Heading into the Scourge was never a simple task - if Drazaria had realized he was going to, he would have gotten better gear for it. As it was, he knocked out a Red Boar lookout to steal what he absolutely needed - boots, gloves, goggles, a scarf, a sword, and a leather vambrace and pauldron for his exposed arm. He also stole the poor guard’s pants since he didn’t have a better way to cover the leg he left uncovered. It was best not to leave too much skin exposed when entering the Scourge, after all.

He tore a strip of the scarf off to tie his hair back, wrapping the rest around his face under his eyes. Pulling his hood up, he felt… constrained by all the layers. He hadn’t worn shoes in decades - helped him feel more connected to Vaseridan to go barefoot, which he’d learned in Oralie. Not even Ballatsan social politeness had managed to force him - but bare feet in the Scourge was asking to get Scourge sickness, so he made due.

The Scourge was hot - a stark change from the cool autumn currently in Vaseridan. This wasn’t his first time in there - as a mercenary, a few chases had continued from the Frontier into the Scourge. He knew that the further in, the more of the purple haze clinging to the ground rose up - until it became an impassable miasma.

Impassable for Vaseridiana individuals, anyway - the Masked Ones lived somewhere in the thick of it.

Drazaria didn’t go further than thirty feet in - attracting Scourgebeasts wouldn’t be too difficult. Outrunning them might be more challenging, but he was pretty confident in his ability to do so. So he held a hand up and shot a beam of magic into the air, holding it steady.

It took ten minutes.

The Scourgebeast that came at him was the size of a large deer - it ran on four avian legs and had mantis-like arms sprouting from a thorax-like midsection. It had a canid-shaped head on top of this, long feathered antennae, and a long tail ending in a bony club. Twin lines of spines traveled down its back, and it made a dual-toned yelping cry as it attacked.

Drazaria didn’t lead this one in - no, this one would be bait. He took out the sword and dodged to the side - magic was harder to use in the Scourge, so he focused on enhancing his speed and strength to match the animal. He’d seen these before - they called them mothwolves. Which was good, because it meant he knew where to strike to kill it quickly - the joint between its back and midsection.

When he’d downed it, he made a few extra cuts - it was the smell of the bright green blood that the others would follow, after all. Maintaining his enhanced strength, he dragged the carcass back into the Frontier - careful not to get too much blood on himself. Drazaria left it close enough to the mine that the Red Boars would be able to spot whatever came after it but far enough that they would be gone for at least a day or two. Any further and it wouldn’t be enough of a risk to the mine for them to leave, no matter how much they wanted to.

When that was set, he changed back into his usual attire and went back to hiding near the mine.

It only took a few days for something to take the bait. It was too far for Drazaria to see without enhancing his vision, and he didn’t need to do so anyway. He watched the Boars pour out the mine on the large boar mounts they took their name from, hooting and whooping in excitement at the prospect of the hunt. A few did remain behind, but Drazaria could handle those.

He waited until nightfall to make his move.

There were two watchtowers at the entrance to the mine. He started there - scaling one and knocking out the guard inside with some magic before tossing a swap stone across to the other and doing the same to the second. He tied them up and moved them to the same tower - just to be neat. Then he got to work.

As much as he didn’t mind taking on crowds, agitated guards could put the miners at risk - depending on how willingly they were there. Most likely, they were prisoners working for a reduced sentence - if that. So he took the Ballatsa soldiers down with stealth and speed - ten asleep without anyone noticing a thing. Another ten were asleep in some hastily constructed barracks - he ensured they wouldn’t wake up with more magic. The problem was the last ten.

There was a main courtyard in front of the mine entrance proper, flooded with crystal lights to prevent shadowy corners that torches would have made his work easier. The miners were there - locked in large cages watched over by the last ten soldiers… and one Red Boar.

He recognized her - she had been one of the captains of a squad when he was a Deadman. He didn’t remember her name, but he remembered she was a competent combat wizard and pugilist. She was a muscular Black woman with red dyed hair in thick locs tied back, leaning against a table and smoking a long pipe. She had to have made her way into the upper officer ranks by now - especially to be heading up something like this.

Drazaria enchanted his hearing as he started prowling around the area above the courtyard - dropping swap stones behind pairs of soldiers to make taking them out easy.

“Any of your men check-in yet?” the Red Boar woman asked.

“No one is planning on attacking us, Lera,” the person sitting at the desk answered irritably. Ballatsa officer, by the uniform - a practically spotless full dress uniform that made no sense for anyone but a real hardass out in the Frontier. They were writing reports or something.

“So you believe,” Lera replied, taking a drag on her pipe, “But my man didn’t just lose his gear after knocking himself out.”

“Yes, and then they drew out a Scourgebeast for your men to chase,” the officer rolled their eyes.

“It’s what I’d do,” Lera shrugged.

“Which is why you stayed behind, yes, so you’ve said,” the officer said, “But why would anyone attack us out here? For a mine full of crystals that are useless without the Basin?”

“Who knows?” the woman replied, “Maybe just to spite you.”

Drazaria decided that was a dramatic enough entrance as he finished with his swap stones - dropping down on the first pair. He stuck to magic sleep with them - swapping to the next pair and the next and putting them all to sleep before any of them had time to react. 

Lera didn’t seem phased as he stepped away from the last pair and into the center of the courtyard, watching him with sharp amber eyes while taking another drag off her pipe.

“What’s the meaning of this!?” the officer demanded, surging to their feet and drawing a longsword.

“It was Wren, wasn’t it?” Lera asked, “Or did you like Maelstrom better?”

Drazaria snorted, “It was Wren, yeah - mostly, it’s Drazaria now. Never did like titles.”

“What?” the officer asked softly as they walked around the table.

Lera just nodded, “I always wondered how we’d match up - not too many melee magic users out there, you know?”

“It’s an art,” Drazaria replied, gathering attack magic around his arms and legs.

“By the authority of the Ballatsa crown, you’re under arrest for crimes against the kingdom,” the officer said firmly, pointing their sword at him.

The sorcerer tilted his head at them - bending over a little with the motion as he asked, “Won’t they just get in your way?”

“Not if she says put,” Lera replied - then took a deep drag on her pipe before blowing out a cloud of smoke that could only be illusion magic.

As he activated his magic sense, Drazaria knew it was true - while a field of magic like this was draining, it also made it impossible for him to guess where Lera was. Or which version of her was real. So when three Leras came charging into visible range, he ducked and dodged the first two and swiped at the third - the strike went right through without causing damage. All three retreated into the smoke again, so he couldn’t mark which was an illusion.

I’ll have to tell Heline about this, he thought - it could get her to reconsider her stance on combat illusions.

He set the thought aside and waited until the three Leras charged close enough to see before slamming his fists into the ground with enough force to crack the crust - and cause the real Lera to falter just briefly. That moment was all he needed to know which one to charge right into.

Drazaria didn’t want to give her the chance to disappear again, so they ended up grappling - Lera’s bracers were enchanted, protecting her from the attack magic on Drazaria’s hands as they rolled and struggled. Lera was at least as experienced in hand-to-hand as Drazaria, which made her a difficult opponent to overcome with force as he usually did.

While they struggled, the magical smoke dissipated - allowing Lera to focus better on the physical combat. She managed to get a leg up to her chest to kick Drazaria off, and he rolled to his feet to charge forward again. They traded more blows, Lera focusing more on punches and arm blocks. Drazaria leveraged this to aim at her legs with kicks and enhanced stomps to shake the ground again, but her balance was rock steady after the first surprise.

Lera started up a new illusion - giving herself the appearance of six arms as she went on the offensive. Drazaria was forced back, punches too quick to accurately discern which were real and which were not - so he turned his attack magic into a reactive barrier. The illusionary fists temporarily broke as they hit it, giving Drazaria the opening to attack again. He slammed a hand forward into Lera’s torso, knocking her back and into one of the cages holding the miners. There were a few exclamations as it rocked back.

Drazaria took the moment to turn and charge the Ballatsa officer - he gave her credit for raising her sword coolly to meet him. The blade started to glow red as she swung, leaving behind a trail of superheated light. If it weren’t textbook Ballatsa form, it might have posed an issue - as it were, Drazaria tossed a swap stone to teleport behind her and knocked her out with a swift strike to the base of her skull. Or at least, that was the idea - she slumped to one knee hard, gripping her sword to keep herself up.

Before Drazaria could strike again, Lera was back - slamming into his middle with her shoulder and carrying them both away. They ended up grappling again, Lera managing to pin him to the ground by straddling his waist while raining down blows. Drazaria kept his arms up, barriers taking the brunt of the force behind the blows. He didn’t have the leverage to shake her and couldn’t reach for a swap stone while defending himself. So he gave his barriers an added boost that caused her own blows to knock her back and used the moment to reverse their position.

He put a hand on her forehead and said the Word, “Sleep.”

After using so much magic in combat and being tired besides, Lera wasn’t able to fight off the magic sleep the way she normally would.

Drazaria looked up to find a sword point at his eyeline.

“You are under arrest,” the officer said, glaring.

“You are out of your league,” Drazaria replied and pulled his hands back to coat them in attack magic again and swiped them in front of himself to break the blade, healing the burns hitting the superheated metal caused.

At that, the officer did stumble back in surprise, “You-”

Drazaria surged up and hit his palm to her forehead, putting her to sleep as well. She put up a moment of resistance, but a second cast of the spell did the trick.

Drazaria managed to catch her, setting her down more or less gently. Then he quickly went to work tying up Lera, the officer, and the soldiers in the courtyard. Once that was done, he turned his attention to the cages.

He broke the lock of the first cage and pulled it open, calling out, “I’m going to collapse this mine - leave if you want, but don’t get in my way.”