno, beside you, begins to murmur a prayer. Sikdo bows as best his old knees will allow him. Tessu falls over. In the crowd, even the Bastard stares in anxious awe. The mammalian captives stop their furtive activity, unaffected by the presence but not by the spectacle.
You are shaking, you realize. Losing your usual cool. You remember the Chaplain, in his Chamber of Confession back home—how angry he was at your defiance. How he hissed, snapped, bellowed… And then quickly turned it off. You take a deep breath, and force yourself to do the same.
“How dare you listen to this NONSENSE, and forget what you ALREADY KNOW?!” you demand of the assembled kobodls. “You, there! Rise!”
You point with your drawn ceremonial sword at Regne, who had accompanied you in the tunnels below.
“Tell me, who was it who chased down the tongue-beast who kidnapped and wounded Ohle?”
He stares, barely able to rise, mouth moving but only a queak emerging.
“WHO?!” you demand.
“Y-you, Dragon!”
You nod, and then say: “And who was it who EXPOSED Hako and Hapo as pretenders? Who GENEROUSLY spared Hapo, even after Hako attacked me? Who spared ALL OF YOU, though I didn’t need to?”
A small chorus of “Dragonborn” goes up from the crowd, in scattered utterances. Closer, you can hear Ivno, Sikdo, and Tessu join in.
“I destroyed your stolen village, yes,” you say, a bit quieter, “And collapsed your tunnels. But Nothing and nobody is topping you from improving your living quarters HERE, in the MOUNTAINS, or from re-excavating those tunnels… Under MY protection from the horrors below. Nor, by the way, is anyone preventing you from going back down into the forests to hunt and forage. By the contrary, I REMOEVD a reason for the humans to return to this place, ELIMINATED a threat to you…”
You gesture to the adventurers, giving the berserker a boot in the back of the head. This provokes a gagged shout of rage, and sends him thrashing about menacingly, adding weight to your argument.
“You do not need to love the rule of the Master Race,” you conclude, “but you are RIGHT to fear their Champion… Me. The Dragonborn. And MORE than fear… You should remember to RESPECT what I represent. It is no idle boast, Kobolds of Bloodrise. An Age of Darkness is coming, for all of us…”
