"What monster do you hate the most?" Yara asked. Her warhammer crushed in the head of a cave scorpion just before it could pounce. It flopped to the ground without further protest, eight legs splayed out in all directions. She casually stepped over the fallen creature and toward the next of its kin. Standing 6'3 and clad in furs from her homeland, she looked very much like an animal herself. Yara Bjornsdottir bellowed, her long shaggy brown hair whipping around as she swung her hammer back to a ready position.
Her companion withdrew the twin blades from a grey exoskeleton. Green fluid was still spurting out when he yanked back, one in each hand, and threw them with enough strength to bury the Elven steel daggers hilt deep into the thorax of another.
"What do you mean?" Sarien asked. Though he'd been fighting for the same time as Yara had, the Elf wasn't even breathing hard. His skin was darker in tone that the barbarian's cream colour, though his job as a thief had him hiding from the sun rather than bathing in it. His blond, jaw-length hair spun and swirled with his rapid motions but miraculously never obscured his vision. A pair of pointed ears projecting outward from his head seemed to suggest a curiosity and a sensory awareness that others might lack. Had it not been for his keen listening, the cave scorpions would have torn them apart.
A blurry shape plunged through the air that Yara's head had occupied but a moment before. The stinger missed her flesh by mere inches. She tucked and rolled, coming up to his feet and letting the hammer slide through her fingers until she felt the smooth surface of the leather grip once more. Swinging it low, she caved in a leg of the overextended arachnid before it could regain its footing. A second attack to its cephalothorax ended its existence.
"We fight a lot of different creatures," Yara explained, "You gotta have a 'least favourite' foe."
Sarien spin-kicked an approaching scorpion. Its head snapped back, but it returned its hungry gaze to the elf in a blur of motion. This one, the beast in sight, looked different from the rest. The size of a bull, with a blood red spiral pattern down its back, it looked every bit the intimidating leader of this pack of predators. Its many eyes analyzed his stance, his weapons, betraying a startling intelligence. Sarien prepared to do battle with this mortal foe. He-
Yara bowled over the scorpion with a tackle, putting nearly 200 pounds of muscle, anger, and bone into the side of the foe. When the beast snapped its mandibles at her, she punched it in the face. Hard. It howled in pain. After a few minutes of wrestling, Yara hurled it by two of its legs toward the entrance of the cave.
"Run, you fucking bug!" she said, her deep voice reverberating off the cave walls and intensifying its commanding tone. Whether the scorpion had the rudimentary intelligence enough to understand, or it took the hint, they could not say. But it had quickly abandoned its comrades and fled, hissing the whole way out. When it left earshot, Yara prodded the elf with an elbow. "So? What does 'The Blade of Terrax' hate most of all?"
Sarien sighed. She never said his nickname with any real conviction. He pulled his weapons out of the flesh of the enemy, inspecting each in turn. He would need a blacksmith to look at his blades soon enough. And it had to be an expert in Elven Steel, to boot. Not cheap. Despite what they say, adventuring barely paid for itself most days. They had bills due, creditors growing increasingly thuggish, and the risk that they'd run out of bribe money for the city officials and have their options curtailed even further.
"I have beings I hate more than others. Ogres, for instance. But there are always exceptions, standout members of a species that gives it a good name. One of my favourite blunt weapon trainers was an ogre named Skwish. No, there's no real race I despise. Except Goblins, of course."
The big woman tilted her head like an inquisitive hound. "Goblins? Why Goblins?"
"They're disgusting," Sarien said. He looked around for eavesdroppers he could see before continuing. "I loath those green bastards. Lecherous little mongrels, always fucking one another. I'd rather they were all tossed in a deep pit like this and forgotten about."
Yara barked a laugh. "How are they different than you?"
Sarien sneered. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
Stepping over to emphasize her height advantage, she continued. "You're always dick-deep in some dainty heiress or a Duke's wife. You're small, certainly, especially for an Elf. The only thing you're missing is the green skin, and we can always rub some grass on you to fix that issue."
Rather than snap back, the roguish knife-wielder let the indignation melt from his face. "You know, I'm not always pursuing thin women. I'm always in the mood to bed a goddess. Strong, powerful...wild."
Yara's eyebrows lowered, but a distinctive blush appeared on her cheeks. "I told you, letch. I'm not going to let you fuck me. Ever."
"Oh, c'mon Yara! I know what you're packing. Bet boys are intimidated when they meet a fellow sword-swinger in a bar." He looked down to the furs covering her groin. "You know I'd make you feel like a woman."
Yara, like a rare few among her clan, had been born with male anatomy but a woman's soul. Rare, but not unheard of. Her people had rituals that could be performed while growing up that allowed her full femininity to blossom and give her the body she'd felt comfortable in. But her 'manhood' remained untouched. It was the only thing she didn't mind about being born a 'crossborn', as her shaman had termed it.
"Sarien, I like you. I wouldn't be fighting with you if I didn't. But keep seeing me as a mountain to climb and I will be your undoing." Yara made a show of cleaning off her weapon to effectively punctuate her rebuke. The weighty steel hammerhead didn't shine on the best of days, but the scorpion-related gore made the implement look positively grotesque. She shook the excess off on the ground, leaving the rest of the mess to be cleaned up later.
Sarien, on the other hand, used a thin white handkerchief to clean up his daggers. The fine fabric was soon soaked in the strange green fluid the scorpions used in place of blood. Before shoving it back into a pouch, Yara saw a glint of golden fabric lacing the border. He either stole it, she reasoned, or some rich floozy gave it to him as a token of her favour.
"You know I'd make you feel good," he said with a grin, sheathing one blade after another before his belt was full once more. The little pointy-eared pest enjoyed provoking his companion, but he knew when to cut bait. "I just want to hear your pretty voice moan."
Yara grunted. "If we fucked, I'd be saying the same thing to you."
***
The cave offered little resistance after the scorpions had been dealt with. A single spike trap (disarmed by Sarien), followed by a large animate minotaur skeleton (broken apart by Yara). To top it off, a very prosaic encounter with a puzzle-based door lock that ended when the barbarian woman put her fist through the exposed gearbox, snapping the intricate components and allowing them to pass without solving whatever inane riddle the door's engineers had designed.
Yara hated puzzles.
The passage soon narrowed into a tunnel barely wide enough to crawl through. Yara ushered Sarien to take the lead on this one. Though not short by any means, he was lithe and made quick work of the tunnel. Yara, on the other hand, struggled every foot. Her clothing caught, her weapon clanked, and an unending fountain of curses from her native tongue spilled forth. Sarien had left the claustrophobic crawlspace for over two minutes before Yara could see his feet standing on the other side.
"Sweet gods above!" Sarien gasped.
"What's the matter? Threats?" Yara asked. She was still struggling with the narrow confines, which seemed to only get worse the more she wriggled her way through.
"No, no. It is...alright, it's best if you just see it."
He reached a hand down into the passageway. Yara's reach allowed her to barely grasp onto his wrist. Together, they managed to worm her free and into a large cavern lit with a dozen different stone braziers placed in an equidistant semicircle. Judging by the fact that the fire itself was green, Yara ventured that the fire was magic in origin. A large doorway filled with rocks sat opposite the tunnel. Probably the primary access point before it had been sealed.
The cavern was a vast treasure trove...in a sense. The collector obviously enjoyed putting things into piles. It was a hoard, that much was certain. But rather than the glimmering mountains of gold, precious stones, and magical artefacts, there was a lot of junk. Old furniture, rusted weapons, and piles of musty clothes seemed to make up most of the cache. There was a small stack of silver candlesticks that may net them enough money to pay for the expedition, but there was no source of the breathless excitement that Sarien had vocalised.
Before Yara could ask, however, she saw the object in the elf's hands. A golden pendant sat suspended from a thin chain in between his hands. Sarien's eyes were bulging, taking every crevice of the find into his long-term memory. If he wasn't vain about his appearance in front of her, Yara could swear he'd be drooling.
"We come all this way for one necklace?" Yara asked.
Sarien scoffed. "You know what this is, right? This is a Divine Amulet. One of eighteen ever made for the Festival of the Coronation over a hundred and fifty years ago. They all embody an aspect of an Elven God or Goddess. This is...this is incalculable magical power, and it was just...sitting on top of a pile of crusty old pants!"
"So it's worth something?"
"It's a priceless heirloom of elvish culture. OF COURSE it's worth something!" He turned the object over to see the other side. "I've never even seen one in person. I know they hold one in the Temple of Taris'tan, but it looks like some kleptomaniacal creature grabbed a hold of it and thought it was just a pricey trinket." He slid it over his neck. It clashed completely with the dark leather and practical nature of the rest of his outfit. Though if it was worth as much as he thought it was, his days of needing to sneak around were over.
