>>5269814>16Once your ‘distraction’ dies down, your studies begin. The Novice is, as it turns out, actually as good as her reputation suggested and her father’s bloodline should warrant. She begins with the principles of exterior transformation and superficial modification first and foremost.
“Less chance of serious and fatal organ failure or permanent disability, if a Most Noble and Heroic Dragonborn fails miserably at it,” she mocks.
You narrow your eyes at the predictable jab, not in offence but as it reminds you on the persistent, nagging question in the back of your mind. Despite her warnings to avoid distraction, you cannot help but wonder… Has her father told her of your genesis? Is that why she so undermines you? You consider confronting her directly…
“When we met with the Chaplain, you seemed knowledgeable somewhat of the savage mammal-races we would encounter along either route,” you say. “I have chosen the subterranean passage.”
The Novice pauses in her readings and explanations of the manuals, and the accompanying arcane gestures. You see her tail lash, a sign of irritation masked in her expression, hidden behind mockery.
“Is the Lesser Dragonborn afraid of the big bad sun and moon?” she goads you. “Of men and of goblins?”
“Of needless glory-seeking exposing our people’s conspiracies, maybe,” you counter dryly. “We will see the surface soon enough.”
The disappointment is palpable—this female wants to explore that realm of rumor and legend even more than you, it seems!
“Fine,” she hisses. “Then you wish to learn of the outcast elves, and the path through their so-called ‘hunting grounds’?”
It seems that ‘hunting grounds’ is, indeed, a more apt term than ‘nation’ or ‘kingdom’ or even ‘territory’. These subterranean elves have been scarcely-seen by your people, their ethnography a matter of little consideration, for they are few in number and impermanent in residence.
“Or,” the Novice correct conspiratorially, “at least no such permanent settlement of size has been detected. The journey will take us by a deep lake and a series of spiderwebbing caverns, like cracks and fissure sin the deep earth. I have personally wondered if the others of their race—females, immature offspring—might dwell deeper, hidden below that maze… Maybe nearly so deep as our own race!”
“I didn’t know you liked frivolous fantasy literature,” you ridicule, drawing another rattling hiss—half annoyance, half amusement.
Regardless of whether they be nomadic troglodytes or some scouting party from a hidden kingdom, the elves are dangerous. They seem to be quite stealthy, as a Silkscale, using small units, poisons harvested from cave-arthorpods, and hit-and-run tactics against interlopers.
