>>5575709“Why are you helping uss?” you ask, as the Archmage unabashedly strips your attendant of his pants and underwear.
She grabs hold of his masculine organ—human in appearance, by your limited understanding, and certainly unlike yours. She pushes it up to his abdomen and, producing another bottle, applies a cream of some sort, then presses it to his abdomen. It stays fixed in place.
“Adhesive and numbing cream,” she explains casually. “Hmm… No pubic hair. Scales. And the testicles are recessed… Partly-internal, like the testes of a lizard or dragon. This will be somewhat interesting after all…”
You clear your throat.
“Oh, yes, my motives for helping you,” she remembers. “I wouldn’t expect you lot to understand this, but the opportunity to study and experiment with previously-unstudied organisms is its own reward to a Chimericist.”
As she speaks, she reaches out, but it is not a human hand which emerges from his oversized robes: it is a long, octopoid tendril, whipping out and reaching many feet across the room to take a basin from a counter. Another branching tendril splits off from it, tracing a sigil upon the lip of the bowl and activating a rune thereupon; the basin, in response, fills with water from some unseen mystical spring. The tentacles pull the basin to her, returning to their hidden place in her robes, and she washes her hands. It is a casual display of effortless magic, with nary a somatic component and no verbal aspect.
It is true magical mastery.
“Roth isn’t wrong: my goal IS to transcend my humanity,” The Archmage concludes. “What loyalty do I have to mankind?”
“Sso if we give you opportunity to advanccce your sstudy and to become… ‘Transss-human’… You will help uss with our mission?”
“Your mission of augmenting your biology?” she asks. “Obviously, since I guided you to this place.”
“Not only that,” you admit.
Roth shoots you a deadly glare, but you ignore him and press on: “No, not that. In truth, I have a Fleshweaver… A Chimericissst… At home. She hasss done a great deal of work on my anatomy, and I ssussspect any adjussstmentss would need to be approved by her before I could approve them, lesst they interfere with her work. I came here for something else.”
The Archmage scoffs quietly, btu shrugs.
“Prudent, really. I suppose I can understand it. Then what is it you want?”
“I am here,” you announce, “to meet with the realm’s princess.”
“Princess Ekaterine?” Archmage Henzler asks, seemingly caught off-guard for the first time. “Why?”
“That isss my busssinesss,” you state coolly.
She shrugs after a moment, returning to her work with Olu, and simply stating: “Keep your secrets, lizard. I will figure it out eventually. But, yes, I can try to make introductions, if it advances my aims to do so.”
