Most people would avoid wandering into the depths of a dark, foreboding cave. Especially on a night such as this, where the pale face of the moon leered dimly through the thin blanket of dark clouds that covered the night sky. Be it through mere superstition or the fear of wondering into the den of a bear, or something worse. But Shazar Talaudrym was not most people.

A traveler and adventurous sort he always embraced the chance to search for treasure or other valuables that might be lost within a decrepit ruin or other place. Such as a brooding cave tucked away within a small grove of trees, emanating a foul aurora that would drive many a man away. Gnarled stalactites at the mouth of the cave were shaped like the craggy misshapen teeth of a roaring monster, the sound of a low wind circulating within resembled a haunting moan.

Unwavering and determined, Shazar Talaudrym entered the cave. Not knowing what lay ahead but willing to brave any possible danger.

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Unbeknown to Shazar this cave was in fact occupied, a lair for one so reclusive. He was not the first to have found it as he was not the first to dare to wander inside hoping to find something of value. Those before instead finding only their doom, their bones, rusted weapons, and broken shards of armor littered the stone floor inside.



A trail of the deceased seemed to lead down the narrow entrance into a small antechamber. Small piles of skulls were tucked in the corners, scattered remains and discarded equipment lay about. All that was left of what were once daring knights and dashing rogues full of pride and purpose. A foul stench filled the air, a combination of must, mold, and decay. The moan of the gliding breeze maintained as a thin fog skirted the corners and ceiling. Torches lined the cave wall, billowing about illuminating the cave with a golden light.

”Well, well…” a voice broke through the echo of the breeze, ”what have we here?”

A thin shadow etched around a nearby corner, painted along the wall by a nearby torchlight. ”It seems I have a visitor. It’s certainly been a while.” A cracked, jawless skull came bouncing across the hard floor, kicked from around the corner. ”It’s always lovely when fresh meat walks through my front door.” It was a woman’s voice, low and hoarse.

The voice’s owner turned the corner now fully visible in the torchlight. A Drow woman, thin and short like most of their kind. Her skin a deep ash gray, her flowing hair as white as snow. She was dressed in rather revealing robes with thigh high boots and a flowing black cape, her shoulders and arms covered by very thin pads and gauntlets better suited as clothing than proper armor. In her left hand she carried a long staff of carved bones, most looked to be human or the like.

A wry smirk etched at her mouth as she eyed the stranger who had wondered into her lair. “Well, aren’t you the strapping specimen? Tell me; did no one ever tell it is rude to intrude upon someone’s home?”

Theft.
Fencing.
Repeat.

A simple process but one that Shazar took a real shine to in his shameless lifestyle. His studious nature in the arcane arts saw some Sword Coast elites eying him for other pursuits in his student days, but the thrill of getting increasingly exotic artifacts and then placing them in the wrong hands for the right coin far outweighed some stuffy office or minor wizarding position with a more proper sort of company.

Eventually though, hitting the same locations exits recklessness and becomes taunting fate itself to punish you. A lesson the messy ash haired rogue learned the hard way when at last he was incarcerated for a near full year. The embarrassment after bragging to the underground about his infinite potential & skill was blistering. The humiliation of being lumped in with the common was a despair with no respite.

Yet learn from this lesson he most certainly did: vary your haunts. Mix in some exotic locales! Hit locations where the law is more flimsily designed and enforced at its best. Ruins were fantastic, as usually they served double as graves for some minor nobility and would seldom be guarded well enough to matter. This also allowed some ethical flexibility and ambiguity when returning the goods to a larger city! This was all to say, the cave was not his first.. second... or frankly thirty-third choice this month. What prompted him to choose it for spelunking was a mixture of it growing late, him wanting a place to retire for the night while using a particular spell of his to soar the winds like rapids with blatant disregard for his surroundings like a jackass, and his penchant for personal risk.

Oh but that lovely moan~ Before the cave had his attention (with the subconscious acknowledgement he may need to do some extermination work to get it homely); now, it had piqued his curiosity. And not many places remained unmolested once that height was achieved.

---

So then we return to the cave's seeming owner acknowledging our "hero." A drow woman scantily garbed and clearly not kind if she had any niceties to her judging by the implications of her words. Fantastic. A witch's lair perhaps! If he could avoid the whole being murdered part, odds are there'd be no legal ramifications at all to looting the place blind. The outside clearing made marking the location simple enough so a few trips and all these poor saps who were clearly his lessers would have their belongings returned... in a fashion, to the rightful overworld economy.

Tucking aside his altruistic notions of noble trade, the torchlight also revealed the thief's tall but lanky stature. Olive green pants and tan brown open coat, the man's patchwork attire was covered in belts and straps stressed with use. Light dusting of facial hair aside, one could be forgiven for thinking him of a commoner's station weren't it for his easily distinguished skin which was not only quite fair but looked unworked in any capacity by labor. Flashing a pearly smile that reeked of cheese, his voice was equal parts chipper, facetious, and full of forced "patience" as though he were speaking to a child:

"Ah yes yes. The name's Shazar. I'll be the new management around here." His hands seemed to have a life of their own, ringing each other in a meticulously practiced pattern of neuroticism.

"Y'can depart on your own or spread your legs and make yourself useful. Makes me no difference. But I'm an appraiser, you see. And I.." Forking his tongue against his right cheek, his head tilted towards one of the many bones that would never see daylight again by the corner. "..have my fair share of work cut out for me here on that front. So all this "your home, your door" talk is frankly just inaccurate. Referencing statuses of a time bygone. This is Shazar's Retreat now. We clear?"

Black leather boots clung to the floor keeping the stick of a man aloft from blowing away along with the occasional gust within these depths -- yet the rogue seemed to be familiar with this comical form of "pressing." He had just entered a potentially deranged drow's lair and told them they were evicted unless they acted as his servant. Even he knew this probably wouldn't go over well in terms of the negotiation process. But nothing ventured nothing gained! And if it did get her going on the rampage, well. All the better to ascertain if she was alone or not and rip that problem right out.

'Course if he did get her as a servant, he'd be all the envy of the boys. A drow servant. Coo'!

The Drow blinked, the smug air about her slipping away in slight. The human man was strangely whimsical and rather… forward as well. Most humans who wandered in here - even the bravest of warriors who’s armor now ornamented her lair - never had such a self assure and loose persona. Nor were they so bold as to tell her to get out of her own sanctum. Or make suggestions towards servitude.

She found herself chuckle slightly, shaking her head, “The gal… you saunter in here so sure of yourself - never mind the bones of your kind lining my walls - and think to drive me from my own sanctuary. I knew humans were dull of wit but I've never encountered one so foolish before.”
Giving her staff a twirl she stepped into a small upraised rock nearby, torchlight casting an imposing shadow on the wall behind her. “My name is Larafan, the last name you’ll ever hear, human. Know that by walking in here so brazen you have sealed your fate as to die by my hand. My magic will see you flayed and I will feast upon your flesh and drink blood from your skull.”

With a stride forward Larafan stepped down from her stone pedestal and raised her staff, gripping the shaft with both hands and muttering a short incantation. An orb of gray appeared atop the carved staff and began to swell outwards like a ghastly bubble. There was a pulse of energy and the orb expanded outward in a sudden motion, spreading across the floor and reaching out into the air with a slight whistling sound as it engulfed everything in a gloomy,blinding miasma. Fog - thick and murky, reaching across the entire chamber save for the farthest corners.

Larafan’s voice carried through the unseen across the chamber, “You were a fool to come here, and I will see you die trembling in terror.”

Maybe most humans had those what do you call it, qualms about talking down to supposed threads or what have you but Shazar wasn't about that life. He was about getting rewards. Anyone who said the meek shall inherit the earth ain't all that bright in his book.

"I see. So ya ain't gonna play this smart. Shame. You got some nice skin." A taunting whistle shrilly popped from his lips as the cave passage filled with indiscernibly thick smog, his left arm raising up and cuffing his mouth in instinctive defense.

Frankly, the odds of a drow of any sort let alone a spellcasting variety falling on their knees could only be described as a far shot. But hey. The effort was made. The rogue could no longer feel like he had a "missed opportunity." What could he do about it? He wasn't sulky at all that his chance to brag to the Den boys about being a drow lord was dashed to pieces; no not at all. It didn't have his molars grinding together with frustration. His smug internal perception of himself wasn't being threatened, no~

But something about it all did make him mad.

Aw'right then.

Right hand nimbly reaching into his spell component pouch, the beansprout man grasped something meaty. To expunge any notions of impropriety, it was some kind of appendage from a beast cut up and coated in a gel of some type to keep the hydration going. A.. tentacle.

SLGHG

Speaking candidly, he couldn't see a god damned thing. However, he heard the wench, saw shadows, and had a rough idea what direction relative to himself she'd been at. That was more than enough for his favorite spell. Black Tentacles.



Boy was he glad at applying himself enough to learn this one. Massive sprawling "arms" with crushing strength that would pour out of the ground or even water if it were present, and grasp at every entity in their area; which, wasn't all that bad at a twenty foot radius from their origin point. And rather proud of himself at this fact, the human could keep these babies going for a while~ He figured it was a good way to more intimately introduce himself even as he dropped to the ground in a stomach-down prone position.

After all it'd been coo' if she were wrapped up all tight like, boy would he love watching that. But just as coo' if she were on the run now. He did'n need to see to hear hurried steps in this hole after all.

The faint wet splatting sound of the tentacle striking stone made the Drow woman’s ears perk up. She knew not at first what had been thrown but it had landed off to her right, rather close in fact though not near enough to see. She soon realized what the human had done when her queried gaze was met with the sight of a long, writing black tentacle stretching upward from the cave floor. Followed by another, and then several more.

With a sudden lunge the nearest tentacle sprang forward reaching out for Larafan. Eyes wide she hopped backward avoiding it’s grab for her legs, the elongated feeler then jutting upward reaching for her torso. Once again she dodged though just barely, nearly losing her footing. Her eyes constantly darted to the side half expecting her foe to come bursting from the fog but he did not. The Drow’s swift dexterity all that spared her from being snagged.

Sure that she was now out of reach from the still writhing magical appendages Larafan turned her attention fully toward the center of the chamber which remained concealed by the heavy fog. Teeth gritted she took to her staff again, raising it high as it hummed a sickly green light spreading over it. Pouring her focus into her spell and muttering the needed incarnation, a bright flash followed by a wave of energy rolled outward from the necromancer’s staff.

A rustling could be heard on the far end of the chamber, as well as the clanking and rattling of rusted metal followed by the scraping of boots against the stone.



Nine skeletons risen by Larafan’s dark magic came shuffling forth through the fog. Summoned to serve which in this instance was to flay the invasive human alive. “Shear the hide from his body and bring me his head!” Larafan shouted as the nine undead spread their ranks as they ventured into the center of the chamber, hollow eyes immune to the dark itself searched through the fog as the resurrected minions kept their swords and rusted shields at the ready.

The Drow sorceress glanced back at the still moving appendages off to her right before stepping further in the opposite direction as there no sense in accidentally wandering into them out of monetary lack of focus.

Childish mental giggling.

That was what Shazar manifested when he heard the hurried movements of his adversary deeper into the passage.

Sure he could tell the drow wasn't snared; after all, no screaming. No bones getting crushed to bits. No cries for mercy. It'd been nice iffin it got her, for the rogue would've had quite a show! But based on all the bones round these parts, he wasn't exactly expecting a quick kill. 'N sure enough.. not a sob. However, this was just a prelude to the real show.

The witch done smoked the place up for a reason. Odds are she either could see into it or cast more profane spells upon it and so see within it all the same. Safety within it was a foolish notion. And as shambling bones were shouted at by the very not-tentacle-crushed angered dark elf, that about cinched the deal. Creepy sorts would be on him in short order to flush him out or gut him on the spot.

Aw'rite. Ditching concentrating on the tentacles, it was time to get showy. Sure he was a dexterous man but dodging the dead's diseased limbs clutching onto rusted up shit weapons wasn't befitting his self-perception of glory. The blood within, the dragon blood within, boiled for conquest. So within his proximity of the fog, the smoke darkened a hint more.. and then erupted.

Lord of the Sky, ironically named given its application here. Typically an evocation spell used by Bahamut initiate orders to quell wyverns, our friend flew off the ground horizontally and with a surprising mixture of speed & maneuverability -- a dark coating on his eyes betrayed by shiny white teeth flashing a harsh grin as his backside flirted with the rock pattern overhead. There wasn't too much height to this neck of the cave but enough to get out of a few arms' reach for a moment. There wasn't a real way for him to exit the fog at this time, nor was there a need to. If it came to mobility.. the humanoid missile was glad to demonstrate it in circling spades upon his would-be brethren once very permanently removed.

Feet softly clicking together, Shazar was borderline like the drawn depiction of a pixie floating in the air -- were it not for him egging on skeletal warriors to attack him while licking his lips for what was to come.

---

"Gonna have to rid myself of these pests, ain't I. Not very coo'.." Mused the rogue internally.

Still. Ah to be a Sky Lord. In his head, he looked like this:


Sure minus the modernity, the well kept hair, the toned body, the literal wings, the implication of open skies versus him being in a suffocating cave full of corner to corner fog, th- listen, the point was he was able to fly and that was great.

Larafan was quite taken aback at seeing the human burst forth from the smoky chamber up to the ceiling. The tentacles had shown her opponent to be resourceful but she had not anticipated something such as this. Worse yet he was now in a position to mark her location. She doubted he could see her in a split moment due to the thickness of the fog, but he would have less trouble certainly. Not to mention he now also held a good point to attack from.

The skeletons shambled about in the midst of the fog, flailing their weapons in futility as they craned their necks up at their target. Larafan could hold the control of the skeletons for a long time if need be. If anything they would dissuade the human from dropping back down into the chamber and keep him aerial. While the airborne vantage point did give Larafan’s opponent a good edge it also had a downside. For now he was a moving target, a fly to be swatted by her magic.

With a smirk Larafan prepared to cast again, drawing on her magic and invoking a conjuration spell. Even if it didn’t outright kill or even ground the human it would make maneuvering harder and give her breathing room for further casting. Focusing her focal point in the middle of the chamber and directing her undead to clear the area, she drew forth a cloud of daggers. A swirling vortex of hundreds of spiraling blades that would lacerate any who drew near. Larafan doubted the human would venture too close but the purpose was to force him to pour more focus into maneuvering and less on locating and attacking her.

The chamber was filled with the whistling sound of a thousand or more glinting blades hurtling through the air in a tornado of death. Keeping her eyes still on the tentacles off to her right Larafan took up position in low spot in the chamber, waiting for the right moment to attack directly. She would wait for her opponent to either be thrown off balance or severely injured trying to navigate the already crowded cave ceiling while also dodging a literal storm of blades. If he tried to land he would be forced to engage with her undead minions thus giving her the moment to deliver a crippling or killing strike.