Rawgh'faz surveyed his surroundings, taking in the sights, sounds and smells of the burning buildings of the village around him as his clansmen set about looting the unburned houses and setting them ablaze. At this point, the village seemed to be empty. They'd only managed to kill a few before the rest managed to flee into the hillside, much to his frustration. He'd have to content himself with leaving them without food or shelter.

Raiding had never been the most profitable work for the tribes, though he was luckier than most. The Fanged God had seen fit to give him The Gift, as well as a stature far above that of his peers. That alone made it possible to pillage locations that would otherwise easily throw back gnoll bands.

He had plans for his warband. Big plans.

Though, why he had been commanded to come raid this tiny, out-of-the-way village with no meaningful resources was beyond him. There was nothing to be gained, outside of perhaps a fearful reputation and some food, both of which could be generated in far greater abundance elsewhere. He had enough scouts and fighters to even sack one of the larger outlying walled cities of the kingdom. He'd even laid plans for taking the fight into the interior.

But here he was, putting the torch to the middle of nowhere instead.

The emissary had given the order, and Rawgh'faz had obeyed. He knew better than to dare question the order. He'd replaced the splattered corpse of last chieftain who'd made that mistake.

He could only determine that there was a meaning of importance he wasn't aware of to this out of the way spot. And that would have to be enough.

He turned towards the nearest group of buildings, where the majority of his raiding party were tearing apart the interior.

"Hurry it up, you scum! Nothing in this worthless shithole is worth taking that long to find!" He barked loudly in their direction.

He turned to survey the rest of his immediate surroundings again, and that's when his nose pricked up by a sudden new smell. His eyes darted in its direction, which was somewhere between or beyond a couple of the buildings in one of the nearer sections of the square.

He sniffed strongly a few times. It was definitely a living smell. Not human, but not animal or plant, either. It was too clean to be greenskin, but too earthy to be an elf.

What WAS it?

As if on cue to his question, a small humanoid shape walked out from between two of the buildings, looking around as if lost. It looked like a small human girl, a child even. She wandered out into the edge of the square, seeming at first to not notice him.

He felt a chuckle of sadistic amusement rattle his chest. Poor little thing. She had no idea she was about to be his new plaything.

He turned his head back towards his ransacking clanmates and shouted a few sharp yaps, and immediately the lot of them scrambled out of the building in a mass of limbs and singed fur, their tongues lolling out of their mouths from the intense heat.

As if on cue, the girl's attention shot towards them, and she froze in a look of panic, seemingly unsure of what to do.

"Grab the girl! She'll make a good addition to my collection!" He barked, and on cue, the gnolls bounded towards her. The girl screamed, and turned and ran down the square away from them, headlong into one of the village's side streets.

he dozen members of Rawgh'faz's raiding party tore after the girl, half running and half loping on all fours as they chased her out of the square, snapping and snarling and hurling various threatening jeers after her as they chased.

Rawgh'faz walked casually after them. He had plenty of time to catch up, and his warband knew better than to dare crossing him and harming something he'd claimed for himself.

As he looked about, he couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction as he looked upon the destruction they'd caused. There truly was nothing better than a good sacking.

Except for breaking the spirits of those he took for himself.

That... that was the purest pleasure.

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Out of nowhere, his thoughts were interrupted by faint rustle stirred something behind him, and a sudden sharp tang of heat and perfume struck his nose. He spun around, holding his staff out in front of him, snarling at this sudden unexpected intruder.

Eleanor stepped out of the shadows of the small alleyway behind him, holding her staff loosely in her left hand, and gesturing lightly in the air with her right, leaving a trail of glowing sigils in the air behind her.

Rawgh'faz barked rapidly, evoking the names of protection spirits as he spun his staff around, throwing up a barrier just as a jet of blue flame erupted from the tiefling's hand. He threw the ray to the side, and calling up another name, drug the tip of his staff across the ground, shooting out a blast of stone shards towards her at lightning speed, only to bury themselves harmlessly in a wall of ice that'd not been there only moments before. His eyes shot upwards to see Eleanor sailing over his head, a swath of glowing energy symbols amassing around the tip of her staff. As he went to throw up another barrier, a blast of invisible force slammed into his chest unexpectedly, knocking him flying backwards toward the ice wall, now covered with stone spines. Thinking fast, he threw the prepared barrier up between him and the wall just in time for the impact, preventing being impaled, but blasting through the wall with such force that he lost his breath and nearly blacked out from the impact.

Eleanor landed lightly on her feet a dozen yards from the gnoll, spinning her staff around into a defensive stance, and taking a brief moment to catch her breath.

"You wanna call it a day? I'll spare you the beating if you take the rest of your dogs and leave." She called out to Rawgh'faz.

The gnoll laughed, a nasty hyena cackle that stood up the hairs on the back of Eleanor's neck on end as he stood to his feet amidst the ice and stone. He adjusted his neck with a resounding crack, and began walking towards her, chanting rhythmically in snaps and snarls.

"I'll take that as a no." Eleanor said, shifting her weight slightly as she reached into the pouch tied to her belt and wrapped her fingers around one of the objects inside.

Rawgh'faz burst into a sprint, his chant rising to a shout, before leaping into the air and hurling a handful of dark shapes down towards the ground around her. A few feet before they collided with the stone, they burst, reforming into the shape of snarling dogs that rushed Eleanor, charging at her from five different directions, closing the gap between them and the tiefling within a moment. The five shapes leapt onto her, their teeth bared to snap around her limbs and neck, only to pass right through and collide with each other in mid-air. Rawgh'faz landed in front of the dogpile as it struggled to its feet, and watched as the illusion dissipated in a cloud of smoke and dust.

Rawgh'faz curse and snarled, throwing his gaze back and forth in all directions, looking for some sign of the tiefling girl as his dogs tumbled back to their feet and set about sniffing around for some sign of their intended prey.

She was good, he had to give her that. She'd managed to not only create a realistic, moving illusion without using verbal components, but had managed to do so at the same moment she rendering her own full form invisible, masking all of its sounds as well as she repositioned. And since the dogs couldn't find her scent, she apparently masked that, as well.

Very, very impressive.

Breaking her spirit would be quite the treat indeed, if she managed to survive this. He relished the thought.

Rawgh'faz centered himself, closing his eyes, and drawing a deep breath inwards. She could hide all of her physical attributes, but could she hide the spiritual ones as well? That, he doubted.

Starting as a low rumble in his belly, he began intoning a familiar's name, slowly and deeply, and allowed his spirit to shift into the ethereal plane far enough to step outside of his physical form.

As soon as he did so, the dark forms of his summoned dogs burst into relief as glowing white shapes against the unstable, ghostly dark gray forms of the cobblestones around them. They were sniffing the ground where the girl's illusion had stood only seconds before. Ground that was lit not only by the faint glowing paw prints, but by a pair of faint human footprints that were working their way around him in a wide arc, slowly and carefully, one step at a time.

She'd had the forethought to mask her ethereal form as well. Clever girl.

Too bad for her that she either forgot or wasn't aware of the impressions left behind by material movement in the ethereal plane.

Rawgh'faz shifted back into his material form, and opened his eyes with a slow breath. She would be nearly behind him, by this point, probably planning on an ambush when she expected he'd lost her.

He smiled faintly to himself. Who was he to ruin the surprise?

With a wave of his hand, he gave permission for the dogs to depart, and they vanished into clouds of black ash picked up and carried away by the hot air swirling all around them. Then, making a point of intentionally lowering his guard, he resumed his walk back towards the rest of his pack, keeping the attention of his ears and nose firmly behind him. She would have to drop her masking efforts in order to be able to cast any offensive spells, and that would mean a moment for him to react. The only moment he would need.

Then, unexpectedly, something hard collided suddenly with the back of his head with enough force to send him sprawing a few few feet forward onto the ground and knocking him dizzy for a moment. No sooner had he started trying to regain his feet than a second blow pummeled him square in the spine, knocking him flat to the ground and pounding the wind out of his chest.

She wasn't going to reveal herself. She knew better. But that meant...

Rawgh'faz for the first time felt a twinge of fear. Had she baited him? But how could she have known?

As if on cue to his thoughts, the girl's voice sounded out in space somewhere above him.

"Same offer, dog. Take your pack and leave, and I'll let you keep all of your teeth. What do you say?"