And Brisingr heads into the mountain, glancing back only once to see if Ellisaria is following.

The halls are stone, built with a similar aesthetic ideal to Mount Gundabad - though by hands capable of moving far more quickly, who'd discovered new architectural tricks, making for larger, grander halls without abandoning Gundabad's sturdiness. Convenient, for the dragons, and for the city's ability to withstand Smaug's occupation.

Smaug apparently claimed the largest room for his lair - and for his massive pile of gold, which feels wrong somehow. Slimy, perhaps. Dark. Like it'd start whispering to you, if you lingered around it too long. Beautiful, more than it should be, desirable and precious and valuable beyond all compare. (This last is a fairly weak suggestion, easily ignored - if forewarned.)

Brisingr's lips pull back from her teeth. "Yuck."

"...Hm."

"Best thing to do is gonna be exposing it to sunlight," Brisingr says, eyeing the treasure. (Which is quite an excellent hoard, a clear sign of the power of whoever conquers it - the rightful property of the strongest.)

Brisingr seems to be ignoring how pretty the treasure is. "And I should be able to lay a conflicting curse over it in the meantime, too. Keep the humans from murdering each other over some shinies."

"I think that... would be best, yes."

"Won't be very strong, but scaring humans from stuff is easy."

"Do you have a magic thing for getting it into sunlight easily? Like, spread out over the mountainside would be ideal..."

"Not beyond carrying it out." And it seems a waste to do that, when it's all gathered neatly up already...

"Hmmm..." She shrugs. "Might as well start now, then."

And she heads up to the pile, grabbing some of the treasure in each of her clawed feet, contemplating grabbing some in her mouth, too.

Ellisaria twitches.

Which is ridiculous, she doesn't even care about gold. It has no intrinsic value. Still, though.

Brisingr eyes her a bit as she plans how to fly out of the mountain with her gold. "Is something wrong?"

"...No," she decides, shaking her head. This is absurd, she does not want this gold. "Let us be about it." She starts gathering up a pile of her own.

She nods, scowls at the coins falling from her fist, sniffs, then with an odd accuracy digs out a large silver mesh. She makes a triumphant noise and, after piling up the gold, takes off to start the long task of carrying it all out and scattering it around.

A net is a good idea. Ellisaria looks for one of her own.

There's a set of smaller meshes off at the edge.

She makes her own set of bags and starts moving treasure.

Brisingr seems to be taking care not to have the treasure piled as she scatters it around, though she's also not bothering to carry most of it outside of the Desolation. (Except one especially shiny gem, which she carries past the edge then drops in a river, identifying it as 'really cursed'.)

The oppressive feeling - the beauty of the treasure - fades dramatically as the hoard's reduced and scattered.

Does dropping it in the river provide additional cursebreaking help?

"Running water's good for that, yeah - it's resistant to picking up curses, and can wash stuff away, and it's probably faster than just daylight. It also reduces the chance of someone picking it up while it's still cursed."

"I've heard the ocean's best for curse breaking, but the ocean's really far off, so a river works. Still water like a pond or lake can get befouled, though, so it isn't as good."

"I see. An interesting system."

"I think it has something to do with the sun Maia and the ocean Vala? And the ocean Vala dude can also help protect running water. And dragons were made by Melkor, who also made the original gold curses, and both the sun Maia and ocean Vala hate him."

"At least they're good for something."

"Yeah. In the stories they do more than most of the other powers - though the dog one and daughter of the one who married an elf did the most, and the wizards might be Maiar but no one agrees about that." She shrugs. "They're not really relevant otherwise anymore, though."

"I have met a number of wizards in my world, and the only godhood they possess is in their delusions."

She shrugs. "Ours might be different, but who knows."

"Perhaps if we meet a wizard, some truth can be ascertained."

"That'd be fun! There's supposed to be only five, but they tend to be around when big story-ish events are happening."