Thread: Fall of Elen'thalas (Krimson & HeavenSundered)

Ezzaraith had put much thought and scrutiny into selecting the location of her new home. The Agnathian mountain range spanned hundreds of miles along the border between the kingdoms of Zaria and Arcadia, creating an impassable natural barrier with it's abundance of steep cliffs and unstable surface prone to massive landslides. The spot that she'd chosen was somewhere towards the center of the mountain range, making it one of the least strategically important areas in all of Zaria, and therefore also one of the least patrolled. Chances of any soldiers passing through beyond the handful which accompanied the tax collectors each month were slim to none. The mountains had once contained rich mineral veins, but the warmongering Zarians had mined them out generations ago to fuel conflicts which their descendants could now recount so proudly. Ezzaraith was also aware of the fact that surveyors had been sent to locate and squeeze out whatever little resources remained during Zaria's latest struggle against Arcadia, so there was quite literally no reason for anyone to disturb her here. There were only a couple of villages nearby at the foot of the mountains, both having evolved from temporary mining towns that had been set up long ago. The humans who resided there were simple and easy to manipulate. A few carved up animal carcasses surrounded by candles and nonsensical symbols drawn in blood in the guise of 'ritual sacrifices' were enough to discourage them from venturing very high up the mountain, not that there would have been much reason to do so regardless. The only downside was that name they'd given her in their old wive's tales - the Demon Witch in the Mountains - oh how she despised that name! Still, it was a small price to pay for her privacy. Privacy which she'd been enjoying as she bathed in the small crater that she'd carefully blown in the center of her cave and filled with water. The small stream that ran through the side of the cave could be diverted to fill the crater when necessary, and it even had a drain built in at the bottom. Not bad for living in the harsh wilderness, Ezza was rather proud of that one. She'd just gotten into the water after heating it up to the perfect temperature with a touch of her magic when a loud sizzling sound grabbed her attention, causing her to sigh heavily with discontentment. The vexing noise originated from one of the many little wooden needles planted in a skillfully drawn map of the surrounding area that hung off the cave's back wall, just over the plush round bed covered in pillows of various shapes and sizes. The needles were enchanted to slowly and noisily burn whenever the trap associated to them was triggered. They went off quite regularly, but it was almost always the doing of some poor critter who was unfortunate enough to stumble into them on accident. Rarely, one of the boys from the village would try to venture up the mountain on some dare from his friends, but the young interloper would always be quickly turned away. The outer perimeter of traps was intended only to frighten and dissuade, since Ezzaraith knew that killing or seriously injuring one of the humans would be the only reason that they might ever have to come after her. Having already settled into her bath, the sorceress was more than willing to chalk her marker going off to just another animal getting a bit too curious, but then another starting sizzling, and another, and another... Ezza silenced them all with a flick of her wrist before levitating a series of eight crystal orbs over to herself from a display rack in one of her bookshelves. The orbs stopped to hover in a perfect circle directly in front of her, but she could control their rotation with simple sliding motions from her fingers. After cycling through them for a few seconds, Ezza was able to find the one linked to the enchanted crow's eye that had vision of the intruder. The image was hazy and imperfect, but it was enough for her to clearly assess that this was not some local, the man was dressed far too well and richly for that. He also seemed pretty sharp for a human, annoyingly enough. It would take her hours to replace all the work that he was carelessly destroying. The sorceress' better instincts told her to simply move out to one of her many prepared vantage points and blast the trespassing human before he got any closer, but curiosity had always been one of her weaknesses, as it often was for practitioners of the arcane arts. Occupational hazard, she supposed. When the man finally arrived at the opening of the cave, Ezza was waiting nonchalantly in her bath, back turned to him so hat he would only see her arms with her elbows propped up over the edge of the crater, her shoulders, her dark red mane cascading down her back and those two curved horns, around five inches tall, which gave away her Draconian heritage. Or Half-Demon, as everyone liked to unaffectionately refer to them as. My, my, what a clever little minx you are, Ezzaraith spoke up without turning her head at all, her voice as smooth and rich as the finest whiskey imported from Rhaye. Would you be so kind as to at least do me the courtesy of introducing yourself, now that you've so rudely invaded my privacy? Oh, and do take off your boots before you come in, I just finished sweeping.