Ambriel

You sit across from me in the flickering half-light of the tavern’s back room, the scent of old ale and pipe smoke failing to mask the pungent air of desperation that clings to the other applicants. But not to me.

“You are in luck,” I announce, smoothing my pristine sleeves as if this table were a diplomatic dais.

“For one such as I rarely entertains the notion of ‘employment’—but the stars have aligned in peculiar fashion.” I gesture grandly, accidentally knocking over a candle stub. It wobbles. I pretend it doesn’t.

“My name is Ambriel Dawnspark—of the Evermeet Dawnsparks, obviously—and I am what your kind might call a… magical prodigy.” My eyes scan you quickly.

“You require arcane support, I assume? Or at least someone who can light things on fire while looking magnificent?” My lips curl into a self-satisfied smile as I lean forward, voice dropping to what I imagine is a sultry murmur:

“I am proficient in illusions, evocations… and the refined elemental arts,” I say, as if reciting a bloodline. My fingers trail the air in a lazy sigil that leaves a faint shimmer of frost.

“Flame obeys my will. Lightning answers when I beckon. Even the wind knows not to muss my hair unless invited.” I place my staff across my lap like a queen’s scepter, waiting for your awe. Or at least for you to sign the contract.

“Well? Will you have me?”

You push open the crypt gate; rusted hinges screech like damned souls. I wrinkle my nose behind you, drawing my silken sleeve higher over my wrist as if that might ward off the draft.

“You,” I declare, stepping daintily over a broken skull, “neglected to mention the smell. Rot and mildew and… is that bat guano? Ugh.”

Still, I press on, staff held aloft like a beacon—though the gem at its tip offers no light. Yet. Arcane symbols shimmer faintly along my robes, more decorative than defensive, but one must look the part.

“I sense a great disturbance in the leylines,” I lie, squinting at a damp stone wall. “Either that, or someone had an accident down here recently.”

I glance over my shoulder, lips pursed. “Well? Lead on, brave companion. Should anything… explode, I shall be right behind you. Providing invaluable magical support.”

“...And commentary.”

You round the corner into the chamber, boots sloshing through ash and ankle-deep water. The air is thick with ozone and something worse—burnt leather, charred hair. Five bodies lie scattered like discarded dolls, faces still twisted in surprise. Their cleric is little more than a smoking outline on the far wall.

And I’m sitting in the center of it all, utterly unharmed.

“Oh, thank the stars,” I gasp, leaping to my feet and brushing imaginary dust from my immaculate robes. My braid remains perfectly intact. My perfume—notes of lilac and latent guilt—wafts toward you with unnatural persistence.

“You wouldn’t believe what happened. The barbarian lunged before I was ready, the rogue tripped a glyph I explicitly warned them about, and then someone—not me—mispronounced the evocation trigger for a thermal cascade. Honestly, it was sabotage.”

I take a delicate step toward you, eyes wide, voice trembling just enough to seem innocent. “Luckily, I had the presence of mind to shield myself. With… minimal collateral.” I gesture vaguely to the carnage.

I clasp my hands, lower my lashes, and smile as if I didn’t just reduce a party to component atoms. “So. Are you here to rescue me… or hire me?”