>>5322667You put such angst aside, summoning Ivno to you and reiterating your plans to him—as the one full-fledged kobold who will join your retinue. Sikdo is too old, and you sense a fondness for their people’s old way of doing things—fee, independent. Like it or not, they will have to adjust to the new way—a adjustment Ivno is more capable and willing to facilitate, you believe. You let him spread the good news to the rest of his kin: concessions and consultations WILL proceed, so long as they remember their place in the scheme of things.
“An Age of Darkness,” you promised them, “for all of us.”
To cap this announcement off, you haul up the barbarous berserker, the human who nearly slew you AND Glowie. The others you have plans for, but this one… This one is too dangerous to let live. Instead, you return to the central platform, and command the kobolds to march him to you at spearpoint. He permits this, hobbling for his mutilated legs, but even WITH this disability he lunegs for youw hen he reaches you. You catch him by the throat, and force him to his knees. Only then do you remove his gag.
“Lassst wordsss?” you ask.
He spits on you, and says: “Coward. Weakling. Saved by female. Nearly bested by baby-lizard.”
You thrash him with your tail. He falls. The basilisk is fed, and its agitation tempered, and then returns to the ‘den’ of roughshod wood which has been constructed for it, for torpor. You wish you could do likewise… But your other prisoners have answers to provide you, and you mean to extract them.
