Private Tales When Fire Meets Shadow

[Vyx'aria]

She growled through gritted teeth as he drew the arrow from her back, not gently, not carefully, but with fire-laced precision, the heat of his touch cauterizing the wound as it tore free.

Agony flared and yet she stood still. Sweat slicked her brow, her chest rose sharply, and for a breathless moment the only sound was her own breath, the low hiss of burned flesh, and the smoldering silence between them.

In a way it was a brand. Not of ownership but of interference. She turned her head, eyes burning into his, red catching firelight.

“What happens,” she murmured, voice low, hungry, unflinching, “if I want to leave a mark on you, too?”

Her gaze didn’t waver, not from pain, not from pride. It was a challenge, veiled with something more dangerous: intent.

Then, without waiting for an answer, she straightened. Cool again. Controlled. Her expression sharpened as she reached for the segmented armor at her side, sliding it back over the scorched skin like ritual.

Every motion was deliberate, a warrior rearming, a queen resuming her mantle.

She did not flinch. She did not break.

Once buckled, she swept her gaze across the chamber, then lifted her chin toward her elite, the drow who had survived, bloodied and hard-eyed. She gave a sharp command in their native tongue.

They fell in behind her.

And without another word, Vyx’aria fell into stride beside Azrakar, her blade low at her side, her pace unhurried. Her injury pulsed beneath the plate, but she carried
but she carried it like a crown.

Into the dark they descended. The chase was not over.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar watched her endure the extraction without a cry. The only betrayal was a sharpening of her breath and the faint sheen of sweat at her temple.

When she turned those crimson eyes on him, pain turned into something fierce. His own gaze met hers without apology.

"A mark?" he rumbled, voice low enough to vibrate through the stone beneath their feet. "If a mark is to be left, it had better be for something memorable."

He let the promise hang between them, heavy and heated, then turned to lead the descent.

He brought a single unit of orcs with him. Armed with shields and heavy axes, they could throttle any more undead in narrow corridors.

The tunnel widened into a vast cavern. A single bridge spanned a chasm of black stone. Far below, rivers of dormant magma glowed faintly.

Azrakar paused at the bridge’s edge, glancing sidelong at Vyx’aria.

"The lich cowers beyond," he said quietly. "I suspect an ambush soon.His phylactery will be close. Hidden in a relic or rune or bone. We can find it after we have crushed him."

A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips as he looked back at her.

"And when it is done... we will discuss marks. In private."

Or perhaps the drow who had looked at him so hopefully could watch in awe, he thought to himself.

"Hmm where are you..." he muttered. He had expected resistance in the narrow tunnel Dow.

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria grinned wickedly. “In private? How proper.” She stepped closer, just enough for the heat of him to ripple against her skin again. “I don’t mind an audience when I’m staking my claims.”

Then she turned, striding with purpose as the tunnel widened into a cavern of immense scale.

Vyx’aria’s eyes narrowed as she scanned the opposite side of the bridge. No movement yet, but her instincts burned hot. “I want the ring,” she said flatly, eyes still locked ahead. “The one he wore. It was the source of his channeling.” She took the first step onto the bridge, cautious but unafraid.

Arrows whistled through the air, slicing toward them from the darkness ahead. Vyx’aria snarled, twisting aside as the first few bolts struck stone and armor. One skimmed her hip; another she batted aside with her blade, letting the momentum spin her into a crouch. Her red eyes locked on the source - goblins, half-concealed in jagged crags above the far ledge.

She summoned the darkness. Her fingers curled, and the shadows coalesced into a spear of pitch black swirling, shrieking, alive with malice. With a single, fluid motion, she hurled it across the cavern.

The shadow spear slammed into the far rockface with a thunderous crack, exploding in a shock of dark energy that shattered the ledge. Goblins screamed as stone gave way, plummeting into the lava below in a wail of flame and ash.

Vyx’aria didn’t wait. She bolted across the bridge, nimble as a shade, weaving through the next volley with supernatural grace. One arrow scraped her vambrace, another sailed just past her ear.

Behind her, her drow archers took position, returning fire with disciplined precision to give her, Azrakar and his orcs the chance to cross.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar’s laughter rolled through the cavern like distant thunder, deep and approving, as her words lingered in the heated air between them.

"An audience," he rumbled, stepping onto the bridge at her side, flames crowning his horns flaring brighter with every stride. "Then I shall ensure the mountain itself watches."

Vyx’aria’s shadow spear detonated across the chasm, crumbling the ledge and sending undead goblins falling silenyly into the magma below. Azrakar watched the plunge with grim satisfaction

He felt the eager orcs form up around him. These were the most fierce warriors he had left. Tribes had left during his cursed imprisonment. These only had stories passed down through the generations of his battles.

He set forwards with Vyx, a column of orcs marching two by two. They slammed their shields into the bridge every third step.

He didn't curb their enthusiasm. The undead would not be intimidated and the show went to waste. It wasn't a complete waste; it made him feel alive again.

Finally a bristling line of spears emerged from the dark. The undead sought to block their path with bodies in the tight corridor.

A final flight of dark arrows hissed overhead and brought a few down. Azrakar allowed the orcs their moment, charging the last few steps to drive through the first rank.

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria winced slightly at all the thundering noises of the orcs. Her method of battle was silent, discreet and devastating. But she couldn’t deny how the rhythm quickened her pulse with bloodlust.

The corridor before them choked with spear-wielding corpses, their formation tight, movements crude, but effective. The phalanx of the dead barred the way, grim and silent. The undead couldn’t be killed, which meant they needed to incapacitate and make it past this segment without adding to their army.

Vyx’aria didn’t blink. Instead, her lips curled into something dark and sly. She raised a hand, and shadows obeyed.

A rush of blackness surged forward, swallowing the corridor in utter void. No flicker of light remained. She didn’t need to speak. A flick of her fingers and her elite drow moved.

Three slipped past her like wraiths, blades already glistening with the venom of deep-spun spiders that worked as a paralytic. They melted into the darkness, invisible even to most Drow eyes.

The silence was unbearable. No screams. No death rattles. The undead weren’t clever enough to adapt and shift to suddenly changing variables.

There was just the sound of spears clattering away, one by one. Then, with an almost lazy wave of her hand, Vyx’aria lifted the veil.

The corridor revealed itself once more, but now it was changed.

The undead line was slack, half of its spears dropped or wavering. Many of the corpses stood frozen, locked mid-movement, spines rigid from toxin and limbs trembling with half-aborted motion.

They did not fall. They simply stood there like statues.

Vyx’aria stepped forward, brushing a curl of silver hair behind her ear.

“Your turn,” she murmured to Azrakar, his orcs free to rush the entire line of defense and flatten them. Her drow elite were already waiting on the other side of the column, prepared to put down a glyph to keep the goblins from following once everyone crossed.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar watched her work with fascination. She summoned absolute darkness. Silence followed. No clash of steel, no guttural cries, only the faint whisper of blades finding their marks.

Exquisite.

When the veil lifted and the undead phalanx stood frozen like grotesque statues, he let out a low, approving rumble.

"Beautiful," he murmured.

He turned to his orcs, raising one clawed hand. The brutes needed no further command. With a roar that shook dust from the ceiling, they charged.

Frozen corpses shattered under the onslaught, limbs cracking like dry wood, torsos caving in showers of bone and decayed flesh. The line buckled and broke, orcs trampling the paralyzed remains into the stone as they surged forward.

He lost just a single orc in the battle. They were dismemebed by their allies with cleaver to make certain they couldn't be resurrected.

Azrakar strode through the chaos unhurried. Where stray undead twitched or tried to reform, his sword of flame fell upon them.

He caught up to Vyx’aria alongside her elite.

"Your precision and my blunt force. A fitting harmony."

His gaze swept the deeper shadows ahead.

"The lich grows desperate. He will try and hide."

There were no goblins here to add to his forces. That was disdapointing. It did not seem worth renegotiating now. There was an alliance to forge. He would cast his eyes over the contents of the vaults.

They went deeper and he realised the tunnels branched out into. Any different vaults.

He closed his eyes. His magic had brushed right up against the necromancy. Whether it was the dwarf or the sources of their power, it did not matter, he point out a path ahead.

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria gave a faint, curved smile. Her crimson gaze slid sidelong toward Azrakar, catching the edge of his satisfaction, the hum of approval in that deep voice.

“Well,” she murmured, voice velvet over steel, “It almost sounds like you enjoy my company for reasons other than strategy.”

The path ahead, with Azrakar’s guidance, was tight, then widened again as they descended, the sharp chill of necromancy growing stronger. Around her, her elite drow regrouped. They’d slipped back into formation like blades into sheaths.

She cast a glance behind her at the orcs that were brutal, blood-drenched, thunder-footed. So different from her kind. And yet… there was an artistry in the carnage they left behind. One she could respect.

“I can’t afford to lose them,” she said lowly to Azrakar as they moved. “My drow. We’re few. Each one trained, tested, and learning to withstand the surface. Losing even one means carving a hole that will prove difficult to replace.”

Her voice didn’t carry grief, only steel-hard pragmatism. But it was rare for her to say such things aloud.

And then they emerged.

The corridor fell away into a vault of stone and shadow, a colossal chamber, its ceiling vaulted so high it disappeared into black. Gold and trinkets gleamed in impressive mounds, relics and broken crowns strewn among long-forgotten banners.

But it was not the treasure that held her gaze.

The lich stood ahead, half-shrouded in bone dust and candlelight, muttering dark enchantments.

Two undead trolls lurched forth from the shadows, crowned in rot, eyes glowing with sickly green light. They towered over the intruders, holding massive clubs and unleashing roars that made the mountain tremble.

Their attention snapped to the intruders.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar’s gaze lingered on her a moment longer. He didn't confirm or deny her accusation.

The chamber opened before them. There was a mountain of dwarven gold and shattered relics.

Azrakar spared the treasure only a glance. His eyes fixed on the lich muttering in the gloom and on the two colossal undead trolls lumbering forward, clubs dragging sparks across the stone.

"Well that is a problem."

He stepped ahead of Vyx’aria and her elite.

"Look for your opportunity," he said over his shoulder. He avoided tell her to save her drow when the orcs were expendable.

The first troll roared and charged, club raised high. Azrakar met it head-on. He caught the descending weapon in one clawed hand. It had too much momentum and there was a great crunch as it struck his shoulder.

Azrakar’s runes flared scarlet. He slammed both palms to the ground. A ring of fire exploded outward, racing across the stone in serpentine waves. Where it touched the trolls, decayed flesh ignited like dry tinder. The beasts bellowed as regenerating muscle blackened and sloughed away faster than necromancy could mend it.

The second troll swung carried it's momentum into his orcs. They held their ground, forming a tightly packed column to resist it.

Azrakar straightened and swung his flaming sword. The troll backed away and only the tip of his sword singed a line across its chest. The lich was directing these with more deliberate control than his goblins.

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria spared a single glance to admire the brute spectacle before her: Azrakar standing alone beneath the swinging clubs of the undead trolls, his runes ablaze and fire erupting with every blow. It was fury made flesh. Raw, volcanic might.

But hers was a different art.

She turned sharply to her drow, eyes glinting crimson in the gloom. “With me,” she whispered.

In an instant, their silhouettes vanished into the shadows. They melted into the darkness, slipping unseen around the perimeter of the cavern. The trolls had no eyes for them, all attention locked on Azrakar and the orcs who held the line with brutal determination.

The drow struck as one, steel whispering against bone and sinew as they descended on the lich. The creature reeled back, snarling, his concentration splintered.

As the lich staggered from the surprise assault, the trolls faltered, their steps losing rhythm, their snarls momentarily uncertain.

The opening was there for Azrakar.

Vyx’aria did not stay to watch. Her path curved wide, circling behind the melee. Her eyes scanned the cavern until they caught it - a humming, flickering glow pulsing within an alcove high in the stone, behind the trolls’ chaotic thrashing.

The phylactery. Vyx’aria quickly advanced toward it, counting on others to keep her path clear. Until the artifact was destroyed, the lich could defend against attacks endlessly.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar felt the shift in the battle like a sudden drop in temperature. The lich’s focus was fractured as Vyx’aria’s drow struck from the dark. The trolls’ movements grew sluggish, their necrotic strings shaken by the spider’s unseen blades.

He seized the opening with volcanic fury. The nearest troll swung a rotting fist; Azrakar caught its wrist and twisted. Bone cracked like dry timber. Flames poured from his grip, racing up the limb and engulfing the beast in a roaring pyre. The troll bellowed as its flesh melted away in sheets, collapsing into a thrashing bonfire at his feet.

The second lunged, club raised high but paused woth the weapon over its head. A plethora of spears thrust out and skwered it across its chest.

Azrakar moved with surprising speed. His flaming sword came down at the troll's legs from behind. The orcs drove it down and spears were swapped for leavers again.

Both trolls lay ruined.

"You end here, corpse-king!" he called out, his voice shaking the vault. He tried to offer something of a distraction in return as he bore down on the lich.

 

[Vyx'aria]

The phylactery pulsed there, carved with wards and sigils too old for most tongues. She stepped forward, fingers tracing the air as her eyes flicked over the arcane defenses. A soft curse passed her lips.

Time was short.

Her eyes darted to the flames left in Azrakar’s wake. A risk to reveal it if he was watching, but a calculated one. With a swift step, she swept her obsidian blade through the lingering fire. The edge caught it, drank it, changed.

Dragonfire flared along the blade, ancient and furious.

Vyx’aria did not hesitate. She drove the weapon straight through the phylactery.

The world screamed.

Magic detonated in a blast of pressure and heat. The sigils shattered, the phylactery split apart with a wail and Vyx’aria was hurled backward like a doll caught in a storm. She slammed into the stone floor, the impact jarring the wound Azrakar had cauterized. Pain seared down her back as she hit with a brutal thud.

The lich’s cry filled the chamber, a sound both wrathful and strangely… relieved. His body crumbled to dust, the death-curse lifting. Even in ruin, his face bore a peace that had eluded him in unlife.

Silence fell.

The undead collapsed all at once. Limbs and weapons clattered uselessly against the stone.

Vyx’aria exhaled a ragged breath and forced herself upright. Her sword no longer burned. The fire was gone.

She looked across the chamber. Azrakar stood near the lich’s remains. And next to him, glinting among the dust and bone… the ring she sought.

She said nothing. Just stood, crimson eyes locked on his. Waiting. Watching.

To see what he would do.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar stood amid the settling dust and dying embers, the lich’s final wail still echoing off the vault stone. A cheer went up from the orcs. He let them have their moment.

His gaze swept the devastation. The trolls had been a genuine test of his strength. After the curse, walking into the domain of an ancient lich was not a task to easily dismissed.

His gaze fixed on Vyx’aria as she rose from the blast. He followed her gaze

He strode to the pile of ash and bone that had been the lich. The ring lay there, green light fading from its stone like the last breath of a dying star.

He could sense the tension in the drow. They would always expect betrayal. None of them made an overt move, but his ancient eyes could see the intent of movement.

Azrakar crouched, massive clawed fingers closing around it. For a moment he turned the band over. He deliberately stretched out the tension.

He had been bored in his exile.

Then he straightened and crossed the chamber in slow, deliberate steps until he stood before her.

Without a word he extended his hand, palm up, the ring resting in the center like an offering. He dropped to one knee, which barely brought him down to her eye level.

"Yours," he rumbled.

His voice carried the weight of respect earned in blood and fire.

"As promised."

His crimson eyes held hers, unblinking.

"You wielded my flame against his heart. A fitting end."

He did not step back. Did not lower his hand.

"The vault is ours now. The mountain answers to us. And the marks we spoke of..." A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. "...can begin whenever you choose, Queen."

The ring glinted between them, waiting for her to claim it.

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria bristled as he lingered over the ring, convinced that he meant to claim it for himself. He had worked with her so far, yes, but she hadn’t survived this long by trusting anyone with glittering power between their claws.

But then he moved.

Toward her.

And dropped to one knee.

Her crimson eyes narrowed in suspicion until they widened. It wasn’t just an offering. It was theatrical. Symbolic. Proposal-like.

She stared at him.

And then, inexplicably… a soft giggle slipped from her lips, sharp and sudden, entirely at odds with her usual cold precision. She caught it too late, eyes flashing as she pressed her fingers to her mouth in disbelief. The sound echoed slightly in the ruined vault.

Behind her, her drow tactfully looked away.

Vyx’aria gazed at Azrakar, who remained still, presenting the ring like an oath. She hated how easily he’d shaken her, how effortlessly he’d drawn something raw and rare to the surface. And yet, her eyes lingered on his, both pleased and annoyed, fierce and intrigued.

After a pause, she reached down and took the ring.

She slid it onto her finger with a practiced, elegant motion, then held her hand up, wiggling her fingers with a faint smirk. “It will do.”

A whisper of air swept the chamber. All around them, the undead goblins and trolls began to rise once more, resurrected not by hostility, but by a lingering command. They stood motionless, silent witnesses looming around the ruined vault.

Vyx’aria's eyes gleamed as she turned her gaze back to Azrakar. Her voice dropped into velvet, laced with promise.

“I did say I wanted an audience.”

She took a step back, slow, deliberate. Her fingers reached the fastenings of her armor. One by one, pieces fell away, sliding down her form like silk. Beneath, the body of a warrior queen was revealed, taut with muscle, honed by war, but graceful, every inch sculpted like a weapon. Nothing like a priestess.

“Shift,” she commanded, gaze locked to his. “Into your drow form. But stay exactly where you are.”

The throne of gold and ruin was hers now. And tonight, so was he.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

"This is a dissapointment," Azrakar called out.

He stood before the heart of the settlement. The ancient forge. Heat from the heart of Arethil had been used to power it. The vast cavern ended it a great triangle, a window into the cold and dead heart of the forge itself.

"It will not be easy to start again. Perhaps impossible."

Azrakar had assumed it had long gone cold. When the fate of the Vault of Khazar had been revealed he had allowed himself a small hope.

If a dwarf had commanded necromantic powers to take control of the vaults, surely he would have kept the forge running?

Pipes would be distorted and cracked, filled with cold metal and slag. Tunnels bored through the rock itself would have been feel with ore.

It would almost be easier to build another forge.

"No forces have swelled my own ranks," he said, glancing at the ring on her finger. "It would be fair if my guard could claim some of the lesser weapons we find."

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria lounged like a queen reborn. One leg slung over the carved armrest of the old king’s throne, her back reclined into the worn steel, she plucked another dried fruit from a little pouch with a pleased hum. The battle had been won. The ring was on her finger. And Azrakar was making speeches to a dead forge.

She didn’t even open her eyes when she spoke. “Is that… complaining I hear?” she mused aloud, her voice like shadowed silk, too languid to be truly sharp. “Because it certainly sounds like a whole lot of complaining.”

She bit into the fruit. “Mmm. I suppose I can’t blame you for being in a sour mood.” Her gaze flicked lazily to him now, no longer veiled in shadows, but heavy with knowing amusement.

Another fruit, another bite. She let the silence stretch a moment, long enough to remind him who had walked away with what she came for.

“Let your orcs take what they please,” she said with a flick of her fingers, as if granting a royal indulgence. “I have no need for dull steel.”

Then, her gaze sharpened, curious, cunning. “But tell me this, Azrakar. What is it you wish to rule, exactly?” Her voice lowered. “You speak of forging a future…
but what kingdom do you see at the end of your hammer? If we are to travel together, I need to understand your ambitions as well as you know mine.”

She didn’t press him for an answer. Not yet. She simply watched him over the rim of her pouch, both curious and amused.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

"I complain?" he rumbled, the words low and edged with dark humor. It seemed he was interrupting her basking in her victories.

"No, spider. I had long thought this forge cold. Perhaps I hoped the dwarf would have kept them running. You could fit legions in the finest armour and weapons with this running."

He pushed away from the anvil and walked toward her throne with deliberate slowness, boots ringing against flagstone. The orcs parted for him without command; even they felt the tension coiled in their lord.

He stopped a respectful distance from the throne she had claimed. Close enough for his heat to reach her. He folded his enormous arms and regarded her lounging form with open appraisal. He grinned. Perhaps she had denied him because of exhaustion.

"What do I wish to rule?" He tilted his head, flames flickering briefly along the curve of his horns. "The spine. Molthal."

"I want a world that remembers what true power feels like."

It would never be enough. He knew it. He suspected she knew it too. He was infernal. The all consuming fire. She danced with those flames delighting in the fact that they could consume her too.