The Great Ones (Open) Whole Lotta Shaking Going On

[Xunari Auceus]

Xunari was contemplating murder and that was something she did not do lightly.

Something really had to go wrong for her to contemplate murdering someone who was directly under her command as well but there were just some crimes that were absolutely unforgivable. In her mind some things were worthy of death and one of those things was to be sent back into the Underrealm to retrieve some of her workbooks and come back with a freaking childhood diary.

Who the hell even did that? She had been expressing her displeasure by literally smacking the soldier around who had brought the useless book to her. What some might not expect was that she was actually currently in the process of slapping another drow woman silly rather than a man. Apparently the petty officer she had dispatched had not only managed to come back with a USELESS book out of a library of literally hundreds of PRICELESS ones but she had managed to lose a squad of five men as well.

The men were easily replaced but her book collection contained some tomes that were absolutely not. Dropping the woman to the ground with a bleeding lip, Xunari rubbed angrily at the temples of her head as she tried to stave off the headache that was to come. The petty officer, bloodied and shamed, ran before Xunari could decide to take out more of her aggravation of her.

Standing in a partially collapsed entrance to the Underrealm, she kicked a stone and hissed slightly in pain but it was still more productive than just standing around. At least the pain had a certain clarity about it. Breathing deeply, she let out a long sigh.

"My wealth for a competent person..." she declared loudly, angrily, "Who loses a squad AND the objective to falling rocks? Rocks fall and everybody dies? Please."

 

[Farzad Oldsummer]

It was alien.
​

He was what was wrong.

In the darkness, he was colour.
​

Bright, popping in a muted dark and dankness. Soft will-o-wisps hovered and spat at the darkness, silhouettes of shaded blue formed and hovered around him. He'd point his left hand, specifically his pinki and one of his scarves would flare and a new blob would become reality, and behind him another would dissipate. Or as he thought, was finally consumed by an unending encroaching darkness. He enjoyed the dark. He enjoyed the underground. The Underrealm, was strangely the perfect combination of everything wrong with the two. Well, everything right. It always just felt wrong.

He had been on the hunting path. There was a Library filled with scores of information, ancient, new, untold and storied. And it's best aspect, no Orangutang or Melvin. He had followed the tracks of Drow, for at least a few hours now. He was cautious, he dealt with Drow about as well as he dealt with a sober dwarf.

As in you shouldn't.
​

He whistled along in defiance of the creeping darkness, the unexplored horrors and halls leeching with untamed and unnamed monstrosities. He was sure if he'd survive he'd name them. Though for now that was on the backburner, first came the stinging sensation, he could almost feel the whip crack of a hand against his smooth face from the gutteral noise alone, inherently he rubbed his cheek with his left hand, accidentally firing off a bolt of light that left his face like some strange silhouetted angel. Blinded too as he began to stumble, following the forming words that he edged towards before stumbling forward and unintentionally, into the linesight of the Drow's in question.

 

[Xunari Auceus]

... an oddly colorful human.

There was an oddly colorful human in the Underrealm.

Of course there was. If there was one thing that remained true about the younger race it was that they were opportunists. There were dragons the size of large cities wandering the continent and destroying all who cared to stand in their way. The Underrealm, the very home of her people, was being rocked by disasters both natural and caused by said dragons.

And there was a human here to plunder it.

Drawing her ritual knife in her right hand, she made sure her runed shield was held firmly with her left hand as she advanced upon the disgusting little thief.

"You, human!" she called out as she advanced, "What business does one of your kind have in the home of my people? Speak!"

She would hear it's excuses.

Farzad Oldsummer

 

[Farzad Oldsummer]

He was blinded and waved frantically, "Ah gimme... Gimme like a minute..." He replied, spinning halfway on a foot as he pressed a hand against a rock. "Just... Just stay where you are and... Ah damnit this is gonna linger for hours..." He continued, a half dazed speak as he padded the wall, making sure it wasn't some old Drow's curmudgeon face. They weren't to dissimilar. For a race of elves they were rather stonelike. Faces like granite, words spoken like rolling stones grating over one another in a race down a river. And their emotions. He was sure he could find a greater range from a lukewarm pile of gravel than a Drow. He started to press a pinki against a wall, the scarf coiled around his left hand began to metronome with colours.

Illuminate yellow

Glow Orange

Fade gold​

It repeated six times, darting lights in the background slowly popped and faded to the obscuring darkness, "Shitty... Goddamn gonna be like annoying starlight in my face all night..." He continued to complain to the rock face in front of him, quickly blasting its with colour, the wall illuminating a thousand muted bugs, one tried to brave the light before the second miniature sun made it scuttle off, it's thousand legs between it's thorax. Finally, with a sixth pop the one in his face vanished, Farzad was knocked over, blinking and squinting a few times. "Ah goddamn... Don't scratch my beard with this thing on christ got it." He mumbled, slowly rising up to look at the cohorts of Drow that had gathered. "Ah sorry uh... What was the question?" He inquired before correcting himself with a snap of his finger. "Oh yea why I'm here." He continued, straightening himself up. "Just sorta... passing by. Looking for a Library. Yourself?" He asked rather nonchalantly, a strange charisma of facing potential death with the care of a man picking lilies for a flower crown.

 

[Xunari Auceus]

What.

Did this human seriously think that delving into the Underrealm meant that he was entitled to it? The Underrealm belonged to them, not these round-eared fuckwits. She growled, her runes glowing beneath her clothes as she stared hatefully at the human.

"Looking for a library." She repeated, narrowing her eyes, "You wander in a place that does not belong to you, seeking to take knowledge that was never yours to begin with."

She drew her dagger in her right hand.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't butcher you and leave your flayed corpse at the entrance as a warning to others of your insignificant, impotent, kind?"

 

[Farzad Oldsummer]

"I wander many places, and never once have I belonged to them."
​

He replied, he was bereft with doubt and quick to the point. His taciturn turn of cheek and phrase accented by his own display of gaudy magic. He became a soft spoken rainbow, a horny torchbug or as he was equally described, a delicately woven display of mixed paint. "Though I will admit. Bold of you to say the knowledge belongs to you. And bolder still to assume I of all people plan to take it." He replied with an incredulous sting to his words. The starlight flickered in his eyes but he slowly made out the features. Sharp, defiant and radiating an aura of command. Yeap. Women. He thought to himself. Especially as the dagger was drawn.

Ah right. Darkelf woman.
​

To say they were a different race was an understatement. You got your wide spectrum of woman, the tough, the violent, Karen. But Dark Elf Woman were all of those wrapped into one package with obsidian skin holding it all together. It took tact, guile and cunning. And Farzad wasn't sure he had any of that. "Well this went from one to a hundred didn't it?" He stated, taking a half step back as he grabbed and pulled out his quarterstaff from the pocket of his bag and spun it around, locking it over his shoulders as he meet their eyes. He didn't blink for a long while, he didn't break focus. He simply stared into their soul.

"But if you need reason... I suppose because I'm about the most competent spelunker you'll find within the next three hundred miles. Or, five hundred and twenty eight thousand Yards." He stated with finality, eyes still affixed to his newfound frenemy.

 

[Xunari Auceus]

"It's not an assumption when you have decades of evidence to back it up. Then it's a certainty."

It was, logically, but what did she care for playing logic puzzles with this rat? She didn't. She was much more interested in getting them out of the way so that she could return to the Underrealm and find her library again.

"The library close to this part of the Underrealm belongs to ME." she hissed, "I have amassed it over years and I will not have some human decide he wants to take it just because the Underrealm is more unstable than it was yesterday."

She scowled.

She did need assistance getting to her library considering the shifting nature of the Underrealm right now...

"... twenty gold pieces to get back to my library safely and you take nothing from it's shelves."

 

[Farzad Oldsummer]

"I'll do it for a map."
​

He snapped back quickly his tongue lashed in his mouth like a whip to a slave. "Of this area specifically. Rather know where I am than keep stumbling like a lost... Something witty." He spoke with rapid succession, his speech only slowing down in it's patter by the time he fumbled about. He passed his staff through the ground, rolling it up and over his shoulder as he kneeled down, looking up to the dark elf. His brow was cocked, his curiosity yet to be sated. "And in turn I take not a page from your Library, nor a stretch of ink I don't even dane to look at a piece of text." He spoke with dissuaded determination, keeping his eyes leveled at the Dark Elf.

"Wait, how far are we travelling? Because I'm not getting caught up in another year long escapade to go find books for less than minimum wage." He mused aloud but with caution making sure to keep at least three paces his distance from the Elf. Around the same distance for his quarterstaff to be within whacking range but lesso himself.

 

[Xunari Auceus]

She clicked her tongue in annoyance.

Already she was beginning to question her decision to NOT kill the annoying man. But she had made her decision and she would stand by it for she could ill-afford to be seen as mercurial by someone she honestly thought might try to screw her over. It was just how half of Drow-society dealt with things and she had no reason to believe that it was different wherever the scruffy human was from.

"A map." she frowned severely, "You ask for a map to our lands, lands we keep hidden from outsiders for good reason?"

Still.

"I shall give you a map of this quarter of the Underrealm." she counter offered, beginning to lead the way, "The journey should not be more than a few hours at most. Maybe longer, depending on... conditions."

 

[Gurash Gloomrunner]

The big orc mercenary came running in from behind Xunari Auceus . He had seen a bunch of dark elves fleeing from something and figured that whatever they were running from was a good way to make some easy cash. And he needed cash. His flask was running low by this point. And a sober Gurash was not the peak performance operator that his employers paid for. Such was the cycle of nature, he supposed.

The massive orc didn't have much trouble seeing in the caves of the Underrealm where the dark elves had fled from. Of course his night vision wasn't as good as a Drow, but it was good enough to not suffer from anything less than a skilled surprise attack if he had braved the place without a torch. Which he would have. The dark reminded him of The Uzogrish Forest where his tribe was from. He felt comfortes by it. He was used to being a predator of the darkness. Of course, as soon as he got close to the action he saw that Farzad Oldsummer was literally throwing light all over the situation.

"Alright." Came the loud deep voice of the orc from behind Xunari. It was a dirty voice that seemed like it was also growling as well as talking. "Who needs to have their insides ripped to shreds? And how much are you willing to pay the single deadliest mercenary in all of Epressa to get the job done right?"

Gurash had to admit, his sales pitch probably needed some work. It was all he had for the moment however. And he had gotten well paying jobs with worse.

 

[Farzad Oldsummer]

Farzad snapped his fingers, the beaming ball of light lounging and forming atop his palm, he almost bounced it up and down like some limp yo-yo. "Perfect." He banged the butt of his staff twice against the ground as if to seal the pact, taking a short stride forward as he lowered his quarterstaff downwards and towards the gloomy darkness that rushed forward through the imposing sheet of black. He pressed the quarterstaff back against his shoulder, his right arm coiled at the second third of the staff and pointed it at the creature slowly taking powerful shape. It at least spoke coherently.

Farzad, in the meantime had already uncoiled a sliver of paper, soft glowing illumination and barely decipherable script leaked from the paper with magic coils and lapping tendrils of colour that slivered along the paper like strange blades of grass moving from place to place only by unseen winds. "Oh, well." Farzad spook up still holding his quarterstaff pointed towards the thing of muscle and, from it's voice puerile wrath. "What a pleasure to make your acquaintance, he can take the fifteen gold pieces and I get the map?" He gave a long smile, using a pinki from his scroll hand to pull down a sliver of a scarf releasing his long drawn out smile his sharp face adjourned with slivers of unkempt hair peppered black and white, eyes slowly twisting to the bends of his scroll's colouration.

In short, his eyes buzzed with the radiation of magic.
​

"Of course..." He continued, his staff slumped down, his body rocked and bent on the length of metal and wood, "Is this one of those stealth duties? Tell me new companion, name and of course, can you be quite? At least, long enough to get paid and run away with it?" Considering he wasn't the employer, he overstepped his bounds. Some trickle of him knew it and made him sizzle with glee in the back of his mind, though he seemingly remain composed looking back and forth with a neutral smile that bordered on neutral.

 

[Xunari Auceus]

Oh great - more primitives!

An Orc and a human walk into the Underrealm... it sounded like the set up to a really bad joke and the only problem was that Xunari wasn't laughing. Honestly, part of her wanted to scream in frustration but she held back through sheer force of will and an intense desire not to be seen to be "gotten to" by these people.

She didn't resist the urge to palm her face however.

"ALRIGHT."

She pointed to the human.

"You get the map as agreed."

Pivoting around, she pointed to the Orc.

"You get thirty pieces of gold - you're worth more than the human."

Turning back in the direction she wanted to go, she marched forward, fully expecting them to follow her as she stormed forward further into the Underrealm. As they moved she took a deep breath and released it slowly as they made progress.

"Do either of you have any experience with Chimera? Because there's at least one between us and our goal - I hope you came prepared."

Farzad Oldsummer Gurash Gloomrunner

 

[Gurash Gloomrunner]

"Glad to hear you've got more sense than the human glowworm over here. Fifteen was never gonna cut it. But even thirty is a bit low for hiring the deadliest mercenary in Epressa. No one's ever withstood the fury of Gurash Gloomrunner before..." Here Gurash paused as if thinking. He pulled out his flask and smiled. "You know what, since you're first time buyers, I can go as low as thirty gold just this once. But trust me. Once you see me in action, you'll have no qualms about paying three times as much to simply escort you to the other side of town." The bestial green giant then laughed insanely. It was actually the alcohol that allowed him to readily agree to sell his services so cheaply. The truth was, his fighting spirit yearned for a worthy battle. Which was a pretty normal thing for an orc, really.

As the drow started walking, Gurash did indeed follow. The imposing green warrior then took a swig from the flask before looking at the human glowworm over there. "Don't worry. With me around there's no need to keep quiet. Anything that faces us will soon drown in it's own blood, if it even lives long enough to do that..." The oversized orc spat on the ground before continuing. When questioned about chimeras, however, he turned back to face the pretty dark elf in the lead. She certainly had a nice look to her. Especially from this angle.

"Never fought one of those before. It'll be good to add something new to the list." The warrior admitted easily. He had plenty enough to boast about without needing to lie about his experiences. Of course, with the occasional black outs of memory he had, it was always possible that he actually had fought one, and merely hadn't remembered it...

"But I've heard they're like giant scorpions only with less natural armor. But that they've got the aggression to make up for it." It was a tactical appraisal based only on bard songs he'd heard while celebrating successful jobs in The Noble Tart - a fine tavern back in Alliria...

 

[Farzad Oldsummer]

Farzad threw a smile to the orc, ignoring the complaint of the Drow. He could prove them wrong. Maybe, he wasn't sure how high of a standard the Dark Elf had even though they rarely ever were a long hanging bar. "Well I do love the enthusiasm." He replied, tapping his staff twice against the ground before swinging it with tactile care and lobbing it over his shoulder as he fired a new light, a bulbous growth protruding from the end of his staff like some hobos travel lantern.

He took up at the rear. If the Orc was as loud as he proposed he figured they wouldn't have a chance to sneak by anything anyway. "Well. Just don't slay so much that we drown, we don't need the Underrealm getting seized in waves of blood." He wanted to ask how exactly he planned on cutting a lightning bolt in two but figured maybe that was best left untouched. He was the brute, the muscle. Sometimes it was better in the party to simply let them believe what they wish and see if they can prove themselves matching their own fables. "I also imagine it'd damage your library, and my personal maps usefulness?" He continued, looking up at the darkness as if contemplating the stars. "Actually. Really the only one that wins in all this is you I suppose. Gold's just as good wrapped in blood as it is in linen." He went silent for a moment before looking to his new employee.

"Rather unfair question?" He replied quickly, his eyes narrowed. He wasn't fearful more just confused. "Chimera. A creature combined from the parts of multiple animals into one. Traditionally the first waves were made and composed of part lion and part scorpion, though in recent studies the formula has been experimented for multiple variations. The Lion Scorpion sub branch is simply the most commonly found due to ease of manufacturing." He replied, it was textbook knowledge, they weren't seen as anything rare, any adventurer he thought worth their salt should have known that one.

 

[Xunari Auceus]

Already Xunari could feel a headache coming on but she would be damned if she was going to show weakness in front of the clown patrol that she had following her now. They were getting on her nerves but she wouldn't let them know that... more than they likely already knew.

Damn it they probably already knew how much they got to her.

She might have to consider killing them later to preserve the aura of the unflappable Rune Mage in the future. But that was a problem for future-Xunari. Present-Xunari still had to deal with both companions and the Chimera.

"The ones down here are a mixture of the scorpion-lion branch and some spider-scorpion types."

She flashed a grin.

"Our beast-makers were rather proud of that last one. They say it can run five widths of it's own body in a second - very proud they were when they showed that... no one here is afraid of spiders, right?"

 

[Gurash Gloomrunner]

Gurash took another drink before capping his flask and putting it away. He didn't respond to Farzad's comments about blood staining the treasures of mages more than the gold. He was too busy salivating at the thought of that much blood being unleashed in the Underrealm or anywhere else for that matter. To kill so many living things, quickly enough to cause an ocean, or at the very least a small river, to form was an appetizing thought indeed. The kind of thought that made his orcish heart flutter like a human child seeing their crush for the first time. Almost unconsciously his hand brought forth the massive one-sided axe from his back. And he carried his weapon with both hands, holding it close on like a sweet gift that he was bringing to his beautiful lover.

Violence was her name. And he anticipated another cherishes rendezvous with her soon. Not that he would rush in like a berzerker. No. Gurash was not a selfish lover. He was in fact a deeply romantic soul when it came to his lady of destruction, death, and savage attacks to vital organs. No. He would not rush to the heighta of passion without enjoying at least a little bit of foreplay.

The dark elf's descriptions of the enemies to be faced did little to temper the near-literal bloodlust now effecting the seven and a half foot tall fighter. If anything that were the sort of tease required to egg him on into unrestrained passion. With so much testosterone taking hold of the creature, however, her question of fear was no idle comment to be left unacknowledged...

"Bah!" Snorted the big orc. "Fear is for cowards and weaklings. Let the humans get scared of something with more legs than they're used to. I was wrestling Tugra Beasts in the Uzogrish Forest by the time I came of age. And not those pitiful one-horned merchant-slayers you find roaming the Allir Reach. I'm talking the BIG, three-horned, Forest Tugras with thicker scales beneath their fur, and two sets of teeth."

There was an adamant passion behind the orc's boasting. The kind of energy which suggested that he was reliving fond memories. Fond memories of violence and strife. There was also something in his speech that was reminiscent of a temple zealot declaring his truth to the masses. There was no room for attempting to dissuade him. And he held a core assertion that his way was beneficial to all who would embrace it.

 

[Farzad Oldsummer]

"I mean, I'd be in a pretty shit-sore place if I was afraid of the eight-legged freaks now wouldn't I?" Farzad responded rather quickly. He was quickly eeking himself away from the Orc. Whether it was the way he held his axe, the way he simply spoke or that unadulterated look of unashamed passion that spoke volumes of taboo and blood orgies, Farzad found it far more comfortable an edge further in the dark and a step closer to the Dark Elf.

Even in the daunt of it all he still whipped back, "Thanks for the vote of confidence. I am sure I will fulfill your expectations Gurash" He mused. He kept tapping away at the ground as he walked, as if inspecting it for a pit fall trap, the bulbous glow poking and prodding the floor. If someone paid attention, the was hurrying the bugs off. "So Boss, what exactly has caused the new influx of wild Chimera?" Farzad moved off from the Orc, curious more at the presence of Chimera, and from the sounds of it many of them had been made wild. One was challenging enough he found let along a whole litter of the monstrous machinations.

 

[Xunari Auceus]

Xunari already wanted to roll her eyes at the bravado of the Orc. Well... it was either bravado or plain stupidity and she had neither the time, nor the crayons, to figure out which by testing him. Suffice to say, she was of the opinion that fear was a healthy emotion to have.

Something that didn't feel fear was something too stupid to recognize that some threats were too great to be handled lightly. So she eyed the Orc with an amused air.

"Sounds like quite a sight." she agreed placidly before glancing at the human, "Try to at least make one of them choke to death on your corpse if you do decide to die, please?"

It was the least he could do really.

Approaching a wider, open, chamber, Xunari immediately noticed signs of recent habitation by the creatures in question. Large webs had been recently set up and there was a odd hissing on the air from multiple angles.

"We used to breed them for fun and military purposes." she admitted with a smile, "They have such pretty little eyes. Oh before I forget - they jump a lot."

Two spider/scorpion chimera proved her right, one leaping from the left and another from the ceiling above. They were mostly spider with the front two legs replaced with strong pincers and a scorpion tail near the back. She stepped behind the hired help for the moment.

 

[Gurash Gloomrunner]

"I will!" Gurash grinned defiantly, perhaps insanely, at the Xunari's comment about his corpse. The blood lust was filling him with all kinds of feelings. Pride, anger, arousal, greed. And even fear. Yes, he did FEEL fear. All creatures felt fear. But what he refused to do, what any sane orc would refuse to do, was to submit to that feeling as if it were in control. And certainly a Gloomrunner who fled away from the source of fear instead of straight at it, was coward. And cowards do not grow stronger. They do not test their mettle. And their weakness infects and endangers the tribe. Through their selfish surrender to the emotion of fear they bring death, or worse, to themselves and their tribe. The bastards!

Such is the real folly. To submit one's kin to pay for one's own weakness. Such was the real price of weakness. Of real incompetence. Fundamental incompetence. Better for all that such weaklings and cowards be rooted out and put to death at the earliest possible moment. Especially better for the weak ones themselves. As they would know only frustration and disgust with a weakling's life. And in their dying, they would finally learn the value of power. Suffering the regret of their loss of life due to their own weakness and cowardice, they would, in death, finally become wise. And thus, good ancestors.

The strong, of course would become better ancestors. The valiant and death defiant, even moreso; the elites of spiritual realm. It was said by the shamans, that such spirits could not fall away to the power of necromantic rites. But in order to become such an elite spirit in in death, one had to first become and remain so in life. To defy death, again and again. To meet that which would challenge you, that which would scare you, with unrelenting fury. To embrace the will to survive against any and all odds.

Gurash did not actually believe in these things anymore, however. Not the way that real traditional minded orcs did. He spent too much time in the cities. Cities like Alliria, full of humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, and more. And he spent too much time with non-orc mercenaries. He had embraced civilization more than many orcs raised in a tribe like his could stomach to ever actually do. And among this time he had seen humans, time and again, show fear of the little spiders and insects that dwelt in the corners of cellars or barns. A peculiar behavior, which he had not noticed among the nature loving elves, nor the battle ready dwarves. Hopefully, Farzad either did not suffer from this common human problem or was strong enough to face it, if he did.

But with the sudden arrival of live test subjects, it was time to find out. To find out so many things. Who was strong? Who was weak? Which enemy was more deadly, the physical or the mental? But the most important question of all must be answered with the utmost immediacy. What is the color of a chimera's blood?

Gurash was excited to find out. Fresh blood needed to be spilled. Now! He charged at the one which descended from above shouting "Glowworm! Take the one from the side wall!"

He laughed maniacally as he slammed the his axe's blade upon one of it's grasping claws. The strike had positioned his more heavily armored side to face the creature, granting him a greater chance of defense from the beast's counterattacks. After one failed strike with it's tail, however, where it's stinger met the spikes of the orc's shoulderguard, it used it's remaining pincer to grab the green one's arm and move it aside, twisting his body into a more strikeable pose.

Holding his axe with his free arm, he used it to block the next sting attack. Gurash then spun into an attack to the creatures side.

But before his axe could connect the damned thing was on the ceiling again. His large, heavy body allowed him to wrench his arm free as the beast leapt into a striking pose above him.

Immediately the orc was on his back on the ground, throwing his axe up at the chimera's head/body.

But again the thing was too fast. His battleaxe cut deep into the cavern ceiling and remained stuck there while the thing was on the ground again, already striking with it's tail.

Gurash rolled away from the stabbing tail and rising again, drew two of his cleaver style swords, holding them together in an X like a pair of big scissors. As soon as that tail struck, the orc was prepared to clip it and spin out of the path of the likely still moving severed stinger.

Xunari Auceus Farzad Oldsummer

 

[Farzad Oldsummer]

Farzad's vision was short lived past the bead of light. The Drow seemed to take a few steps back, the soft scurrying on the wind alreted Farzad but done little more. The orc rushed into a blur of fury and might, Farzad still half-absent in thought as the monstrosity burled from the side, nothing more than a half-reaction was all Farzad could do as spindly fangs half the length as his arm and just as wide scrapped across a scarf, the skin untouched but a spell broken. He wasn't sure which one. He doubted it mattered.


His torchlight gave him all he needed,his body slunk downwards as he pressed his staff into the ground as the wild stringer came flinging downwards, stumbling in the gravely earth as he propelled his body a foot out of the way. The wall on the otherside wasn't far. "And I'll trust you take the roof!" He replied in kind, his tongue pulling his scarf over his mouth as his eyes flashed arcane, radiated with excitement. He stared down a Chimera. Dungeon Delver D.D vs the Drow's pet. What a fun title. He thought to himself, humor on the brain. Eight eyes glared through the darkness, Farzad twisted his staff around and pointed the non light end at the creature. He became a dancer, letting the spider take lead as he became subservient to it's cruel motions.

He peeled a single small scroll, clean parchment. In a hand. He grinned.
​

"Drow. Time to show you some knowledge." The spider broke into a blur of motion, it's spindly hind legs propelled it forward, Farzad took in a breath. He wasn't the biggest fighter in the world. He half-stepped back. He wasn't the most magically powerful in the world. His staff rotated, the glow flinging around with the motion. And he wasn't the most dexterous. "Spiders. Go blind in sunlight."

But he was versatile.
​

The creature winced as he held the staff down, the crack of wood against it's chitinous face as he held it in place, at first a vile screech, than a blur of wild motion, snapping at his quarterstaff, the wood was quickly splinting, the metal accents bending a the strength. He held it down with all his might, slowly starting to swing with it's motion like a fisherman going releasing some pressure on a fish. It was a few seconds before he finally released it, the spiders eyes caught in the dazzling light. Farzad stood ready, his spell scroll in hand. He watched the legs, there was a stumble. So he tapped at it's legs. There was a pause and a focus, like a blind predator trying to sense it's prey. His grin turned cheshire. He pointed his scroll, his middle finger cracking the wax seal as it unfurled. The paper seemed to flare with the arcane, the divine and it's ink became vivid strolls of motion.

La Delidore Siriane
​

He could almost see the mistake. The spider's fangs almost flared in excitement as his spell seemed to do nothing, pointed at the creature as magic slowly dissipated and fell out, like the world had pulled every ounce of magic into the soil. Farzad smiled. The creature took a bound, an explosion of speed. An unnatural explosion of speed. A magical explosion of speed.

Farzad dropped to the ground as the creature slammed it's whole body into the wall behind him, a blaze and blur of motion, himself skimming down just in time to not be crushed by the monsters size, but not quite in time as it's fangs skimmed past but it's lower pedipalps took a nasty chunk, his chest slit open with a superficial slash, skin caught in it's mouth just in time to mix it with the cruel side of the wall.

 

[Xunari Auceus]

Well well well it seemed that the Orc had something of a tactical mind - the kind of mind that dealt well with more immediate problems rather than conversation. It meant that he barely hesitated for half a second before he was in the thick of it and she could appreciate it.

Seemed to be doing alright for himself as well.

Of course as a mage of some power and learning it was the human's fight she watched with more interest. Even as he was prompting her to watch she was kneeling on the ground, carving lines and diagrams into the stone of the floor with the point of a rather blunt knife.

She honestly wished she could have taken notes but she knew well enough that was not possible... she had left her notebooks in her library after all. When the spider-like creature seemed to become empowered she raised an eyebrow.

"That IS useful."

It was useful for the beastmasters of the Drow after all.

"Please write that down again before you die so I can present it to the beastriders." she requested politely as she finished her rune and slammed a hand down on it, magic flaring as it drew from her, "And please do not be weak to ice."

Ice spread out around her but rather than being used as a direct attack it instead caused the temperature of the chamber to rapidly plummet. Enough that the chimera, unable to regulate their body heat very well, began to slow and become sluggish even with the enhanced speed that had been added.