>>5196722‘Would forming pacts between you and other mortals empower you?’ you ask, eventually.
‘It’d give me more status,’ Irinnile says, ‘an when they Die, an’ their souls become MINE… Hell yeah! Before then, well… If they start doin’ the right rituals, veneratin’ me, feedin’ me their desire on demand… Yeah, I’d have a bit more fuel for th’ fire, that’s for sure.’
That’s something to consider, too, you suppose… Though it might make Irinnile less beholden to you, to share her powers so freely.
‘You’re all I need,’ Irinnile reassures you quickly, her spectral touch upon you, her lips near to yours. You catch a glimpse of her golden eyes. ‘I mean it. I don’t need a hundred pacts an’ souls ta’ be happy. Just you.’
You don’t say anything, not sure what even TO say. The succubus’ earnestness is… Unusual, stunning even. It leaves you off-balance.
“Anyway,” you say aloud, “let’sss… Join the others.”
Working like steam-powered automatons, with visible tension, the aged farmer helps his wife and son to prepare your meal. Both still reek of one another, and of sex, and while the farmer cannot rail against them, you can see the hatred and betrayal bubbling beneath your spell’s constraints.
The humans make for you mutton, beef, and chicken—all meat, all readily-digestible by your kind—and serve them with water upon your request.
“The Great One is fed also,” says Alhazred, of the Dragonborn.
“What were you feeding him at The Incubus’ farm?” you ask, curious.
“Much the same,” Alhazred admits, “but The Great One clearly prefers the hunt… And live prey, as well.”
“A dragon needs to be master, hunter,” Roth says with a certain amount of pride in his own distant nobility. “It—HE—probably never was given much opportunity to exercise that instinct. Now, those instincts are coming out with vengeance. I doubt there’ll be much livestock left by the time we leave.”
“We brought in the owlbear and the dog-creature,” Alhazred nods, to the corner of the room where both lay. “The Great One likely would have killed and eaten them as well, otherwise.”
