The sickly sweet scent of Alinn’sora entered the dank hole of the dungeon long before her physical form appeared. The almost overpowered aroma of saccharine decay slithered into every nose and squirmed into every mind like an incurable fever. It wasn’t an unpleasant odour, in the same way that fruit left a little too long in the sun wasn’t an ‘unpleasant’ odour, but behind it there was a screaming sense of absolute<i>wrongness</i>. Of something pure and good that was irretrievably altered and turned from its true and natural course.<br/><br/>Thus too, before the twisted fae nymph appeared did a dark fungal bloom spread along the slimy stonework. It shot forth at an alarming rate, sprouting in junctures into lurid floral petals of perverse design. Like roses of rot, great rafts of rancidity. They too emitted a scent that was at once hideous, but equally enrapturing. Great clouds of harmless spores billowed out of these slimy black creations and drifted in the torchlight.<br/><br/>Such fierce life was short-lived, and almost as rapidly as the mycological garden erupted into life, so too did it melt away into hurried decay. Into this storm of life and death did Alinn’sora emerge, descending the staircase into the claustrophobic depths with a sense of weary resentment that completely belied her regal appearance.<br/><br/>The nymph was as naked as they day she had been willed into creation. Slick, clammy grey flesh moved with perfect fluidity as she took one step at a time, placing her split feet on the broad stone tiers with assured grace. Her hips swayed sensually, but it appeared as though she had no concept of how fertile and alluring her form truly was. Indeed, the rampant and almost painful sexuality of the nymph seemed so much a part of her slim form that not one iota of her presence felt like an act.<br/><br/>Yet this oddly twisted queen bore not a smile upon her thin lips. Her beautiful, dark features did not radiate happiness or even cruelty. She looked for all the world like every ounce of energy had been raped from her form. The fecund aura that one might have expected simply did not pour fourth. Her sickly green eyes were half-closed and lidded by a sense of utter weariness. Only her crown of blackened, slimy wood with its multitude of bones, feathers and woven moss chains seemed to retain the sensation of queen-like majesty.<br/><br/>Following in Alinn’sora’s wake were two of her bizarre fungal minions. Comprised solely of rancid black rot they shuddered and twitched after her. Each ‘footfall’ they made violent contortions of their glistening black flesh, removing any doubt that the creatures were natural or ‘right’ in any sense of the words. In each slippery black paw were clutched dagger-long shards of dark wood, dripping with poisonous decay.<br/><br/>Into the dungeon drifted Alinn’sora, her dainty grey fingers brushing across the bars of the various cages. Beautifully ugly blossoms of fungal flora erupted wherever her fingers touched, filling the air with the scent of her. She ignored everything that was proceeding with a look of weary nonchalance, as if her mind wasn’t entirely within her head. Only when she reached the cage containing the bee-girl and the drider did Alinn’sora stop and appear to take a modicum of interest in anything that was going on at all.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>