Darcassan stormed through the halls of the Ealoeth mansion, enraged to be summoned from the arms of his lady-fair by the house elders without explanation. Especially since she was just about to part with a particularly valuable bauble that he’d been eyeing all evening… unknowingly of course. His mood didn’t improve when he found his cousin Haryk already in attendance. Last he heard the fool had been dispatched to the High Forest to retrieve his wayward betrothed and more importantly her moonblade. “I don’t see how Haryk’s failure to reign in his future bride has anything to do with me?” Darcassan bemoaned as he poured himself another cup of wine, his third, after listening to the mildly entertaining, he had to admit, tale of the Mistrivvin girl’s adventures in the High Forest. “It has everything to do with you,” his great aunt, a cruel witch who’d out lived three husbands already, snapped, “since Haryk obviously isn’t man enough to bed the Mistrivvin girl and breed us an heir to claim the moonblade as our own… so the task falls to you.” “To me!” the Ealoethian rogue spit out, along with a mouthful of wine. “She’s betrothed to Haryk… not me! I have no interest in taking a bride… regardless of what sword she bares!” “Neither did he,” another of the wizen elders, a third or fourth cousin he believed, chimed in. “But like him, you will serve this house as we choose. It makes no difference which of our available bachelors weds the girl, so long as she bares him an heir with Mistrivvin blood and our name who can keep the moonblade active. Your reputation for stealing not only a young woman’s valuables, but her virtue as well, proceeds you. Haryk tried to retrieve the girl by force… we task you with bringing her home with your charm.” “You expect me to just pitch up in whatever gods-forsaken hovel she’s run off to, literally charm the pants off her and fetch her back here for a marriage I have no interest in myself,” he sneered. “I’m sure she’ll never suspect a thing… she did leave her mind stuffed in a box for safe keeping before she left, didn’t she?” “You sarcasm is not appreciated,” the elder snarled. “You’ve concocted schemes to relieve more than a few fair young ladies of their valuables and their favors… the only difference is this time she must fall with child from the encounter… something we will assure with a potion that has been devised for just such a reason. You may not be aware, but our race has battled infertility for the last several centuries. Fewer elves are born every year than the previous, while orcs, humans, hin, gnomes and even dwarves are breeding like rats. However, house Ealoeth has staved off this condition by means of this potion... it all but guarantees conception from a single bout of intimacy.” “Being honorable enough to claim the moonblade,” his great aunt added with a scowl, which actually seemed to be a rather permanent condition. “We presume she will do the honorable thing and want to raise the child with its father as her wedded mate. So, all you have to do is slip her the potion and bed her within the next few hours… and assure that no other man does as well.” “Oh, is that all… bed a woman who hates our house after getting her to drink that concoction, then I get to be chained to a wife and child I don’t want!” Darcassan knew that this audience was not going to go well for him when he was summoned, but he didn’t think it would be this bad!