Thraysil leans back on one of his many piles of gold coins, smiling down upon the many kobolds running around his cave. They’re all executing various tasks, most of which are hardly useful. Thraysil doesn’t mind though, he’s more than happy to be entertained by the small bipedal lizards, acting like they have to prove their favor of the dragon with every action.

Every now and then, one of them runs up and drops a single gold coin or gem onto the pile, before leaving again in search of a new shiny to donate, sometimes conveniently finding one already inside of the cave. How useful.

Suddenly, from the very entrance, one of his many kobolds barges inside the cave headlong. He looks around panickedly, looking for Thraysil. It doesn’t take long for him to spot the gold-and-purple-scaled dragon sitting atop his treasure, and sprints right at him, stumbling over the many piles of treasure.

“Master! Master!” The kobold yells through heavy pants. The poor thing is completely exhausted, so whatever he has to say, it must be important.

“Breathe, little one.” Thraysil’s eyes flash blue for a second, and the flash reflects in the kobold’s eyes, who visibly calms down at the command. “There you go. Now, what’s up?”

The kobold’s eyes remain blue for a short period of time, his facial expression completely blank and relaxed, and his panting turns into slower, more controlled breathing again. Finally, the blue washes away and his eyes return to normal. The kobold blinks a few time in confusion, before regathering himself and looking back up at Thraysil.

“Ah… there’s… there’s a human outside of your cave.” The kobold says. “And he’s coming for your treasure, Master.”

Thraysil raises an eyebrow out of curiosity. It doesn’t happen often that humans find the place. Most just figured to leave him be, what with him being a powerful dragon with a horde of kobolds willing to do his bidding, so getting a visitor is unusual. And the chances of that visitor having good intentions is even lower.

“Did he follow you inside?” the dragon asks calmly. He could use a bit of additional entertainment, and with humans – an intruder, at the very least - he doesn’t have to feel as bad when he breaks their mind for a little bit. Kobolds are very obedient by nature, humans on the other hand are more… fun to break.

“I think so, Master.” The kobold replies, looking down at his footpaws. “I doubt I managed to shake him off.”

“That’s okay, little one. I can handle him just fine, don’t you worry about that.” Thraysil replies. He pats the kobold on his head with his paw, dismissing him, before hopping off of the pile of treasure he’s sitting on. He cracks his knuckles and stretches his wings, unable to hide an eager smile. “Let’s go say hi to our visitor then.”

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]

Ike carefully looks around the snaking halls of the cave. The light of his torch reflects on the moist, mossy walls, and his other hand is wrapped tightly around the hilt of his battleaxe. He lost sight of the little red kobold a while ago, but he knew for certain he saw him running inside of that cave – which could only mean one thing. Dragon’s hoard. [i]Riches.[/i]

He carefully steps over the slippery patches of moss and gravel, trying to make as little noise as possible as he ventures deeper inside the dark cave. It snakes further and further away from the opening behind him, but luckily there are hardly any divergent pathways in the cave – and the ones that are there are dead ends anyway – which makes it easy for him to retrace his steps.

The deeper Ike enters the cave, the more he feels his heart beating in his chest. Maybe this wasn’t the right idea after all, maybe chasing a kobold into the actual den of a Dragon was a terrible plan. How was he supposed to take on a dragon all on his own with nothing but his wits and a small battleaxe?

Anxiety almost gets the better of him, until the torchlight suddenly splits up into a yellow-and-golden gleam instead of the prior green-and-grayish from the cavern walls. [i]Jackpot.[/i] Ike snuffs the torch, the cave now being plenty illuminated by the various lit candles and golden chandeliers amongst the piles of treasure, and steps into the massive open chamber.

There’s no trace of the kobold that he chased, but the scent of musky lizard still hangs heavy in the air. Though that doesn’t matter now, all that matters is opening the backpack and loading it up with gems and coins while he’s unnoticed. Ike’s hands start to move towards the first pile of treasure that he sees, but before his fingers even touch the pile, he feels himself freeze in place.

A blue hue seems to emanate from his suit of armor, covering him from head to toe. At least, that’s what Ike thinks at first, but he soon realizes that it’s not his armor that’s glowing, it’s [i]him.[/i] Regardless, he’s stuck in quite the awkward pose, kneeling on the cold cavern floor, leaning forward, reaching halfway for the gold coins in front of him. It’s not necessarily that he can’t move anymore, but his body has decided that he simply shouldn’t. And so, he stays in place, unable to move away from the creature that suddenly appears behind him, his presence only betrayed by his shadow.

“Tssk, silly thief. Did you seriously think you could sneak in here unnoticed and take from my hoard? Without even asking first?” The creature says, purposely staying just outside of Ike’s vision, as if he’s playing with the magically paralyzed human.

Ike tries to answer, but his vocal cords refuse to cooperate. There’s not much to be said anyways, nothing that could save him from his predicament at the very least.

“You followed one of my kobolds right into this cave, lost sight of them, and didn’t connect the dots that they would maybe… I don’t know… tell me that you were chasing them?” he continues, resting his massive paw on Ike’s head. “But that’s okay. I’m sure the next thing you’ll do is apologize profusely, hmm?” 

Again, Ike searches for the right words to say. His mind is racing, but nothing comes to mind – so instead he defaults to stammers that don’t even actually leave his body.

“Damn. That’s just unfortunate then, isn’t it?” the creature says, only now walking around Ike and revealing himself. It’s a big gold-and-purple scaled dragon, carrying a massive knowing smirk. In his hand paw, a cloud of blue energy is floating around. He flicks his wrist up, and Ike feels his body reposition. He’s still kneeling, but now his upper body is at least upright. His arms weakly fall besides him, and he’s looking directly at the dragon.

Thraysil points a single fingerclaw up, and the blue cloud shifts and concentrates to the very tip of the claw. He moves it back and forth a bit, chuckling to himself while doing so.

“I guess you won’t apologize from the kindness of your own heart… or maybe you can’t… either way, [i]very[/i] unfortunate for you”, the Dragon says with a knowing chuckle. “But I’ll help you along a little.”

He moves the fingerclaw with the blue cloud to the tip of Ike’s forehead, stopping it just in front of him without making actual contact. Ike’s eyes both look up at the fingerclaw, barely able to see the dark blue swirling cloud of energy zapping around, aching to jump to his mind. The thief feels a droplet of sweat roll down his spine in anticipation of what’s about to happen.

“You’ll be a good boy for me and join my kobolds in gathering more treasure for my hoard, won’t you?” Thraysil says, now tapping Ike on his forehead.

Ike’s eyes immediately fully roll up into his skull as the blue energy leaves Thraysil’s fingerclaw and enters the thief’s head. His eyes fully wash over in the same blue colour, as it pushes away the last thing that Ike still had control over. He’d already lost his movement and speech, and now his own thoughts also vanished – making place for a deep internal craving to obey.

He [i]was[/i] a good boy, and he [i]did[/i] want to gather more treasure. After all, that’s what good boys do, right? With another flick of the wrist, the thief finds himself standing up from his kneeling position, though oddly enough, his height of vision doesn’t seem to change as he does so. That’s weird. He’s probably just imagining things. Finally, his body is free to move again by his own will, and quickly Ike finds himself sprinting out of the cave on his scaly footpaws in search of gold to share to make up for his sins.

