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Race: Saurian

Bloodline Powers: Strength, Rending, Emberbreath

Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 3, Wind (Noble) 1

Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

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“If you’re going to stab a kobold in the back, make sure you watch him take his last breath,” Samazzar replied, fire burning in his eyes as he glared at Lellassa. “I can assure you, that’s not the sort of mistake that I would make.”

“But I saw Grolm drag you away,” Lellassa stammered, her grace and poise abandoned. The wrought iron lantern she used as a weapon swinging loosely in her left hand. Honestly, Sam struggled to even see what had attracted him to her in the first place. Her manicured nails looked silly and nonfunctional, and the bows tied around her tail were cheap and unwashed, almost certainly something purchased from a goblin scavenger.

“He did,” Sam agreed. “You promised me something so tempting that I couldn’t turn it down only to betray my siblings and I for a handful of spears. Still, a quick and clever kobold can steal meat from a lion’s jaws. Something you’d know about if anyone in the tribe bothered to actually put in enough effort to better their lot.”

“What have you done,” she hissed. “You stole his axe and escaped? The entire Greentoe tribe will be coming for us. You’ve doomed everyone with your petty little escape attempt.”

Before he could say anything, Dussok barked out a laugh, slinging the axe from his shoulder and planting the flat end of its head into the rocking soil with a loud thump that caused the kobolds to jump.

“Grolm is dead,” the big saurian barked out, opening his mouth to grin at the smaller lizards with a mouth full of fangs. “You have nothing to fear from him, especially when there’s a very real threat standing right in front of you.”

Duromak stepped past Lellassa, positioning himself between the witch and Dussok. The smaller kobold puffed out his chest, trying and failing to look intimidating while glaring up at Dussok’s heavily muscled bulk.

“You can’t just threaten her like that!” Duromak shouted the words, but rather than booming or impressive, the total effect looked more like a child complaining about their bedtime than anything else. “You may be bigger than us, but there is a whole tribe at our backs. I don’t care how strong the three of you are, we’ll be able to take you down if everyone attacks at once.”

“Why would the tribe help you?” Dussok asked, anger boiling off of him. “Our dispute has nothing to do with them. The rest of the tribe can live out their days scuttling from one shadow to another as they hide from predators for all I care. None of them sold me to a band of goblins simply because they feared I would defeat them in a trial of strength and claim their roles. That was YOU Duromak. You were the one that harmed the tribe by trying to kill my siblings and I.”

“Wait,” the Chief glanced nervously at Lellassa. “These are the ones that you-”

She nodded, ribbons lining her tail fluttering in the wind.

“But I thought you said they were kobolds,” Duromak whined. “I don’t know what species he is, but whatever it is, I’ve never seen a kobold that big and with that short of a tail.”

“Samazzar was obsessed with bloodline evolution,” Lellassa whispered back. “I don’t know how he did it, but in his time with the tribe the little menace managed to improve himself at least once. He must have managed to repeat the performance.”

“DUROMAK!” Dussok shouted, stepping to the side so that the kobolds watching on from the barricade could see his theatrics. “You have betrayed the tribe, putting your own interests before the common welfare. Worse, still you eyes have grown blurry, and your claws dull-”

“No, no,” Duromak mumbled, scurrying backward toward his guards. “Make him stop, don’t let him finish.”

“Your scales are thin, and your hearing fades,” Dussok continued, pounding his chest. “You are not fit to be chief, and by the traditions of our tribe I challenge you. Here and now-”

One of Duromak’s guards hefted his spear, holding the weapon over his shoulder before heaving it with all his strength at Dussok.

After the battle with the blade striders, the projectile almost looked like it was moving in slow motion. Sam easily read the cone of air pressure moving before it as the spear pushed forward, as well as the way it disrupted and redirected the natural flow of the wind’s currents.

His hand darted out, snatching the spear out of the air a mere pace in front of Dussok. His sibling didn’t even blink, proceeding with his speech without pause or the slightest display of nerves.

“Cowardice I would expect, we have all had to hide from a larger enemy in the past, but attacking one that issues a ritual challenge? That goes a step beyond. You know the choices Duromak. Fight me to the death or abdicate and accept exile, never to return to the caves so long as you live.”

Samazzar tossed the spear once, catching it in his hand. The weapon was a little heavier than expected, enough that his current form didn’t have any trouble with it, but that a kobold would likely struggle. WIthout taking his gaze off of the skittish band confronting them, he handed it to Takkla.

Lellassa stepped forward, opening her mouth to protest Dussok’s challenge, but Samazzar cut her off.

“Witch Lellassa,” he intoned, playing up the moment for the crowd of kobolds watching the encounter. “Practitioner of the noble mystery of fire, our differences have grown beyond any hope of reconciliation. I challenge you to a contest of the mysteries.”

She stopped, denial dying in her throat as a sly look entered Lellassa’s eyes.

“What level have you achieved in Fire?” She asked. “You’ve been away a long time Samazzar. It’s only fair to let your fellow disciple know what heights you’ve reached before we fight.”

“Student,” Sam replied. “But don’t think that a little more experience will let you win. Your knowledge of the mysteries is superficial, Lellassa. You’ve never had to actually travel the world and use them to survive. To you, they’re nothing more than a handful of tricks you used to gain power, a tool rather than an essential part of yourself.”

“Then as the challenged party,” Lellassa responded formally, “I will select the terms of the duel.”

She puffed up her tiny chest, pausing a moment for dramatic effect. Samazzar struggled to stop himself from rolling his eyes. No matter how much Lellassa tried to look impressive, she looked like a child posturing before an adult. It might have been the difference in their heights, the perspective gained from his time with the Greentoes and Pothas, or even just the passage of time, but Sam was unable to look at the posturing kobold without a sneer in his heart.

Lellassa was pathetic. Everything about her was for appearances and show. Like Duromak, she only existed to scramble to the top of the small pile of dirt that the two of them had claimed for their own. They would have been beneath a dragon’s notice, but for their efforts to personally wrong him.

Worse, she had tried to kill Crone Tazzaera. That was a crime that Sam could never forgive.

“Magic only,” Lellasa continued, her snout twisting into a cruel smirk. “To the death.”

Samazzar smiled back, his eyes frigid as he stared at the posturing kobold.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he replied. “Do you have any objection to fighting here and now while Dussok rips Duromak apart, or do you plan on making up an excuse to try and drag a few more moments out of your sad life?”

“You forget yourself, little dragon,” she spat out the nickname, pronouncing it like it was a curse. “You are a student of fire, but I am an acolyte. All of your nonsense words about experience are simply meaningless in the face of the raw difference in power between those two levels.”

“So,” Takkla cut in, feigning disinterest. “Does that mean you’re going to fight Samazzar right now, or what? You gave your little speech, but you didn’t actually answer his question.”

“This hillside will be your grave!” Lellassa shrieked, flipping open the metal hatch on the side of her lantern to reveal the flickering oil flame inside.

Sam stepped away from his companions, keeping them out of the crossfire as a column of fire swirled away from Lellassa, engulfing her as she asserted her will on the mystery. From across the clearing, he could feel her twisting the fire, transforming it into something much hotter and more dangerous.

Lellassa tossed her lantern to the side, raising both of her claws above her head. The flames followed her motion, gathering together into a large sphere.

Her right claw jerked downward, claw extended and pointing at Samazzar. A tendril of fire, as big around as Sam’s waist, followed her motion, streaking through the sky toward Samazzar.

With a grunt, Sam reached out with his mind, grabbing hold of the beam of fire and trying to split the attack to either side of him. In the flames, he could feel Lellassa’s willpower, contesting with him.

She easily overwhelmed him. The fire wavered slightly before the witch could reassert control, barreling toward him once more.

Samazzar stood impassively, pushing and nudging at the attack. As it drew closer, Lellassa’s power waned while proximity swelled his control. There was no question that the kobold had more control over the magic than he did, but a quick touch of air current just before the fire reached him helped redirect the flame safely to the side.

That was the thing with the mystery of fire. As powerful as it was, it needed to travel through the air. Ever since he had been inducted into the mystery of wind, Sam could feel the way the flames moved, by superheating the air in front of them and creating a ‘channel’ of superheated wind that led the way.

It wouldn’t work every time given the difference in their power levels, but it was more than enough to take Lellassa by surprise in the heat of the moment.

She cocked her head at him, confusion in her eyes as Samazzar stood on the hillside, unmoving and unharmed.

Then Sam snapped his fingers. On either side of Lellassa’s head, a fist-sized pocket of air swelled in pressure before exploding with a thundercrack.

The pressure waves exploded outward, assaulting the tender membranes in the kobold’s ears and nose. She dropped to one knee, the miniature sun above her wavering and rippling as her concentration stuttered.

Samazzar began walking toward her, pressing the entirety of his focus into creating points of overpressure around the wobbling kobold’s face and head. One after another, pulses of high pressure washed over Lellassa.

By the time he reached his final spot, some five paces from her, blood was trickling from both of the witch’s ears, and her eyes were unfocused. Above her, the sphere of fire had lost most of its cohesion, dripping sparks and bulbs of burning matter onto the rocky hillside around both of them.

She shook her head, firing two torso sized balls of flame at Sam. He didn’t bother trying to redirect them or distract the injured kobold. Instead, he bunched his muscles, triggering the strength granted by his improved bloodline to dive to the left even as he reached up and touched the witch’s fire with his mind.

Her attacks missed, dissipating as they splashed against the gravel. Then, the kobold’s flame reservoir turned against her. Sam’s magic ripped open the bottom of her sphere, spilling ember and burning ash onto Lellassa’s kneeling form.

The witch screamed as she was engulfed in flames. Sam reached out with his mind fanning high pressure oxygen and heat into the waterfall of fire that poured down over her.

His attack only lasted for a couple of seconds before Lellassa regained some control of the situation, curving the flames to either side before letting them dissipate harmlessly. Above the two of them the fires faded, no longer maintained by the witch’s magic.

She staggered to her feet, heaving for breath. Almost a third of her scales had been burned off, and her eyes were clouded. Samazzar wasn’t sure whether the interlocking bursts of high pressure air or the fire had blinded her, but there was no question that she couldn’t see him through the unfocused, milky orbs.

Around them the last of the fires died out. Sam could feel the kobold reaching out with her mind, looking for some scrap of ember or flame to invest her power in. He detonated another ball of pressurized air just beyond her snout.

The attacks didn’t do much damage, serving only to inflict pain and disorientate the kobold, but that was all it took. The burns covering Lellassa’s body were almost enough on their own. Samazzar suspected that without alchemical treatment, the pain and tissue damage would induce shock before too long, ending the kobold eventually, but that was far from certain enough for him.

Lellassa lifted a hand, carefully pulling out some of her body heat and forming an orb. Before she could translate the magic into something useful, Samazzar altered the air currents, washing away the wind that she had been heating up.

He walked over to the injured kobold, crouching next to her, but making sure not to touch her heavily burned body so as to honor the terms of their duel.

“It’s not going to stop hurting until you die,” Sam said, his tone conversational. “You know that right? Unless you can get your hands on some regenerative salve, you’re dead. The only question is how long and painful the process is.”

“How?” Lellassa asked, her voice rasping out of a fire-ravaged throat.

“How what?” Sam replied, slowly lowering the amount of oxygen in the air around her mouth as they talked. “How did I beat you? How did I make it back to the caves? How did I kill Grolm and his stooges. You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”

“How did you make me dizzy?” She looked up at him with sightless eyes, identifying Samazzar by his body heat. At the edges of his perception, he felt her trying to heat up one of the hardy bushes that eked out an existence on the rocky slope. “Whatever that was, it wasn’t fire magic.”

He waved a hand absently, interfering with the accumulating heat. Sam couldn’t stop it entirely given the differences in their willpower, but it wasn’t terribly easy to start even the driest of brush on fire spontaneously.

“I never said I only knew fire magic Lellassa,” Samazzar answered her, shaking his head. “You heard what you wanted when I challenged you to the duel, and jumped at what you thought was a chance to take advantage of a weakness. I can hardly be faulted for that.”

“When-” she began, only to be interrupted by a scream. On the other end of the clearing, Dussok had chopped his axe through both of Duromak’s arms, leaving nothing but stumps spewing blood.

The chief’s sword clattered to the ground where Dussok immediately kicked it to the side. Duromak dropped to his knees shrieking in pain even as his blood sprayed everywhere. Before he could suffer further, Dussok brought his axe down in one clean stroke, removing the kobold’s head from his shoulders.

“The chief is dead,” Sam said, removing even more of the oxygen from the air. “There isn’t any help coming. Concede and I can make it quick.”

“You can’t kill me,” she gasped out. “Whatever your other mysteries are, they aren’t strong enough to finish me off, and the second you use fire, I’ll simply steal it from you and shove it down your throat. All you have are words, little dragon.”

“I don’t know about that,” Samazzar replied, keeping an eye on the smaller kobold’s chest as it heaved up and down. “I certainly can’t use fire, and the terms of our duel don’t allow weapons, claws or alchemy, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get creative.”

“After all,” he continued, “all the power in the world doesn’t mean anything if you’re too distracted to notice what’s happening to you, or to use it to its full potential.”

“Why am I so sleepy?” Lellassa asked, her voice slurring. “I can’t affod- afford to-”

“Shhhh,” Sam cut her off, putting one taloned finger to the end of his snout. He pushed harder with his mind, moving all oxygen away from the kobold’s slumping body. “Don’t worry about it too much. This will all be over soon.”

“Salmza-Sammma, Sam,” She stumbled, collapsing to the ground. “Yu-You’re doing something t-to me.”

“Yes,” Sam replied. “I am.”

He watched her for another five or so minutes, waiting past the moment when her chest stopped moving and until her corpse began to cool in his heat vision. Finally Sam stood up. Dussok stood a respectful distance away, running a scrap of cloth over the axehead as he cleaned Duromak’s blood from the weapon. He nodded when Samazzar made eye contact.

“Where’s Takkla?” Samazzar asked, abandoning Lellassa’s still corpse to walk over to his sibling.

“She’s trying to find Crone Tazzaera,” Dussok replied, nodding toward the now cleared cave entrance. “Hopefully, she is doing well, otherwise, I am not sure that I will be able to restrain myself.”

“I know,” Sam sighed. “Every night of the journey back I couldn’t help but worry that we had been too late. Most lung ailments don’t hit truly hard until the dry, cold air of winter begins to exacerbate things, but I wouldn’t put it past Lellassa to torment her once we were forced out.”

“Agreed,” Dussok rumbled in response. He inclined his head toward the still, heavily burned body on the rocky slope. “It does not appear that you let her pass easily?”

“No.” Samazzar shook his head. “After what she did, that was never an option. I maimed her with her own fire and strangled her without using my hands. The entire time, I couldn’t help but think of what she had done to us and Tazzaera. I-I’m a bit ashamed to admit it, but I think I enjoyed killing her.”

“Good,” Dussok grunted. “I don’t hate many people. Even Duromak wasn’t much more than an obstacle to me, but the witch earned what happened to her.”

“Dussok, Samazzar!” Takkla shouted from the cave’s mouth. “I found the Crone! She’s much sicker than when we left, but she was feeling well enough to curse at me for letting in a draft when I pushed aside the cloth hangings outside of her cave. There’s still time to give her that potion!”

“There we are then,” Dussok said with a relieved smile. “You brew the potion, give it to Tazzaera and we can be on our way to Vereton tomorrow morning.”

“Not really,” Sam replied, shifting from one foot to the other awkwardly. “Even with a full strength draught it will take a couple of days for the Crone to recover completely. Plus, there’s something I need to do in the meantime.”

“Something?” Dussok asked, scratching the scales on the back of his head.

“Something,” Samazzar agreed, embarrassment warming his cheeks.