Loraine looked at me carefully, trying to gauge my reaction, and said, "I'm not exactly human."

Finally, she was confessing to me that she was an elf. Of course, I knew that already, but me revealing that I knew it already was an entirely different matter from her telling me of her own will.

I nodded at her understandingly.

"That sounds like it comes with it's own set of troubles."

"Indeed, it does. For one, the quality of our... meat is particularly attractive to certain beasts. A rare delicacy, if you will, like century-old liquors."

"So you think it might've been somehow following your energy?"

"I think it might've smelled my blood. I was a bit scraped up when we entered the forest."

"Okay. That should give me something to work with."

I started to draw a rune sequence. Loraine had already bled all over the place from her injuries, so I didn't need to take any new samples.

The formations protecting the cave would prevent the beasts from finding us directly, but they only covered a small area. Despite my efforts, we had dripped traces of blood en-route, so they wouldn't have too much trouble finding our general location. They had probably surrounded it already.

The spell would take some time to form, so I suggested sleeping for the night.

Loraine volunteered to take first watch. She was far too injured to fight, but it still was a good idea to have non-magical means of detecting an enemy.

When my turn at watch came, I heard the faint sound of slithering. It was coming from deep inside a long, dark tunnel at the far end of the cave. There was also the faint occasional clicking sound, like nails on stone.

I had warded the area from that direction as well, but it wasn't infallible. There were strong monsters in this forest. If I had to fight, I'd rather do it with the elf protected by the defenses than wait until whatever it was busted through.

I stepped outside the perimeter and readied a fire-natured spell. If shot into the narrow confines of the tunnel, it would be particularly devastating.

"Whoever you are, if you want to keep your skin, don't move," I called.

While I was tempted to just shoot first and ask questions never, for all I knew, it could be some innocent sapient pit viper or something. With nails.

A woman's lilting voice rose from out of the hole.

"Don't be like that, honey. If you're staying in someone's home, it's only fair that you pay the rent."

She wasn't wrong.

"Alright," I said, "I have valuable items. If you instead want payment in favors, I'm willing to negotiate, but there are going to be some well-defined limits."

The woman's voice chuckled softly.

"Why so cautious, young man? Let me come up, and we can discuss this properly."

I felt sleepy and comfortable. For some reason, I really wanted to just listen to the woman's voice and do whatever she said.

Magic, obviously.

I aimed the fire into the mouth of the tunnel and released it. There was the roaring of the blast and an angry hiss.

She was still alive. That spell would have been enough to turn ordinary creatures to dust. Either she was unusually strong, or she was good with high temperatures. Maybe both. A head, covered in long hair, appeared from the hole.

I immediately hacked at it with my sword but, before I could do any real damage, she got her arms out in time to block with her talons.

Then she rose out of the tunnel.

Her naked torso was that of a woman and her hair was a brilliant scarlet. Remarkably, it wasn't singed. Instead of legs, below her hips, her body became a scale-covered trunk, like a snake. Her scales were the same scarlet as her hair.

I briefly wondered if her corpse would make for good fireproof armor.

Despite being more than long enough (in my opinion) after around ten feet of snake trunk, she just kept on pouring out of the opening. Whenever I thought I must have seen the extent of her tail, there was somehow more.

Of course, I didn't just stand around and gawk as she did this.

Wreathed in fire and corrosive energy, she fought like an animal. Instinct and raw power took the place of practice and technique.

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Even her magic attacked me with a primal ferocity, although it took highly intricate forms. It was strong, pure, and acrid.

Every time I struck her, I felt her magic try to cut into me, to use her spilled blood as a catalyst to injure me in kind.

"A witch," I said, "I thought your kind was extinct."

"Is that what they say? Humans always did enjoy their little stories. But as you can see, darling, I am quite alive and well."

"Not for long."

Her long tail whipped around, multiple segments coming at me from all directions. The toughness of her scales and her arcane defenses deflected most of my attacks, but the longer we fought, the more I began to notice the patterns.

There were weaknesses in the shifting of that acrid mana, better angles at which to hit the scales, openings through which I could target her unprotected torso. I didn't fail to take advantage of them. I would have her soon.

"You're a fierce little boy," she hissed, "Wouldn't you rather talk in peace?"

"You forfeited that opportunity yourself," I replied.

I didn't feel like chatting passively with a mind-control expert.

She was preparing some sort of spell, constructing it as we fought. Her system of magic was too alien. I had no idea what it would do.

She was completely out of the tunnel, and the thrashing of her tail filled all the open space. It clashed against the perimeter of the warded area, magic sizzling against magic as it was deflected.

Suddenly, I realized what she was about to do, but it was too late.

She released her spell and it flew into the magic wall generated by the wards. Corrosive energy gushed out of the construct, spreading rapidly like roots, and dissolved my protections around Loraine. Then, the end of her tail was around the elf's neck, threatening to crush it.

It was my bad. I was never in the habit of bothering about hostages.

"I'll forgive you for earlier, honey. Let's have a nice conversation."

----------------------------------------

The man nodded. Nagina smiled. He had been a bit more difficult than anticipated, but he had still fallen in the end, as they always did.

It was predictable, if not a bit disappointing.

"I find your lack of trust in me quite hurtful, dear, so you're going to have to drop all those nasty little spells you have on yourself, or your pretty girlfriend will find herself a little... spineless. Of course, you should disperse your mana as well, to reinforce our new trust-filled relationship."

Like any good combat mage, the man had layers of passive defenses that prevented enemies from quickly ending the fight with simple mental spells and whatnot. If he dispersed his mana, he would be momentarily completely at her mercy. Then, she would have more than enough ways to make that moment permanent.

The man's expression was hard to read, but Nagina had the feeling that he was somehow amused.

He looked at her with a strange sort of half-smile.

"You severely overestimate how much I value her."

"And yet, to protect this darling girl, you bravely charged into danger. Even now, you've calmed down so much, just for her."

Nagina gently ran her clawed hands through the elf-girl's hair. The elf in her grasp was shaking, probably with some mixture of agony, fear, and anger.

The man's half-smile didn't change.

"I care for her safety enough to allow you a few minutes to talk instead of killing you immediately. Don't be so eager to waste them."

Originally, Nagina had simply come for the elf. Both as a flesh-eater and as a witch, she considered the elf to be goods of the highest quality.

But her companion turned out to be far from the average foolish human Nagina was accustomed to. He was a skillful mage and a brilliant fighter. Brave and decisive, with a strong personality. And his face was inhumanly beautiful.

He, too, was top quality goods, even more so than the elf. It filled her with the desire to have him. He was at least worthy of being her pet.

"I'll let you take her place, darling. Stay with me and I'll see that she leaves here safely. Don't worry, I'll take you as my apprentice and teach you well. I know secrets of dark magic thought lost to time. It would be such a shame to waste your talent."

"I have an alternate proposal. You let her go, and I'll forgive me you for attacking me. Or you could kill her and I'll kill you, of course, but first I'll spend some time extracting all those secrets of yours as reparations for the loss of my precious friend. I'm sure you'll enjoy it as much as I will."

He had the guts to threaten her repeatedly, despite being not even a tenth of her age. And Nagina could tell that he meant every word.

Nagina wanted to break him. She wanted to shatter those ice-cold eyes and watch him collapse and grovel before her, regretting his own arrogance. Then, when he was nothing more than a wreck, she would keep him as her obedient plaything.

Nagina smiled.

"Come now, don't be unreasonable. Surely, her life is worth more than your petty revenge."

"The same goes for you."

"All that bloodshed is too barbaric. I have a game that will be far more pleasurable. Play with me, darling, and I'll let the elf go."

"A game? What are the rules?"

"It's quite simple, really. You let me into your mind. That's all. You can defend yourself however you chose."

The man considered for a moment, then nodded. The game would be in Nagina's favour, but as she predicted, his arrogance made him accept. They made a binding oath.

She started by plunging the man into a hallucination of her killing the elf. The image of the elf cried and begged, blaming the man for her death, but the man didn't respond.

He was almost certainly aware that it wasn't real, but his complete lack of emotions told Nagina that this was a dead end. It seemed like he hadn't been bluffing at all about being willing to see her die.

She needed something to give her a better foothold.

She dove into his memories. The most recent ones were not enlightening. She went back a bit further, and suddenly she was at the beginning. Human lives were so short.

There was little there except distorted glimpses of glass and red light.

She went forward a bit, to the most vivid early memory.

Someone called the man's name, but all she heard was ringing.

"You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" the man asked. He was suddenly there with her, watching.

His younger self was with a large group of very young children who bore an odd resemblance to him. They were lined up in front of a table on a raised platform, where another boy, who also looked similar to him, was strapped.

"I'm last in line because I was chosen as that month's executioner," his adult self informed her. Clearly, he didn't mind her seeing this. She'd have to give him extra treats later to thank him for the guided tour.

The first child in line stepped forward, lifted a knife from beside the table, and stabbed the one strapped to the table in the upper arm, before returning the knife. The next child in line did the same thing, but to his lower arm.

Soon, the boy on the table was screaming in agony. Each member of the procession picked up the knife in turn and stabbed him in a location that would not be immediately fatal.

Then, it finally came the turn of the younger version of the mage. He picked up the knife and coolly slit the boy's throat, then walked away. The memory faded.

The witch moved forward again, rifling through his memories. Finally, she found what she was looking for.

"Oh, darling, I didn't expect your weakness to be this pathetic."