The monochrome gryphon flexed his talons as he stared down over the sweeping expanse of sand, rock and dust below his perch. His silver eyes narrowed at a scrap of something blowing in the wind, nearly mistaking it for a living thing before It caught against the rough side of a rock and revealed itself to simply be a bit of fur.

Likely from one of the corpses peppered about the area.

Cantrip's feathered tail tip lashed in silent consideration of the wastes, careful to not dislodge the ever present thorn in his side as she clung tight beneath a insulating layer of feathers. With how Philter decided to tag along with him more and more often now, he was starting to consider some way to more reliably cart the starry feline around than just trusting her to stay put under his feathers during flight. 

Maybe some sort of pouch or pack could work, something secure that couldn't just fly off. A thought for another day, for now they just had to play it by ear and keep a tight hold on things.

Sweeping both sets of wings wide, Cantrip allowed himself to fall forward off of the butte he was standing on. 

That weightless yet firm resistance of wind against wing immediately caught the gryphon's fall and he righted his course with a few flaps, then he was off, keeping high enough to ride the breeze but low enough to actually do the surveying he was here to perform.

Very little had changed since his first foray into the Badlands only a few days prior. The same baked sand and dust, the same conspicuous lack of anything living despite a clear abundance of carcasses. Whatever those curious about the area wanted from these excursions was hard to tell, but not everything of value had to be found on surface level. There could be a special plant that only grew in the shadows of rocky overhangs (doubtful) or perhaps an abundance of precious gemstones just waiting beyond the entrance of the nearest cave, something materialistic and valuable that warranted hiring creatures to go sniffing around.

Or maybe it was something far more interpersonal? Escaped convicts, disgraced merchants with debts to be paid or anyone else with a target on their back might be found hiding away.

A dark patch amongst tan grit and ruddy stone caught the gryphon's eye and he braked with a firm forward flap of his wings, feeling needly little claws sticking into his back and not quite hearing but knowing there was a displeased hiss from Philter somewhere within his feathers.

There, that was the cave entrance he'd spotted last time. As much as he was wary of going spelunking in an area whose main claim to fame was being full of death, that same party that had hired him before to go surveying the landscape had found an interest in the cave. With any luck it would lead nowhere but a dead end and he could write it off as shade from the elements and nothing more.

“Hold tight, we're landing,” Cantrip alerted his feline companion before doing just that.

A few steadying flaps displaced a cloud of dust around him as the gryphon lighted down on terra firma once more, feeling sun warmed sand under his claws.

“So you're the one I've been waiting for. Sure did take your sweet time.”

The gryphon's head snapped toward the shadows of the cave entrance, feathers bristling as he took in the sight of a reflecting pair of eyes in the dark. Color him surprised that he'd run into his first living thing in the Badlands, though his thoughts from earlier hadn't been forgotten; anyone hiding out here must have a good reason for it.

“I was starting to think that old warden had given me the wrong directions, you're Alabastaire, yes?” The voice continued on in a casual if not cocky way, revealing itself to belong to a sleek looking ravager who stepped out from the shadows and into the light of day. 

“That depends on who's asking,” Cantrip replied, tucking his wings into place as best he could without smothering Philter and eyeing the wyvern up and down. “We weren't expecting company.”

He was made up of contrasting patches of darkness and light, glazed over in a sheen of shifting red and blues where the sun caught his scales. His surprise acquaintance stood out against their dusty backdrop just as much as he did, if not more with how flashy those crystalline red horns were. If the warden the wyvern mentioned was the same one who had sent Cantrip off into the unknown these last two times then he had some words for the old bastard, like how it would have been nice to have a heads up that he was going to be working together with someone.

Someone who knew who he was ahead of time but was a complete stranger to himself.

“No need to be so cold, my friend!” The dragon laughed, showing of rows of fangs just as glitzy as his horns. “I'm only here as backup should something go awry down there, this place looks like a deathtrap so I'm sure the extra muscle is appreciated. My name is Mazarine, Mazarine Chroma. Does that loosen your tongue a little?”

Not particularly.

Cantrip meandered to the side, keeping Mazarine in his sights while also peering past him and into the sandstone cavern beyond. Such a refuge in a land baked by sun would be an attractive spot for anything living there full time, much like how caves in his colder home were prized for their mostly regulated temperature within. No matter where you were in Empyrean, a haven was a haven and you were never the first one to find such a thing.

“What was the name of the warden who sent you here, again?” He replied instead, feeling Philter's head peer up from out of his feathers as curiosity caused her to investigate the new voice. 

“Rhosyn, a pink warden with a torn left wing,” Mazarine replied plainly, Clearly wanting to just get this standoff over with now.

“Well he gave you more information on the party size than me. I work best alone.” Cantrip only spared the ravager a watchful side glance as he weaved around him to step into the cave, long ears perking at the distant sound of dripping water.

No bats squeaking, no desert beasts baying back and forth in the depths. Just dripping and silence.

As promising as it was ominous.

“Sorry to disappoint, but I have a payout to earn too. Unless you want to claw up this pretty face and explain to the old dragon why you went berserk on a teammate, you're stuck with me!” 

Great.

Cantrip craned his head back to look at Mazarin with a sour expression, but relented to his company. So long as the wyvern didn't get underfoot then they would have no problems, though his more chatty nature was destined to be grating in the long run. 

Ignoring Mazarine's smalltalk, the gryphon retrieved a small lantern from where it was strapped to his flank and lit it, allowing the red stone pathway ahead to come into clearer view. His earlier wishes of it being a simple alcove had been slim with how Mazarine had bothered to stick around, but the sense of depth he was getting from the place and yawning darkness ahead was considerable.

“You think there's anything of value of ahead?” Mazarine asked, coming up to stand beside him and craning his long neck forward to squint into the black.

“Hopefully more than what's above. Corpses in a cave are never a good sign,” Cantrip replied, hooking the lantern back into its holster to keep his talons and beak free.

Who knew what lay ahead.