>>5560512“It is I you seek once more, oh Young Lover?” asks a voice to one side of you, tantalizingly close to your ear, with the subtle hiss of a Reptilian courtesan.
“It is ME you now dare to call upon, oh Knight Ascendant of a rival god?” asks the chattering, buzzing voice of an insect-queen—like your Glowie, like her mother, but so much greater and more terrible.
“Why do you call out to me, with these paltry offerings?” asks an imperious voice with a voice and accent like that of the dark elves.
“The tribute I offer is not this,” you reply, head bowed before the brazier. “I seek guidance, Oh Protector of Children, on our own child.”
The three faces of the Dark Matron laugh amongst themselves, slightly out-of-sync, so that it seems you are before a crowd of tutting and clucking noblewoman each amused at your words, and unconcerned with your plight.
“Had I known you were going to turn your back on me, I never would have gifted you the honour of my child,” one says.
“Then again,” another muses, “it is always a dark delight to undermine that obsessive asceticism of the Golden One.”
“Now that you properly understand what you have wrought, you seek to plead for your survival?” asks the third face.
“I seek a vessel worthy to bear your son or daughter into this world,” you answer placatingly. “A HUMAN vessel.”
This quiets down the unsettling, whispering cross-chatter of the Mother of Dragons. She turns her full attention upon you and, no longer distracted, the three voices seem to merge into one—now in sync, and addressing you from a singular direction: above.
“Now that,” the Goddess of Monsters says, “is interesting.”
The idea has some appeal to you, for a number of reasons. One is, admittedly, the remembrance of your last lover—the mammalian Davora, a dwarven herbalist possessed of a most wonderful warmth and softness. You are part-mammal yourself, of course, and you suspect that certain… Aspects… of mammalian femininity have an instinctive pull upon aspects of your mind and body. But there is more to it than that, obviously!
“Your worship would expand,” you implore her. “Your realms in the material plane would encompass Reptilians, Insects, Drow, and even Men! Merely guide me to your chosen one, and I will do your will.”
“Only two surviving human dynasties in these lands is worthy,” she informs you after some deliberation. “That of the Paladin Kings, or that of the Yosefs.”
You narrow your eyes at the mention of the latter.
“Then it must be the Paladin King’s bloodline,” you note. “There is only one surviving scion of the Yosefs, a male, and he shall be slain before this war is over.”
The Lady of the Rookery laughs loud and long at that, for reasons you don’t entirely grasp.
“Yes,” she agrees readily, “we have no more need of Yosef blood. None at all. The Paladin King’s line shall be ideal.”
