"You think I'll just let you leave?" He would have made the question more eloquent, but if the thief was daft enough to believe such a notion in the first place, it would likely not understand.

"You blame me for trying?" said the creature, as if it was actually curious as to whether Smaug did. He knew that this in itself meant that if he did blame the thief for it, he was stupider than he impressed, as who wouldn't attempt to flee his mighty wrath? He didn't really like that.

"Your chances are slim" He said instead.

"Yeah," agreed the invisible vandal, "Bit not good."

It is the most peculiar feeling for a dragon to turn to ice. Usually they register the oddness of their insides feeling as if they've gone backwards before they die, as they only ever experience such things from great and terrible magic wielders.

But this thief has spoken no such spells (and indeed, for something to be powerful enough to turn Smaug to ice and kill him, a great chant would need to be taken up), and Smaug registers an unfortunate disconnect between the creeping chill in his chest and the heat from his scales that scalds the very earth he lies upon.

He has never been frozen before, but Smaug thinks the feeling inside him must be something like that. He hisses, but he doesn't know why, and swings his head to and fro, hoping to catch sight of the thief, as something anxious and unknown bubbles in his stomach, but his efforts are fruitless.

He catches nothing with his eyes, which have cleared the bleariness of many years sleep, and that in itself lends him to the clue.

This thief is using magic.

How else could he conceal himself so well? Smaug's eyes can see the scratches on a coin from a mile away. The thief has seen his revelation, and stays silent. He decides some field observation must be done, and heaves himself from his resting place, almost cursing himself for not doing so earlier.

He knows exactly what is missing. A 211. 2 ounce trophy that is 18 karat gold and adorned with silver bands that hold a precious sapphire and 13 pearls, neatly and almost precisely wrapped around the length of the bowl portion. It was made roughly 78 years before he added it to his collection, and was at first a medal presented to the winner of some game, perhaps battle, as it had the soft, thoughtful and non-reproduced engravings of various matches that depicted dwarrows, some of which had recognizable traits from famous dwarrows in dwarven history. It was made here, as the insignia of a house of Durin, a curling longbeard of some well known smith, to commemorate winning first place in some tournament, but had been turned into a wine holder (the metal was almost flawlessly waxed, but the scent of a particular brand of alcohol was decreeable to his senses, from grapes he believed came from the orchards of Esgaroth, which he knew also made the wine that the mirkwoods elves were very fond of, or at least had been last he had been in the world), from the wine itself and the origin as well as basic knowledge of dwarf diet, he would assume it became wine holder for a grand celebration to which both Mirkwood elves and men of Esgaroth were likely invited, as dwarrows would have likely chosen mead or beer before wine, which means it was not something so simple as a common dwarven wedding or birthday. More likely the celebration was royal, perhaps the birthday of a prince or king. Unlikely that it would be a coronation, for they used the same royal set for that. Smaug thinks it's somewhere to his left, buried, like much of the more precious treasures. That is not important at the moment, however.

He also knew exactly where the chalice had been when he'd lay down to sleep, and made his way there… it is of course very very close to border of his gold piles, close to some small tunnels, although he knows the thief was lured to some other place by his charmspeak, and away from escape, he knows not where. Not important, right now.

Immediately the stench of both fear and thief increased, although it was older, not newer. He looked, and saw the place where the chalice had been moved, and a couple coins beside it, but no more. He wondered if the thief knew that he had learned of his magic, or perhaps suspected so. Perhaps he was still nearby, as he had had a limited amount of space available - back the way he had come, which Smaug did not see but smelled - fresh air swirled in the vicinity, although he could not place where it was from - or along the path to where he had taken and from there spoken to Smaug, upon which he was no doubt dumbstruck and still. The relatively untouched treasure meant that he had not gone through the gold and jewels itself - if it had been completely untouched, he might have thought the magic helped him in such a regard, too, but the slight disturbance of coins said very much otherwise. If he had continued through the gold, Smaug would have easily tracked him and killed him quicker than thought.

Oh but this was fun. Almost entertaining.

If only he hadn't been stupid enough to steal his gold, he might have liked this thief. Until he got bored and killed him, of course.

He wondered if the thief had run away - the silence was unbroken, but he was very sure he was blocking the way for return. The thief, sensing danger, might have ventured further in in hopes of losing Smaug that way, but that was cowardly, and frankly, idiotic. This thief did not initially inspire either of these traits. Except for the gold stealing bit, of course. That really was pure idiocy.

"Perhaps if you return the chalice now, I shall let you live" He crowed softly, layering his words with dragon charm. He waited for a reply, but was disappointed.

Except not really.

This thief would have been especially boring if he fell prey to such weakly charmed words. Of course, if he could meet his eyes, then the struggle of wills would get interesting.

"I won't kill you, I promise, just return the gold, and I'll let you run" he crooned, casting his eyes over the expanse of the gold around him - because even if he couldn't see the thief the thief could certainly see him, and the magic that protected him had almost certainly failed to ward off the charmspeak he had used earlier, so even if he looked over an unmoving mound of gold, if those eyes met these eyes for even the briefest of seconds…

"I suppose I knew when I agreed to this bloody adventure that I would end up dying." came the short whisper

Hmmm, not entirely what he had been hoping for, and the acoustics in here were not helpful in the least. Ah, well, he enjoyed a challenge.

"You won't if you just set the chalice back down, you know, I'll let you flee." He was pacing forward now, his tail guarding and blocking the way that the invisible creature had come from, eyes still shifting over the piles of treasure, hoping for an anomaly or a sign.

"They even said it would be dangerous, so I really should have known." came the weak reply.

Smaug suddenly realized that perhaps calling the thief a coward had been a bad play. "fleeing" and "running" did not appeal to the invisible creature, the magic was being used out of caution and intellect, not cowardice. And charmspeak worked best when the target accepted it to be true - such a comment rang false to the thief's heart, and that was not working in the way Smaug had anticipated.

He continued on his stroll through the halls, tail now stretched over the expanse of the area, still vainly trying to guard the place where now stale fresh air had come with the visitor. He was nearing his resting place, and had still not narrowed down the thief's position - for as he kept moving he had to keep the thief talking and calculate the echos in relation to his own moving body.

This was fun.

"They said it was dangerous, and yet here you are." He said curtly, hoping to appeal to the thief's daring and bravery.

There was a second of profound silence, silence that permeated the air and made him feel wretched - as if he had blundered in some horrific way. The worst part was that he had yet to know what he had done to so pathetically fail. He didn't like that, not at all. So he broke the silence, as he fervently hoped he would break the bones of the thief when he crunched on his burnt carcass. But he still had to catch him, and try to undo that error. "Just return the chalice, and you will go free."

The attempt floundered miserably, as he turned, too late, to feel the brief presence of something leap over his tail and into the darkness.

He knew the thief was lost before he registered that he couldn't see him.
His scream of fury was nearly drowned out by the roar of the flame that rendered itself from his gaping maw, and that poured into the hall and made the piles of coin caught in it's wake glow like embers long after it had stop issuing from his mouth. The walls were scorched and nearly black, but that was hardly new - he did that when he was bored.

His foul mood was caused by the sudden aching loss that filled his chest.
He knew this was how dragons felt upon losing some of their hoard, had experienced it briefly in past ages, and yet.

This time the sadness overpowered and drowned the fury like like a puttering flame.

Suddenly overcome, he collapsed back in his old spot, and fervently decided that the thief would return.

He wanted to think the thief would return because he had called him brilliant, and he awed him, but harshly reminded himself that it was simply because the stench of dwarf had been more pungent than the thief's own scent, to be honest, and dwarrows, if anything, could be relied on to pressure the poor creature into returning to reclaim their gold.

Well, he though, sending a brief spurt of flame from a nostril, failing to reclaim their gold.

Dwarrows loved treasure almost as much as dragons.