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>>5207193
In your mind you hear the voice of your partner-in-crime, you quite-literal soulmate. You could not forget Irinnile if you wanted to—and now and again, you have wanted to. Lately, you have been going through something of a rough patch with the succubus to whom you bound your soul—partly because, in thus binding yourself, you consigned your immortal spark to the Hellish realms from which she was birthed.

‘Baaabe,’ she whines, ‘I thought we were, like, past all that?’

You scrunch up your face, resisting the urge to fire back a psychic rejoinder. This is a moment of triumph, or exhalation, not a time for a lover’s quarrel! Besides, it is true that without Irinnile, you’re not certain how things would have gone. She has been a liability at times—forcing you to feed her the lust and lifeforce of mortal men and women, taking control of your body to sate her demoniac <WANT>, placing upon you a vulnerability to holy arms and areas—but it is also by her pact that you were empowered to subvert the pitiful minds of many a mammalian menace.

‘We’re in this together,’ Irinnile asserts, with a confidence you can tell she doesn’t feel. ‘R-right, hotstuff?’

How do you reply?
>Reassure Irinnile—she is invaluable, and you cannot begrudge a demon her nature [+affection]
>Admonish Irinnile—she is distracting you from your momentous moment of victory [-affection]
>Say nothing—your anger is waning, but your feelings are still ambivalent, and you want to let her sweat a little
>Write-in

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>>5207197
You finally step out of the purest shadows of the caverns and into the dimly-lit hall of the great cavern. Winding, intricate patterns resembling great snakes encoiling jagged stars are carved here, and great statues of shaped from stolen (or, rather, RIGHTFULLY RECLAIMED) surface-mammal gold and silver pay tribute to a long gone age—an age which will soon return! Yes, here you can truly feel the beauteous splendour of your ancestors who once ruled this world, and bask in the praise of your fellow children of the Master Race who now stand to preside over a new Age of Scales!

‘Why’re there so, like… Few of ‘em?’ Irinnile asks.

She isn’t wrong. The humans of Hawksong speak of elves as a race in decline, slow-breeding and past-their-prime, their numbers sadly diminished. Well, if this is true… You would loathe to hear what they would say of your people, whose numbers are unknown to you but which you know deep down must be even lesser in number. Divided into clans—almost subspecies—they seem even more reduced in each branch of the great family tree.

But not for long!

In this enormous hall, once home to throngs of hundreds or thousands, you see only a few dozen of your mother’s race mingling in small groups, discussing personal, political, and mercantile matters in hushed hisses of the True Speech. How to you announce yourself?
>Weave a glimmering glamour with illusion, displaying your magical prowess in a shower of sparkling light, and declare yourself boldly
>Approach humbly, quietly, as is the custom of a half-human Degenerate, and seek out a Serpent priest to report directly your accomplishments
>Ask Roth to speak in your favour, and to secure you an audience to make your announcements
>Let The Dragonborn bellow with all the thunder of his ancestor—it may be he and not you who is the centre of attention, but it is YOU who liberated him, and they will all remember that!
>Write-in

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>>5207201
LEVEL UP!
You have become better at biological manipulation through magic, at ranged combat, and at seduction. This is the result of your choices, and affects how many dice get rolled when it is time for dice to roll. If you don’t know the drill by now… Well, this is the <FINAL THREAD>, so you really should. If you’re just joining us, you will find the ‘rules’ at https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=reptoidqm, along with our adventures up to this point.

You have acquired a number of items in your inventory, though you may not always have access to all of them: a suit of leafweave armour and the materials to maintain it, a protective magical cloak which guards against heat and cold, a magical diadem granting clarity and control when your perceptions are affected by outside sources, a hidden charm which suppresses your succubus partner’s demonic aura inside you, an enchanted dagger both frosty and fierce, a sword-cane taken from the memories of a dead nobleman and shaped by your demonic paramour from her own essence, a coin which can buy the safe transit of your soul, a serpent-priest staff with unknown properties, a very small amount of shirin stimulant… And suicide poison.

Oh, and the burning heart of a long-dead dragon and a rune-covered dodecahedral dwarven master stone! Given all the trouble you went through to acquire and then RE-acquire them, it would be tough to forget those, even if currently Roth and Alhazred are hefting them at your behest.

You also have in your arsenal a <DIVINE FAVOUR> granted by the Dark Gods themselves for your piety and service, a <SOULBOND> with a succubus granting you an assortment of demonic strength and weaknesses, access to the <AKASHIC RECORD> of your deities and their agents across time and space… And no small amount of <HEARTBREAK> for the once human whom you truly love(d), Edwin of Engel.

>>5207197
>Say nothing—your anger is waning, but your feelings are still ambivalent, and you want to let her sweat a little
Just manifest her in her own body, dammit.
>>5207201
>Approach humbly, quietly, as is the custom of a half-human Degenerate, and seek out a Serpent priest to report directly your accomplishments
>Ask Roth to speak in your favour, and to secure you an audience to make your announcements
Roth should accompany us in the conversation with the Serpent Priest as more-or-less our supervisor and companion on a couple of missions.
Alhazred should come as a part of the team who helped free the Dragonborn, reclaim the Heart and obtain the dwarven brick, too.
Owlbear & Co. stay back for now and look epic and horrifying to the snakes so they don't fuck with our dog and DIY degenerate.

>>5207201
>Reassure Irinnile—she is invaluable, and you cannot begrudge a demon her nature [+affection]

>Approach humbly, quietly, as is the custom of a half-human Degenerate, and seek out a Serpent priest to report directly your accomplishments
>Ask Roth to speak in your favour, and to secure you an audience to make your announcements

>>5207513
>>5207521
Locking:
>Approach humbly, quietly, as is the custom of a half-human Degenerate, and seek out a Serpent priest to report directly your accomplishments
>Ask Roth to speak in your favour, and to secure you an audience to make your announcements

Still up for a tie-breaker:
>What to do about Irinnile

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>>5207521
>>5207513

You do not address Irinnile. It’s not necessarily that you want her to stew or sweat—though it would serve her right—so much as that you aren’t yet sure how to feel about the whole situation. She has been buttering you up with flattery and spectral touches ever since your spat, which is both appreciated and makes you feel queerly concerned for her… But inasmuch as she is beloved by you, she is also a liability to your greater destiny. It is difficult to reconcile, and you have more pressing matters… Such as how to approach those pure-blooded Reptilians who now take notice of you.

Much of your bravado melts away as dozens of pairs of reptiliform faces turn towards you, yellow and orange eyes reflecting the limited light with piercing scrutiny. All at once, you feel the shame of your inborn status settle upon you like a physical weight. Your head bows instinctively, your eyes lower to the floor, your posture adjusts to show proper deference to these purebloods. You were raised right, after all, whatever your mother’s… Proclivities. No, you do not wish to draw too much attention to yourself. You know that a Degenerate’s greatest virtue in this place is humility and obedience.

Unfortunately, you also brought a small cadre of extremely-colourful pets, associates, and surface treasures. Attention is probably unavoidable.

No one approached immediately, the people of this place hovering well back. You can see the subtle signs of fascination and fear flit across their varies, scaly features. Even the mightiest Steeltalon is fearful to enter the owlbear’s considerable reach; even the noblest Dragonblood is awed (albeit probably also horrified) by the great and terrible DragonBORN. But your people are not a race given to meaningless chatter and exclamation. There are q few quiet whispers, subtle shifts of posture to draw closer or back away.

“What is the meaning of this?” one Dragonblood speaks up, after a while. “What… Are all these things? Who are you?”

You open your mouth to speak, but can say nothing. You are a little girl, a hatchling, once more. It is not your place... And so, you turn to Roth, the highest-born of your party. He meets your eyes for a moment, and almost seems surprised. You suppose it’s been some time since you showed the old male this level of respect for his bloodline and his station—you’d taken to teasing and bantering with him almost like an equal and, age, birth, and inherent haughtiness aside, he had come to expect and even accept it from you. Coming home is an adjustment for you both.

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>>5208034
“We are Infiltrators, returned from the human-infested surface-settlement called ‘Hawksong’,” Roth says, puffing up his chest and sticking out his proud, thorny chin. “You can see we come bearing important news and great treasures from the ape-folk’s ill-begotten hoards!”

The other Dragonblood says nothing for a time, staring at the chimeras, the magical items,a nd ESPECIALLY at the Dargonborn. The Great Green One lets lose a low rumble that radiates through the cavern, reflected off of every curve of the cave so that it seems to come from all sides. A few hisses and squeaks go up from the assembly, and a few Reptilians hurry from the hall. Each Dargonborn present, including the one who addressed you, seems to buckle slightly at the knees as if seized by an instinctive urge to submit and bow, though none do; Roth, by now used to it, stands straightest of all.

You lean close to Roth—not touching him, of course, not HERE—and whisper to him. He doesn’t deign to look at you, not paying you such close attention, but you see him nod very slightly. He may be back on the top of the natural hierarchy once more, but he agrees with your thinking, it seems.

“We three—myself and these Degenerates—must report to the Serpent Priests. Who is presently Chaplain of this place?”

“Chaplain Makss-Ssellu,” a male Silkscale answers, when the Dragonborn from before, still trembling slightly from the fearful presence of the Dragonborn, fails to do so.

“Bring us to him,” your senior Infiltrator orders, and the Silkscale obliges.

“As the humans say, ‘there is no place like home,’” Alhazred mutters.

You and he both fall into line behind Roth, leaving your menagerie behind at the mouth of the hall. There, they continue to confound and captivate the watching Reptilian throng. The Dragonborn stands up as straight as its bowed, hunched back will allow, basking in the adulation with a sad mockery of kingly bearing.

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>>5208037
Deeper into the well-wrought, carefully-maintained sanctum, you find the familiar halls of your True Faith. You do not meet The Chaplain in the gem-studded star-chamber of glorious ritual, where divine missions are handed down in service to The Grand Design when the stars are right to do so. Instead, you are set to wait in a place-of-confession, where lesser castes of Reptilian may tell of their deeds or misdeeds and be judged in private. There are no chairs, only a stone dais to kneel before, and a stone to rest one’s head upon; it is concave, with a lightly-browned basin in its centre, where eons of blood has been caught and collected, when judgement falls hard upon an agent of the Dark Gods.

Eventually, the Silkscale returns, head bowed low and eyes cast downwards, as you and Alhazred do—as even ROTH does. The Chaplain, called Makss-Ssellu, steps with unhurried gate behind the Silkscale. He has the hallmarks of high, priestly birth: an elegant and curved neck atop his narrow shoulders, a long, narrow face, blue-green eyes, a wattle of bluish skin beneath his proud chin. He is now Herald of Distant Starlight or Secret-Keeper of Deepest Dark, merely an Operational Chaplain of the Grand Design, but his station is high enough to warrant your collective, silent respect, and to grant him the wearing of ceremonial black robes and a cobra-like cowl of silver-laced fabric.

“Who will kneel?” he asks. “Who will tell me of your deeds, and your misdeeds, and face judgement?”

You gulp. You KNOW this is a time of triumph, you know it… But that basin’s staining is fresh, and you also know that your mission has not been unmitigated success, nor have your methods been… Orthodox.

‘Baaah, who even cares ‘bout THAT?’ Irinnile scoffs sacrilegiously. ‘You did great! And, like, what’s he gonna’ do? We’re immune ta’ curb-stompin’ or whatever. Magic weapons only, ‘member?’

The Silkscale reverently hands The Serpent Priest a staff of office—one ending in an obsidian cudgel carved to resemble the rattle of a rattlesnake… And radiating a dark magic to your mystic senses.

‘Oh,’ Irinnile says. ‘Uh, nevermind. Maybe let someone else tell ‘im that bad bits?’

Roth and Alahzred, too, stare at the staff. Alahzred steps back, only slightly… And to his credit, your curmudgeonly senior steps forward.

What do you do?
>Let Roth take the credit, or the blame, recounting the events which have transpired
>Step forward yourself, to take your rightful place at the head of this mission… And to tell the whole truth, and be judged
>Take your place at the stone of judgement, but tell the most cherry-picked and flattering account possible [specify what you emphasize or leave out, if you have something in mind]
>Shove Alhazred forward, throwing your party’s juniormost member to the proverbial wolves, and see how it goes
>Write-in

>Step forward yourself, to take your rightful place at the head of this mission… And to tell the whole truth, and be judged

Unwise to lie to a priest in a confessional

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>>5208039
>>5208039 (You)
*He is no Herald of Distant Starlight

One day, I will catch my typos before I post. One day, if the stars are right.

>>5208039
>>Step forward yourself, to take your rightful place at the head of this mission… And to tell the whole truth, and be judged

>>5208039
>Step forward yourself, to take your rightful place at the head of this mission… And to tell the whole truth, and be judged
Obviously don't mention our unrelated activities if it's unnecessary and make sure to emphasize our conversation with the Serpent so that he knows we have the highest-order stamp of approval.

This update hits hard after spending a year on the surface alongside Ismena. Shit got very personal.

>>5208039
>Step forward yourself, to take your rightful place at the head of this mission… And to tell the whole truth, and be judged

[Pathfinder campaign is going long. I'll post tomorrow morning, to ensure quality!]

>>5208054
>>5208130
>>5208155
>>5208267
You reach out, touching Roth on the shoulder. He looks back to you, questioningly. Only a moment later do you see that The Chaplain and his Silkscale attendant have had an altogether more astonished and offended reaction to this display of familiarity.

“It is… Fine, “ Roth grunts. “This De—this younger Infiltrator has been at the centre of operations in a way that I have not. She should be the one to take my place in the Confession.”

For a moment, it seems the other two purebloods are at a loss. They clearly do not know what to make of a Dragonblooded One relinquishing his place of privilege to a half-human hybrid. However, as you step forward, fall you your knees, and press your forehead to the cold stone, The Chaplain falls back upon familiar ritual.

“Very well,” he says. “Tell me what ahs transpired—the good, the bad, the unseemly.”

And you do. It is unwise—blasphemous, even—to lie to a Serpent Priest in a room-of-confession. You tell him of your arrival in Sparrowton, your discovery of V.Rilney and his book. You tell him of how you arrived in Hawksong, and tracked down the true identity of this uncomfortably-knowledgeable human, and even of how you learned that he was your father’ father. You tell him of seducing mammals, and of using them, and of disposing of them just of readily. It all spills forth: the demon-pacts, the clandestine warfare against The Incubus and its mortal agents, and your soulbond with Irinnile.

“Disgusting!” the SIlkscale mle repudiates you.

“Silence!” The Chaplain commands of the lesser-ranked pureblood. “We are not done.”

You tell of every victory you won, of every ally and pawn you lost, of every piece you placed and played upon the great gameboard of that human metropolis. You present to him the Serpent Priest staff which you discovered, stole, and secured, and you see The Chaplain’s steely eyes widen in recognition.

“It was for this deed of piety and loyalty,” you point out pointedly, “that the Dark Gods saw fit to speak with me, and to grant me their <CIVINE FAVOUR> and access to the <AKASHIC RECORD>.”

All the Reptilians in the room stare at you now, fully comprehending what you have said in a troubled silence.

“It… Should not be possible,” The Chaplain says.

You say nothing. You hope that he can sense to truth of your words… And you suppose he must, for he traces a sigil of protection and dips his head.

“You… You have done well, to earn such favour,” he admits. You sense a jealous resentment in his voice, and you can surmise well—he has been born to a spiritual nobility, served your divine masters all his life, and never earned such a boon. It must rankle.

“It came with a duty as well,” you admit. “I must end the Yosef bloodline, avenging the Great Green Dragon.”

The Chaplain does not respond to this, merely nodding, taking it in.

>>5208972
"I have not done so yet," you admit. "Other matters were more pressing. The Gala, the Dragonborn, the occult and demonic threats..."

“The threats which you resolved by making pacts with the Lesser Darknesses?” The Chaplain asks, a tad accusatory.

“A means to an end,” you say quickly.

“And what of the one you have inside of you to you?” he asks.

You hesitate.

“And what of this human, this… ‘Edwin of Engel’? How much did he learn of you? How compromised is your identity?”

This… This a difficult decision, moreso than any other. You have told the Serpent Priest VIRTUALLY everything—even details of your break-up with dear Edwin which you kept from Roth. The Chaplain knows that Edwin cast you out for your involvement in the Gala Attack—how could you hide such a detail from a SERPENT PRIEST, here, on the stone-of-confession?!—but he does not know of that Edwin’s mind remains clear, and clean of your mitigating occult influence. Likewise, you have described Irinnile as a tool—a tool towards your Master Race’s conquest of Man—but not told him of your love, your bond.

“You see,” you begin. Then, you pause. “It is…”

“First, let us address your demon, your succubus,” The Chaplain says, turning away. “It must be destroyed.”

‘W-w-what?!’ Irinnile whimpers. ‘Babe! No, what?! P-please, tell him not to-‘

“Do you know the nature of demons?” the Serpent Priest interrupts, without even realizing it.

“…I believe so?” you say, suddenly uncertain.

“A demon is an immortal, a creature of lightless flame and smoking heat, birthed from a primordial pit before the arrival of starlight of sunlight,” the Chaplain says, as if reciting from a tome committed to memory. “They are immortal… But their memories, personalities, egos… They are not. A demon of this sort, of desire… A ‘succubus’… They, in particular, are malleable. They are crafted by the coconscious and unconscious desires of the one who calls upon them.”

You think you recall this from the late Lord Bianchi’s tomes, from his descriptions of the ritual by which he summoned Irinnile in the first place. You nod, hesitantly.

“They cannot die, but when they are ‘slain’, their energies, memories, and personas are dispersed. Lost, forever. A death of ego.”

“That… That isn’t necessary!” you protest, defiant in spite of your upbringing. It would mean, effectively, the end of Irinnile as you now her—an irrational step, without obvious merit. “This demon is bound to me, loyal without question!”

“Is it?” The Chaplain asks, turning back to you. “I understand that this demon is… That it has been useful to you, to the Grand Design, but it is tainted by human weakness… And it holds secrets, secrets that it should not know."

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>>5208974
The Chaplain continues, saying: "Do you know, Infiltrator, that if you were to die, your succubus would yet live? It would go on, ego intact, carrying with it every secret of our Akashic Record which it has bared witness to, and every operational activity in which it has participated?”

“I… Do not understand,” you admit. “Then surely the succubus is a valuable record of operational intelligence?”

“If you DIED,” The Chaplain snaps, “any mammal with the requisite knowledge and the demon’s name could re-summon it and glean every single one of those details with a single commands! And the humans of Hawksong, you tell me, have demonological EXPERTS!”

‘We killed them!’ Irinnile protests. ‘Tell ‘im, babe!’

“They are no more,” you whisper.

“But is the knowledge lost to their Archmage?” The Chaplain asks. “I would wager the answer is less certain. And he suspects us, and knows of your use of such demons, and your connection to the succubus’ first summoner. Yes?”

‘Then we just won’t die!’ Irinnile says, her voice a titch manic. ‘Right? We’re fuckin’ INVINCIBLE, babe! Look at how far we’ve come, together, you ‘n me. Right?!’

“Yes,” you whisper, helpless beneath that piercing, blue-green judgement. “But…”

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>>5208976
“They reflect your desires, your dreams, mitigate and shore up your anxieties.” The Chaplains says, regarding you almost with compassion—with condescending gentleness. “They ingratiate themselves, appealing to your insecurity and loneliness, crafting a façade designed by their very nature to appeal to your weakness… And you, a human-spawn, sadly have no shortage of such weakness.”

The words hit you like a sledgehammer with their implication—that Irinnile’s affection, her affirmations, her love, are all a reflexive adaptation, a simple shadow of your own needs and wants, reflected back at you like a dark mirror. A plot, targeting the most vulnerable—most HUMAN—part of you.

‘Irinnile,’ you ask, looking inward, ‘is this true?’

‘Babe…’

‘Is… Is what we have, what you have shown me and been to me…’

You swallow, staring down at the basin beneath your face, remembering Irinnile’s projected form, her mischievous and lusty smile, her voice, her touch.

‘Was it real?’ you ask.

Irinnile doesn’t say anything.

“Infiltrator,” The Chaplain says, “it MUST be done, for the good of The Grand Design and the Great Conspiracy. I understand that the beast makes this a difficult thing, to sustain its own power, but it must be cut away to make you clean, and to make us all safe.”

“I will lose much,” you mutter. “We all will lose a great deal.”

“We will re-summon it, purified of forbidden knowledge,” The Chaplain reassures you.

‘I won’t remember you!’ Irinnile cries out, silent no longer. ‘I won’t… I’ll be like I was before I ever met you! I won’t be ME! Maybe what we have is, like… Just a part of my camouflage, but it FEELS real! I promise, it does, for me just like for you!’

“Can I… Take a moment to consider this?” you ask.

The Chaplain says nothing. It is a mercy that he humours your impudent request at all, you know.

“Please?” you whisper.

“Infiltrator,” The Chaplain says quietly, but without softeness, “detach yourself from this parasite, now.”

What do you do?
>Surrender Irinnile [will double your heartbreak penalty and cause her ego death]
>Attempt to bargain for Irinnile’s life [make your argument, politesse roll ensues, failure results in your disgrace]
>Invoke the <DIVINE FAVOUR> to grant Irinnile your Gods’ protection and blessing forevermore [expends the <FAVOUR>]
>Write-in

>>5208977
I’m honestly tempted to use up our DIVINE FAVOUR for this…

The gods could also make her part of the Grand Plan. A demon who does not return to the hellscape - but who can only be summoned by those with true blood.

She has been a fantastic ally and is soul-bonded with us

What else could we use the Favour for?

Even if we ask to become a pure-blood or even a serpent priest, we will forever be looked down upon by others given our birth. Better to stay as a infiltrator - maybe even the commander of surface covert operations…

>>5208977
>Attempt to bargain for Irinnile’s life [make your argument, politesse roll ensues, failure results in your disgrace]
Resummon her bound to the Serpent Priest to never say anything and put her in her own body. If we die, she will still have to respond to someone instead of running away with our knowledge.
She still has the partial control OVER THE FUCKING PRINCE and if that control is gone with her ego, the INCUBUS will remain the only demon controling him and if he finds a way to endanger our people, we're triple fucked.

>>>Irinnile doesn’t say anything.
WHAT. How did this not start a heartbreak.

>>5208986
I believe we can still win this one with reason, but please let them summon her in her own body so we will not be sent to hell if we die.

>>5207197
>Reassure Irinnile—she is invaluable, and you cannot begrudge a demon her nature [+affection]

>>5208977
>Attempt to bargain for Irinnile’s life [make your argument, politesse roll ensues, failure results in your disgrace]
If this fails, I'm tempted to use the favor for this, even if this does remove our safety net.

>>5208977
>>Surrender Irinnile [will double your heartbreak penalty and cause her ego death]

>>5208986
Yeah I’m voting for it

>Invoke the <DIVINE FAVOUR> to grant Irinnile your Gods’ protection and blessing forevermore [expends the <FAVOUR>]

>>5208977
>Attempt to bargain for Irinnile’s life [make your argument, politesse roll ensues, failure results in your disgrace]

What's the point of them resummoning her for us now? She'll just pick up more classified knowledge and need to be resummoned again and again. If the only dangerous point is when we die, then wait until we die to do it.

Now to never die...

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>>5209121
>>5209113
>>5209107
>>5209072
>>5209178

Your heart seems to slow to a crawl, its three chambers beating one a minute, an hour. You place your hands on your knees, feeling as if you will throw up into that basin before your smashes brains and blood come to fill it for your pitiful, disgusting mammalian emotional weakness. How could you have been such a fool—such a complete and utter IMBECILE, falling for a demon’s tricks?!

You won’t cry. You’re NOT going to cry.

‘It wasn’t … A trick, ya’ know?’

You look up suddenly, and see not The Chaplain standing there but Irinnile. Her form has shifted, albeit only slightly. She has not hooves, but feet; her red skin is subtly scaled. Her horns are smaller, daintier, her figure and face familiar without being that of anyone you know. That face smiles ruefully at your close scrutiny.

‘It’s, like, a combo of the features of everyone you’ve been attracted to,’ she admits.

‘To better manipulate me?’ you spit.

Irinnile laughs nervously, and shrugs. You feel the pit in your stomach grow.

‘Lispy, it’s not like that,’ she says, kneeling down to cup your face, meeting your eyes with her own brilliant, golden ones, with their eerie shining pupils. ‘I don’t do it on purpose When a succubus gets summoned, we automatically, like… Adapt to the desires of the summoner, or whoever we form a pact with. We become what you want us to be, what you need us to be.’

‘To get the most life-force and leeway from us,’ you say, bluntly.

Irinnile winces, but doesn’t recoil from you. ‘Yeah, yeah. You’re right. But, like… Ain’t that just dating inna’ nutsack? Or, nut-shell, I mean?’

You blink in confusion, so she continues:

‘You hid stuff about yourself from Edwin, lied… Even tried not to let on everything you felt about me. I know that even now, a part of you wants to just say “fuck it” and let the Snakefather out there just get rid of me and be done with me.’

‘Can you blame me?’ you demand.

Irinnile just smiles, and shakes her head.

‘We don’t lie to the ones we love, change ourselves to suit ‘em, because we hate ‘em or think they’re dumb and wanna’ use ‘em up,’ she says, stroking your check; you realize, shamefully, that in your mindscape the tears have begun to fall freely.

‘Then why?’ you whisper.

‘We do it to keep ‘em close to us,’ Irinnile says.

>Reassure Irinnile—she is invaluable, and you cannot begrudge a demon her nature [+affection]
>A belated tie-breaker at a thematically-relevant moment

You stare at her for a moment, then pull her close, pressing your lisp to hers and taking her into your embrace.

‘I won’t begrudge you your nature,’ you tell her, ‘if you’ll forgive me my own.’

Irinnile grins widely, giggling.

‘I love you too,’ she says.

>Irinnile Affection: 100%

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Rolled 4, 7, 5, 10, 20 = 46 (5d20)

>>5209225
You close your eyes, open them again, and all at once you are looking up at The Chaplain again. You aren’t sure how much time has passed, but it can’t have been TOO long, or you would already have had Irinnile ripped away from you by force, or your head smashed open upon the stone, or both.

Time to make your case.

“The succubus cannot be destroyed an recreated in the way your propose,” you say.

“CANNOT?”

“Should not,” you hurriedly amend. “Apologies, Holy One. What I mean is that… The prince of Hawksong carries her influence within him. Without that direct connection, I fear that the Incubus I spoke of will have sole pruview.”

‘L-Lispy!’ Irinnile hisses. ‘That’s not true! I didn’t, like, know how to do the “ectoplasm trick” myself when we blue-balled that blueblood in the bathroom!’

The Chaplain doesn’t know that, though, and this gives him pause.

“With all respect and reverence, Chaplain, what would be the point of slaying and resummoning her now? She'll just pick up more classified knowledge and need to be resummoned again and again.”

“Do you not see how that would be better, more compartmentalized, and thus lower the risk of a leak or information loss?” The Chaplain asks.

“But it would also limit her utility,” you argue—ARGUING, with a SERPENT PRIEST! My, how you have changed. “Her command of her abilities, her understanding of our mode of operation, the strength accumulated along with those memories… All would be compromised. Holy One, what you propose is that we destroy a veteran agent of The Grand Design, in order to instead trained an unreliable, unpredictable novice with reduced impulse control for every mission. It is like taking a skilled Infiltrator and giving them a lobotomy so they cannot be interrogated. You may achieve the desired effect, but the loss of operational efficiency is a CONSIDERABLE trade-off.”

‘Ooo, talk dirty to me,’ Irinnile jokes, but you can feel her underlying tension.

The Chaplain stares at you, considering.

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>>5209235

The Chaplain looks past you, and talks past you, to Roth.

“Have you been tutoring this one?” he asks wryly. “She speaks like a male—no, almost like a real Reptilian.”

The words sting, but they are mitigated somewhat by what Roth says next, surprising you:

“No, Holy One. Her cunning is her own, inborn and innate. Her barbarous blood is clearly no match for the power of our superior and civilized heritage and culture. She is, perhaps, one of the most skilled Infiltrators I have seen in action.”

‘Aww, he does care!’ Irinnile coos.

“…Albeit unconventional, and still in need of supervision at times.”

‘There it is,’ Irinnile pouts.

>20

“Regardless,” The Chaplain says, to you this time, “you have made a compelling case. You shall keep your demon.”

“Th-thank you, Holy One,” you blurt, relief sapping the strength from your limbs as all the tension releases.

“I assume you have given as much thought to how to handle the matter of these ‘Edwin of Engel’ and ‘Mina’ creatures, too?”

You think quickly.

“Edwin of Engel does not know that I am a member of the Master Race, or even that we exist. He thinks me a human demonist from distant surface-lands.”

“But he IS loyal to his society, to some degree, and he knows your ‘Ismena Rosgard’ and ‘Kamunu’ identities. If that man lives, with memories intact, those identities are forever compromised.”

This much is… POTENTIALLY true. But this is Edwin, goodhearted Edwin! He loves you… or, well, loved you. He wouldn’t ever give testimony against you, would he?

“And this ‘Mina’, the cat-monster, she has had her memories meddled with by your magic. Yes? But the one you call ‘Bianchi’, his memories returns with a big enough shock. What if hers do? She was actually made AWARE of the nature of the Conspiracy, at least in part, was she not?”

What do you say?
>You are confident that Edwin and Mina are utterly loyal to you, and will never betray you to the authorities
>You must, reluctantly, agree—both Ismena and Kamunu are compromised identities, and must be forsaken for the safety of your race and the continuance of the Great Conspiracy
>Promise to handle both of them, if you are returned to Hawksong—to monitor the, and to deal with them if it becomes necessary
>Propose that they both be detained, and brought here for questioning and thorough mental re-education
>Write-in

>>5209260
>You are confident that Edwin and Mina are utterly loyal to you, and will never betray you to the authorities
If there was a chance of betrayal, we would take care of them, of course.

I'm also tempted by
>You must, reluctantly, agree—both Ismena and Kamunu are compromised identities, and must be forsaken for the safety of your race and the continuance of the Great Conspiracy
so if more anons want to shed Ismena's skin, maybe even seek becoming a full-blood with the help from Henzler, I'll support this vote. I'll miss Mina tho.

>>5209260
>>You are confident that Edwin and Mina are utterly loyal to you, and will never betray you to the authorities
>>Promise to handle both of them, if you are returned to Hawksong—to monitor the, and to deal with them if it becomes necessary

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>>5209260
>“Have you been tutoring this one?” he asks wryly.
If he only knew...

>>5209260
>You must, reluctantly, agree—both Ismena and Kamunu are compromised identities, and must be forsaken for the safety of your race and the continuance of the Great Conspiracy

not that we can't dip back into them from time to time, when we know they won't be traced back to the new identities we create

>>5208977
>>Invoke the <DIVINE FAVOUR> to grant Irinnile your Gods’ protection and blessing forevermore [expends the <FAVOUR>]

>>5209338
[You're a vote behind, anon.]

>>5209290
>>5209300
>>5209316
You take a moment to consider this second inquiry. Unlike Irinnile, neither Edwin nor Mina are bound to you—not even in your control. Edwin, for his part… Well, it seems as if he doesn’t even wish to be in your life. Who is to say what he might do in the future, as tales of your attacks on the Paladins and the Tower come to light? And what if Mina learns what you have done to her, what you have kept from her, and deems you liability to her business?

But… No. You have been through this with both of them and, even if the exact situation changes and evolves, you are confident in your emotional control of both these mammals. SO, too, are you strategically (and perhaps emotionally) invested in your identities as Ismena and Kamunu, and in the allies you have won in those guises.

“I can manage them both,” you say, attempting to project a greater confidence than you feel. “I will deal with them, or abandon those identities, as required.”

“And if they turn on you and reveal you before you can stop them?” aks The Chaplain.

You shut your eyes a moment, willing Irinnile to shift your shape into something else—to a half-orc, a half-elf, to a human of a different hue, and back again.

“I… See,” says The Chaplain.

You resist the urge to smirk smugly at the reaction, averting your gaze instead and simply describing this as “Another reason I do not wish to dispatch with the demon.”

“Well, if you are as capable as your Dragonblooded colleague seems to believe that you are, and as your performance demonstrates… I will trust in you to correctly assess, and to MANAGE, this liability.”

“Yes, Holy One,” you say, bowing your head lower.

The knob of the Serpent priest’s cudgel-staff taps the back of your head, gently, and then each of your shoudlers in turn.

“I accept your confession,” The Chaplain says, “and deem you worthy to live, and to carry on in your service. Rise.”

You do so, and a moment later—when they are given permission to do so—your companions do as well.

“Rest,” The Chaplain instructs. “We will discuss this further, soon. Await my summons.”

You all bow your heads in thanks, waiting for The Chaplain and his Silkscale companion to leave before lifting your heads and looking to each other. Roth and Alhazred both radiate the same exhaustion and relief that you feel inside.

>>5209813
“What happens now?” Alhazred asks.

“We do as instructed,” Roth answer, perfunctory. “We rest, and regroup when, and if, requested.”

“And what of The Great One?” Alhazred asks. “And the… Quasi-degenerate?”

It is a good question, but one none of you are qualified or authorized to answer. It is in the hand of greater Reptilians than any of you. For now, you must do as you were instructed, rest, and wait, and ready yourselves for your next instruction or assignment.

The three of you leave the room together, but split apart almost immediately. There is no ‘hotel’ or ‘home’ here, no ‘inn’ or ‘apartment’. You are in a rendezvous point, a forward base, and there are only cell-like barracks for all below the highest echelons. For your part, you spend the night…

>With Roth, ‘paying him back’ for standing up for you and discussing your plans for the martial dangers which await you back in Hawksong
>With Alhazred, getting the know him better and discussing theories for how the matter of the Dragonborn, the dwarven master stone, and your other assets and relics could be employed
>Alone, collecting your thoughts and celebrating your victories with only Irinnile for company
>Checking on your Hawksong thralls, and perhaps dream-delving
>Wandering the winding passages of this place, too filled with nervous energy to find torpor
>Write-in

>>5209815
>Thank Roth for backing us up and Alhazred for his work and coming with us too
>Checking on your Hawksong thralls
Tell Henzler to not return to the Hawksong, make her wait for us in the house near Sparrowtown where we made the pact. Tell her to be on the lookout for young humans travelling alone, and if she finds a suitable one - take some of their blood stealthily, only kill if she fails to do it without noticing. This is assuming she can put someone to sleep with one of her "tools".
If we get lucky, we could finish this pact even before we return to Hawksong.
>Wandering the winding passages of this place
Pet the owlbear if he's still outside, so that the full-blooded Reptilians know not to fuck with us. Maybe take the dog and Hirschel for a walk. Take the sights in, see if anything changed during our absence. It's a moody place and I'd like to read more about it.

>>5209815
>>With Roth, ‘paying him back’ for standing up for you and discussing your plans for the martial dangers which await you back in Hawksong

>>5210105
I don't think that's a good idea right now...

>>5210096
Supporting

>>5209815
>Wandering the winding passages of this place, too filled with nervous energy to find torpor

yay exploring home

>>5210096
>>5210105
>>5210158
You psychically wave away Irinnile’s preferred method of displaying gratitude—a self-serving and time-consuming method—but you still resolve to thank both Roth and Alhazred. Unfortunately, the two males seem to automatically sort themselves by their social standing, and they head in different direction. Your eyes flit between them as you debate who to attend to first, and eventually you settle for a slightly-to-loud cry of:

“Thank you! Thank you both!”

Both looks back at that. Alhazred lifts his eyebrows in quietly-amused confusion. Roth simply snorts and rolls his eyes before turning away and hurrying on . A few other Reptilians, milling about, watch the undignified display of emotionality with judgement in their gaze…

But you have passed through the judgement of a far greater authority already. You are untroubled. As if to make a point, you step boldly through the small crowd of purebloods and (fighting instinctive terror, which still coils about your heart and squeezes as you approach), you PET the owlbear. The chimera makes a curious, low chitter as you pat its head. You get the feeling that the bid-beast is almost as uncomfortable as you, but you sense the shock, awe, and grudging respect which the display of confidence and control elicits in your fellow Reptilians.

That’ll show these Superior Ones that, whatever their inborn advantages, nobody fucks with The Infiltrator Sometimes Known as Ismena Rosgard!

Dominance thus reasserted, and confidence re-established, you discover that you are still not entirely at-ease. Certainly, you don’t think that you could achieve the dreamless sleep of a good Reptilian torpor—not yet. Your body is tried, but your mind is racing a mile a minute. You decide that walk through this dim, subterranean realm will help to settle your nerves—an provide you the opportunity to seek out somewhere where you can meditate in private, and extend your telepathic call to a thrall and thus tidy up a loose end.

You walk the empty passages of this outpost—an abandoned city of your people from eons past, preserved against the passage of time by the encapsulation of the earth. Your hands trace the carvings of dignified, stoic Reptilian expression, swirling patterns, meaningful glyphs. Murals abound on every surface, some worn down or chipped away, others restored. Star-signs dot the roof and antechambers—gathering-places and ritual-rooms, occupying the largest caverns. These false-constellations, carved into the rock and filled with gems to replicate the true sky above, commemorate great events, locking their date in place so that the stars shall always be right to remember your race’s greatest victories… Both before and after the decline of the first Age of Scales.

>>5210219

‘I bet they make a little constellation for you, babe,’ Irinnile enthuses.

You smile, chuckling slightly. It is a wondrous notion, but it is fantasy… Isn’t it? To have even gotten the limited praise and respect which you were afforded today is almost unheard of for one of your disgraced breeding. Still… It is something to strive towards, and the particular chamber in which you now find yourself is blissfully abandoned. It provides a perfect space to attend to some meditation.

You lean against the wall, beneath an altar to a many-branched, almost tree-like effigy of a Dark God; of course, each ‘branch’ and ‘root’ of the superficially tree-like idol ends in a slim, toothy face, with ruby-red eyes. You close your own eyes and extend your own tendrils, such as they are, and reach out to the Head Chimercist, Henzler, across the gulf of physical space.

>>5210220
When you find the peculiar mage-woman, occupying her mind as a passenger in a coach, she is encamped back at a familiar farmhouse. You remember the place and its people well: a late farmer’s former wife, and his son (her stepson), now lovers to you and to one another under your corrosive influence. The woman’s younger children, a boy and a girl, stare in muted fascination as Henzler flips through her notes and jots down still more, dispassionately spooning a hearty soup into her mouth like fuel for a fire.

‘Henzler,’ you whisper between your minds. ‘Can you hear me?’

Henzler stops writing, shutting her alchemical diary with a snap, and sets down her spoon.

“I can,” she says aloud, drawing confused looks from all four of the other humans in the farmhouse—they can hear her, but not you.

‘There hasss been a change of plans,’ you say. ‘Do NOT return to Hawksssong. Sstay in the booniess for now.’

Henzler’s confusion and frustration is palpable—only a prior command of yours stops a verbal mutiny: “WHAT? I thought the entire purpose of you leaving me up here was to have access to my laboratory, my research materials, and my equipment?!”

‘It iss too rissky, with the current climate in Hawkssong,’ you tell her. In truth, you’ve ben second-guessing the decision to send her back to that metropolis ever sicnce you did so. ‘For now, focusss on acquiring ssampless where you are and in the surrounding communities. Human ssampless, as non-lethally and inconsspicuoussssly as posssible.’

‘I… Don’t understand,’ she says, forcing civility. ‘I don’t think YOU understand. I don’t need more HUMAN blood. I need a better understanding of draconic and reptilian-humanoid genetics and of how to best chimericize them to a host. It’s blood like that of You and your FRIENDS which would serve my purposes… And, to better understand THAT, I need a proper laboratory!’

‘Do as I command,’ you admonish her, drawing a flinch.

‘…Of course, yes. But! The point stands. You wish to improve or iterate upon the green dragon chimera, yes? Then I NEED a laboratory, sample and sanitary, and stocked with proper equipment to run my experiments.’

The human female is insistent, in spite of your control. It truly must eb important, both to her and to the mission you have assigned her. What do you do?
>Allow Henzler to return to Hawksong, and hope your social engineering and ectoplasmic puppeteering can help her evade investigation
>Instruct your other thrall—the halfling cook of your human grandfather—to steal money, purchase equipment, and to deliver it to the farmhouse, so Henzler can continue her experiments there
>Summon Henzler to the subterranean lair of your Master Race, and attempt to convince The Chaplain to allow her a research space among your people’s fleshweavers
>Forget the dragon-hybridization research for now, and assign her a new task [such as?]
>Write-in

>>5210215
[Sorry, missed this post. I'll be sure to further your exploration next post!]

>>5210223
>Tell her you'll see about having her stuff retrieved from Hawksong as soon as she won't be arrested on sight, unless she thinks she can singlehandedly storm the city.

>During our wandering check out the fleshweaker area, see how suitable that would be for her

You know, we could always try having her transform herself into a Reptilian so she can fit in down here. We already have the degenerate transformation down, and it only needs to look the part, not truly make her a full Reptilian.

>>5210223
>Tell her you'll see about having her stuff retrieved from Hawksong as soon as possible. You appreciate her enthusiasm, but don't want her captured.
All true. Tell her to calm down, we're trying our best, which is also best for her.
>Instruct your other thrall—the halfling cook of your human grandfather—to steal money, purchase equipment
We don't want Henzler back near Hawksong now.
I'd vote to get Goblins involved to get the funds, but getting favors with them through a proxy could prove difficult.
>Tell her to get human blood, so you two can make the farmer's wife younger once you get there
It's will also be another opportunity for Ismena to learn the technique.


Bianchi wasn't ectoplasmed, correct? Also just to make sure- we don't have any control over Prince?

>>5210330
[Oh, totally didn't even think of goblins. I mean, if you could swing it...

And correct, Bianchi was nat-20'd with mesmerism, but not ectoplasmed. To your knowledge, nobody has or can overpower the effects of ectoplasmic puppeteering.]

>>5210262
>>5210330
Alright, no third vote seems incoming, so I'm going to try to reconcile these two

‘I appreccciate your enthusssiassm,’ you say, ‘and I will sssee about having your materialsss retrieved from Hawksssong as ssoon as you will not be arresssted on ssight… Unlesss you think you can ssinglehandedly sstorm the cccity?’

Henzler deeps a deep, steadying breath,a nd you see her vision bob in a curt nod.

“You’re speaking with her now, aren’t you?” asks the wife of the late farmer—Gisela, was it?

Henzler doesn’t deign tor eply.

“Does she require anything more of us?” the woman asks, wringing her hands, looking deep into Henzler’s eyes as if to find you in them. Her stepson—boyfriend? lover?—rests a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugs it off.

Well… That’s a good question. Do you?
>Send one of these pact-bound humans to Hawksong, to retrieve some of Henzler’s things
>Send one of them to make contact with the goblin thieves and hobgoblin smugglers of Hawksong’s Goblintown slums, on your behalf, and thus arrange a meeting
>Have the humans stay put and assist Henzler in her youth-restoration and muscle-enhancement research, luring in or otherwise ‘acquiring’ humans to use as test subjects or blood sources
>Nah, no need to complicate matters—they can just keep putting the mad mage up while she attends to your commands herself—Henzler is the most competent among them
>Write-in

>>5210854
With Henzler and the farmers thus addressed, you turn your mind to other matters… or, well, you try to do so. Henzler has given you much to think about and, truthfully, improving the Dragonborn or creating a perfected successor would go a long way towards further edifying the elites of the Serpent Priesthood to your worth. And it could—dare you consider it—even give you the opportunity to become a true, full-blodded member of the Master Race!

‘Lispy, I love ya’’ Irinnile says, ‘but you really think they’re gonna’ just, like, forget your mom got porked by a human? That Father Lizardlips guy seemed, uh, nice, I GUESS… But not exactly like that kinda’ mortal to just forget where you came from…’

You wait for it.

‘…And then you’d have no tits or ass!’

There it is. You roll your eyes. Still… A valid point exists among the flirtation and fiendish faffing-about.

What do you do next?
>Go deeper into the caverns, seeking out fleshweavers and inspecting their facilities to see if they would be suitable for Henzler
>Enter the mind of your other Hawksong thrall, the halfling cook, to get a feel for how things are going in Hawksong (and perhaps to employ her to other, more sinister ends)
>Dream-delve a little—seeing that peculiar ‘couple’ in the farmhouse made you think fo Edwin, and you want to pay him a visit
>dream-delve to pay Zi the Goblin a visit, and to recruit her aid
>get some rest—it grows late, you grow weary, and you expect you will need your rest for the day ahead if tonight was any indication
>Write-in

>>5210854

>Nah, no need to complicate matters—they can just keep putting the mad mage up while she attends to your commands herself—Henzler is the most competent among them

>Go deeper into the caverns, seeking out fleshweavers and inspecting their facilities to see if they would be suitable for Henzler
maybe the physical form isn't as important as the recognition. if we're pro enough perhaps they'll make us an honorary full Reptilian

>Dream-delve a little—seeing that peculiar ‘couple’ in the farmhouse made you think fo Edwin, and you want to pay him a visit
:'(

>>5210854
>Send the son to make contact with the goblin thieves and hobgoblin smugglers of Hawksong’s Goblintown slums, on your behalf, and thus arrange a meeting
>Tell mother you will need a young human's blood to make her young again
Man let's do this shit asap please.
>>5210856
>Enter the mind of your other Hawksong thrall, the halfling cook, to get a feel for how things are going in Hawksong (and perhaps to employ her to other, more sinister ends)

Did we tell the Chaplain about fucking roth, dicking the goblin and keeping Henzler on surface? How much does he know about Dragonborn and Henzler? How much about Quasi-Degenerate?
Sorry for late vote!

>>5211257

>Did we tell the Chaplain about fucking roth, dicking the goblin
[It wasn't operationally-relevant, so no.]

>and keeping Henzler on surface?

[It was operationally relevant, so yes.]

>How much does he know about Dragonborn and Henzler? How much about Quasi-Degenerate?

[Everything that you knows, except maybe your full suite of motivations]

>>5210915
>>5211257
[I have an early meeting at work, so I'll hold off on the write-up for now. That and so other people can hopefully vote and resolve the tie.]

>>5211275
So does he know we want to recreate the Dragonborn? That the current one could be fixed if we didn't "borrow" the fleshweaver?

>>5211284
[The possibilities have been discussed.]

>>5210915
Supporting this

>>5210915
>>5211257
>>5211786
>Nah, no need to complicate matters—they can just keep putting the mad mage up while she attends to your commands herself—Henzler is the most competent among them
>Tell mother you will need a young human's blood to make her young again

You appease the Henzler and Gisela. You tell the farmwife that she must keep Henzler fed and watered, and allocate a room to her, and you challenge Henzler to focus upon the puzzle of how to de-age and preserve a human—namely, Gisela. This intellectual obstacle seems to hold the mage’s mania in check—not that she could rebel against you if you told her to just stare at a wall and do nothing for a week, anyway. It also seems to appeal to Gisela’s desire to please you, which you suspect to be rooted in a desire to not be forgotten and abandoned, and to sooner earn her reward. Smart woman, that one.

>Dream-delve a little—seeing that peculiar ‘couple’ in the farmhouse made you think fo Edwin, and you want to pay him a visit
However, watching the male human, Stefan, attempting to comfort his new mate make you think wistfully of YORU human lover. Against your better judgement, but with Irinnile’s gleeful encouragement—

‘We gonna’ dream-fuck him? Oooo, can’t wait to get some Eddie in me!’

—you return to the realm of dreams once more. You open your eyes just long enough to clear Henzler’s perspective from your sight and your mind, and then you close them again, delving into the astral plane between life and death, in the collective spiritual unconscious of those mortal beings who will inevitably traverse from one to the other: the dreamscape!

Here, deep in the earth and surrounded by Reptilians, the dreamscape is… Different. In Hawksong, it was a misty place full of emotional haze, a nebula illuminated by the sparkling stars of sleeping mammals’ own private fears and fantasies. Here, there is just the waking world, gray and lifeless. Irinnile appears at your side, her hand in yours and her eyes sparkling with mischief, but even her delight to go on a ‘dream date’ with you is dulled by the sheer dimness of this destitute area of the world.

‘You folks, uh, really know how ta’ party,’ she quips.

You glare at Irinnile for her implicit criticism of the Master Race but… Well, she isn’t wrong. As she guides you through the cavernous halls and narrow tunnels, back to the surface and to Hawksong, you pass by waking and sleeping Reptilians, they bring precious little liveliness to this dimension: the waking ones are hardly shades; the sleeping ones provide a fiery glow of the dimmest calibre, like a dying fire. You are eager to escape the confines of efficient, dreamless torpor, and to rise into the sky above.

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>>5212019
It is hardly past midnight, you would wager, but you are further away from Hawksong and from Edwin of Engel than you normally are when you undertake an excursion. Conscious that you cannot remain in this realm beyond dawnlight without risking difficulty and danger, you allow Irinnile to take hold of you and to guide you on leather wings through the cloudy skies and past sparkling clusters of dream-filled human hamlets, back to the great pillar of sleepless hopes and anxieties that IS Hawksong. Even here, in this aspect of reality, it remains a shining beacon—‘the city on the hill’.

In the dreamscape, spaces are less literal, less physical, and travel is usually faster... But you discover that it is a difficult thing to move across great, dreamless expanses, far from mortal minds. The sparsely-traveled night-time highway is a particularly difficult stretch, dark even against your eyes and Irinnile’s, and thick like turbid water. Still, Irinnile half-flies and half-swims through it, and as you approach Hawksong’s outlying areas you find yourself able to breath freely again… And shortly thereafter, you are at your destination, buoyed on currents of human unconscious. You have eyes for only one ember in this blaze, though. You well know the way to the Engel Estate—you’ve walked it on foot, and flown you way to it in dreams, many a time.

Dawn is a scant hour or two away by then, but you know that time moves slowly here… And truly, even a moment to see Edwin again, to touch him, hold him… It would be worth it! You could find such comfort in even the briefest such moment, and you know he would, too. He is a worrier, after all—a gentle, protective creature. Knowing the climate you have plunged his people into, and with what HE believes he knows of YOU, you imagine he must be worried sick!

But… He isn’t home.

You and Irinnile hover above his bed, empty of his familiar, lanky shape. Nor do you see the pointed cap of the would-be wizard hanging on his bedpost, a sign that perhaps he awoke to go to the elaborate estate’s very modern indoor toiletry-room.

‘You don’t think…’ Irinnile begins.

The thought occurs to you, too. You recall hearing rom Fynn, Edwin’s merchant-mogul father, that Edwin had been spending a great dela of time with the Tower Staffer Paula, to whom you introduced him by way of a tripartite date… And, on at least one occasion, steamy threesome. You’d sensed affection for her in him since then, too—musings about what could have been, had he not been so wrapped-up in your much more chaotic world.

‘That son of a BITCH!’ Irinnile shrieks. ‘He can’t do this to us! Let’s go fuck ‘em both up!’

‘We’re miles away,’ you remind her.

‘Let’s at least give ‘em nightmare, make ‘em pay!’

>>5212021
You don’t respond right away. You are, to your embarrassment, overcome with emotion.

<HEARTBREAK: 85%>

And… Well, dawn is almost upon you, and you don’t KNOW that Edwin is with Paula, or… What they might be doing, if he is. Maybe, MAYBE, it’s all innocent. Maybe… Maybe if it ISN’T innocent, he’s better off this way.

What do you do?
>Leave Hawksong, and let sleeping humans lie where they may
>Seek Edwin out, vengeance in your heart, ready to turn this traitor’s slumber into a nightmare like he’ll never forget
>Go to Edwin, and spend what precious time you can with him—even if only in dreams—for you love him still
>Pay a visit to someone else’s dreams, instead [who?]
>Write-in

We'll address the fleshweavers and their facilities in the next post

>>5212023
>Go to Edwin, and spend what precious time you can with him—even if only in dreams—for you love him still
T_T

>>5212023
>Go to Edwin, and spend what precious time you can with him—even if only in dreams—for you love him still

>>5212023
>Leave Hawksong, and let sleeping humans lie where they may
WHO CARES

>>5212030
>>5212308
>>5212322
You’re inclined to just leave Hawksong altogether. Who even cares about these silyl creatures, this accursed city? You and Edwinn… Whatever you had, it’s over, done with, and that’s GOOD!

‘Yeah?’ Irinnile asks, skeptical.

‘…Fine, take me to Edwin.’

You cave, and Irinnile dutifully obliges your broken heart. She takes your hand gently in hers again, pulling you up into the air above and towards the Initiate’s Village, towards the bottom-floor suite of an old, twisting, impossibly-coloured apartment-block in this highly-magical borough of the great human metropolis. There, you find Paula… And, indeed, you find Edwin.

However, you don’t find quite what you expect. Edwin is NOT in her bed, nor is Paula.

‘They doing some freaky, kinky, fuck-on-ever-surface stuff?’ Irinnile asks indelicately.

You glare at her, drawing a sheepish and apologetic grin and a nervous laugh, but you sigh and the two of you hover about the home. Eventually, you find them standing around the back, talking. You can’t make out the words across the gulf between waking and sleeping worlds, but, well, both are fully clothed… And neither of their body language communicates eroticism.

Edwin is hunched slightly, leaning against the wall, robes pulled tight around him and hat more crumpled than usual. Paula is next to him, nodding as if listening, occasionally replying near as you can tell from their half-translucent shades. She reaches out to touch him, once, but it is a gesture of comfort—not of amorous intent.

‘Huh,’ Irinnile notes, ‘this is a lot less fun OR infuriating than I was hoping.’

For your part, you can’t help but hope that maybe this is indicative of a non-romantic relationship… That maybe, MAYBE, Edwin is confiding his concerns and worries about you with this mutual friend and occasionally secondary lover, rather than… than replacing you. Maybe there’s still hope?

‘Babe…’

‘I know, I know,’ you reply to irinnile’s cautionary tone. ‘I shouldn’t get my hopes up, only to be dashed again.’

‘Uh, okay, yeah,’ Irinnile says, blinking. ‘Like, I guess? That’s good advice. I just… I meant “babe, dawn’s on its way and we gotta’ hustle!”’

You look up and, damnit, the demoness is right. You sigh, reaching out to cup Edwin’s cheeks, willing him to feel the spectral touch of your astral projection… But knowing he can’t and won’t. Then, you leave, carried on Irinnile’s wings in what humans call ‘bridal fashion’. You race the sun all the way back home, cognizant of the dangers of being trapped in this realm beyond the scope of night, when Irinnile’s powers here will fail.

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>>5212455

When you ‘awaken’ in your body, you are stiff, light-headed, hungry… Still tired. Youa re also resolved to investigate the matter of the fleshweavers, though, and of their facilities.

‘Could get breakfast first?’ Irinnile suggests. ‘Maybe catch a nap? You Reptoids, like, barely sleep anyway.’

The idea of being caught sleeping, of being accused of human-blooded laziness and beaten by a superior, doesn’t exactly appeal to you. No, you force yourself to your fee and head out, attending first to:
>The ration lines
>The fleshweavers
>Alhazred and/or Roth—you wish to gather your closest allies to help you plan
>Write-in

>>5212456
>The ration lines

time for reptoid cuisine

>>5212456
>The ration lines
Grab something quickly and
>The fleshweavers
Time to hussle.

>>5212612
Supporting

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>>5212471
>>5212612
>>5212747
It would be wrong to say that your people do not have ‘cuisine’. You are an ancient, storied culture, and you have had a great deal of time to refine the art of rearing, preparing, presenting, and even lightly spicing meats and other animal products to bring out the full richness of flavour.

However, to say that this particular FORWARD BASE of your people was a bit lacking… Well, that would be reasonable, you think. The chef (if such a word can be applied to the female Steeltalon who slaps the slab of meat upon your tray, barely soaked in a marinade and lumpy with irregular cysts) seems just as aware of this as you are, her glare daring you to say anything about it.

“What sort of animal is—”

“Rust-monster,” she says, flatly. “It’s what we can find without a surface excursion. That and smaller creatures, sufficient to grind into paste for meatloafs. That’s tomorrow’s meal.”

It is… Certainly rich in iron, you’ll give it that. Almost as chewy, too, though Irinnile shapeshifts you some shredding teeth to assist.

<WANT: 15>

Your dream-expedition ahs left HER hunger a little piqued, as well… But there is no breeding-pit here, and none of the other operatives are in-season.

‘Woah, woah, slow down,’ Irinnile interrupts your thoughts. ‘B-b-b-b—’

‘Breeding pits, yes,’ you acknowledge, swallowing a gulp of food. ‘For those who would seek to sate their needs and produce young, but who do not have the status to select a mate in a discriminate fashion.’

‘Well WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?’ she enthuses, practically taking control of you then and there…

But you wear the diadem, and you have <CALRITY>, at least with her hunger still subdued.

‘They’re very deep down,’ you say, ‘far from the forward base. We do not have time.’

And anyway… None will mate with a Degenerate. Well, not publicly, not where they can be discovered, and NEVER in such forms of copulatory activity which could conceivably pollute their bloodline.

Even sitting here, simply eating, you draw glares and glowers of disgust from other diners. You carefully avoid eye-contact, but you must be out-of-practice with social norms, for you accidentally hold one male gaze just a little too long: a Silkscale, like your mother. He is at a table with colleagues, fellows of his own clan, and they egg him on to make something of it. He rises, advances. You sigh.

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>>5213276
“You’re the Degenerate who came back from the surface, yes?” he asks, brusque with authority.

“Yes,” you acknowledge, as you must.

“There is no realistic way for you to have attained all the loot you brought with you, and to tame those creatures,” he says. It is NOT a question.

You say nothing. What can you say? But then he reaches to snatch the diadem from your forehead.

“These items should eb relinquished to those who deserve them, not poisoned by association with human filth. They belong to real Reptilians!”

You stand up automatically, dodging the clumsy grab, but this merely draws his anger. His friends watch, not helping him nor calling him off—they are dispassionate, as is proper for your people, but plainly amused and interested in how this plays out.

What do you do?
>Put this foolish male in his place, as you once did Roth, with your savage wit and a succinct summary of all that you (not he) have accomplished and been acknowledged for
[intimidation]
>Apologize for any offence you caused and TRY to talk him out of his demands to take your magical diadem… But surrender it if you must [politesse]
>Kick his pure-blooded behind with your surface-honed martial arts—he WILL not humiliate you like this, after you’ve come so far and proven yourself to the Serpent priests and Dark Gods themselves! [melee]
>Flee—displaying cowardice, and weakness, but avoiding a confrontation and hurrying along to the fleshweavers [stealth to avoid pursuit]
>Write-in

>>5213278
>Put this foolish male in his place, as you once did Roth, with your savage wit and a succinct summary of all that you (not he) have accomplished and been acknowledged for
Just put this scaled embarassment in his place. If it doesn't work:
>Blind him with mentalism
I bet he also thinks Degenerates can't command magic.

It's a shame what happened to our race, with these inbred imbeciles now acting just like the surface apes they say they loathe so much for their weak animal behavior.

>>5213278
>Put this foolish male in his place, as you once did Roth, with your savage wit and a succinct summary of all that you (not he) have accomplished and been acknowledged for
[intimidation]
If that fails
>Apologize for any offence you caused and TRY to talk him out of his demands to take your magical diadem…

We ain’t giving him our shit though, so will support >>5213524’s mentalism play if all else fails.

Rolled 18, 1, 2, 5, 3, 7, 18, 3, 15, 1, 4, 18, 18 = 113 (13d20)

>>5213524
>>5213604
[2 for intimidation (first resort), 5 for politesse (higher DC if you fail intimidation, second resort), 5 for mentalism (if all else fails), one mystery die.]

>>5213740
We can still flash some glitter to horrify those shitbrains with the idea of Degenerate possessing magic!
>18 18 18 18
Is this Dark Gods trying to speak to us?

>>5213740
>>5213757

You stare at this Silkscale male—a member of a clan known for subtlety, grasping and clawing at your belongings like a most indelicate ape-man of the surface might do. It’s… Depressing.

“…Why do you look at me like that, Degenerate? Do you not remember your place?”

“Do YOU?” you shoot back, causing him to pause and to stare at your defiance. “Is this how The Master race behaves? How a SILSKCALE behaves? I have been tutored all my days in how to lessen my human degeneracy, to subdue and weaken it. The end result is a honed form of myself, and the successes you see before you. I, who have journeyed to the surface and back again, been judged a prized Infiltrator by Holy Ones and Dragonblooded Ones who far outrank either of us, and have brought back tangible spoils to better our race’s position.”

“So you say,” he says, again insinuating deceit.

“What have YOU done?” you ask, pointedly. “Tell me now, list your accomplishments! Show me your spoils, tell me your deeds! Maybe we can both go speak our peace to The Chaplain, and see ourselves judged upon the Stone of Judgement? When you no doubt surpass me in every conceivable way, as you OUGHT to given your genetic advantages and your sex, he will smash my head in and pass this diadem you so prize to you for YOUR return to the most prestigious and dangerous human stronghold on the surface! What say you?”

>18

The Silskscale male flinches, and though he attempts to adjust his posture and to bluster a response, his initial hesitation to take up your bet draws whispers and murmurs from those who bore witness to it—including his friends.

“You…” He hisses lowly. “You go too far.”

“Return to your table,” you say, smiling slightly. “I will accept your mercy in not showing me up, oh-so-gracious that you are.”

You avert your eyes again, but so too do you cross them—a sow of brattiness that makes Irinnile cackle and the Silkscale fume as he slinks back to his fellows, defeated. About half-way there, he uses the apparent deference you showed—your crossed eyes were visible only to him—to help salvage the situation…

>18

Which has the added benefit of avoiding the appearance of racially-defiant impudence to any other watching highborn Reptilian. No more such confrontations for you, thanks! You even successfully resist the urge to show off some glitzy glamour, wowing and shocking the audience in this food-hall with a display of 'impossible' Degenerate magic. Instead you sit back down, finish your sad ‘meal’, and depart for the deeper dungeons of this dark realm… For the Fleshweavers.

>>5213761

Your people use that term, ‘Fleshweaver’, to describe what the humans of Hawksong call a ‘Chimericist’. However, your race take a very different approach to the art. Rather than a sterile environment replete with tubes, vials, beakers, and magical fires and freezing units as Henzler has described to you, your Fleshweavers (all Serpent Priests, you note) stand around a circular ritual chamber beneath a symbolic mural depicting the Dark od of Lies and Manipulated Truths, and around a great and towering silo-cauldron.

‘What’s that smell?’ Irinnile asks, as she uses your nose to sniff the air, and then scrunches it. ‘Smels like…’

‘Blood,’ you answer. ‘Human blood, in great quantities.’

The Serpent Priests all stare at you in distaste as you enter, and one approaches you quite rapidly to shoo you away.

“This is no place for you ilk, Degenerate!” the Holy One tells you. “begone! Begone!”

You keep your eyes respectfully low, your voice soft and non-confrontational, but you hold your ground. You explain who you are… And what you seek.

What is it you approach them asking?
>You have some Fleshweaving ability yourself, which you wish to hone by learning of their craft
>You seek permission for a human thrall with foreign Fleshweaving experience to use their facilities for the good of your people
>You desire to take a malformed heir to The Great Green Dargon and to modify him, making him whole and truly great
>You wish to create your own Dragonborn, following Henzler’s suggestion or theirs or some combination thereof… And to thus give rise to a mentally and physically perfected successor to the creature above
>You want to know if it is possible, through their work, to make a Degenerate into a true Reptilian—after all, you made a human into a False Degenerate!
>Write-in

>>5213762
Assuming we told them we're the one who brought boons yesterday,
>You desire to take a malformed heir to The Great Green Dragon and to modify him, making him whole and truly great
>(If applicable) Ask them to take a look at and judge the Quasi-Degenerate

Admitting we want to leave our duty as a human replica and thus a honed espionage tool to ascend for a purely egoistic gain is not exactly the greatest reason for disturbing Serpent Priests, lmao.

>>5213761
>t'was a roll for complications
>You even successfully resist the urge to show off some glitzy glamour, wowing and shocking the audience.
OOF. Pardon me, I'm a show-off.
Counterpoint: You made a typo in Great Green Dragon.

>>5213786
[Oh anon, I didn't make A typo, I made SEVERAL typos.]

>>5213762
>You desire to take a malformed heir to The Great Green Dargon and to modify him, making him whole and truly great

damn I underestimated the discrimination

>>5213823
Was there any way for us to make it clear to you, anon? Genuinely asking since I saw it coming in the votes, but straightforward explanations usually just get ignored.

>>5213886
Definitely a variety of ways, but nothing you were capable of doing. Genuinely explaining since you genuinely asked.

>>5213934
Is that cause of my bluntness/autism or unrelated?

>>5213980
Very likely the first

>>5213762
>>You desire to take a malformed heir to The Great Green Dargon and to modify him, making him whole and truly great

>>5213762
>>You want to know if it is possible, through their work, to make a Degenerate into a true Reptilian—after all, you made a human into a False Degenerate!

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>>5214142
>>5214077
>>5213823
>>5213786
When you explain your purpose for coming here, and they realize that you are THAT Degenerate, the Fleshweavers’ flustered outrage diminishes.

“To mend the heir to the Great Dragon Dragon?” their apparent leader murmurs. It is apparent from his tone that he deems it a worthy cause.

“I have begun some… tentative experimentation to this end,” you proffer. “Using a human agent, bound to my will, I have learned much of how the Dragonborn—this Great One—was created, and how we might go about mending it.”

His draws scoffs and hisses of ridicule.

“A human? What human agent cold have any use to us?”

“She is a fleshweaver fo sorts herself,” you note.

“A human FEMALE, no elss? And claiming to be a fleshweaver? By what right?!”

“Well, they sue a different term,” you say patiently—as patiently as you can manage. “As to her qualifications, she did MAKE the Dragonborn, in her mage-facility, in the human city which was assigned to Infiltrate.”

This draws an awkward, confused silence as they process the information.

“What has this ape suggested?” another Fleshweaver asks, though with a concerted effort to appear as if he is merely humouring you rather than taking genuine interest.

You relate what Henzler ahs taught you—from her rambling impromptu lectures, her answers to your actual questions, and your experiments together. The Fleshweavers are all horrified as you recount the creation of your ‘False Degenerate’—you knew they would be—but they fall silent when you explain the genesis of that experiment:

“It was an attempt to learn how to extend youth—the reversal of senescence, and the preservation of vigor. This could…” You pause, lapsing into guesswork that is honestly beyond your ken. “It could be sued to reverse some of the deterioration of the Great One’s body, in tandem with magic meant to restore or regrow his removed wings, and his misshapen arm.”

“Could it?” one of the Fleshweavers mocks. “How should you know?!”

You don’t, and you avert your eyes downwards. A part of you sort of hoped that the False Degenerate would be central to their work on the true project of the Dragonborn’s repair—that, in mending the heir of the Great Green Dragon, they might unlock secrets to alleviate the prejudice which has surrounded you since your (not as glorious as you’d hoped) return.

However, it is then that another one of the Fleshweavers placed a hand upon the robes of the one who chastised you.

“This work is beyond healing, beyond the creation of Amulets of Disguise…” he says, loathe to admit it. After all, these ideas came from a HUMAN, of all things, transmitted… Well, by YOU, a Degenerate halfbreed. “We… Should investigate them, for the sake of serving The Grand Design however we can.”

Finally! Someone sensible. You look up with eyes and heart full of gratitude…

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>>5214384
Until they cast you out of the room anyway.

‘These motherfuckers!’ Irinnile howls in sympathetic outrage.

You, for your part, remain silent as they instruct you to send the Dragonborn down to them, to proceed in their great labour. The False Degeenrate also, if only to vivisect a more ‘disposal’ creation of the Dragonborn’s maker for clues to her methodology. With a muted sigh, you do so, ascending the tunnels once more to attend to this assigned task. The Dragonborn is nervous as you struggle to explain the concept of what is going to happen, and who is going to perform the procedure, to his sheltered and ill-nourished brain.

“…Mrroaar laik Hensszlur?” he asks, shuffling backwards in an undignified way and beginning to rumble with burgeoning firebreath. “NnnNNAAUW. NAUW wuill gao BACK!”

‘He, uh, doesn’t seem to like the idea of playin’ doctor with all those snakey-boys,’ rinnile notes unhelpfully.

“You could accompany him,” volunteers a voice from behind you.

You whirl about, almost drawing your dagger in spite of where you are, before you recognize that it is Alhazred who has spoken to you. Or… Well, whatever his true name is. Down her neither of you has need of your aliases any longer.

“I cannot,” you explain, trying to keep indignation and disappointment from your voice.

“He behaves better with supervision,” notes The Infiltrator Formerly Known as Alhazred, “and there is much about his creation and his creator’s methods which you understand better than even the Fleshweavers.”

“I CANNOT,” you reiterate bitterly, “because I was thrown out of the room.”

“For your race,” henzler correctly surmises. “But… You can shift shape. Why not play the role of an ‘attendant’ of pure blood, sent to supervise at the behest of The Chaplain?”

You narrow your eyes, instinctively suspicious. This proposition is dangerously close to sedition. Is this male Degenerate attempting to implicate you in gross disobedience, as some sort of power-play to inherit your credit and your spoils? But then… he raises valid points, and Alhazred ahs been a loyal ally and comrade-in-arms…

‘And a pretty alright fuck,’ Irinnile notes, sizing him up in her own way. ‘You know, HE doesn’t have, like, mating seasons or whatever…’

You send the succubus a psychic bop for her distracting horniness and instead ask Alhazred: “Did you come here only to preach insubordination, Degenerate?”

“No,” he says, smiling with his eyes alone, “I came for glory, and mystic curiosity… and t help an ally. Degenerate.”

You meet his eyes, and sense that he is full of carefully-guarded ambition… But not, near as you can tell, hatred, envy, or spite.

>>5214388
What do you do?
>Take Alhazred’s suggestion—masquerade as a full-blooded Reptilian and attend the Fleshweavers’ rites with the Dragonborn and False Degenerate
>Send the two chimeras down alone, and await further instructions from on-high
>Discuss matters further with Alhazred [specify what?]
>Go consult with Roth on this matter
>Seek permissions and special considerations from the Chaplain, instead [specify if you report Alhazred for his scheming]
>Write-in

>>5214389
>Seek permissions and special considerations from the Chaplain, instead [specify if you report Alhazred for his scheming]
Don't report. Raise the point that as Alhazred said, we are the one most privy to the details of his creation of those present, and if necessary that we can communicate live with the actual creator.

damn we really need to get these guys aboveground fast
do they not get a lot of reports back from up there?

>>5214389
>Tell Alhazred it's not really help if he urges YOU to lie to Serpent Priests while he offers emotional support
>Seek permissions and special considerations from the Chaplain, instead

No clear indication of bad will, but he might be forgetting himself, being drunk on the surface fumes and huffing our success, that kinda stuff. We should carefully consider his advices and services from now on to compensate for that.

>>5214048
ow

Rolled 12, 4, 1, 18, 15 = 50 (5d20)

>>5214602
>>5214457
>>5214602
“It's not really ‘helping’ to urge ME to lie to The Holy Ones while YOU offer…” you struggle to find the term for it in True Speech, where such a concept doesn’t even exist, eventually switching to the Northern Common-tongue of the surface-folk out of necessity: “Emotional support.”

You see a flicker of resentment now in Alhazred’s aura, of bitterness and envy. Were it not for Irinnile, you’d have never known: his features are as stiff in this moment as any full-blooded member of the Master Race. When he speaks, it is gently and calmly.

“You have advantages that I do not,” he says. “Your demon, and the abilities which is grants you, enable you to do this thing. Would that I could, I would have done so myself.”

“But—”

“But I cannot, you are correct,” he interrupts, bowing his head respectfully. “It is for you to decide, of course. Your unique gifts, your unique responsibilities, your unique decisions. I apologize for my lack of proper deference.”

You don’t sense any malice, nor ill-will. Perhaps the surface has merely tainted him, you speculate as he turns and leaves. Still, whatever his failures and flaws, it is your fellow Degenerate’s words which move your feet, change your course, and send you next to another Serpent priest—The Chaplain.

>>5214786
>18
Your appeal to this authority, made in much the same terms as Alhazred’s appeal to you nut along this more official channel, proves fruitful.

“It would be an unfortunate thing for our facilities, or the… Great One… To sustain damage unnecessarily, yes,” he acknowledges.

It fills you with no small satisfaction to see that there IS indeed room within the system, as-it-is, for you. The Grand Design as it was passed down still has room for you to advance and gain special consideration after all!

“Why did you not approach me before The Fleshweavers?” The Chaplain then demands.

“I… Wished to make certain I was not troubling you unduly, Holy One. To ensure that it was even a request worth making.”

That reaction tempers your glee, reminding you of the dangers inherent in taking initiative on your own down here, among your people.

The Chaplain says nothing and does nothing, just looking to you for a time. If you were a titch more human, you would eb sweating.

“Go,” he says, “but be seen, not heard, unless absolutely necessary. Remember your place, Degenerate.”

“Y-yes, Holy One,” you say, bowing your head low and hurry from the room.

‘Damn we really need to get these guys aboveground FAST,’ Irinnile mutters. ‘Have they, like, been livin’ under a rock?’

‘Many layers of rock,’ you acknowledge, stifling a sigh.

Still, you cannot entirely hide your excitement to be given such special permissions, to attend research and experimentation which no Degenerate has ever borne witness to before!

A few hours later, you stand in the corner of the room—well out of the way—while the Serpent Priests serving as Fleshweavers gather about the Dragonborn. The False Degenerate, too, is there, kept in the corner with you. He, a former human mutated and chimericized by Henzler and yourself, looks at this nightmarish underground realm in horror, but remains silent as death at your urging; he cries, but does not whimper.

>>5214810
To your confusion, however, it seems that the Fleshweavers hardly even know where to begin. They look to the Dragonborn—scrunched and squeezed into this place, uneasy and agitated so that you must occasionally offer him calming reassurances and settle him with subtle glamour. They turn back to each-other, debating how even to proceed, how to use the techniques which you described. Eventually, one of them steps forward, taking the False Degenerate from you.

“Order it onto the ritual slab,” the Fleshweaver commands you, and you apss along the command.

The False Degenerate, sniffling, obliges, laying down. His body trembles – he knows what is coming. Two Fleshweavers hold him down while a third brings a tray of cruel-looking, highly-specialized implements: knives, cups, jars, alchemical admixtures. This bit, at least, is closer to Henzler’s methodology… Albeit much simpler and cruder. It gives you pause. How are your people so far… BEHIND… their human equivalents in this field? They vivisect the False Degenerate, keeping him alive through carful medicine and deliberate precision even as they explore his hybridized organs, take cups and cups of his blood to mix with different coloured reagents.

“Fascinating,” says one.

“Disgusting!” says another.

“But… Applicable?” asks a third, aloud, drawing thoughtful silence.

“You did this?” one asks, turning to you.

Yous atnd bolt-upright, almost jump up at the sudden focus of their collective attention upon you.

“I did, yes,” you answer. “With… Assistance.”

It was, after all, MOSTLY Henzler’s doing.

“If Reptilian blood can be so enmeshed in human flesh and viscera—that of an ADULT, no less!—I see no reason why it cannot be enmeshed into The Great One.” The Feleshweaver who speaks up now does so with a confidence that, you cannot help but feel, may be unearned from what you have observed of their explorations over the last few hours. “I propose we take the heart, the Great Green Dragon’s own heart, and ‘chimericize’ it into his successor, even as we purge the human and animal contaminants!”

This gets a chorus of approval… Even as it runs utterly contrary to what Head Chimericist Henzler proposed to you up in the world above. To HER thinking, it had been the plasticity of human and lesser, non-draconic Reptilian blood, and the use of mesmeric or demonic measures to manipulate the ‘shape of the mind and soul’, which would enable more reliable transformation. It was THIS process that birthed the muscle-man and quasi-Degenerate.

But… She is a filthy surface mammal, a foolish scion of a young, weak, inferior species. You, you are but a Degenerate, ordered to be seen and not heard. These Serpent Priests? They are Holy Ones, learned elders, masters of a millennia-long craft responsible for your race’s nigh-perfect disguises, of unparalleled surgical, medical, and interrogative techniques.

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>>5214815
Do you speak up?
>Yes—Henzler knows better in this matter, and you will tell them (tough though it is to admit) that her techniques are best to fix the Dragonborn
>No—it is not your place, and you will not slander them so and risk your ever-bettering position in Reptilian society with blasphemy
>This is ridiculous—you can just use GLAMOUR to influence them long enough to take control of the procedure yourself, then make them all think that it was their idea
>Write-in

>>5214818
>Yes—Henzler knows better in this matter, and you will tell them (tough though it is to admit) that her techniques are best to fix the Dragonborn
Do this by easing them into the topic, remind them "the ape" made the whole dragonborn and then (almost) taught us how to make the hybrid. Tell them her assumptions of how things work and how they proved to be successful in the field. Only then address our concerns.
In the end, they aren't COMPLETELY wrong, merely used to outdated methods.
If possible (although I think it's not):
>Contact Henzler directly to help you out with technicalities and problems that you might encounter

>>5214786
>You see a flicker of resentment now in Alhazred’s aura, of bitterness and envy
Now I wonder if he saw our little display with the Steeltalon, too.
Have I known this BEFORE the vote, I would've tried to pitch him a spot here as well.
Alhazred's human nature could be leveraged to gain his friendship by throwing him a sizeable bone and establishing ourselves as a stronger, but beneficial ally he is actually fond of.
>you struggle to find the term for it in True Speech, where such a concept doesn’t even exist
Ah shit, we North Korea now.

>>5214818
>Yes—Henzler knows better in this matter, and you will tell them (tough though it is to admit) that her techniques are best to fix the Dragonborn

Let's do it a bit more diplomatically than "human way better" though. Float the ideas as the professional opinion of the creators of both. If more detail is needed get it from Henzler through quick communion. Use glamour if absolutely necessary.

>>5215048
Since we would have to vote for this glamour and face horrible consequences if we fail, I'm voting against it. Plus it's not very in-character, considering how well we were doing in obeying customs while getting things done so far.

>>5215067
This is the first time the Dragonborn's life might be at risk due to those customs, but it's your choice.

>>5215073
Oh well, I thought "absolutely necessary" meant "if we fail to convince them, use force" and it didn't make sense to me since I have trust in this scenario playing out fine if we carefully we provide the Priests with Henzler's knowledge.
>>5214818
I do think it's a stretch, but IF Dragonborn's life is indeed threatened, consider me supporting the careful usage of glamour. At least we'll be able to say we had a great green reason to defy them.

If we manage to contact Henzler, warn her about Alhazred, tell her to be cautious until we tell her the potential threat is over. I don't want her to get stabbed in sleep because that sissy threw a fit.Also how do these Serpent Priests look and how many are in this room?

>>5215048
Supporting this specific path

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[Expect a late post, tonight or tomorrow. D20 Modern with the boys tonight!]

Rolled 4, 1, 18, 20, 20 = 63 (5d20)

>>5215044
>>5215048
>>5215397
>>5215106
>Also how do these Serpent Priests look and how many are in this room

You look about at the seven Serpent Priests here—all tall, elegant, wattled, finely-scaled males, with bulging eyes full of wisdom and shrouded in the red, hooded cloaks of their Fleshweaver station. They are noble, intelligent, rightly-proud…

>Yes—Henzler knows better in this matter, and you will tell them (tough though it is to admit) that her techniques are best to fix the Dragonborn

And WRONG. Not COMPLETELY wrong, merely used to outdated methods…. But these are outdated methods which could get The Dragonborn, heir to a godly champion and perhaps your race’s greatest hope for renewed supremacy, killed! You wish this was just you being dramatic and alarmist, a relic of human or female frailty…

But you cannot shake the remembered sight of that deer-thing you and Henzler created, growing huge, malevolent, terrible… And then exploding into gore and shrapnel.

“Wait!” you cry, startling Fleshweavers and Dragonborn alike.

“You dare?!” demands one of them.

“I… I apologize,” you say, casting your gaze hurriedly at the floor, but not slowing in your speech. “I speak up only out of grim necessity. I believe strongly that you can do this thing, of course—purge the Great One of his impurities, and make him a better, stronger champion for our Master Race and our Gods…”

“Then shut up and step back against the wall, cretinous half-ape!” hisses another Fleshweaver, sneering.

You gulp down a retort, shut your eyes to prevent yourself from glaring, and resist the urge to glamour the bastards and be done with it… But no. No, you CAN’T. More importantly, you NEEDN’T. You have gotten this far without betraying your people’s deeply-held ideals, your society’s righteous hierarchy. You will convince them with logical argument. You MUST.

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Rolled 20, 17, 19, 7, 10, 17, 9 = 99 (7d20)

>>5215815
>20

And by the grace of The Dark Gods, it works! The Fleshweavers gather around, looking quiet as if they’d like to pin you to a slab and vivisect you next to your Degenerate-like creation… But as you explain, with eloquence and tact, the ways in which Henzler’s ‘chimericist’ theories can build upon and better their own, they soften in posture, weaken in resolve. They glance nervously amongst themselves as you describe the disaster which might have befallen them—a Great One destroyed, a heart wasted for naught, not even enough material to recnstitute this great, unimagined hope.

“It is a distasteful thing,” you admit, “but we have been down in the depths too long… Our methods are great, and wondrous, and effective… But old, and without the innovations of centuries of magical and alchemical theory. We have little practical application. By applying your NATURALLY greater serpentine intellect to the methods which the ape-folk have CHANCED upon, you can refine them—and The Great One—into something truly new, spectacular, and UNRIVALLED in its capacity for glorious, righteous tyranny!”

They might have been furious. They would have been justified to cast you out. Instead…

Instead, they offer you a red cloak, and invite you as the eighth member of their circle—for this ritual, if not permanently—to aid them in this great work.

No, that’s not right: you aren’t just a PARTICIPANT. Your argumentation was so skilled, so confident and convincing, they let you reach out across your demonic connection to Head Chimercist Henzler and draw froth her expertise. Together, you do not AID the Fleshweavers…

>20 AGAIN

You LEAD them.

“Do not fail,” one Serpent Priest whispers to you, a harsh-but-fair warning. You can only imagine what terrible shame—what grisly fate—a failure here would bring.

“We will not,” you say, your shell of (false?) confidence yet-unshattered.

‘We won’t,’ Henzler assures you, ecstatic at this opportunity, ‘Even the destruction of the dragon-chimera would bring such INFORMATION to bear as to make our next attempt all the better!’

That is… Less reassuring than perhaps she intended. You feel Irinnile’s hands on your shoulders, an intangible, psychic massage of comfort and support.

‘You got this,’ she says, and you really do feel it. You look up at the the Dragonborn, who fights and flinches, smoke pouring from between parted lizard-lips in the centre of a ritual circle be, beneath the great cauldron.

<SOULBOND BONUS>
<HEARTBREAK PENALTY>
<FLESHWEAVER MAGE CIRCLE BONUS>
<DC: 12 to not damage the Dragonborn; 14 to begin mending it; 17 to markedly improve it; 19 to perfect it>

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>>5215829
>19…
IT is a labour which takes all your energy—all of the energy of EVERY Reptilian in attendance, and which commands all of Henzlr’s remotely-accessed intelligence and focus. She barks commands at you with fierceness that, conveyed to the Fleshweavers, makes even these noble beings flinch and jump to attention. The Dragonborn roars and shakes, lashing out only to be restrained by tightening of skin and ligaments, binding of bone…

And then the real work begins.

You had perhaps imagined a labour of one night, but how could it be? The Great Green Dragon’s warped and deformed progeny was the product of DECADES of Henzler’s research and labour. Even with the breakthrough which your genetics provided her, even with the distinct traditions and separate studies of seven Serpent priests to aid the two of you, even with Irinnile helping to calm and reshape the self-perception of the twisted soul trapped in the deformed body before you, it take you the better part of a WEEK of such nights to fix the damage done…

>and 20!

But you do it. You cut away shrunken and misshapen arm, reopen cauterized wing-stump, snap and mend neck and spine, remould muscles. You stroke the Dragonborn’s long face, comforting him even as you reshape his misaligned jaw and sooth out tumorous flesh where you find it. You BLEED for this enterprise, sacrificing buckets of your own blood to be pumped into or slathered onto the Dragonborn, and magically woven into his flesh.

“And it is working?” Alhazred asked of you, once, when you stopped your great labour to eat and to drink, by chance even to rest.

You could only nod.

In the mess hall, your red cloak—worn openly, with the blessing of ever-more-impressed Fleshweavers, frightened away even the boldest bullies. You sense even now that Alhazred has come to regard you with a startlement, a disbelief, an abject AWE which eclipses his jealousy.

By the end of that week, the Dragonborn is just as great a Greeat One… But he now can stand straight, and tall. He does not go about on all fours like his forebear, for your blood courses through him, and human (and ‘humanoid’ Reptilian) blood and flesh has shored up his weaknesses and replaced his lesser, animalistic portions. No, he stands twenty, twenty-five feet tall, man-like, unhunched, TITANIC. His arms are equal now, his wings an eclipse of the light wherever he spreads them—shockingly similar to Irinnile’s. His horns, too, curl with demonic influence, like that of a ram. His splotched scales are not an iridescent, jade-and-emerald milieu… Except around his chest, his armpits, his groan, where they carry your mother’s brassy hue.

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>>5215850

“Hrrrr…” he rumbles, voice low. “Hrr-Hun… Hungeeerrrr.”

His mind, to, you… Well, you HALF-fixed it. He is a sadly simple creature, still, honestly of even sub-HUMAN intellect… But physically, he is a marvel, and even his pronunciation has improved from the realignment of his jaw and of certain formations of the brain. Henzler was right, of course: he’ll never be truly, wholly ‘perfect’, not compared to a fresh start… But then, you made him this way in a week, while rearing a successor would have taken YEARS.

“Get this dragon a meal fit for a king,” you announce, with bold proudness in defiance of your birth, “for we have made him into one.”

A cheer goes up from the Fleshweavers, a ululation of such rejoicing that you know now what you have long hoped for…

“It is… Astonishing,” whispers The Chaplain, here today to oversee the finalization of your work.

…You are now, undeniably and avoidably, ascended beyond your station. Never, EVER again will anyone in this base—or Reptilian beyond it who knows what you have wrought—disparage you as ‘Degenerate’.

You are Dragon-Maker, Herald and Blood-Mother to the Newborn King!

However, just now… You are overtaxed, overworked, underslept, underfed. Before youc an properly enjoy this, perhaps your GREATEST triumph or all time, you feel the dam break and the floodwaters of long-forestalled torpor sweep you away.

You pass out.

Of what do you dream?
>The Great Green Dragon and the humans who destroyed him
>Your mother and your father
>Edwin
>Alhazred
>The infiltrator Chika, and the Hellish realms, and Death
>Write-in

>>5215851
>All, but with a bit more focus on our parents and Edwin

Might as well go all out here.

>>5215855
I... Have no idea how I would write that. Please don't pick "all".

>>5215851
>The beginning of a new era for Reptilians, where more like the Great Green Dragon will walk the giant halls and Serpent Priests will slowl, but surely reeducate the populace and teach new things to make us more united and stronger than ever
>Maybe Roth
>The possibility of becoming a full-blooded Silkscale just like your mother, effectively erasing her mistake and becoming a shining example to follow for other Degenerates on the surface so they don't forget their heritage
>Subsequently, Alhazred's moment of weakness and Chika, whose soul you'll save from hell... some day.

Those 20s were a sign

>>5215859
;_;

I was hoping for a disjointed dream, but I can settle on our parents with an Edwin cameo near the end. Would’ve loved the fall of the Great Dragon and the whole Chika/Hell/Death meetup again, I guess we’ll have to reserve Chika’s breakout near the end, huh?

>>5215963
>>5215855
>New Age of Scales
You dream not of things and people past. No, you dream of things to come! You dream of a day when these hallowed, subterranean open like a cloaca, birthing great eggs. Form each egg hatches a Dragonborn—a towering king-among-reptiles, glorious and emerald green. They survey the surface world into which they are born with golden eyes, wondering eyes—your mother’s eyes.

Belatedly, you realize that you are not looking out FROM the depths of the earth: you ARE the earth from which these young Dragonborn emerge. You are not merely blood-mother to them, but brood-mother. The entrance to the darkness of the forward base is not like a cloaca: it IS your cloaca, literally delivering into the corrupt and mammal-infested surface-world an entire race of majestic nobility, successors to your Dark Gods’ Great Green Champion… And heirs to your bloodline.

You recoil from the thought, automatically. You are FORBIDDEN to breed—explicitly, legally, punishable by the slaughter of your hatchlings and the torture and destruction of yourself. This was made INCREDIBLY, and GRAPHICALLY clear to you from an early age. Your conception was a blasphemy, your egg’s laying and hatching permitted only so you could serve as a honed tool of a particular sort of espionage. Now, knowing your ancestry from the hated Yosef, who the Dark Gods have consigned to oblivion by your own hand…

>Parents
“But if I had not given birth to you,” you hear a soft, distantly-familiar voice say, “how would The Dragonborn have even been brought home to our people?”

You feel a hand clasp yours, and you look to the side and see…

“Mother?”

It is she—your mother, golden-green scaled and brass about her snout, her stomach. It is she—Izirina, a fair-skinned human woman with golden-green eyes and the slender proportions of the Silkscale Reptilian which she truly was. She is both. She is neither. She is a spectre, a memory.

“What would you have been—how far would you have gotten—if your father had been another Reptilian?” this shadow of your mother asks.

“I would have been… Better. Whole. Not disgusting, a half-person, a… A freak,” you mutter. “I have had to claw my way to acceptability, to respect among the Master Race.”

“But you have enjoyed things which we purebloods never—or rarely—can,” she says, admonishing you without great compassion but also without unkindness. “I felt something of their emotion… Once. Briefly. A side-effect of the hormones which accompanied my pregnancy with you.”

>>5216272
She nods her head subtly, directing your eyes to another. You follow her gaze and see a human man, clad in fine, dark clothes, with curly brown hair. He is turned away from you. You cannot see his face.

“…Hirschel Yosef,” you surmise.

“Yes,” you mother says, wistfully. “He was… Strong, without brutality or supremacy. Shrewd and clever, without scheming. Kind, naïve, maybe weak… But when I carried your developing egg within me, I could see him as he saw me, and I began to think… Maybe weakness of that sort can be a kind of strength.”

“Humanist nonsense, to cope with their pathetic state,” you spit. “Emotional, mammalian sentimentality. STRENGTH is strength. To scheme is the PURPOSE of cleverness. His seed poisoned your brain and body, made you think stupid, human thoughts.”

“Maybe,” your mother’s shade acknowledges, but with a smile, not looking away from your father. “But these stupid, human thoughts give rise to you, and to all you have done…”

Suddenly, Hirschel Yosef is ablaze, smoking and sparking. His clothing is burnt away, leaving a strangely-stalwart human skeleton, burnt black. Between its bones and rips, you see a Dragonborn, but unlike the others…

>Maybe Roth
He has Roth’s red-orange eyes, and copy-brown scales: between red and green. He stands proud, too-proud, like the Dragonblooded Reptilian whom he reminds you of… The one who you have come to feel a (mutual?) affection for. The one who slew Hirschel Yosef, your father.
“Yes,” your mother acknowledges, more sadly now. “You came into this world not without… Great cost, and great violence. And this world has demanded a high price from you, in still MORE violence. But this struggle has made you strong, hasn’t it, Daughter?”

You don’t know what to say. You say nothing. Has all this been worth it? Is this future before you worth the cost you paid? Were all the steps along the way—your mother’s disgrace, your tainted heritage, your terrible childhood, your hedonism and your heartbreak in Hawksong… Were they all necessary, to achieve what you now see stretching out before you?

The army of Dragonborn—your creations, your children, march forth. They march on that shining city-on-the-hill, on Hawksong from whence they—and you—ultimately derive. They march on its Paladin King, on its Archmage, on its scrambling goblins and flawed-but-fun humans, on its peculiar and alien demons and desperate, hungry demonologists. They march on beastwomen who offered comfort and a sense of home, on dancers whose elegant pirouettes cannot carry them far enough to avoid immolation, and on elves whose alchemy and music were but frivolous arts against this tide of true, Reptilian strength.

Dragonfire sweeps the streets, cleansing it of everything you loved and hated about that place, without discrimination.

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>>5216274
>Edwin

And there at the centre of it all, surrounded by fire, stands Edwin… And across the gulf of space and time, he looks at you with sadness.

“I approve,” your mother says. “He reminds me of your father.”

And then, the fire consumes Edwin, also.

You wake up in a sweat, panting and heaving, trembling with nervous energy.

‘Babe?’ Irinnile asks, tone worried. ‘You, uhh… Your dream there was pretty intense. I kept trying to getting lpushed out. But I saw…’

‘Nevermind,’ you interrupt her, gripping your hair and shaking your head to banish the memory of that last vision.

Ultimately, the dream was…
>Sad in some regards, but ultimately glorious—the price you had paid, and must pay, would be worth it for such a future
>Too terrible to allow—not even for glory and duty could you allow such a thing to come to pass

What do you do?
>Speak to The Chaplain about the Serpent Priests’ plan for Hawksong and its people
>Go for a walk through the tunnels of your subterranean home to clear your head
>Bury yourself in your work
>Go find Alhazred or Roth to let off some steam <WANT: 18, after a week of exertion and being too busy for sex>
>Request to return to Hawksong, to finish your mission there
>Write-in

>>5216276
>Sad in some regards, but ultimately glorious—the price you had paid, and must pay, would be worth it for such a future
Remember what those monkeys did to our people, to our mother... and now their blood is messing with our head even despite us spending a week working on the Great Green Dragon's glory after we were lifted from the status of a pathetic worm to a damn Serpent Priest helper.
>Go find Roth to let off some steam <WANT: 18, after a week of exertion and being too busy for sex>

>>5215851
I woke up to some pogchamp rolls here

>>5216276
>Sad in some regards, but ultimately glorious—the price you had paid, and must pay, would be worth it for such a future

perhaps we could make it less sad though

>Speak to The Chaplain about the Serpent Priests’ plan for Hawksong and its people

What we just did should have made it clear that there's a lot to learn from the surface civilization, and indiscriminate slaughter would lose us so much potential knowledge. We should aim for as stealthy and surgical a conquest as possible.

Hell, from what we've seen there's a good chance a straight up war would be a disaster, with the gryphons and the magical technology leading ours by centuries and the massive population differences.

>>5216561
This entire update was incredible! With one great victory we have abandoned our Degeneracy and elevated in status - while also bringing the Age of Scales closer.

Backing this vote, but do this action after speaking to the Chaplain.

>Go find Roth to let off some steam <WANT: 18, after a week of exertion and being too busy for sex>

>>5216274
>coppery-brown scales

>>5216628
>>5216561
>>5216392
[Writing up!]

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>>5216751
You lament the necessity of the carnage you saw in your dream… But not so much that you wouldn’t bear witness to that—enable that!—and more, for the future which waits beyond the flames. To abandon Degeneracy and become something greater… To usher in a new Age of Scales! What more could a snakegirl want from life?

‘Maybe a dose of double dragon dick?’ Irinnile suggests.

You ignore her—well, you TRY to. Her <WANT> has grown in the absence of your enablement, and when she speaks of such things you feel certain parts of your anatomy grow warm and moist—a side-efefct of the soulbond. Despite this, when you don you red Fleshweaver cloak, though, it is NOT to attend to her inconsequential sexual urges—

‘Aww.’

—but to go see The Chaplain.

‘Ooo, daring!’

‘NOT to fuck him,’ you snap.

‘Aaaawwwwww,’ the succubus groans.

The vision you saw was glorious, it’s true, but it was also very optimistic—perhaps unrealistically so. You have spent long enough in Hawksong, and here in your people’s forward base, to know that there is a very good chance that a direct war would be a disaster. You cannot create an army of Dragonborn in without years of investment, even with all the Fleshweavers’ and Henzler’s arts combined. Between their (shudder) gryphons, and magical technology which seems to outstrip your own race’s by CENTURIES in some cases, it would be an uphill battle, even BEFORE the massive difference in population is taken into account.

“This is why I believe that we should aim for as stealthy and surgical a conquest as possible,” you tell The Chaplain, in your exclusive, private audience.

He seems unconvinced, though.

“They are mere mammals, short-lived in most cases on an individual level, and short-lived even as a race where the elves are concerned,” he says, dismissively. “They are weak, whatever their numbers.”

“What we just did should have made it clear that there's a lot to learn from the surface civilizations,” you say frankly, “and indiscriminate slaughter would waste precious knowledge and resources.”

“You forget yourself… Infiltrator,” The Chaplain criticizes you for your directness, your defiant insistence in spite of his words.

…But he does not call you ‘Degenerate’.

“I remember my mission, and my duty. A duty to you, our people, and our Gods. This duty is best served by acquiring that knowledge, and conquering the humans of Hawksong by subtler means.”

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>>5216849
“Subtler means than what?” he demands. “We have not told you of our plans for that city.”

“Then may I ask what they are?” you ask, as respectfully as you can manage.

The Chaplain leans back, tilting his noble, wattled chin upwards and looking at you sidelong.

“You have an inkling already, I sense,” he says quietly.

“An army of Dragonborn, to smash and burn it wholesale?” you ask.

“Maybe,” he admits. “in time, of course. At first… Raids, with what forces we can muster at present, upon vulnerable communities. To take their people, for their blood, to fuel the creation of these Dragonborn. I… Have been made to understand that human blood is SOMEHOW vital to the process of their creation.”

You nod.

“So you propose to kidnap whole communities, leaving no witness of survivor?” you ask.

“You understand the gist,” he says. “We can destroy their food production in this way as well, and provoke fear. Perhaps manoeuvre orc warbands into place, to explain the attacks…”

“And if a survivor escapes?” you press, impetuous for your standing, dedicated your purpose. “If the Paladins mount a defence?”

“We unleash what Dragonborn we have upon them, and destroy the apish acolytes of the foolish false gods above!”

The Chaplain has great faith in the martial merit of the ‘perfected’ Dragonborn… Perhaps not misplaced. Still, it may be worth offering you input. After all, with all you have achieved, he cannot help but have great faith in YOU, also; it is why you were even afforded the great prestige of this meeting!

What do you suggest?
>Approve of his plan [specify any adjustments which you would make]
>Suggest allying with The Incubus, who ahs control of a prince of Hawksong, to install a puppet monarch on the throne and disband or corrupt the Paladins into uselessness—a devilish shadow-coup with plausible deniability!
>Suggest using your Goblintown allies, Eastern beastfolk business-partners, and demonic enthrallment to smuggle drugs in and humans who nobody ill miss out—subvert their society and get a steady supply of blood in a decades-long long-con!
>Propose assassinating the Archmage, who is suspicious of your race’s involvement, and the installation of Head Chimericist Henzler as his replacement, to gain access to the advanced magical facilities of The Mages’ Tower, so as to speed up Dragonborn product and to strengthen your army with chimercism!
>Suggest that you forget Hawksong altogether for now, and focus on building an empire in the Southlands, where your people are already stronger and better-established—it will buy Edwin a comfortable lifetime without invasion, and in decades to come, you can turn one human empire against another!
>Write-in

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>>5216853
After the meeting has concluded, you do not return to you lodgings—a room all to yourself, replete with comforts and luxuries created by your people or stolen from the undeserving surface races! Imagine! No, you will enjoy these later. First… Well, Irinnile’s <WANT> is, undeniably, also your own. You cannot put it off any longer: you NEED the desire and the mana of a mortal to keep her from becoming a problem, and to help you focus. And you can think of none better for the job than…

“Degener—I mean, Infiltrator?” Roth greets you, stepping out from his own chamber. “What is the purpose of this—MMRF!”

You are upon him almost immediately, like a predator pouncing upon prey. Your <WANT> oozes out of you in a demonic glamour, stimulating the dragonblooded old Reptilian into an instantaneous heat cycle. You pin him down to the floor of his chamber—he is stronger, but his resistance is half-hearted, and quickly dissolves away as his mystically-stimulated desire overcomes his inhibitions.

‘Fffffuuuuck yes,’ Irinnile moans within you; you hear the words emerge from your own mouth in tandem, as you begin to ride.

However, as you feel the sensation of your senior oeprative’s coming orgasm, the vision of the night prior rears its head once more. You remember the copper-coloured Dragonborn, with his Roth-like eyes and posturing. You remember what Henzler told you: a Dragonborn, a TRULY perfect Dragonborn, would be best formed from a fresh start rather than molded after-the-fact from her flawed first attempt… And the egg of a Degenerate would be an ideal shell in which to incubate such an entity.

‘Irinnile,’ you call out to the succubus, breaking the rapturous reverie accompanying this long-delayed meal. ‘You have been preventing me from becoming…Fertilized, yes?’

‘H-huh?’ she asks, dazed. ‘Oh, yeah, ‘course babe! No baby bump’s gonna’ ruin your beach bod while I’m on duty!’

What do you instruct her to do?
>Continue to prevent pregnancy—you have too much to do, and too many conflicting feelings about giving birth to Roth’s child to serve as a living weapon
>Allow your insemination—you will be a LITERAL mother to dragons, and to a new Age of Scales

>>5216854
>Allow your insemination—you will be a LITERAL mother to dragons, and to a new Age of Scales
hue hue hue hue hue

>>5216992
Forgot the first vote
>Approve of his plan [specify any adjustments which you would make]

>Suggest using your Goblintown allies, Eastern beastfolk business-partners, and demonic enthrallment to smuggle drugs in and humans who nobody ill miss out—subvert their society and get a steady supply of blood in a decades-long long-con!
>Propose assassinating the Archmage, who is suspicious of your race’s involvement, and the installation of Head Chimericist Henzler as his replacement, to gain access to the advanced magical facilities of The Mages’ Tower, so as to speed up Dragonborn product and to strengthen your army with chimercism!

>>5216853
>Propose assassinating the Archmage, who is suspicious of your race’s involvement, and the installation of Head Chimericist Henzler as his replacement, to gain access to the advanced magical facilities of The Mages’ Tower, so as to speed up Dragonborn product and to strengthen your army with chimercism!

wary of any more deals that could strengthen Zivic

>Allow your insemination—you will be a LITERAL mother to dragons, and to a new Age of Scales

they did say a lot of mean things about us getting eggo preggo, but I guess Iri can always emergency abort

maybe confirm Iri can emergency abort

>>5216998
[So your modification to the raids is to ALSO smuggle drugs in and people out, and to assassinate the Archmage and put Henzler in his place?]

>>5216853
>Propose assassinating the Archmage, who is suspicious of your race’s involvement, and the installation of Head Chimericist Henzler as his replacement, to gain access to the advanced magical facilities of The Mages’ Tower, so as to speed up Dragonborn product and to strengthen your army with chimercism!

>Suggest that you also focus on building an empire in the Southlands, where your people are already stronger and better-established—it will buy Edwin a comfortable lifetime without invasion, and in decades to come, you can turn one human empire against another!

These two together.

We need time - time to raise a new army, time to investigate new technology and build it.

We can leverage our hold over the southern humans to ensure that they are occupied fighting each other - getting weaker in the process - while we get stronger.

We’re not ready for a surface war yet… maybe in a decade or two.

>Allow your insemination—you will be a LITERAL mother to dragons, and to a new Age of Scales

Our people have been stagnant for too long. WE shall drive them forward!

>>5217085
>>5217004
>>5216998
>>5216992
[Locking for pregnancy and archmage assassination, but will wait until morning to see if there is a plurality for smuggling operations, countryside raids, or moving South with operations]

>>5216853
>Suggest using your Goblintown allies, Eastern beastfolk business-partners, and demonic enthrallment to smuggle drugs in and humans who nobody ill miss out—subvert their society and get a steady supply of blood in a decades-long long-con!
They did nothing to Reptilian race and live under the monkeys like slavess.
>Continue to prevent pregnancy—you have too much to do, and too many conflicting feelings about giving birth to Roth’s child to serve as a living weapon

>>5216853
>Suggest allying with The Incubus, who ahs control of a prince of Hawksong, to install a puppet monarch on the throne and disband or corrupt the Paladins into uselessness—a devilish shadow-coup with plausible deniability!
>Propose assassinating the Archmage, who is suspicious of your race’s involvement, and the installation of Head Chimericist Henzler as his replacement, to gain access to the advanced magical facilities of The Mages’ Tower, so as to speed up Dragonborn product and to strengthen your army with chimercism!

>>5216854
>Continue to prevent pregnancy—you have too much to do, and too many conflicting feelings about giving birth to Roth’s child to serve as a living weapon

Why not the Dragonborn himself?

>>5217656
>Why not the Dragonborn himself?
Is this foxanon

>>5217625
>They did nothing to Reptilian race and live under the monkeys like slavess.
soon they will live under us like slaves too

>>5217656
>>5217625
>>5217085
>>5217004
>>5216998
>>5216992
“Allow it,” you hiss.

“Hn-what?” Roth grunts, before gasping and digging claws into you in the sudden shock of your renewed intensity, rising and falling atop him.

“Release your seed, Dragonblooded One,” you urge him, seeing not his pleasured expression by the glorious future, feeling not his orgasm inside you by the rising tide of destiny.

<WANT: 16>

In the afterglow, you reflect on the meeting with The Chaplain. Despite your growing station, and rebounding confidence, you still hesitated to speak. So many plans circled in your head… Some of them at odds with one another in intent and effect, or redundant, and you feared to make a fool of yourself.

Eventually, The Chaplain broke the silence: “You features are transparent in their emotion. Maybe not to a monkey, but compared to a pureblood’s…”

He trailed off, as if to avoid insulting you, but you sighed and nod.

“Yes, Holy One. It is just… Are such raids not dangerous? We have ONE Dragonborn now, and our population is so small, and… The resources we risk losing may outweigh the benefits.”

“Do we not require their blood?” he asked, annoyed at your undercutting of his ideas. “How can we improve our resources without seizing those of the surface?”

“Yes, but… I have another plan for how to get it.”

You outlined a truly devious plan, making use of multiple of the pawns you have put into play, and The Chaplain listened intently, as if to the Dark Gods yourself. You know that whispers have begun, of the Degenerate who arrived with a Serpent priest’s staff and a Dragon in tow, who mastered magic such that’s he wears a Fleshweaver’s cloak and meets alone with the Chaplain… Of how she earned the favour of the Dark Gods themselves. Reflecting on the meeting, you wonder if even he may have begun to believe it?

>Propose assassinating the Archmage, who is suspicious of your race’s involvement, and the installation of Head Chimericist Henzler as his replacement, to gain access to the advanced magical facilities of The Mages’ Tower, so as to speed up Dragonborn product and to strengthen your army with chimercism!
>Suggest using your Goblintown allies, Eastern beastfolk business-partners, and demonic enthrallment to smuggle drugs in and humans who nobody ill miss out—subvert their society and get a steady supply of blood in a decades-long long-con!

“As Zithra Half-Orc, one of my identities, I have made allies in the goblin-filled slums on the outskirts of town. There is a hobgoblin who smuggles items into town. The efficacy of such smuggling has been… compromised… By heightened security in the area, and in the sewers, due to The Mages’ Tower and its Inquisition’s meddling…”

>>5217900
You pause to take a breath, and to propose the most daring parts of your plan.

“But we have Henzler, their Head Chimericist, in our pocket. She is highly-ranked. If we can topple The Archmage, we can install her in his place. The inquisition can be recalled, the sewers used to smuggle in the ‘shirin’ drug I told of… And then, selecting from among the drug-addled dregs, we can smuggle these humans OUT, along with any other materials or equipment we may need from the Tower, using the underground river beneath the mages’ own base-of-operations!”

The Chaplain had leaned back, as if impressed. You hoped he was impressed with your plan, and not with your impudence, or some obvious flaw that you had missed.”

“It is daring,” he eventually said. “But it will take time.”

“Yes,” you said with a smile. “But we are not an impatient race.”

This drew a rattling laugh from the Serpent Priest before you.

“Very well,” he had said. “Shall we begin?”

You return to the present. You look down at your stomach, at your sex below.

‘HE really, uh, came a lot, huh?’ asks Irinnile rhetorically, with a giggle. ‘You sure about this? You’re gonna’ be a sneaky-snake super-spy AND grow an egg inside of ya’?’

You look over at Roth, asleep on the floor, all but emptied of seminal fluid and of lifeforce alike. You smirk, and throw a nearby tapestry—a map of the local area—over him for the sake of propriety, should another of your people pay him a less lewd sort of visit. Sadly, his living quarters lack anything like blankets, sheets, or pillows (“Mammalian nonsense!”), so it will have to suffice.

‘I can manage,’ you say. ‘Mother did.’

What is your first course of action to set your schemes into motion?
>Use the halfling cook you have enthralled as your ‘contact’, directing her to take action while you remain underground, supervising matters here and building status
>Send Henzler home, at long last, with a cover story about a kidnapping by Southern Demonists; once she is in-place for a time, she can ‘deal with’ the Archmage and hide his body, then ascend to his station
>Sadly, it is time to speak with The Incubus—if you can make a deal with that demon, you can use the Prince to remove the Archmage and call off the authorities in the sewer with unquestionable legitimacy
>This requires a PERSONAL touch—egg or no egg—and you shall return to the city yourself to speak with Zi, with Mina and thus her brother Cuggi, and to arrange a meeting with the Archmage through Lord Yosef
>Write-in

>>5217902
>This requires a PERSONAL touch—egg or no egg—and you shall return to the city yourself to speak with Zi, with Mina and thus her brother Cuggi, and to arrange a meeting with the Archmage through Lord Yosef

We can RIP Yosef at the same time

>>5217902
>Use the halfling cook you have enthralled as your ‘contact’, directing her to take action while you remain underground, supervising matters here and building status
or
>Sadly, it is time to speak with The Incubus—if you can make a deal with that demon, you can use the Prince to remove the Archmage and call off the authorities in the sewer with unquestionable legitimacy
Good job making us an egg now of all times... jfc.

>>5217902
>Use the halfling cook you have enthralled as your ‘contact’, directing her to take action

He should begin to acquire poisons - we can kill 2 birds with 1 stone at their next meeting

>This requires a PERSONAL touch—egg or no egg—and you shall return to the city yourself to speak with Zi, with Mina and thus her brother Cuggi

See if we can get a squad of infiltrators assigned to us though as reinforcements.

>>5217902
>>This requires a PERSONAL touch—egg or no egg—and you shall return to the city yourself to speak with Zi, with Mina and thus her brother Cuggi, and to arrange a meeting with the Archmage through Lord Yosef

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>>5218034
>>5218106
>>5218224
>Use the halfling cook you have enthralled as your ‘contact’, directing her to take action
>This requires a PERSONAL touch—egg or no egg—and you shall return to the city yourself to speak with Zi, with Mina and thus her brother Cuggi

You leave Roth’s quarters—you don’t wish to press you luck with your new status by allowing others to learn of the unilateral reproductive action you have taken, and with such a high-born male! Instead, your return to your own and, once there, you set the stage for your return to Hawksong. You do this by taking possession of the ectoplasm-inculcated halfling cook who serves your human ancestor, a female called Malalyn Warmfeet.

You don’t have her take any drastic action… Not yet. Rather, you send her to apothecaries around the city in her free time, spending her own hard-earned money on individual herbs and animal-derivatievs which can be combined (with your people’s in-depth knowledge of such matters) to create viable, ingestible toxins and subcutaneous poisons.

Next, you send the halfling—uncomprehend of her actions, naïve to your intentions—to Goblintown. This proves… A dicey proposition, with the small-sized mammal almost accosted and mugged (well, a mere mugging is the BEST-case scenario) shortly after her arrival. However, when she drops the names ‘Navrere’ and ‘Yen-Zi’, the green-skinned assailants back off, and before long she is brought to the former: Navrere, the loud-mouthed hobgoblin smuggler who seemingly runs the most successful such racket in Goblintown.

“Word is you’re asking for me,” she barks, gnawing on a bone mostly stripped of the half-raw meat which covered it not so long ago. “Why? Who do you work for, HOBBIT?”

“There’s no need for slurs,” the halfling whispers.

“WHAT WAS THAT?!”

“N-n-n-nothing!”

You sigh, taking manual control of the demure thrall. Through her, you explain you plan:

“I’m working for Zithra, the half-orc who you hid not long ago.”

“Oh yeah? I think I remember her… The real human-looking one, green skin… Big chest?”

You roll your eyes, but have Malalyn nod, and say (albeit without your accent): “That’ss the one. She iss no mere bar-brawler, but a much bigger player than that… And, having sseen you operation in-persson, she wishess to offer you an opportunity that could make you both very, VERY wealthy.”

“What kind of opportunity?” Navrere asks, setting down the bone on a bare, grimy-looking table, to your distaste; you have the distinct feeling she is not above continuing to gnaw on it after negotiations have concluded.

“Bring the goblin known asss Yen-Zi,” you say through Warmfeet, “and meet with her in three dayss, by the edge of the forestss along the road. I will tell you the exxact place clossser to the time.”

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>>5218392
How do I know this ain’t some… Trick? Some set-up?” Navrere asks. “You don’t exactly strike me as the criminal element, hobbit.”

At your insistence, terrified little Malalyn Warmfeet shrugs and smirks.

“Your lossss,” you (and thus the halfling) say. “Then Zi’sss racket will get all the profit.”

It’s a bluff, for Zi is not as well-connected or highly-placed as Navrere, but it is one which seemingly succeeds.

“Fuck it,” she spits, taking up the bone from the table and snapping it to slurp out the marrow. “I’m in.”

You extract the halfling hurriedly from the sinister slums of Goblintown and return her to her normal abode in Lord Yosef’s home. Only then do you open your eyes and rise to your feet, ready for your part in the plan. You hold out your arm, Little Hirchel the feathered drake lighting upon it with a wide yawn and a quiet croak,a nd you leave to speak with The Chaplain again.

“You are requesting leave to deal with this… Personally?” The Chaplain asks, surprised. “But why? You have become quite valuable here, Infiltrator. You must eb aware of this.”

“My personal approach is necessary, to win the trust of the catfolk… And there are still other matters I must attend to.”

“Ah, yes… Your mission from The Dark Gods, to destroy the Yosefs” The Chaplain says, reverence mingling with envy. “Very well. What do you require?”

“Reinforcements at the ready would be nice,” you say.

“You may take the Dragonblooded one and your fellow—and the other Degenerate,” he says. “Do you require more? Too many Reptilians in one place decreases comaprmentalziation, and increases the risk of discovery.”

Do you request further reinforcements?
>Yes, but disperse them through the city with cover identities, to call upon as needed
>Yes, a small battalion of Steeltalons at the ready, to hunker down in Goblintown
>No, those two will be enough
>Write-in

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>>5218393
There is also the OTHER matter… That of your embryo, developing within an egg inside you. You have successfully given reality to your vision, fulfilled your own prophecy: you are carrying Roth’s child. Irinnile’s soul-sense confirms as much: a child grows within you. However, what it is NOT is a Dragonborn. You have reached out to Head Chimericist Henzler across your ectoplasmic link about this matter, but her advice was… Troubling.

“The heart,” she said, excitement building as she considered the implications, and hears of what youv’e already achieved with her first such chimera. “We need the heart. The direct, untainted blood of the dragon, mingled with yours and with Roth’s own, already draconic, bloodline… And the travelers who I’ve ‘acquired with the help of these farmers… Yes, YES! This could be it! I could make a PERFECT Dragonborn with such ingredients!”

Of course, you know that you cannot just TAKE the heart of The Great Green Dragon. It is the last pure material your own Fleshwavers have! But to perform the experiment here… You would need to admit what you have done, that you have mated (in clear defiance of your people’s law, and without even asking) and conceived a Degenerate child with a Dragonblood. You’re not even sure ROTH understands that you were doing more than sating the succubus within. They may demand an abortion, or even strip you of some of the privileges you have acquired.

‘And Henzler’s, like, waaaay better at this stuff than them, anyway, right?’ Irinnile notes.

What do you do?
>Take the heart without asking, so Henzler can ensure the experiment is a success
>Attempt the experiment yourself, unaided except by Henzler’s remote advice [Your Biological Manipulation has risen to 3d20 thanks to your EXTREMELY successful experiment and studies]
>Ask The Chaplain for permission, and the Fleshweaver’s aid, and admit to your pregnancy
>Forget it—you will find another way
>Write-in

>>5218363
Already had this written up, but it DOES involve a personal touch... Oops!

>>5218394
>No, those two will be enough
Honestly I'd be cool going alone

>Forget it—you will find another way
All those nat 20's were miracles, and to do this would be to risk it all.

>>5218393
>Yes, but disperse them through the city with cover identities, to call upon as needed
Compartmentalized unless we need them.
>Ask The Chaplain for permission, and the Fleshweaver’s aid, and admit to your pregnancy
Remind he we WILL purify it of the weak human element in us.
We could just take some blood, and freeze it with a Serpent Priest's help, if possible.

>>5218890
>>5218428
[Time for work, but I'll await a tiebreaker or else roll after my shift.]

>>5218393
>Yes, but disperse them through the city with cover identities, to call upon as needed

>>5218394
>Feel the Chaplain's out on this subject, see how he feels and his thoughts on this before admitting to anything

I'm going for the cautious-optimistic approach here, don't want to risk our baby-plan too much.

>>5219359
>>5218890
>>5218428
“We should take our time,” you say. “Disperse the reinforcements to avoid suspicion. Set them up with false identities. When we make our move, we can close ranks.”

The Chaplain inclines his head slightly and croaks an agreement.

"It is a worthwhile investment," he agrees. "The time to make or move will soon be upon us."

You are grateful he sees the wisdom so readily. It emboldens you. There is another matter to discuss, and you resolve to do so.

You have a prophetic dream to realize, and the dragon-heart is the surest way to achieve this. So far, The Chaplain has been quiet amiable to your suggestions and requests—how can he not be, you suppose, with the results you have been able to achieve? This is the best possible time to request an exemption to the reproductive restrictions placed upon your kind, and access to the heart itself…

But a lifetime of conditioning is difficult to break. You lower your eyes again, automatically submissive to his will, and despite a boldness rising in your chest, you hedge your bet.

“The Head Chimerisist, the human ‘fleshweaver’ Henzler… She suggested that there might be a way to sped the production, and to improve the quality, of the Dragonborn.”

The Chaplain no longer scoffs immediately at such ‘simian spellcraft’ as he once would have—he knows better. Still, you see his features flatten and wattle tremble with displeasure as you explain the plan: the impregnation of Degenerates, and modification of their developing eggs with the dragon-heart.

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>>5219454
“Absolutely not!” he says. “The human blood used to create these Great Ones must be MINIMAL. To plant golden seeds in such tainted soil… To actually have them BIRTHED from the ‘vaginas’ of such half-mammals…”

“We… Their kind are already less human that those full-blooded subjects we will be using to create them using the planned methods,” you note.

“Then we can use Degenerates for the human material, perhaps,” he allows, perhaps a bit mean-spiritedly; after all, the plan for captured humans is to use them for blood, like a binding-agent for the dragon and Reptilian blood, and then to throw away the drained ‘donors’.

“But—”

“The contribution of a mother is too great---far greater than to portion of human blood we were planning to use.”

“But if we also were to breed the Degenerates with full-blooded Reptilians—”

“Then we introduce additional variables, perhaps polluting MUTLIPLE bloodlines to produce utterly DEGNERATE Dragonborn!”

You are cowed by The Chaplain’s raised voice, immediately silencing yourself. In response, he softend only slightly.

“The Heart is a finite resource,” he says. “We must use it carefully, sparingly… We have a method which works, which produces beings of great might and majesty. This is thanks to you! But what you propose… It is blasphemy. So speaks your Chaplain.”

It is a bridge too far, you suppose… And it gives you much to consider.

What do you do?
>Take your leave and return to the surface, telling The Chaplain nothing of your growing egg
>Admit to your ‘blasphemous’ transgression, pleading mercy and offering to abort the fetus
>Leave this place… And take the heart with you anyway. They will forgive you when they see the truth of your glorious prophecy-child with their own eyes!
>You cannot, WILL not, steal the scared dragon-heart… But you know your plan will succeed, if you can merely take a little material from it and have Henzler guide you in a quick procedure…
>Write-in

>>5219457
>Take your leave and return to the surface, telling The Chaplain nothing of your growing egg
aaand maybe have Iri kill it, we can always make another one later

>>5219457
>Take your leave and return to the surface, telling The Chaplain nothing of your growing egg
>Tell Urinnile delete the egg
It's been just one day, no big deal.

>>5219465
Supporting

Don’t delete egg yet

>>5219465
>>5219773
>>5219887
You accept The Chaplain’s judgement as wise and just, and you leave the office. Despite this, you The Chaplain nothing of the growing embryo developing even now inside of you. At first, this is because you plan to simply erase the sin—to have Irinnile slay the small spark of the soul within you and to absorb it, to pretend none of this foolishness ever happened. Only…

>maybe have Iri kill it
>maybe
>Don’t delete egg yet

…Maybe not just yet. It’s only been a day. You still have plenty of time to consider your options, to persuade those in power of the merit of your plan.

“Come on, Superior One,” you say to Roth, leaning again outside of his chamber. “Let’s go.”

The older Dragonblood looks almost afraid of you then, instinctively shielding his groin. “I… I CANNOT. No, not so soon after—”

“Quiet yourself!” you hiss, lest he be overheard. “I mean to say that we have been assigned to return to Hawksong.”

“…Oh. Yes. I see.”

You resist the urge to laugh aloud; Irinnile, your voice only audible to you, shows no such restraint, and her infectious laughter forces a smile.

“Don’t you smirk at me, you Degenerate!” Roth blusters. “I will gather what I must and meet you at the exit cave, whence we entered.”

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>>5219926
Alhazred is less decisive when you approach him.

“Was I explicitly include din this order?” he asks. “My human parentage is Southernly, and the alarm which you have raised may well raise suspicion of darker, foreign human breeds.”

You pause before replying. Alhazred has been useful, stalwart, cunning, and supportive. He is a fellow Degenerate—the first of your abhorred and discriminated-against ilk with whom you have bonded.

‘Handsome son-of-an-iguana, too,’ Irinnile notes, appreciatively. ‘Ooo, that jawline!’

You sensed resentment and envy in him however. You do not detect it now, but his reluctance to immediately seize upon this opportunity in spit of his ambition speaks to a disillusionment.

What do you do?
>Bring Alhazred
>Leave Alhazred here
>Suggest that Alhazred at least join you as far as the surface, then chart his own course
>Write-in

The rest of your reinforcements are (so you are told) to meet you in Hawksong—or, rather, to privately coordinate through Roth and Albacete, and one other such contact called Sauer who hides in some capacity among the shippers and receivers at the dockyards. They will await your signal and summons, and join you when you need them—be it this month, or next year, or five years hence. They are to be embedded deep, attending to no other grand schemes save to support your own. It is an ego-affirming situation, to say the least: you are practically a field commander, something even Roth and Albacete cannot boast!

You don your leafweave armour, (reluctantly) trade your blood-red Fleshweaver cloak for your (by now cleaned and mended) blue one which Agatha Johan made for you, and you make the long trek up the winding tunnel-system to the cave outside of Sparrowtown. Roth is at your side, in his same humble garb and same human guise. Your first destination is…
>The farmhouse, to see Henzler and your pact-minions and to check in on their progress
>Sparrowton, to gather a few supplies
>Goblintown, to attend your promised meeting
>Mina at The Pretty Kitty, to explain your absence and to ask after your brother’s trading company—your source of subversive shirin stimulant
>Write-in

>>5219928
>Leave Alhazred here
>The farmhouse, to see Henzler and your pact-minions and to check in on their progress
>Delete egg before it becomes a moral problem

>>5219942
>Before it becomes a moral problem
[Point of order: it already has a soul inside it. In this setting, especially to someone with a spiritual sense, life really does begin at conception. If you mean by Reptilian Master Race ethical standards, killing a Degenerate at any age, before or after laying or hatching an egg, can be easily justified.]

>>5219928
>Leave Alhazred here
sorry our pogchampness outshines you bro
we're just the best
our rolls can't be beat

>The farmhouse, to see Henzler and your pact-minions and to check in on their progress

backing fetus deletus

>>5220010
>>5219960
actually wait on the egg just long enough to make sure Henzler can't do anything with it, since we're checking on her anyway

>>5219926
>Don’t delete egg yet
We should talk to Henzler privately about it first

>Leave Alhazred here
Ambition requires a willingness to seize control over your own fate

He is clearly lacking in this department

>The farmhouse, to see Henzler and your pact-minions and to check in on their progress

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>>5220450
>>5220012
>>5220010
>>5219942
Under cover of darkness and forest, you travel with Roth and your chimeras. The Dragonborn stays behind, of course, doted on and monitored for side-effects or complications by the Fleshweavers. He has settled into the comforts of kingship quite readily, even if he still flinches away from the chimerical procedures and medicines they provide. You reassure the big lug that all will be well and, seemingly trusting you implicitly, he takes comfort in this. The owlbear, and tentacle dog, though, you cannot leave—ESECIALLY the owlbear, who most of your kind are instinctively terrified to even approach. If it wasn’t for you and Alhazred, he would never be fed! As for Little Hirchsel… You simply like him much to leave behind. He seems to appreciate you, too, leaning into your chin scritches with obvious eagerness.

Alhazred, though, you leave behind. You imagine you could do something to alter his complexion with yours and Henzler’s ever-better mastery of biological alchemy… But then, he clearly lacks the unique spark that sets you apart from common Degenerates. He will only slow you down. He seems to understand this well enough, anyway… You think.

Alhazred isn’t the only matter you have second thoughts about. Throughout the entirety of your journey to the farmhouse, you constantly war with your conscience about the small soul inside of you. The better, more loyal part of you feels like a stupid, STUPID fool for even humouring the idea of breeding, let alone without getting a Superior One’s explicit permission and protection. What if youa re found out? What fi it all goes wrong?! As you camp in the woods with Roth, half-way to the farmhouse, you stare down at your abdomen—still flat and toned—and debate simply erasing the entity within you as if itw as never there.

‘Baby souls don’t have a lot of flavour,’ Irinnile laments. ‘But hey, meal’s a meal. Want me to take care of this?’

‘…’

‘Hotstuff?’

‘Not yet,’ you respond. ‘Let Henzler have a look at this…. Opportunity.’

You place your hands upon your abdomen almost automatically, instinctively. You feel a smile crease your face, just slightly. You wonder if your mother ever looked down at you like this.

‘Hormones are kicking in, huh?’ Irinnile notes.

You shush her.

“What are you doing?” Roth snaps. “The fire requires more fuel, Infiltrator!”

You roll your eyes, and go gather more firewood for your father’s unknowing father, surly old curmudgeon that he is.

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>>5220543
The next day, you arrive on the farm, finding the people there… Changed. The two small children are much the same, albeit clearly more comfortable than they were before. Their time with Henzler has seemingly inoculated them against oddness—they even seem almost EXCITED to see you and your menagerie.

“The lizardfolks are here!” the girl cries when she sees you. “They brought the owlbear!”

The son is a bit warier, but still does not flee, or flinch, and regards you all with clear interest, and no obvious fear.

“Their father was… Not a terribly kind man, nor very emotionally present,” the farmwife explains, when you ask after their odd reaction. “We told them of what you have done... Are doing, for us.”

And indeed, you can see that progress has been made. The woman, Gisela, was in her forties—still IS, you suppose—but she looks to be about your age. She was already attractive enough to you, but now Irinnile is wolf-whistling at the human peasant from inside of you, and you find yourself appreciating her sturdy-but-supple figure yourself. And, uh…

‘Stefan,’ Irinnile helpfully provides.

STEFAN, her one-time stepson turned mate, he is also changed. He was never SMALL, being honed by formwork, but where he appeared younger than you, and even a bit shorter, he is now taller and broader than Roth. He hefts the heavy satchels and backpacks you foist upon him with ease. He even appears… Older, perhaps?

“It’s just like you promise,” he says, clearly no longer so troubled by the demise of his late father as he was. “I… I am sorry that I doubt you.”

“Mmm, yess,” you say, watching the light of the house’s lanterns glisten off of his sweat-slickened bicep.

Roth huffs, angling between the two of you.

‘Ooo, possessive,’ Irinnile notes. ‘Is that a bit of DESIRE I sense in Tightass McHeatcycle?’

“Progress has been swift,” Henzler notes, “since we began capturing subjects.”

This demands further explanation, which Henzler provides: she had been seizing upon opportunities to sample small amounts of blood from humans without harming them, but eventually this proved insufficient. Taking the initiative, she began using her magic and her physically augmentations—you remember the muscular tentacles hidden in her baggy robes—to snatch up lone travelers whose apparel and demeanour indicated to her that they would not be missed.

“You’ve been… KILLING humanss? Without permissssion?!”

It’s a bold move—a move you HOPED she and other ectoplasmically-enthralled individuals would not be able to take without your explicit say-so.

“Of course not,” she quickly corrects you. “That would be a waste of resources. No, I’ve been KIDNAPPING humans, and storing them in the barn for future use.”

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>>5220546
You look to Gisela and Stefan, who hold each other subtly.

“You are okay with thisss?” you ask.

“No,” Stefan says, plainly.

“YES,” Gisela says, glaring at him, and then looking to you apologetically. “Forgive him, he is…”

“Being honest,” Stefan says. “But… Yes, sorry. No, we’re not… I’m not happy about it, but…”

“But it’s worth it,” Gisela finishes, squeezing his arm and looking at you in awe and terror. “We don’t regret it.. Our pact.”

“…No,” Stefan admits, though with obvious shame that he does not feel more regret. “Still… You can mess with minds, right? With memories? I’d hoped… The mage, Madame Henzler, she said we’d have to kill them, to keep them quiet. I was hoping…”

He was hoping you could sue mesmerism to purge his captured guests’ minds of their traumatic captivity and experimentation, and then release them.

“They’re only disposable, utterly unremarkable travelers,” Henzler mutters.

What do you do?
>Kill them all—it’s safer
>Attempt to forge further pacts, bargaining for these people’s freedom in exchange for their loyalty and energy to further empower Irrinile
>Erase these captives’ memories and free them
>Write-in

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>>5220549
Once the captives have been attended to, you approach Henzler about the… OTHER matter.

“So, you have been impregnated,” Henzler reaffirms, with the subtlety of a brick. “By the red one—Roth?”

“Yess,” you say, “and he himsself hass in him the blood of ANOTHER dragon, The Red Dragon of the Middle Mountainsss.”

“The one who lived in that volcano and commanded all those kobolds?” Henzler asks. “Wasn’t it…”

“Sslain by an alliancce of elvesss and dwarvesss, before your people moved into thiss area of the ssurface, yess.”

Henzler is immediately enthralled. You’re lucky you have kept Roth distracted with dinner, for she is immediately upon you with ahnds and tentacles, prying at your clothes before you can utter the command to stop her.

“ENOUGH!” you snap. “I am not one of your roadsside victimss, HUMAN.”

“…Yes, of course. I emrely… I grew excited. Do you have the heart?!”

“No,” you say.

This causes Henzler to frown slightly.

“What can you do without it?” you ask.

“I can… Increase the musculature, accentuated the draconic phenotype. With your aid—and your demon’s—we could accentuate the most ferocious and reptilian elements of your bloodline, and of Roth’s… But without more dragon-blood, we will never have something quite like a true ‘Dragonborn’.”

Your heart sinks. An eight-foot tall, dragon-silkscale-human hybrid with much-diluted blood… It’s nothing to scoff at, but it is no titanic copper-hued King of Kings, as in your vision.

“Though…” Henzler says quietly.

“Yess?”

“With some draconic material from Roth, or that one upon your shoulder—”

She gestures her with her chin, to the little feather drake Hirschel upon your shoulder, who look sup at her.

“Maybe we can accentuate it a little further.”

“Is it ssafe for them?” you ask.

“Roth would probably live, but he’d be… He would, I admit, need to recover. The drake… It would die. We need too much material for it to live.”

Hirschel croaks a little, and fans his wings.


What do you do?
>Fuck it, abort the egg
>Agree—you will sacrifice Hirschel for your unborn son’s might and majesty
>Agree—you will tell Roth of what you have done, and request his aid in breeding an heir to him who will shake the very earth with his footsteps
>Disagree—you will not abort your pregnancy, but you MUST find another way, later
>Write-in

>>5220549
>Tell Stefan yeah, you can totally do that.
Obviously we won't, they're all gonna die, but he doesn't need to hear that. We can let Iri eat them, she hasn't gotten to indulge in cannibalism for a while.

>Fuck it, abort the egg
we tried
and we can always try again if we happen into heart ownership

>>5220549
>Attempt to forge further pacts, bargaining for these people’s freedom in exchange for their loyalty and energy to further empower Irrinile

Do this individually - and if they don’t agree or the demand is too great, just kill them.

>Disagree—you will not abort your pregnancy, but you MUST find another way, later
We’ll find another way

>>5220549
>Kill them all—it’s safer
Make it look like we mesmerize them
>Offer Stefan and Gisela to purge their memory if this
Free of charge
>>5220550
>Fuck it, abort the egg
We will get another one once we're a full-blooded reptilian!

>>5220549
>Attempt to forge further pacts, bargaining for these people’s freedom in exchange for their loyalty and energy to further empower Irrinile

>>5220550
>Disagree—you will not abort your pregnancy, but you MUST find another way, later

One round of unprotected sex and anons already want to have an abortion. You should’ve thought of that before you decided to impregnate us.

>>5220976
>One round of unprotected sex and anons already want to have an aberration. You should’ve thought of that before you decided to impregnate us.
People abort when they learn of abnormality all the time.

>>5220978
>You should’ve thought of that before you decided to impregnate us.
I never voted for this because I am capable of thinking ahead, fuck off.

>>5220992
>I never voted for this because I am capable of thinking ahead

Then stop being offended by something that wasn’t aimed at you.

>>5220614
>>5220825
>>5220919
>>5220978
Even now, you cannot make up your mind about the egg inside. Your hands continue to res unconsciously upon your belly, running up an down the skin whenever you mind drifts towards it. The perfection of the offspring within seems ever more distant, ever less likely… But there is still time! Your work with the fully-grown Dragonborn bac at the forward base shows as much! You will find your way, take another time… or smash the egg when you lay it, if you really must.

You had reassured nervous, overly-empathetic Stefan that you would give the human blood-banks kept in the barn the chance to be free again—and, perhaps mostly importantly, to live. This was not ENTRIELY a lie: some, at least, may yet see the sun. It is just that many—most? Maybe all?—may not.

You enter the barn to find rows of males and females (though mostly men, which you suppose makes sense for lone travelers) bound and gagged with rope and with cloth, tied to one another and to a fence-like apparatus at the back intended for tying up animals. Maybe of them show evidence of failed escape attempts: a broken foot or ankle here, a defeated, apathetic expression there. Each and every one has bloodied cloth bound to them somewhere—evidence of bloodletting, for the Head Chimericist’s experiments.

“Alright,” you say, smiling widely and clapping your hands. “Who wantss to go home?”

This gets many of their attention, though not all. When you turn up your glamour, that seems to do the rest. Not all of them are shouting eagerly (And unintelligibly,, thanks to their gags). Some are wary, perhaps understandably after their recent experiences.

“You don’t know me, but can be your friend,” you say, walking the line of them. “or… not. What I’m offering iss a chacce to leave thiss placce. In exxxchange, and in exchange for your loyalty, your ssilencce on what happened here, and a SSMALL amount of enery from each of you, I offer a pact.. And relative freedom.”

There is silence.

“Oh, and you get to live!” you add.

One human, a male, gestures for you to remove his gag. You do so.

“Why should we believe you?” he asks.

“Because I don’t actually NEED to negotiate, you point out wryly. “Not with ssomene in your posssition.”

“Then why are you?” he asks. “What will happen to us? What will you have us do, once we are free?”

Another human screams at him, frantic and furious, through his gag. You can just make out the word ‘demon.’

“SHUT UP!” the negotiator shuts, voice quavering slightly. “I know that, damnit… I know. But… I want to live. I don’t want to die here!”

>>5221043

Do you have any specific plans for those who accept your deal?
>They will serve as safe-houses and stop-off points for your drug-and-captive trafficking route to and from Hawksong
>They will pray to Irinnile—and-to you—as a sort of Lesser God… or Greater Demon… And nothing else shall be necessary at this time
>They will continue to help Henzler with her experiments here
>They should be ready to rise in revolt and rebellion, when the time comes... And, perhaps, to be chimericzed into more perfect soldiers
>Write-in

Do you sweeten the to at all? After all… A pact will bind you magically, but not the humans, without a curse, and you do not know how to create such a thing yet.
>Offer these humans similar terms to the farmwife and her boytoy: physical betterment through Henzler’s work, if they comply
>You will use the drugs which will soon be at your disposal to keep them in-line
>You will use mesmerism and some succubus sex to extract energy and loyalty alike
>Fear will keep them in line… You will reveal a terrible, demonic war-form to them and dare them to challenge your authority
>Write-in

>>5221046
>They will serve as safe-houses and stop-off points for your drug-and-captive trafficking route to and from Hawksong
>They will continue to help Henzler with her experiments here
Split them in two groups.
>You will use mesmerism and some succubus sex to extract energy and loyalty alike
for short term and then
>Offer these humans similar terms to the farmwife and her boytoy: physical betterment through Henzler’s work, if they comply
Weak and sick humans are useless to us.

>Delete the egg
Can't believe we can't agree to delay the egg till the epilogue and when we're potentially a fully blooded reptilian. It will only hinder our progress now.

>>5221050
>Delete the egg
[It was a tie vote after several votes to delay. I'm not taking more votes on it until circumstances change enough to warrant putting the matter forward to vote anew. Sorry, but if everyone keeps appending unsolicited egg votes at the end of each entry, it will be a neverending circular argument.]

File: 1642989677418.webm (1.73 MB, 388x690)

1.73 MB WEBM

>>5221058
Nobody asked for the impregnation fetish out of nowhere and then dramatic reveal that the Chaplain would hack off Roth's cocks if he knew he impregnated Ismena! You did it to yourself.

>>5221067
[People voted for the Infiltrator to become pregnant, knowing that she was legally forbidden from doing so... And when I presented repeated votes to keep or abort it, there was no consensus to do so. It is what it is. If circumstances change, I will put forward another vote. You can type "delete the egg" on every unrelated vote if you want. I'm just doing the courtesy of letting you know that I'm ignoring it until I actually ask again.]

>>5221074
>knowing that she was legally forbidden from doing so
bold of you to assume they care about the consequences of their own choices

>>5221046
>>They will serve as safe-houses and stop-off points for your drug-and-captive trafficking route to and from Hawksong
>>They will continue to help Henzler with her experiments here

>You will use mesmerism and some succubus sex to extract energy and loyalty alike

>>5221046
>They will pray to Irinnile—and-to you—as a sort of Lesser God… or Greater Demon… And nothing else shall be necessary at this time

>Offer these humans similar terms to the farmwife and her boytoy: physical betterment through Henzler’s work, if they comply

>>5221046
>They will serve as safe-houses and stop-off points for your drug-and-captive trafficking route to and from Hawksong
>They will pray to Irinnile—and-to you—as a sort of Lesser God… or Greater Demon…

These two.

She can always abduct more victims.

>Offer these humans similar terms to the farmwife and her boytoy: physical betterment through Henzler’s work, if they comply
>You will use mesmerism and some succubus sex to extract energy and loyalty alike

These two.

We really need to find out how to form pacts…

Can we ask Irinnile to search her inner thoughts…or consult the Record?

>>5221363
We do know how to form pacts though? It's curses we don't know about.

>>5221424
Ah, my mistake.

We need to know more about that then

Rolled 14, 7, 18, 12, 15, 19 = 85 (6d20)

>>5221444

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>>5221050
>>5221092
>>5221169
>>5221363
>>5221632

“Pray to me,” you say, holding out your hand to the human male at your feet—the one who will be first to negotiate. “Pray to your new masster, in lieu of the Gods of Light. Be loyal to me. DO as I sssay, and you shall live.”

Several humans now cry out in outrage, but your smile does not wane, and the man’s eyes do not waver.

“Yes,” he says quietly, “Master.”

“Hmm, no,” you say. “We prefer… Missstresss.”

“…Yes, Mistress,” he says, and takes your hand

“Good boy!” you say.

From there, you outline to he, and to each of the humans who complies and agrees to serve you, your master plan: that they will serve as a rural network across the kingdom, ferrying or storing your goods—human chattel, drugs, agents of your will or that of your masters.

“In exchange,” you say cheerfully, “I will grant you not jusst life, but life with BENEFITSSS. You will be young, and strong, and…”

Irinnile sends a tingle across your body.

“…And virile, for sso much longer than other mere humanss!”

>19
The fear of further torture did some heavy lifting for you, but the promises pique interest in at least a few of them. Of the eight people gathered, the two females and four of the males are at your beck and call now. As for the others…

‘HeheheheheHEEEE,’ Irinnile squeals in delight.

They can watch as you buy a bit MORE loyalty, and sate the succubus’ <WANT>, with a good old fashioned gangbang.

“Come,” you beckon huskily. “Pay tribute to your new Misstressss.”

As so they do…

<WANT: 10>

SO much tribute.

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>>5221639
The barn is hellishly hot by the time you are done, each of your new vassals drenches in sweat and… Other fluids. Their clothes are scattered, torn. Scratches and bites cover many of them, marks of Irinnile’s wildness—marks of their Mistress’ dominion. Some look at you in wonderment; others cannot bear to, for the shame of what they have done. None held anything back, though—not once the frenzy took them.

Your lifeforce is swollen, your soulbound succubus full with lust-tainted magical energies like some great spiritual leech glutted almost to bursting… But she does not burst. No, she seems to have GROWN, in might and complexity.

‘I think I even, like… Got smart?’ Irinnile muses. ‘Everything seems clearer… And I think I’m actually NOT hungry or horny for once? Can that, like… Be RIGHT?’

You put that matter aside for a moment, turning to the two horrified, gagged captives who remain bound—the two men too pious to defiant to join in your festival of hedonistic delight. You elan down, removing their gags.

“You’re sure you two boysss don’t want to join in?” you tease.

One of them spits in your face.

“Demon bitch,” snarls the other, before turning on your acolytes. “You’re all DAMNED, do you hear me?! You’ve DOOMED yourselves, and she’s just probably going to kill you all anyway! You can’t trust a demon!”

‘Well,’ Irinnile muses, ‘I SAID I was full… But I could eat.’

And so…

<WANT: 4>

…You allow her to do so.

You leave your burgeoning demon-cult to clean themselves up and dispose of the remains of the two defiant ones—a loyalty test, to ensure they fear you or covet your gifts enough to do the terrible things which you require. You and Irinnile commune as you return to the farmhouse, deducing that with a FEW more pacts like that, you might be able to make her TRULY great.

‘With my own sigil and everything!’

<Greater Demon Completion: 75%>

It’s certainly an avenue to still greater power—one you had considered in the past, but only now made strides towards. Still, even with a powered-up parasite within you, you have had a long journey, and your body was just put through its paces. Weariness lingers at the edges of your excitement, encroaching on your post-coitus buzz.

What do you do?
>Rest up—you’ll need it, for tomorrow’s trek will be similarly long
>Snuggle up with Roth for the evening, and talk to him [about what?]
>Have Henzler make what chimeric modification to your growing egg that she can [specify if you have anything in mind]
>Search Irinnile’s growing consciousness, and the Akashic Record, for information on an occult matter [specify what]
>Pay a dream-visit to Edwin—that orgy was excellent, but it left you emotionally wanting
>Write-in

>>5221641
>Have Henzler make what chimeric modification to your growing egg that she can

Any improvements she can make which do not put our own life or body at risk

If anons are desperate to delet egg, we may as well try and fix it first

>Search Irinnile’s growing consciousness, and the Akashic Record, for information on an occult matter

Curses linked to pacts

>>5221641
>>Have Henzler make what chimeric modification to your growing egg that she can [specify if you have anything in mind]
Fix egg

>>Pay a dream-visit to Edwin—that orgy was excellent, but it left you emotionally wanting

>>5221641
>Rest up—you’ll need it, for tomorrow’s trek will be similarly long

Rolled 76, 40 = 116 (2d100)

>>5221852
>>5221844
>>5221785
[Rolling a couple probabilities, then posting.]

>>5221989
>>5221852
>>5221844
>>5221785You spend the first phase of the long night meditating and researching, while the farmhands and your new minions tend to your chimeras. Cross-legged upon the floor of the room which you have commandeered, you and your demonic partner delve deep into the Akashic Record of the Dark Gods -- that invisible book in the space between spaces, recording the words and deeds of every agent your divine masters have ever employed.

It has been a while since you accessed the Record, and you have never before seen much in the way of detailed demon-dealings within. Oh, you’ve seen entities like Iirnnile summoned and deployed as assets, but it seems to be a rare thing for a Reptilian to form a pact with a demonic entity, or even to deeply involve themselves in their summoned demon’s specific methods and abilities…

‘Hey, babe, lemme’ take the reins for a bit, huh?’

Luckily, you newly-empowered succubus seems to know what she’s looking for. What she finds is, frankly, shocking. She guides you through aeons and across continents to a dark, misty place, warm despite the nighttime texture of this particular memory, in the green of the woods. There, you find an agent of your gods, communing with demons and commanding a curious, amphibious breed of lizardmen who cower before them…

But ‘they’ are a ‘she’, and SHE is NOT a Reptilian!

You bear witness to a dark-skinned (Southern?) human woman, tattooed and afflicted by some deformity of the face and a foggy eye, wrapped in silks and festooned with jewelry of gold and bone alike, commanding Reptilian servants in evident service to YOUR dark Gods. How is this allowed?!

‘Hey, hey, Hotstuff!’ irinnile snaps her ephemeral fingers a few times. ‘Focus, alrght?’

You snap out of your moral panic to witness how this HUMAN WOMAN (indignity!) keeps lizardmen in line: when one-defies her, moves against her, attempts to rally his brethren in croaking, rattling war-chorus, a deep affliction affects him. His eyes go fogy, as the human female’s own. His face withers and melts into a mirror of her deformation, and then that physical mutation spreads across his features and down his body. HE shrivels up, curls up, and pleads for mercy as the human female approaches. His fellow males prostrate themselves, abandoning their revolt.


>Success: You have gained basic understanding of how to afflict a contingent curse

You do not see what happens to them next.

>>5222005

It is difficult for you to make heads or tails of the heretical scenario which you have seen, but you think you understand the mechanisms by which this human oppressed scalykind (with Dark Gods’ blessing?!)—an occult modification of warding magic, both of which you have experience with. Irinnile thoughtfully mulls over the implications on your behalf, putting her newly-improved mental acuity to the test while you next pay a visit to Henzler.

“A wise decision,” she sniffs, “even if a half-measure. You know, we should really—”

“Ssilenccce,” you wearily command her, and the Head Chimericist obeys.

You know what she was going to say: that you should sacrifice Hirschel to this enterprise, or bring in Roth, so that you can properly ‘draconicize’ the fetus within the egg within your womb. However, as your eyes settle upon Hirschel—fluttered from your shoulder to avoid Henzler’s prodding, but still unwilling to leave the room where she is performing the procedure on you—you again cannot bring yourself to sacrifice him.

“Do what you can to make my sson sstrong, fiercce, and noble.”

Henzler nods silently, but her expression seems skeptical. You grant her permission to speak once more, and she says: “May I ask how you know it’s a ‘son’ to begin with?”

“Developing in a warm environment, such ass a mammalian body, will almossst alwaysss guarantee an egg will hatch male,” you say. “And anyway, the ssuccubusss can sensse it.”

“I… See.” Henzler considers this. “May I have the succubus’ aid in this? It will make things easier, and safer for you and your child.”

You frown. You’d been meaning to pay Edwin a visit in his dreams again…

What do you do?
>Allow this, but attempt to dream-delve WITHOUT Irinnile to guide you
>Refuse—Irinnile will be assisting you, and Henzler will have to make do
>Do one, then the other—though it will leave you quite mentally and physically tired for tomorrow, more than this busy night is already likely to do
>Write-in

>>5222006
>Allow this

>>5222006
>>Allow this, but attempt to dream-delve WITHOUT Irinnile to guide you

>>5222006
>Allow this, but attempt to dream-delve WITHOUT Irinnile to guide you

what could possibly go wrong

>>5222006
>Allow this

Don’t go dreaming - we’re far from the city and almost didn’t make it back last time

>>5222011
>>5222026
>>5222253
>>5222300
[I'll wait a little while later for a (non 1post id) tiebreaker, or else roll for it at the end of the night.]

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>5222470

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>>5222470
>>5222544
>>5222300
>>5222253
>>5222026
>>5222011
With Irinnile’s consciousness expanded, and your own occult expertise likewise increased, you decide to trust the succubus to manage your material body while you take a little jaunt into the city on your own. You’re cognizant of how far the city is, and of dawn’s approach, but , well…

It’s EDWIN.

You miss Edwin, and a part of you maybe even misses Hawksong. The forward base of your people—a place where you grew up, essentially—has been good to you at some times, cruel to you at others, but it is undeniably a BORING affair when you’re not working. It is mission-focused by design. There is a chapel, and the faded and eroded ruins of great architectural works, but you KNOW all those works—have run your hands across the stone visages and spiraling, madness-inducing patterns since you were a hatchling. There is no breeding pit (as Irinnile oft lamented), but also no refined Reptilian charcuterie, no wondrous works of darkest magic as you might find deeper down—the TRUE glories of your people. It is a staging-ground for attacks on the much more interesting World Above, staffed with a skeleton-crew of agent provocateurs, off-duty from provocateur-ing. The farm, while more intriguing erotically, is still a far cry from the always-illuminated lantern light, the sights, soudns, smells, the fashion and fun, to be found in Hawksong!

And so you brave the obscuring haze and alien pressures of the dark spaces between consciousness-centres, traveling the dreamscape for the first time without your demonic guide. Irinnile had been worried for you, but your were adamant that you could do this alone… And so far, you have to say, you think you were right. Following the road into Hawksong, you hope for one sleeping caravan-vagrant to another, and follow the familiar trail of inns and small settlements which you have seen in waking and dreaming, by day and night. You exhilarate in the freedom of moving unseen, leaping from one spot of light and vibrancy to another in this world of shades and shadows.

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>>5222553
Eventually, you arrive at the sparkling constellation of your destiny—your genesis, your conquest, your Hawksong! And therein, buoyed on familiar and comfortable currents of mammalian fantasies, fears, and ambitions, you soar through the city and to your precious Edwin of Engel.

Tonight, he is in his bed, and he is alone. You hover above him for a time, just watching him. The way he holds his pillow in an embrace in your absence leaves you wistful, almost perversely jealous, and lonesome. In spite of Irinnile’s warmth within you all day and night, in spite of your… Unique relationship to Roth…

It’s EDWIN, and you wish you could turn back time and be with him here, in person, as you were.

What do you do?
>Just watch him, maybe leave him with a happy (sexy?) dream—this is enough
>Dive into his dream and spy upon him, learn what he has been up to and what has become of Hawksong more broadly
>Assume an avatar of Paula in his dreams and soil his image of her subconsciously, poisoning what you take to be a burgeoning relationship
>Approach him to have a deep conversation, honest and raw, as you wish you could do when he was awake [specify the details thereof that you wish to touch upon]
>Visit another dreamer—this is making you surprisingly melancholy [specify who you visit]
>Write-in

>>5222555
>Just watch him, maybe leave him with a happy (sexy?) dream—this is enough

Other anon was right as well, we can't lose track of time. Gotta be extra careful without Iri.

>>5222555
>Just watch him, maybe leave him with a happy (sexy?) dream—this is enough

>Visit another dreamer—this is making you surprisingly melancholy
Our father…

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>>5222566
The Infiltrator's father is dead. DO you mean Lord Yosef, her grandfather?

Ew. What the fuck is wrong with you retards? First you compulsively decide to use Roth to impregnate Ismena, then refuse to abort the shit and now you STILL try to bother Edwin?

>>5222578
Yeah, meant him…

>>5222555
>Approach him to have a deep conversation, honest and raw, as you wish you could do when he was awake [That we love him, that he meant the world to us, that I wish we could go back to where we were]

Don’t stay for too long, we have dawn to deal with.

>>5222631
*impulsively

[You voted yet? If not...]

>>5222774
>>5222566
>>5222565
[Three way tie: one for returning to your body, one for REALTALK with Edwin, and one for a visit to Lord Yosef]

>>5222868
>>5222774
I can back the REALTALK

>>5222868
Yes, whatever, I'm a fucking ESL.
>Return to your body
>>5222924
Fuck you.

>>5222631
They are roleplaying a woman.

[Locking for realtalk, then return to body. Will post after work! Expect delays or missed posts on Saturday, as I am hosting a party.]

>>5222555
>>Assume an avatar of Paula in his dreams and soil his image of her subconsciously, poisoning what you take to be a burgeoning relationship

>>5222951
This.

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>>5223227
We're already locked.

>>5222565
>>5222566
>>5222774
>>5222934
>>5223227
You lower closer and closer to Edwin’s form, fawning over his features—his soft expression, his strong features, his creased brown. You sigh, a happy sigh of fond remembrance, remembering his lips pressed to yours, his loving gaze.

No, this isn’t enough. You need to SEE him, to SPEAK with him… Maybe to have a bit of sex with him.

You delve into his mindscape, entering his private dreams.

In his dreams, Edwin is before the Endless Fountain—that Initiates’ Village monument which you and your Degenerates destroyed. You wince at the vista—it can’t possible bode well for your talk—but you are pleased that he is seated alone This was where you first encountered Paula, after all… But, glancing around, you see no sign of any such dream avatar. You briefly consider occupying her role yourself—of soiling Edwin’s impression of her subconsciously with a foul dream…

But no. it’s a personal point of pride for you that you haven’t yet purged the man’s memories, or manipulated his emotions magically. You haven’t been petty, or vindictive, or abusive… At least, not to him. NEVER to him.

Instead, you approach gingerly, nervously. Your usual cool is broken. You realize that this entrie expedition is silly, frivolous, emotional, PAINFULLY feminine in a most steroetypcial and utterly MAMMALIAN way…

<HEARTBREAK: 87%>

…But you can’t help it. It’s EDWIN.

“It’s gone, isn’t it?”

You freeze at the words. Edwin hasn’t straightened his posture, hasn’t turned to face you, but he’s clearly… Sensed you? Heard your faltering, hesitating footfalls? Who can say what means he has sensed you by, in this realm of dreams?

“What iss?” you ask.

“The Endless Fountain… It’s gone, and with the elves in decline, they’ll never make us a new one. It’s just… A magical wonder, gone forever.”

“It iss,” you admit after a while, taking another step.

Edwin looks over his shoulder at you, not in anger but in sadness, and pats the seat next to him. You step forward, and join him by his side. It feels…

Good, you think?

“It’s not all that’s gone for good, is it?” he asks, smiling sadly.

…Oh, no.