>>5155279>>5155289>>5155457You contemplate your approach to the extermination of the Yosefs and their threat. When the Dark Gods gifted you their Divine Favour and Akashic Record for your dutifulness, they did not give the gifts freely. Rather, they gave you a mission: to eliminate the bloodline of Yosef, as their ancestor had aided the first Paladin King in slaying the Great Green Dragon in ages past. Even without this dictate, it might have become necessary, thanks to Lord Yosef’s knowledge of the conspiracy. That knowledge was muddled, admittedly—Yosef knew Reptilian shapeshifters to be real, and suspected their purpose in his city, but he truly knew little else. So too were your feelings on the matter muddled: he was your grandfather, and a man motivated by the terrible loss of his son, whom your mother had seemingly loved.
<Heartbreak: 85%>
You can empathize with that particular brand of weakness now more than ever, and thus with the affinity she must have felt for the Yosef family. A part of you persistently dwells upon whether Yosef and his bloodline could be killed mercifully, quickly and without pain or the understanding of their dark fate…
And anyway, if the Archmage is really considering Lord Yosef’s ‘theories’ about the real culprits of the Gala Attack and subsequent lab raid, killing the old merchant-lord now would only embolden further speculation.
‘We could do the thing?’ Irinnile suggests.
You nod. Yes, the ectoplasm trick… Enthralling Yosef will do the trick! If need be, you can engineer a decline in his health, or a sudden fall… or else you can just use him as another spy, and a means to misdirect the Tower’s greatest figure. After all, you can surmise that the Archmage must be a powerful spellcaster—Pavlov and Henzler were, and no other Tower Mage has been a pushover either. You have no idea how the Tower choose their headman, but this human must be fearsome opponent to face directly, and you plan to avoid that if at all possible.
That’s right! You aren’t keeping Yosef alive out of contemptible human sentimentality, but out of cold, intellectual Reptilian strategy!
(You ignore Irinnile’s skepticism, radiating across your psychic link)
