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[color=ed1c24]“A mindless mutt still knows when to follow orders. If there’s been information passed to his head, he would know it,”[/color] said the skull-faced being. Much like before, his voice held no rise in emotion or dip in range. Every syllable to pass through his lack of lips were objective, as hollow and yet as sunken as his face. [color=ed1c24]“Even if it means splitting that head into pieces. Knowledge is knowledge after all.”[/color] He referred to nothing more than the great hammer held in Raula’s hand, a weapon that inspired fear into the werewolf despite his bravado; of this, the skull-faced being could see in his animalistic eyes.

[color=ed1c24]“Oh, I wouldn’t think you have nothing to offer me vampire. An eye for an eye, is how they say both above and below. The shadows in the walls tell me your trust is hard-earned, but well worth the efforts,”[/color] he said. Before he could say more, the two of them were joined by two others in short. His grip on his staff didn’t lessen or rise even as Pandora huddled close to the wolf and pet it with….compassion? Kindness? Who knew from the silent girl who seemed to react based off emotions instead of her lips. The second add-on was a drow, one who was much more expressive.

As Willowa held her attention to the chain-rattling girl, the skull-faced being turned his sights on her now. [color=ed1c24]“Drow…no, Willowa. Are there any surviving werewolves in the Lagoon?”[/color] Indeed, the wet caverns were wetter still by the spray of red left over from the skirmish. Where rock once dominated the landscape, now the departed corpses of lupine kind dotted each crevice. The werewolf beneath the staff, still pinned down and now glaring at everyone who joined, howled in his grief from the passing of his brothers. The skull-faced being ignored his yips.

[color=ed1c24]“You will offer me your services vampire, just as I have given mine. Survival is better in numbers. Do you have any hypnotic methods to extract information?”[/color] He turned once more to Willowa now. [color=ed1c24]“If there are any survivors, round them up. I would like to consider the possibility of swaying them to our side. They’d be a great boon in our escape from this place.”[/color] There was little, if any, hesitation in his words and his tone was almost communal. He even lifted his staff away, fully expecting the three girls present to keep the wolf from attacking or escaping.

The sound of his staff meeting with the floor was no doubt a sound to consider, one that echoed as he descended further and back into the main section of the Lagoon. It didn’t take very long, no time at all, noting a second trio of Abyss dwellers. [color=ed1c24]“Does that offer extend to more than one person?”[/color] he asked Azrael, catching the last ends of his conversation with the Emperor. His skull moved in a nod of acknowledgement both to him and Chryseis. [color=ed1c24]“The Abyss holds many who would betray one another, be it by greed or personal gain. Never do they consider the strength that can be held in numbers. A simple, almost too simple, concept invented by humans.”[/color]

His expression didn’t change for obvious reasons, but he finally budged slightly when a loud splash reverberated around the cavern walls. It came from an ogre and a rather large one at that. [color=ed1c24]“Steady, friend. There is nothing there for you to smash,”[/color] said the skull-faced being. Indeed, he was right, for Pandora was long since gone and away from the Lagoon’s waters. Whatever Slarg had seen was perhaps only a trick of the mind provided by the Abyss’ strange ways.
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