>>5500930You explain your compromise gently to Glowie, but you can still tell that it upsets her. She doesn’t object it or rage against it—she simply deflates, and her happy humming stops.
“You do not like uzzz?” she asks. “You are… Azzhamed of uzzz?”
You shake your head. That’s not it—even if your sons are peculiar, a part of you HOPES that one among this clitch will rise to such station as to be your heir-in-truth. When your position is secure, perhaps one of these… Hatchling… Can inherit your legacy. It’s just that the last thing you need right now is the risk of having your sovereignty or leadership questioned. After all…
>>5500243…You think you have pieced out Hapo the Necormancer’s dastardly plot, and it is a truly terrifying proposition which will require all available lizardmanpower to overcome. You were unable to glean any details about the sinister little saboteur’s whereabouts, but he gave away enough in his braggadocious ramblings to give away his master plan: with pilfered knowledge, he seeks to resurrect not just a hatchling, nor even some other lesser dragonspawn perished at the twilight of the last Age of Scales. No, he plans to resurrect a the Red Dragon King of Bloodrise himself!
Even thinking about this possibility causes your heart to hammer with instinctive fear, as if griped by a shadow of that demigodly Fearful Presence. This distant ancestor of yours was LEGEND, practically the epitome of Dragonkind: a direct creation of the gods, motherless and fatherless, born of primeval power. It is said that by the time of his death, his wingspan could create an eclipse over Bloodrise, that he breath was like a volcanic eruption, and that when he reared his head he was the tallest peak in all the mountains. That Hapo could even ATTEMPT to awaken such a sleeping giant, and that he would DARE to attempt to enslave or recombine that Great One with his own pathetic self… It horrified you on ground religious and tactical alike, and on an instinctive level that no amount of willpower can overcome.
If he could do this thing, Hapo the Necromancer would be INDISPUTABLE lord of the Bloodrise Mountains, and the TRUE prophet of a new Age of Darkness besides.
(CAN it be done?! Surely he is simply overestimating himself, or bluffing, or you are mistaken in his intent…)
You gulp down your fear, and gently pay Glowie’s chitin-armoured, spider-fingers hand to assuage her wounded heart. Holding her hand the whole way would be a step too far, but you clasp it until you enter sight of the others—your allies—and behold their fate.
