Ludmilla watched the chaos unfold as her filthy nonmagical plebians and the apparently also nonmagical lizard duked it out. Judging by the apparent seizure it was having as it charged, partnered with the utter lack of tactical reasoning or any reasoning at all for that matter... Was it one of the lesser drake species? Ludmilla briefly regretted devoting so much of her time studying the world's plants rather than its creatures, but hindsight was 20/20.
Whatever the thing was, it was certainly dragon-like, and that could only mean one thing: A hoard. Deciding that she'd already done enough anyways, Ludmilla flew past the dragon and came in low, swooping down into and through the forest's canopy. She followed the large, obvious tracks and bloodstains which their recently-deceased Imperial and soon-to-be-deceased lizard had been so kind to leave in the rich loam, mud, and occasionally on the sides of nearby trees throughout the forest.
After several minutes of flying she came across her first objective: The battered, chewed, half-eaten corpses of several Imperials- from the looks of things, about ten or fifteen soldiers backed up by a pair of mages- or maybe just one mage? Two mage halves, anyway- and a mostly-intact priest. The latter was particularly relevant to Ludmilla's interests.
Touching down, she kicked the corpse over unceremoniously. The man's stole indicated that he was a priest of Galven, the Bladefather. Trained swordsmen to a man and capable of calling upon powerful divine miracles that were nonetheless not as cool or interesting as Ludmilla's magecraft, they were a force to be reckoned with. It was common knowledge that the Empire's close working relationship with the priesthood was the driving force behind their many campaigns.
More importantly, all properly ordained priests of Galven carried a ceremonial sword forged from white iron and studded with topaz chips the size of a man's thumbnail along the fuller and pommel. Such blades were ugly, lacking in serious craftsmanship, of very little practical use and- now this was the important part- were spectacularly valuable.
Sure enough, the poor old bastard had one strapped to his belt. Odds were he hadn't realized the scale of of creature he was dealing with until it was too late- the creature's bizarre ability to contort itself around trees and spindly, malnourished frame meant its burrow might have resembled that of a much smaller beast. Tugging a couple of rings off the man's cold, dead fingers- the signet might fetch her a pretty penny- she grabbed the man's ceremonial sword and moved on. No time to strip them clean; Ludmilla had a lizard to rob.
Whatever the thing was, it was certainly dragon-like, and that could only mean one thing: A hoard. Deciding that she'd already done enough anyways, Ludmilla flew past the dragon and came in low, swooping down into and through the forest's canopy. She followed the large, obvious tracks and bloodstains which their recently-deceased Imperial and soon-to-be-deceased lizard had been so kind to leave in the rich loam, mud, and occasionally on the sides of nearby trees throughout the forest.
After several minutes of flying she came across her first objective: The battered, chewed, half-eaten corpses of several Imperials- from the looks of things, about ten or fifteen soldiers backed up by a pair of mages- or maybe just one mage? Two mage halves, anyway- and a mostly-intact priest. The latter was particularly relevant to Ludmilla's interests.
Touching down, she kicked the corpse over unceremoniously. The man's stole indicated that he was a priest of Galven, the Bladefather. Trained swordsmen to a man and capable of calling upon powerful divine miracles that were nonetheless not as cool or interesting as Ludmilla's magecraft, they were a force to be reckoned with. It was common knowledge that the Empire's close working relationship with the priesthood was the driving force behind their many campaigns.
More importantly, all properly ordained priests of Galven carried a ceremonial sword forged from white iron and studded with topaz chips the size of a man's thumbnail along the fuller and pommel. Such blades were ugly, lacking in serious craftsmanship, of very little practical use and- now this was the important part- were spectacularly valuable.
Sure enough, the poor old bastard had one strapped to his belt. Odds were he hadn't realized the scale of of creature he was dealing with until it was too late- the creature's bizarre ability to contort itself around trees and spindly, malnourished frame meant its burrow might have resembled that of a much smaller beast. Tugging a couple of rings off the man's cold, dead fingers- the signet might fetch her a pretty penny- she grabbed the man's ceremonial sword and moved on. No time to strip them clean; Ludmilla had a lizard to rob.