Dar'Khan stood on the castle walls of Deathholme, the healing form of the San'Layn who had taken over just a couple of feet away from him.
Unbeknownst to the both of my oppenents, blackened vines crept along the wall behind them, crawling up the stone from the earth below.
Green fire licked at the surface of the stone around us, singing and burning away at the structure with no apparent source of fuel.
I was clinging to the top of a tower linked to the wall, my tail curling around the stone. It was interesting to see the world so small.
I could feel the souls of my chosen opponents, and the overwhelming magic within them. They both represented the best works of necromatic magic the Scourge had available to them.
Dar'Khan was a partial lich, unique in his empowerment from the overwhelming arcane might of the Sunwell, and the Darkfallen was a vampric creature with an incredible power over blood.
Many individuals thought of them as the pinnacle of what an ambitious mage was capable of. Darkened rituals turning them into near immortal beings of power, sitting at the same place of power many demon lords and dragons sat.
They were of particular interest to me. The books I had stolen from this very fortress covered the creation of liches, and I had studied intensely on how that particular work of magic was put together.
However this was different. Dar'Khan was a creature of his own making, and the darkfallen with him was something of a scourge military secret, unique to them and them alone.
And here they were alone, and mostly unguarded. The small army of elite scourge forces meandering below had been watching me closely since my arrival.
A smattering of abominations, at least a dozen wraiths of considerable strength, and at least thirty skeletal mages.
Not to mention a few hundred skeletons in full plate armor, wielding wicked looking blades.
An overwhelming threat to most to be certain, but a manageable foe for me.
"A pleasant surprise indeed, mighty creature. What brings you to my fortress?"
I smiled as best as my reptilian head would allow. "Perhaps I can jog your memory."
Fel flame began burning along my claws as I spoke, and I made to go on the attack, before I froze.
"Enough of this." The San'Layn beckoned at me, and my blood churned against my will, my flesh fighting against itself, a growl sounded out as I struggled against his will.
To his credit it took a moment. I straightened, my eyes locking onto his own as the wraiths raced into the air after me, clawing at my hide with spectral limbs, ignoring the armored plating of my scales.
The wraiths slowed and faded as the green runes along my arms drew them into me, wailing out uselessly as the energies keeping them alive was torn away.
I looked back to Dar'Khan as he unleashed a flurry of deathbolts, the shadowed magic tainting portions of my hide and rotting away the flesh beneath.
He took a step back when I ignored them, feeling the wounds expose themselves to open air, pouring blood onto the tower.
"What was it you said to me, Necromancer? Oh, yes, thats it."
I crushed the steadily rising blood flow, fighting the vampires influence with my own.
The flames flickering off my claws steadily rose up my arms, before they ignited fully across my form in time to intercept the hail of frost bolts the skeletal mages below began to unleash.
My wings spread in an instant, flinging green flame all around me. Several of undead underneath me collapsed as fire rained down from above, burning through their skeletal remains easily
The darkfallen shielded his eyes from the conflagration, dropping his attempt at controlling me.
"I'll grant you the boon of dying to me personally."
Dar'Khans eyes widened with recognition, and for a moment the infamous necromancer was stunned silent.
"You? You were that wretched fiend that stole my servants and defiled my fortress?" He shook his head.
"Impossible. A Novice practitioner managed to escape me that day, what you are is an abomination of magic!"
I lept from my place atop the tower, my maw now dripping with my own blood, towards them both.
Dar'Khan disappeared the moment I moved, returning with a blink to the ground below us, his fingers curling as he chanted at the undead around us.
The Darkfallen took my attack head on.
My claws dug into a red barrier that appeared just before I could close the distance between us. The Darkfallen looked up at me, his arms shaking as he struggled to hold me back.
I laughed as I pushed harder against it, just barely hearing the Vampyr groan at the effort through the thrum of his magic.
The elves hand grasped a ritual knife at his side, before he plunged the blade into his stomach as the shield began to crack.
Blood spilled all around him, soaking the stone he stood upon with the liquid.
He chanted a single word in a language I did not recognize as the shield shattered.
The blood around him blackened, before jumping out at me in an instant.
I grunted as ten foot spears of blood impaled themselves through my chest, bursting out from my back moments later as they continued to grow past me, reaching into the sky.
With a heave from the undead elf the spears curled in on themselves, before I was tossed to the earth below.
The dead were quick to capitalize on my new posistion, tossing themselves at me in spite of the flame covering my form.
My jaws closed around an abomination attempting to drive its cleaver through my eye, and I stood, spilling gouts of blood into the earth as I swiped at the gathering horde of skeletons around me.
With a flick of my neck i tossed the abomination at Dar'Khan, laughing as I bounded after my prey through the carnage, ignoring the vampire as he used my own blood as blades against me, ignoring the undead tearing into my exposed flesh.
By the time I reached him I was certain my body could pass as an undead, Dar'Khan disappeared just before I could reach him, blinking into existence a few meters away.
I turned on a dime, breathing red tinged flame at him, and the fortress around us.
A shield of fel energy arose around me as I blocked another flurry of death bolts supported by frost bolts.
I took a moment to admire the flames growing around me as I recovered, my flesh beginning to slowly knit itself back together once I took the time to concentrate on it.
The battlefield was almost ready.
Soon, but not quite yet.
