>>5242001>>5242032>>5242111The guards, the halfling servant, the story of how the Archmage of the Hawksong Mages’ Tower came to ruin… They all die together. Let the powers that be in this place fill in the gaps with their own half-understanding and paranoia—it is no matter of yours, and their confusion and uncertainty better serves your purpose than any narrative you could invent. At the very least, with ‘V. Rilney’ out of town and out of the picture, and the Archmage dead, nobody will be proposing Reptilian involvement—or even existence!
You allow a single guard, Tomas, to live a little longer than the others. He delivers the Glasses of True Sight to you, as a material reward for your destruction of Hawksong’s eldest spellcaster. You chose him deliberately for this task, as for the slaying of his remaining compatriots: he is big, strong, skilled with a blade—
‘Hung like a horse,’ Irinnile salivates.
--And you DID promise your succubus a snack.
<WANT: 10>
Once Tomas has joined his compatriots in oblivion, you retrieve your young cousin from her goblin nursemaids. To your amusement, several doting goblin women—older than Zi, though with goblins it is always tough to gauge age—have gathered around her to dote on her, plying her with snacks and soft voices.
“So much better behaved than goblin children!” one says.
“I wouldn’t know,” admits another. “Yen-Zi and her siblings were such a handful that I never did have a second litter!”
“MoOOOoom!” Zi groans, flushing and avoiding your eyes.
“You should have a second,” a third goblin crone advises sagely. “The second and third litter don’t have as much spice and vinegar as the first.”
“Stop at three,” says the first one who spoke, who you note to be in a semi-permanent squat. “The fourth and fifth will ruin your hips.”
It’s a fascinating conversation, anthropologically-speaking, but you have no time for it—or for Zi’s obvious (and admittedly adorable) embarrassment. You collect little nameless human, and thank Zi.