>>5934669“Since we’re allies and all, it seems like it might be a good idea to discuss our mission a bit more completely.”
The Thief considers this for only a moment, before nodding.
“We could start with his name,” Pearce suggests. “Awkward just calling him ‘the Prince’, really. There’s lots of those, including the ‘Prince Consort’.”
“There are eight others in the Kingdom of Bloodrise alone,” the Thief agrees. “Brothers of the one whom we seek… But like myself, I can give you no name for them.”
You exchange a confused look with Pearce, but Izzy here provides an answer to your unspoken question of ‘why not?’
“The so-called ‘Reptilian Master Race’ believes that a being’s true name gives others power over them.”
The Thief flinches and squints at the phrasing, at ‘so-called’, but regards Izirina without outward malice.
“Is this not so?” he asks. “It is how one binds and masters a lesser shadow—what your race call ‘demons’ or ‘devils’. When one of our souls is disembodied, might it not be bound in the same way, with necromancy? It has been done before… It can be done again.”
Indeed, this ‘Thief’ creature DOES seem to have a tangible, detectable ‘soul’ of life energy, like his master, the Dargon King (or Prince Consort, or whatever)—and unlike Zith-Zi, until recently. It seems that even among ‘evil’ or ‘dark’ races, there is something rather peculiar about goblinkind, and so too about this missing Prince of Bloodrise.
“Well we have to call him SOMETHING,” Pearce protests.
“How about a nickname?” Costella suggests. “Does the little guy have one of those?”
“He is… Not so little,” the Thief says hesitantly. “Your kind have reacted poorly to him, in the past. I was instructed to be sparing in the details… To secure him myself, if I can.”
“What if we’re separated?” you ask. “Or we get a chance to extract him, and HAVE to, because diplomacy fails? Doesn’t it seem prudent to at least tell us what we’re looking for? I know he’s a sort of big dragon creature—”
“The Prince is NOT a true member of the Master Race,” the Thief corrects you.
“Uh,” you say. “Okay. What IS he?”
“The Wyrm Princes of Bloodrise are the product of… A divinely-ordained union, between our Dragon King and another chosen one.”
The Thief squirms slightly in his seat, looking away and apparently quite agitated or uncomfortable.
“You mean a human hybrid?” Izirina asks.
“Not a human, no,” the Thief replies, and after a long pause, he asks: “Are you familiar with the larval form of lepidopterans?”
“Butterflies and moths?” you ask, confused.
“Ooo, I love butterflies!” Costella says, clapping her hands together.
