>>5501824>>5501729>>5501666>>5501656>>5501642You sigh, and shake your head… But how can you object to so many friends and vassals all worried for your safety? You wish to push on, but it would be foolhardy to pretend they have no valid point. When you embraced community, friendship, love, you embraced a certain moral and emotional responsibility. You won’t abdicate it now.
“We will remain here for the next twenty-four hours,” you agree. “After that… We will see, but I think we should move on.”
Hamaraska and Ivno matching sighs of relief, while Azonia looks duly smug and the Novice studiously affects a neutral expression, as if she feels nothing at all; you can tell by her relieved body language that this is not, in fact, the case.
“You’re welcome to stay here, obviously,” Princess Jazkarmel confirms, “but… I’m not sure we’ll have much appetite for song, dance, or dueling. We may not be able to offer you many amenities, either…”
You follow her sweeping gaze over the field of fallen corpses, Drow and otherwise, and the ruined tents and other temporary shelters. By your rough estimate, only half the encamped Drow still live, and only the largest or most out-of-the-way structures remain standing.
“We will need to send word back,” the Wevenore Ambassdor mutters.
“I will send a runner,” Jazkarmel confirms grimly. “We’ll need reinforcements.”
This is a wise idea, by your reckoning, and so you do likewise: you send Ivno the Kobold and Olu the Archer ahead, lest you be waylaid; the two of them can travel much more swiftly than a larger force, besides, and you hope that they will reach Bloodrise and relay your return to your lieutenants there… And a warning of what the Necromancer has planned.
You spend the next few hours in one of the few remaining elven tents—not alone, but in the company of only the Novice Fleshweaver and her namesake, the ‘Junior Novice’ whom her fell arts have transformed from a dog-headed subterranean ghoul into some sort of psionic-draconic experiment. The bizarre chimera guards the door, while the Novice unceremoniously strips away your silk swathes and leather-and-chitin elf-armour to reveal your bruised and battered body.
“Why is it all warriors of your ilk rely on healing arts such as mine as a crutch?” she tuts.
She slathers an oily balm over her fine-clawed hands, and you shiver slightly with a not-altogether-wholesome anticipation.
“We must keep YOUR ilk honest somehow,” you mock in exchange.
She hisses, and thwaps your rear with her tail. You rattle with laughter, and then suppress a half-pained, half-appreciative moan as icy-hot pleasure and deep pain radiate out from where she touches you.
