Jyssa wrinkled her nose as she glanced around the garish decor laid out before her. Dozens of hardwood gambling tables with gold reliefs, massive plush curtains separating areas full of piles of purple pillows, and plush, overstuffed loungers.

 

“The poltergeist has no sense of taste,” she sniffed, “his entire floor is decorated like some seedy pleasure den.”

“I think that’s the point of the mistress, to throw off adventurers and make them more likely to miss discrepancies in the decor,” Vaughn, the leader of her guard, replied quietly. The ghoul shot his tongue out a couple of times, like a lizard, tasting the air. “No grease or magic in the area. Perhaps the showman took his forces elsewhere.”

“Possible,” Jyssa purred, “but they must have known we’d target their strategist after the last match. There’s no way they’d leave the way undefended.”

 

She reached up and idly scratched the tiny drake sitting on her shoulder under the chin for several seconds. The tiny creature chirped, ruffling its wings, and flicked its tail in pleasure until she retracted her hand, at which point the lizard hissed in disappointment.

 

“You want scritches, you’re going to have to earn them,” Jyssa declared lightly. She extended her arm and waited for the drake to crawl down to her wrist, and lightly tossed the tiny creature into the air. It immediately opened its wings and began gliding around. “Go, find what’s waiting for us and report back.”

 

The little creature performed one last lap around her, chirping in disappointment, before swooping towards the next room.

 

“I don’t know why you keep that pest with you,” Vaughn grumbled, gesturing towards the small group of lithe, dog-sized lizards behind them. “You should use one of the drakes; at least they’ve been trained properly.”

“That might be true, but they’re not as cute as the babies,” Jyssa chuckled. She reached up and adjusted her headdress, ensuring that the veil hanging from it only covered her eyes, then smiled. “It’s not like we really need the recon; I just like giving the little ones jobs that make them feel important. Come on, we have a job to do.”

 

She strode forward, and as she did, a thick black miasma began to flow out from underneath her ornate, flowing dress. The cloud of dark magic expanded, filling the room in moments, and even began flowing through the connecting corridor towards the next room.

 

Vaughn hesitated for a moment, waving at the other curseblades, and clicking his tongue at the drakes, ordering them forward. The small wyrms surged forward, rushing towards the door, only to pause at the threshold.

 

“Good girls,” Jyssa whispered as she walked up. “Go on, hunt!”

 

At her order, the Umbral Drakes sprinted through the door and into the next, nearly identical room. There didn’t appear to be anyone inside, but that didn’t stop the creatures from barreling into every table and chair in an effort to discover any hidden threats.

 

Jyssa waited at the entrance for Vaughn to taste the air again. After he was done, the ghoul shook his head, “Still nothing here, but there’s something in the next room. It tastes like oil, and the living.”

 

“Trying to prepare a defensive line? Normally, that’s a smart idea, but let's see how they feel after bathing in my miasma for a couple of minutes,” Jyssa chuckled. “Stack up at the door.”

 

Vaughn whistled again, causing the drakes to perk up, look at him, and then head towards the door.

 

This time, however, they didn’t stop. Instead, they accelerated towards the corridor, roaring and spitting fire as they went. They poured into the connecting corridor, rushing towards the next room.

 

“Vaughn…” Jyssa hissed.

 

“Akar!” the ghoul yelled, switching to the drake's command word. When they still didn’t stop, he just shouted after them in common, “Stop, you stupid wyrms!”

 

“What was that you were just saying about the drakes being properly trained?” Jyssa hissed.

 

“They are! They’ve never acted this way before!” Vaughn replied, wringing his hands helplessly. “What do we do? Keep waiting, like you wanted, or follow?”

 

Jyssa paused for just a moment before striding past the ghoul. “We follow.”

 

The sound of battle rang out before they even made it halfway down the hallway, a combination of snarling, hissing, and groans of pain. Jyssa immediately increased her pace when she heard it, breaking into a quick jog. Losing the drakes without dealing any damage in exchange would put them on the back foot in future battles. She couldn’t let that happen.

 

She emerged from the hallway into another nearly identical room, but this time they weren’t alone. The drakes were engaged with a swarm of giant spiders, Abyss stalkers.

 

The two groups of creatures were locked in a mortal struggle, fighting with such savagery that they were literally ripping each other limb from limb, both dealing and receiving mortal wounds, and continuing to fight until they derezed.

 

There seemed to be no way to separate the two squabbling creatures or save those still engaged.

 

That wasn’t the only problem, though; behind the skirmish between spiders and drakes was a line of Mycelium people. They were spaced out in a loose line, absorbing all the miasma that came close. Even though she could see the black magic crawling through them, making dark, veiny growths appear on their bodies, they didn’t seem to be weakening at all. In fact, they seemed to be growing stronger.

 

Even further behind the Mycillum people was a small group of Gremlins, who appeared to be so engrossed in their own discussion that they did not even notice her.

 

“Just think about it, Jenkins, if we capture one of those drakes, we could test to see if their saliva is more potent than the draconid!”

 

“I’d love to, Jacobs, but we didn’t bring any reagents to create umbral ash inside the dungeon, and we can’t bring any of the saliva out without us,” the larger female gremlin in the middle declared.

 

“Oh oh oh! I did!” a third gremlin declared, throwing open her oversized rucksack and pulling out an assortment of beakers. “Best to be prepared!”

 

“Gremlins,” Vaughn hissed as he charged into the room. “What sort of magic tricks have you used to distract our drakes?”

 

The gremlins all turned as one and stared daggers at Vaughn.

 

“Umbral Dragonoids and Abyss Spiders are mortal enemies; if you put them in the same room, they fight to the death. We didn’t have anything to do with it. If you didn’t know that it’s your fault, not ours,” Jacobs spat. “Besides, we gremlins have our pride. We don’t use magic or tricks; we rely upon our crafts. Artifacts, gadgets, and gizmos.”

 

She held out a hand, and Jacobs placed a fizzing, spherical object in her hand. Jyssa just had enough time to register that it was a bomb before the gremlin casually chucked it into a small pile of bags sitting near the door.

 

“We also like explosions. Lots, and lots of explosions!” Jenkins declared before flashing a wicked grin.

 

Vaughn threw an arm around Jyssa’s stomach and threw her back into the hallway a second before the area was rocked by an explosion. Jyssa watched in horror as the ghoul was blown over the top of her, tumbling down the hallway like a broken doll. She twisted to check on him, but before she could get up, Vaughn rose to his feet, back smoking, one arm obviously broken, and hanging limply.

 

Many of the other curseblades had been in the hallway and hadn’t caught up with the rest of the group, so they’d survived. The drakes, on the other hand…

 

Jyssa turned back towards the room she’d just been in a moment before, and held up a hand to shield herself from the heat. A roaring inferno blocked the doorway.

 

“Wooo! Good one!” one of the gremlins cheered. “Do you think we can expand the blast radius with more elemental ash?”

“Just a minute,” Jenkins said, walking up to the edge of the inferno and staring at Jyssa through the fire. “I have a message from Talia to you. Ahem…’If you want to get the jump on me, you’re going to have to be less predictable. You can do better than this!”

 

The gremlin smirked. “Seriously, even I saw this coming. You always send the dark mage against your strongest opponent. Try to shake things up going forward, or this is going to be a short fight. Bye bye.”

 

Jyssa slowly pushed herself to her feet, seething. “Predictable am I? We’ll see about that.”