She wasn’t sure how to feel about the man’s apparent friendliness. He was not [i]overly[/i] so, but people were usually coldly polite to her at best on first meeting. And charm was always an excellent cover for duplicity. She had no doubt he had used his to his advantage before. He was at least not entirely unintelligent, keeping watch on her following behind him. It was foolish enough that he had put himself in this position- not that she would have agreed to go ahead of him.

She stopped where directed. She was quite frankly impressed with his movements, especially given the lack of light. Most humans could not manage that level of grace even with light. When it came to [i]killing[/i], he would have not been entirely out of place in a Drow society. Burning alive was a special kind of torture, as was the threat of passing the goblin off to her. They were incredibly cowardly on their own, so to send a sole goblin to a Drow?

[i]Zhengyi’s lair. Castle Perilous. Vaasa.[/i]

She locked the information away, but her brow furrowed as she stood there waiting. Had she heard something?

The growl told her she probably had.

Of course there was a bugbear.

“Experiments?” Interesting. While she was not really asking a question of the creature, her voice drew its attention. With a snarl, it ran at her; she let it, quickly springing out of the way just before it could contact her. She lifted a hand and gestured, and four glowing orbs blinked into view, merging into a blob that might be mistaken for a person. It only distracted the brute from her for a moment, but she only needed enough time to sprint behind him to the table with weapons. She was not normally one to wield hand axes, but they were the first things within her grasp.

She ducked down to avoid being struck in the head as the beast swung his weapon, scrambling away from the table so she had more open space to work with. It was like a dance, round and round in circles; he kept trying to hit her, both with his mace and with his empty hand, and she kept dodging just out of his reach. She looked altogether unconcerned, even when those nails came dangerously close. All she had to do was wait. The more frustrated he got, the more chance he would give her the right opening.

And there it was.

He had put a little too much force behind a swing, making him twist just so. She swung and the blade of one axe sliced through the back of his knee, forcing him to kneel as he howled in pain. She struck again with the same one ending up wedged in the back of his other thigh and he collapsed forward.

He scarcely had time to scream before she buried the second axe in the back of his neck.

“Just like home,” she said dryly.