The main hall of Ludo’s fortress was, as always, a picture of strategic disarray: discarded wands, broken furniture, and monsters nursing various injuries. High upon his makeshift throne of bones and trash, Ludo ranted, his tiny shadow growing enormous in the flickering torchlight, utterly consumed by his latest failure to procure the royal wand. It was into this predictable storm of ineptitude that Toffee made his entrance. He didn't stride; he simply appeared from the gloom, his footsteps unnervingly silent on the stone floor. Impeccably suited in dark charcoal, he was a jarring anomaly against the castle’s squalor.

The other monsters, creatures of instinct, recoiled instinctively from his presence, sensing a predator whose methods far surpassed their own primitive malice.

Toffee paused, his light green eyes methodically scanning the room’s chaos, a faint expression of weary disapproval settling on his elongated face.