>>5361006>>5360968>>5360944>>5360724>>5360709>>5360680>>5361056Eventually, meditation turns to torpor. However, it is a brief and uneasy rest. Concerted effort and advanced techniques could quiet your busy brain, but simple sleep cannot. When you awake, you are still in the chamber, and the Green Dragonborn is still slumbering, but you nudge him awake with atap of your talon and a prod of your empathic connection.
“Huuurrrm?” he rumbles, questioningly, opening one set of eyelids while leaving the other closed.
“Great One,” you begin, a touch uncertainly, “I seek your advice.”
He gazes down upon you, awaiting the inquiry. Instead, you tell him of the Green Knight—your mother’s slayer, wearing armour commemorating the downfall of the Great One’s own ancient draconic ancestor. You spare him the talk of visions, but you mention that the diadem which can grant him <CLARITY> is in this mammalian monster’s clammy clutches.
“But… I worry for the campaign in Bloodrise,” you admit. “If I delay my return, will I waste the popularity and support I have gained with the dark elves? Will the bugbears even LISTEN to anyone besides myself? And if they move ahead with further conquest without me… Or if they delay… What will be the consequences?”
If they attack or are attacked, and you are not there to collapse castles and belch fire, will they suffer greater losses? Who, in your retinue, or from among your key allies, might you lose?
(If they succeed without you, will you still be King of the Mountain upon your return?)
“Duh-warf meat is… Gooood,” your older brother reflects contemplatively. “Crushing duh-warfs is… GOOOD.”
“So… The Bloodrise, then?” you press.
The Great One rumbles, shaking his head.
“Your muh-thurrrr…. Was GOOD fuh-rend. Helped me.”
For a moment, the Green Dragonborn looks wistful. Through your link, you feel his sadness and anger.
“Crushing hyoo-muhn is ALSO good… And ruh-venge is BEST. Knight should SUFF-FUR! BURN! Be… DUH-STUR-OOOOYED!”
He roars the last word, flames licking from his open mouth and smoke billowing forth. You her some wary hisses from his personal collection of females, who shrink back against the opposite wall. You nod, slowly. You’re honestly a little surprised at his emotional reaction to your mother’s killing, and the knowledge of her killer… But then, you suppose if it weren’t for her, the Great One would have languished another century or two in captivity, perhaps for the whole of his indeterminately-long life. The concept of a debt of gratitude (especially beyond the grave) is alien to the logical lizard mind… But apparently not to that of the First Among Dragonborn.
