Private Tales When Fire Meets Shadow

The moment the drow matron’s attention fixed fully on Azrakar, Vyx’aria released the spell. The shadows around her hand snapped and the spear of condensed night tore through the air like a screaming comet. It struck the woman square in the back.

The impact hurled her forward in a flash of crackling energy. She shrieked, but did not fall. Runes flared beneath her armor, ancient warding sigils blooming in a lattice of violet and gold. The spear shattered into motes of darkness, dispersing against protections layered deep and paranoid.

“Damn it,” Vyx’aria hissed.

She was already moving. Her blades were in her hands as she burst from cover, armored skirt flaring with the motion as she closed the distance in a blink. Steel rang as the matron recovered just in time to meet her, curved blades colliding in a shriek of sparks.

They circled, fast and vicious.

The matron fought with practiced cruelty, sweeping strikes meant to disarm, to cripple, to dominate. Vyx’aria answered with precision, ducking low, spinning, letting blows pass a breath from her skin before answering with cuts meant to bleed and distract. They moved like dueling storms, boots skidding over stone, blades flashing in tight arcs.

Vyx’aria vaulted onto a crate, kicked off the wall, and came down in a whirling slash that forced the matron back two steps. Cloth tore. Blood spattered stone.

Azrakar had an unobstructed view.

She moved like a weapon given will- lethal, fluid, unapologetic. Every twist of her body was balance and intent, armor shifting with her like it had been forged for this exact dance.

The matron snarled and lunged and Vyx’aria leapt.

She flipped clean over her, landing behind her in the same breath. One hand grabbed the woman’s white hair, yanking her head back brutally. The other blade came up in a clean, merciless arc across her throat.

The matron’s breath caught in a wet gasp.

Vyx’aria leaned close, lips brushing her ear as the body began to slacken.

“Tor’Rahel sends its regards.”

She released her. The corpse collapsed at her feet, wards guttering out as blood pooled dark and final across the stone. Vyx’aria straightened to stand, cracking her neck as she drew her blades to her side, spitting out blood from taking a pommel hit to the face.

Azrakar

Vyx’aria’s chest rose and fell, still marked by the rhythm of battle. The duel had demanded precision, force and poise, and she had given it without hesitation. Her muscles sang with exertion, but she held herself tall, proud. Even in the echo of bloodshed, she did not falter.

She felt his presence behind her before he spoke, that heat at her back. Still, she didn’t move. Let him approach. Let him observe. Let him remember who stood at the center of this conquest.

When his thumb brushed the blood from her lip, Vyx’aria tilted her head just slightly in acknowledgment. Her gaze didn’t meet his yet. There was no need for words in that moment.

Instead, her fingers lifted in a fluid series of hand signals, the kind every trained drow warrior would understand. Perimeter. Messages going out of the city. Lock it down. Her forces, already moving in shadow, obeyed without question.

Only then did she sheathe her blades, her weapons sliding home with a metallic whisper. With slow, deliberate grace, she turned to face Azrakar fully, her expression unreadable in the forge-glow.

“There are geothermal pools nearby,” she said calmly, her voice low and measured, as if the blood still drying on her skin were no more than soot from the forge. “I’ll wash.”

She turned, already walking away. Halfway down the path, she glanced over her shoulder, one brow faintly raised.

“You may join, if you please.”

Azrakar

Vyx’aria stirred with a quiet, reluctant sigh, the rich warmth pressed against her back more tempting right then than the stone halls of conquest awaiting her.

When he spoke, she groaned softly in protest, not moving at first. Then, with the grace of a drowsy serpent, she scooted back into him, her much smaller frame fitting snugly against his vast, furnace-hot chest. She couldn’t wrap herself around him, Azrakar was far too massive for that, but she curled into the curve of his body, letting his immense arm settle more securely over her waist like a living barrier between her and the cold.

“Why are you always in such a hurry?” she mumbled, voice low and heavy with sleep. “The city is ours. My drow are vigilant.”

Her fingers brushed against his forearm where it rested across her, nails idly tracing a thoughtless pattern against his runes. “We have only a few more moments before one of your commanders starts up that absurd opera gem again.” Unfortunately the orcs had taken a great liking to it and took turns entertaining themselves finding animals to use it on.

She shifted again, pressing her back more firmly to him, exhaling slowly as her muscles relaxed fully. Her hair was a silvery spill against the pillows, errant strands brushing his jaw as she tucked herself deeper into the cocoon of his heat.

Azrakar

Vyx’aria’s lips curved in a faint, knowing smirk at his words. She didn’t turn at once, didn’t break the warmth he’d cocooned her in, just let the moment sit, savoring it.

“For me,” she murmured softly, a hint of satisfaction threading her voice. Then, with a quiet chuckle, she added, “That gem might be the key to uniting every orc tribe under one banner. Tragedy does wonders for solidarity.”

She shifted at last, a slow, unhurried movement, and slipped free of his hold. A languid yawn escaped her as she sat up, stretching fully, joints popping one by one as she rolled her shoulders and arched her back. Ashen skin caught the low light of the chamber, muscle and sinew rippling with the easy power of someone forged by war rather than prayer.

She rose and padded across the stone floor, utterly unbothered by his gaze, gathering her clothes and pulling them on piece by piece with unhurried grace.

As she fastened the last strap, she spoke again. “Are there any remnants left?” she asked. “Any kin of the demon hunters who bound you?”

She finally turned to look at him then, red eyes sharp and searching.

“And this progeny of yours,” she continued evenly. “If they were killed… what happens? Does it trap you again?”

Azrakar

Vyx’aria’s fingers paused in her hair for the briefest of moments. Her crimson gaze lingered on Azrakar as he stood before her, all feral grace and raw power, his form cast in the glow of obsidian braziers. He was beautiful in the way only a weapon could be: perfected by fire, etched by war, and made for ruin. But he also had an ethereal beauty about him beyond what this plane of existence could ever craft.

Her stare was neither shy nor appraising. It was possession.

She resumed brushing her thick white hair, the silver-tipped strands falling like veils down her spine as she spoke, voice low and measured. “There is a way,” she said. “A ward, one granted by the Spider Goddess herself.”

She didn’t turn as she continued. Her tone was calm, but there was a weight behind her words. “If you would swear loyalty beneath her web, if you gave your oath before Maelzafan herself, you would be granted a rune of protection. It would ward you against binding, brands, and holy shackles from the surface. Even demons have taken the mark.”

She reached for a carved bone clasp and fastened part of her hair back, her movements fluid and precise.
“But there is a price.”

At last she turned toward him. The candlelight caught the angular sharpness of her features, beautiful and severe.
“If you betray her, if you bring wrath or ruin to her children, then you will be stripped of your strength and cursed to crawl as a drider, wretched and forgotten.”

Her eyes met his, unwavering. She moved to her armor, slipping on each piece with methodical efficiency, the quiet clink of fastenings echoing in the chamber.

“Now… would you swear allegiance to the dark goddess?” she asked at last, with the silken threat of amusement in her voice.

Azrakar

Vyx’aria did not flinch as he stepped close.

By now, she welcomed that familiar, smoldering heat like a cloak. It didn’t matter how often he approached, there was always an undeniable weight in the way he filled a space, like gravity itself bent to the will of his presence. But it was his words that made her pause.

Because the one who asks it is you.

Most who denied such an offer from the Spider Goddess met swift, excruciating ends. And yet she stood before one who would risk damnation, not out of arrogance, not even defiance, but because he’d chosen to indulge her, and her alone. The honesty of it sent a flicker of heat coiling in her, sharp and unbidden.

Before she could think to stop herself, one hand rose, her fingers tracing idly along the obsidian planes of his chest. The muscle beneath her touch was searing, corded strength wrapped in a predator’s stillness.

Her eyes lingered a moment longer than intended, trailing up his collarbone, to his throat, and flicking to the bed behind him.

She could already see it. His back against the silk sheets, her knees straddling him, her claws raking- Vyx’aria exhaled slowly, slicing off the thought.

Eyes narrowing, she took a deliberate step back. Her voice was clipped but smooth. “Then I shall be satisfied with sending a raiding party to butcher the last of those hunters in their sleep,” she said, as if she weren’t one step from climbing him like a tower.

She turned, her movements fluid and cool once more, the spell broken but barely.
“Get dressed,” she added, calling over her shoulder without affording him a glance. “I won’t have my soldiers distracted by you.”

And with that, she strode toward the chamber doors, her tone final.

“We make for the forge.”

Azrakar said:

"The duergar will see my true form when I work the forge. Is it worth hiding it any longer?"

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Vyx’aria turned her head at his question, the edges of a grin curling across her lips.

“It would send a deliciously clear message,” she said. “Only the highest priestesses are able to summon lesser demons to serve them… so imagine the message when the spies report that I walk with a greater one, at full strength, unbound and willing.”

She reached for his offered arm without hesitation, lacing her fingers around the crook of his elbow as though the arm were hers to claim. “It’s a risk I am willing to take,” she added smoothly. “Dalrithia’s forces are too thin. She cannot afford to send a full warband to punish Dhunbor, not when her borders bleed.”

With that, they stepped out.

The effect was immediate.

Duergar miners and smiths along the causeway froze at the sight of Azrakar. Some dropped their tools. Others stumbled backward, terrified stares locking on the monstrous figure beside her. They quickly jumped to clear a path.

All save one.

Near the forge’s colossal entryway, a single elder duergar stood his ground. His thick beard was braided in iron rings, but his left arm was gone, sleeve knotted tight at the shoulder. He also wore an eyepatch over a missing eye. He didn’t flinch. He glared, as if daring them to try and force him aside.

Vyx’aria’s brow lifted faintly. She had to admire the defiance. But she did not admire being delayed.

“Lead us,” she ordered sharply, eyes narrowing, “to the source. To where the magma feeds the forge’s heart.”

The old dwarf did not move at first. His single eye flicked between them, then narrowed further.

“Why?” he rasped. “Dhunbor’s weapons have armed legions. We craft steel that has outlasted empires. What do you hope to change, spider witch?”

Vyx’aria tilted her head slightly. She said nothing at first, just studied him in silence. This one had known the late Matron. Perhaps she’d taken his arm and his eye for his insolence.

Azrakar

The druergar squinted at the towering demon’s question with suspicion, not having expected interest in learning about the forge or considering the fire that fed it. The elder duergar’s one good arm crossed over his broad chest.

“Hordren,” he grunted. “Starkstone.”

There was hesitation in the way he looked Azrakar up and down. He was old enough not to flinch at fire, but this was no fire he’d ever seen.

He turned at last, limping forward toward the main heart of the forge, motioning for them to follow. As he walked, he began to speak in a gravelly, unhurried tone.

“This forge was built by blood and will, not just stone. Centuries old. Magma channel runs beneath the city, feeding into five primary crucibles.” He pointed as they walked past great slanted channels of obsidian-veined rock, where red-hot ore awaited shaping. “Runes placed at key points to shape steel, harden blades, temper it. The fire beneath does not go out.”

He stopped at a wide platform where glowing heat bled through a large circular grate in the floor, the main intake from the magma below. A faint thrum of old runes pulsed along its rim.

“But to add new fire?” Hordren turned his head, squinting again at Azrakar. “That’d need rewritten binding runes… A new siphon laid atop the old. That kind of flame would have to-” his eyes narrowed, “Come from a new source and become a reservoir to draw from.”

Vyx’aria said nothing at first. She stepped up beside Azrakar, her gaze fixed on the roiling magma beneath the platform. Then she spoke, her voice low and directed only to him.

“You may have to descend into the magma and add your heat to the pools.”

She looked up at him, red eyes reflecting the firelight.

“To imbue it. You will become the reservoir, Azrakar. Your infernal fire will feed this forge for centuries. Every blade, every spear forged here… will bear your wrath.”

She turned back toward the glowing vent, the thrum of power below like a living pulse.

“We will need a siphoning rune laid above the original binding ring,” she continued. “One that filters your flame into the forge without burning it out. It must allow us to access the infernal heat as needed, but contain it when dormant.”

Azrakar