>>5755498You stop, looking up at the Red Dragon King as he looms over you, and lifts a great arm like an ancient tree-trunk, stretching it out to poke you in the chest.
“You tell your stupid apeling—Duergar Regent, whatever you call it—that a True Dragon Soul dwells within, yet you seek your own path to dragonhood WITHOUT.”
He takes his finger away, splashing the magma across the cavern in a great splatter of heavy molten metal and rock, sending insects, lizards, and more native organism scattering in flight.
“Is THIS your fire?” he asks you. “Am -I- your fire? Is your fire found in the Hells, or gifted from above, or even from Below or Beyond?”
You look down where the King of Old prodded you, and find your bare chest alight from an inner flame, swelling and glowing until you can see it through skin. You feel yourself filled with warm, and wonder, until the sheer magnitude of it threatens to consume you utterly.
“Seize the demon and bend it to your will if you wish,” he says, “but remember: before you were an Knight Ascendant, or a Dark Prophet, or whatever other silly little titles you saw fit to bestow upon yourself, you were a DRAGON SHAMAN. Your fire comes from WITHIN.”
When you wake, the dream lingers. You rise slowly, though the still-slumbering Serpent Queen hisses and scratches angrily at you, trying to reclaim your warmth—your fire within. You lightly trace your talons over her chin, down her neck and back, until she is soothed back to restfulness and you extract yourself. Sitting upon the floor, you meditate on the nature of your Dragon Soul, while the dream is still fresh.
