5/28 late morning
The Emerald Dragonshrine is a lovely little garden in the center of a frozen wasteland. I wasn't entirely sure how natural it was, but I'm not the demigoddess of nature here. It was certainly pretty, and I was in no position to second guess the decor in Ysera's home. Not yet, anyway.
Nishera had put up quite a fight, clinging to her entirely valid suspicion that my gifts may be a Trojan horse for a full seven days before she caved completely. Given that is how long it takes for the jewels to be able to completely rewrite someone's priorities, that's impressive.
https://imgur.com/a/aU7dQKb
As I appeared beside her, she was about to take off her necklace, probably to give it to Ysera. I tapped her on her shoulder, and she immediately brandished her staff at me before relaxing and looking at me with a kind of reverence. It wasn't worshipful, more like if you just found out your mother was dying and the world's foremost expert on her condition walked into the room.
"I knew you would come. You're the priest who is helping Ysondre. Helping all of us."
"Erich Bismark, yes." I was fully human for the moment, too, wearing my old vestments. "No need to give her yours. I have another one for her right here. You should still be the person to put it on her, though. Oh. And one more thing." I pulled out half of a fruit from my inventory. "If she eats this, the process should go more quickly."
Nishera, already perfectly subverted, nodded thankfully. "I'll take care of it. She's been sleeping fitfully. This will help, right?"
"It will. The magic in the necklace will render her highly resistant to any kind of corruptive or mind altering influence. Just like you are, now." That was enough to reassure her, and she walked off into most densely vegetated part of the shrine, taking her full draconic form in the process to make it easier to push through. I stood around for a few minutes before I heard something unexpected; the voice of Ysera. It resonated throughout the shrine, and I wasn't sure at first if she had been woken up somehow.
"Nishera, what is it that you bring me?"
"My queen, it is a gift from an ally among the mortal races. Ysondre found a man who has joined the fight against the nightmare from this side, and he created this amulet. It can heal corruption, as it did for her, and protects the wearer from its touch in the first place."
"And why me? I am hardly the most vulnerable. There are many others who are more at risk than I am. I can direct you to them, if necessary." Nishera seemed to be at a loss; it just seemed obvious to her that Ysera should be captured. Ysera seemed reasonable, just skeptical; I decided to butt in. Communication talent didn't think a bit more pushing would be likely to backfire.
As I walked in, I started speaking in a smooth and gentle voice. "I'm sorry, great dragon. I'll admit it is partially a gesture of goodwill, and partly for politics. We will be distributing the amulets to as many members of your flight as we can, and we believe they are more likely to trust it if you give your stamp of approval in a highly visible manner. Further, they have additional benefits. The most important being a secure line of communication, which Shan'do Stormrage had quite a lot of difficulty establishing, but you seem capable of?"
The great dragon's head swung around to look at me, and I realized that her eyes were shut. It was a trait that cropped up more in the books than in the game, but Ysera was able to split her focus between the dream and the waking world. It wasn't seamless or perfect, she was essentially an incredibly high functioning sleepwalker. She was not at her full capacity while splitting herself in this state, but until it was retconned she spent most of her time onscreen in this dreaming midpoint. If she opened her eyes, that meant that she was fully focused in one area. She didn't have to bother, most of the time.
"I see we have a guest. So you are this ally Ysondre has found? How is my daughter?" She knew something. This was a test of some kind. Honesty it is.
"Ysondre is well, as far as we can tell. We are guarding her in a dreaming state while Emeriss guides us in our battle on this side. I also must give you my condolences; we were unable to save Taerar or Lethon. They needed to be killed for the safety of my people. I can only hope that Eranikus will fall into the former, rather than the latter group."
The mention of Emeriss surprised her. So she probably had received reports on Ysondre returning to the fray, and was checking if I actually knew about her. Not bad for an off the cuff comment while literally sleeping.
She took a moment to process all the information I'd given her, "I will take this as good news. Four of my children are free of the nightmare's grasp, two of them are able to return, and my beloved may be saved yet. This is better than I had hoped. And these amulets; are they responsible?"
"They are. I'm afraid I didn't make them myself, but they have some of the strongest protection and purification spells possible worked into them. The gnomes allied to my kingdom are facing a crisis of their own which is in some ways quite similar to yours. Much research has been done in the field of healing and purification."
"And the fruit?" She was looking at me very carefully. I had, so far, done nothing suspicious except for offering her everything she could possibly want in this situation. I was of a species that she didn't have much of a relationship with, and purported to use the Light for my magic, not something she had much interaction with outside the context of Elune. Simply put, I was too good to be true.
"It serves as an accelerant. The amulet hardens you against corruption, so it doesn't need to be worn perpetually, but it also doesn't go into effect immediately. The fruit will help that process go faster. I can contact Emeriss and have her describe the process for you, if you'd like. She's already experienced it."
This wasn't like with Moira, who thought the amulet was just for communication and had "taken it off" a dozen times since she put it on, not noticing as it reshaped itself into whatever she'd been planning on replacing it with. Ysera had every reason to notice and object if I just handed her the amulet and she put it on without thinking, especially with less than half her mind actually present. I didn't particularly want her soul to suddenly be paralyzed for a week while she was supposed to be fighting the Nightmare, either, so one of my go-to strategies wouldn't work. I had to get her to buy into the necklace enough to put it on and not wonder why.
"Yes. Yes, I would like to see my daughter and know that she is okay." She didn't mean that she wanted to see her to verify the necklace. I'd just dangled something she wanted anyway in front of her. I called Emeriss, and she was there beside me in moments, still in her visage. It was really quite heartwarming to see how happy Ysera was, and following some rule of draconic etiquette she assumed her visage when she saw that Emeriss was not taking dragon form.
https://imgur.com/a/hLuNu6O
I found my mind wandering as she and Emeriss spoke, considering how much I'd like to get more familiar with the demigod in front of me. My thoughts got pretty graphic before I realized I'd been hit with something. Ysera had me daydreaming so she could have a chat in privacy, and I didn't even notice. I'm pretty sure I would have just stood there for their whole conversation if not for mind defense. Instead I picked up on the tail end.
"Yes, unfortunately. I was there when it happened. Taerar was too far gone for the light of Elune to save him. Perhaps if there had been time, and he could have been restrained… but no. It's not worth dwelling on. I'll miss him too, mother." They hugged, and Ysera checked on me, noting that my eyes were perfectly focused (and not on her ass) with mild surprise.
"I see you are more aware than I gave you credit for. My apologies; I needed to be sure that my daughter could speak frankly. I have decided that you are worth the risk; by all accounts you have already proven a powerful ally." I pulled out the amulet wordlessly, and handed it to her with some false reverence; they are indestructible, so I have gotten a little bit cavalier about them, but as far as she knew it was a powerful and expensive gift.
The Lover's Fruit was in my closet, with a bit of it cut off and placed into my inventory to be "consumed" without visibly eating it. It didn't seem like a strong enough effect to capture someone on its own, but Ysera was an extremely powerful being. I wasn't lying when I said it could serve to accelerate the necklace's work. I didn't want to wait a full week to have her fully in my court.
When I handed it to her, she ate it delicately, though she certainly seemed to enjoy it from the speed with which it vanished. I quietly forbade her from growing suspicious about me with her amulet, and felt a warmth in my chest as I "used" the slice of fruit. No, I did not want to have to wait for her one second longer than necessary, and I noted that she was starting to look at me in a more personal light from the moment I ate my fruit.
Once she began to see me as any kind of potential sexual partner, other things began to click into place. Mostly Stud Service at work, probably. She was very much a mother, and had just been regaled with tales of how I have been heroically working to save her children. Oh sure, I was also a human, but there was at least some evidence that I'd be a good father by dragon standards, and polyamory was the default among dragons.
I kissed her hand, and smiled at her warmly. "I must take my leave. I hope that I will be welcome to visit again. You are an exquisite beauty in either form you take."
"Spending an hour or two with you would be a pleasant dream, I think." She smiled indulgently as I turned and walked a short distance away, rather than teleporting directly in front of her. It seemed like it would come off as rude to do that.
The amulet listed an ETE of 150 hours, but there was a heart next to it? I'm pretty sure that I should come back and chat with The Dreamer. Thinking back on those daydreams, I had a few ideas of things we might do, if she was interested. What's that saying? "Lie with sleeping dragons?"
Anyway. I had more work to do; this had taken longer than I expected, so Lo'Gosh was already entirely captured.