>>5693403To that end, you decide to bring your ‘youngest’ child, Natvodosk, with you as well.
“Hmmm?” Glowie hums thoughtfully. “If you want, you could bring them all—it would be good for them to get out and zee more of the world with their father, yezz?”
You temper your other wyrmling sons’ excitement, feeling a little guilty to only choose the one. The choice is not born of favouritism, though, but pure pragmatism. Your insect-spawned princelings are still very much children, whatever their size, and some are of questionable intelligence. Natvodosk, in his account of the Dwarf War, demonstrated two key traits: an aptitude for deception, and the ability to count. In trade-diplomacy, these skills are key.
(And anyway, you can JUST about wrangle a single wyrm on your own—with all nine, the chances of some important diplomat being devoured increases exponentially.)
Nat, for his part, expresses no obvious excitement. He scuttles after you with quiet curiosity—as he approaches so many other things. Of all your sons, you think this ‘Unknowable One’ is the most Reptilian in demeanour… Or perhaps simply the best at pretending. Still, his queer bug-eyes twitch his head turning this way and that, as you take him beyond the confines of your arthropod heirs’ usual domain.
“A-ah, me, Superior One?”
“Dragon King,” you correct the Occultist—the young Dragonblooded female who you picked up as an advisor on matters demonic, necromantic, and elemental. “Yes. You and the Translator. It will be important to have mystical and cultural knowledge at my beck-and-call as we enter negotiations. There is ever the risk of… Misunderstandings, and a second pair of eyes attuned to the arcane will be vital.”
Perhaps she could your Natvodosk as well? He does have that eerie demeanour f a natural mage… You think? Maybe he’s just strange and quiet… But he IS your cleverest son, and both you and (as you’ve learned) your Degenerate mother were possessed of an uncharacteristic mystical aptitude.
