“Oh?” the voice of a rather irritated rat woman of unusual size caused a number of heads to turn. “Look who has the gall to walk in as though their hands were not nearly stained in the blood of our Lord?”

“Yes, I admit that is what almost happened,” Vyviir stated apologetically with his head uncharacteristically low. “Centuries ago, my mind was… well… affected by one of those damnable pieces of shit that we’ve been trying to deal with for even longer. Regretfully, that means that all conversations I was involved in have been leaked. We will need to alter our plans and-.”

“Okay, okay, hold up…” interjected Zahra. “You mean to say they know of everything we talked about? Everything?!”

“Not everything.” Vyviir insisted. “A decent portion of it? Yes. But thankfully their control only recently reached the point at which I could not control by physical actions and speech. Even my mind was essentially just ‘along for the ride’ and all it could do was limit my full potential to a mere fraction of what it had been.”

“I do not smell Their taint on you any longer, and I assume that the explosion from earlier was the result of you removing the parasite?” Asked Arachnaerok.

“Cost me an arm, but nothing my full power could not repair.” Vyviir said dismissively. “That rock that was in my forehead was similar in function to one of those obelisks that the damned sand elves were using in your lands, Zahra, just smaller and yet more tailored to subtle, slow, gradually increasing, puppeteering control.”

“I see….” Zahra now understood a bit more of the situation. She had been forced to essentially abandon decent portions of her nation as the blasted sand elves dragged their icons of the Wardens around and slowly squeezed the Solusand Dominion tighter and tighter, all without her being able to do much of anything about it. She knew firsthand how dangerous those things could be, and Vyviir had a decently sized chunk of that stuff lodged into his skull, right next to his brain.

“Zahra has explained to us the dangerous nature of those rocks.” added the amalgamate of bones. “We will indeed need to alter our plans, or at least the timetable for them. Likewise, I would ask that we all begin searching for any traces of such similar materials, and, if they are found, we should immediately call in as much support as possible to eradicate any hope of those bastards being able to pull a fast one on us. No more shall we allow the Wardens to cage us.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Vyviir said with a nod. “Now, as for my repentance…”

“Our Lord has mercifully forgiven you and you kind, Dragon.” grumbled a rather annoyed and irritable dwarf made of darkened steel. “But I, for one, have not. I’ll overlook your treason on account of the fact that you were mostly under the influence of one of those damn Wardens, but I’m not about to help you and your lot anytime soon. The Du’var-Fyn of the Molten Range don’t forget or forgive easily, not that our weak, pathetic, lesser, inferior, fleshy cousins do either.”

“Even if I offer up a decent portion of my own personal horde as compensation?” Vyviir asked, half-joking and half-serious.

“….. We’ll talk later.” the metal dwarf said with a shrug and a vague insinuation that the typical dwarf grudge could be more easily forgiven by his kind in exchange for adequate goods and services.

“Indeed.” Vyviir said as the metal dwarf plodded away.

“And us?” asked one of the five rat women.

Vyviir sighed and nodded. “Yes, I will offer up what I have in exchange for a bit of leniency. That is universal.”

“Wonderful!” exclaimed the fairy queen who wore nothing but red. “Then We will be expecting you to honor your self-made obligation and meet Us at this year’s Spring Ball. Please, dear Vyviir, do not be late. We do despise tardiness so intensely.”

“Understood, Fey.” Vyviir said with a nod, dreading the issues with scheduling that a trip to Feyrealm would cause just as much if not slightly less so than the inevitable childish yet also quite cruel court intrigue that was omnipresent in the Red Queen’s court.

For ‘Her Illustrious and Most Wonderfully Compassionate and Kind Highness, Fey, the Red Queen of Feyrealm’, every day was a party, and every day was a bit of playground fun. It was just that everyone and everything else in Feyrealm existed to entertain her, for better or for worse.

“Well, given that I know what it is like to endure the general dickishness of the Wardens, I will let you off the hook, Vyviir.” Zahra said as she too departed.

“All we want is that you hand over our Verminking, but that’s not going to end up happening, so we’ll have to settle for something else…” grumbled Chuu as she and the other four crazy rat ladies left. “We’ll get the details settled eventually. Maybe we can eat dragon for a few days? Yeah, we’ve never eaten dragon before. I bet Greatwyrm tastes nice….”

“Ah, Vyviir, you don’t mind us taking a few corpses and the like, do you?” asked the skeletal amalgamate. “I’m sure the bloody vampires would be fine with a bit of dragon’s blood, no?”

“I can speak for all of my kind when I say that I can confirm that we would, under some conditions, find dragon’s blood appealing, but as you and yours are members of our Alliance, we will refuse that offer. Instead, we demand allowance to drain those dragons that are not connected to your Domain.” the vampiric representative replied.

“Granted and granted.” Vyviir said, greatly relieved that such demands were the only realm harsh ones he had received so far.

“Father, I am the one who decides things now.” Monarkea interjected. “Though I will assent to these decisions, please step aside and let me take the reins.”

“Then, we’d best make our demands to you, right?” came a voice.

Monarkea turned and then suddenly realized exactly how many demands she would likely need to fill. Her schedule would be packed for quite a while, and the amount of paperwork would be quite the headache. But then again, that was Vyviir’s fault, so she could do as he had done and delegate, delegate, delegate.

Man, it was great to be the God of this place.

For now.