Dhamaed sways gently to and froe, his head swinging awkwardly from side to side.  The vampire’s well-muscled arm lifts, his hand falling upon the back of his neck.  A loud cracking sound reverberates throughout the damp atmosphere, and a drunken grin plasters itself upon Dhamaed’s façade as he takes in his ebon-skinned adversary.  Emerald-tinted optics narrow dangerously as the Necromancer’s calculating stare looks appraisingly over the body of Barvalone.  That grin widens considerably, and Dhamaed’s own lithe frame sways most precariously as one hand falls upon the unencrypted hilt of his newest brand.  With a harsh, metallic hiss the blade greets the air, drawing forth in its wake an eerie darkness.  The wielder of this destructive force glances upward but once, his gaze fixating upon the pregnant moon, and every muscle tenses as he readies himself for the oncoming battle.  Pearly fangs are bared balefully at the drow, and Dhamaed’s head drops, his mouth opening wide as words of arcane origin are screamed into the silent night.  Amplified by his own power and that of the shifting tides, the incantations of old resound with horrible dissonance.  The muddy earth begins to tremble, a crimson gleam appearing around Dhamaed in a sort of shield—at first.  Eerie formations of materializing, serrated blades quickly condense from whatever spell it is that Dhamaed weaves, and the spell that was once supposed to protect the drunken vampire now expands outward!  Large spikes explode from the center that is Dhamaed, ripping through the air at lightning speeds and aiming directly for Barvalone.  Tilting his head, Dhamaed watches this with considerably inattention, appearing quite distracted for an unknown reason.

Barvalone ’s dark tinged lips, stained by years and years of heredity and an impenetrable darkness in which to exist, thin into a devilish grin. Allowing ebon lids to fall over pools of inky knowledge, the Drow falls inward, seeking that orb of patience, practice, and training which rests in the base of every creature of the shadows. Like so many of them, Barvalone could connect with that instinctual force at anytime, but his, as a Drow, was by far the more powerful. Eyes tightly shut, the blades of Dhamaed close in, whirring angrily through the cool nighttime air. Their sheen beneath the waxing moon glistens deathly pale in contrast to their intended victims ebon flesh. The silver glaze against his black background creates a beautiful tapestry, even as the spell blade leaps into the air, twisting in deft and snaking maneuvers, each abnormal crook allowing one more sword to fly by with a whistle, harmless as the very air which they slice. Numerous blades whine past the pitch acrobat, barely nicking his lithe, yet toned arms. Their slight nicks draw obvious lines of blood across Barvalone’s muscles, but he lands without any serious wounds. Immediately, the magi throws forth one hand from a breast pocket, sending out a cloud of choking debris that floats indolently in tiny, black motes. The words of ancient dialects resound from the dark elf’s throat like a rush of water, easily flowing across a rock bed. His voice rises in tempo and breaks at the final point, a call to the heavens above it seems, which cajoles a great bolt from the cloudless heavens, as if a star had dropped unto the earth. With the black cloud surrounding Dhamaed, the bolt strikes, igniting the great morass into a powerful, blazing conflagration.

Dhamaed whistles a tune to himself, his head inclining as his gaze fixates upon the pale whiteness of the moon, and his thin lips part once more, curving into an entranced smile.  The vampire stands stupidly for what seems like hours—until his vision is obscured by the whirling, cloudy inferno.  Fiery orange lights play upon the scarred visage of the vampire, and his cruelly disfigured torso and arms allow Dhamaed a nearly demonic appearance.  Seemingly ignorant of the conflagration surroundng his mortal bodd, the vampire continues with whatever it was he had planned.  His breathing grows shallow, and the flames lick away at the thin scraps of clothing vested upon the fallen one.  Only after a moment do those jade optics snap open, closely followed by the Necromancer’s mouth.  Without regard for the flames, he begins to sing!  Drunken, garbled words slip past his tongue, the melody oddly sensible and strangely dark in nature.  Each syllable emits an ambience of frigid darkness, of the icy hands of death that slide across the frame of each person present at one point in time or another.  The fire leaps and dances, badly singing Dhamaed’s flesh, but that delirium that holds him bound works its spell, and without warning, the fire extinguishes itself!  Fierce winds sweep over the chosen arena of battle, bringing along particles of ice that carry a gleaming iridescence into the darkness.  Beams refract in every diretion, many rays of bright light flying Barvalone’s way.  These tiny prisms whirl and dance, and, as suddenly as the challenge was issued, Dhamaed falls forward somewhat clumsily.  Acting every bit the idiot, he rolls forward across the slppery ground, at the last moment drawing a long dagger.  He rapidly approaches Barvalone, and the small knife zooms from his mangled hand toward the heart of the drow, its blade dripping with greenish liquid.

Barvalone quicksteps back a bit, dark fingers slipping down that curvaceous body like the slim tendrils of a vine. Moving like living plants, they slither about the hilt of the namesake dagger which the Drow often calls upon. Unbridled rage begins to course through the dark elf’s unhindered, limber body. Eyes still shut tight, he spins about with a quick shift onto the right foot. Turning in rapid circles, up and down flows the blade in a hypnotic waltz, whispering doom with each motion. The tinkle of shattered ice begins to permeate the trees, the houses, and the night itself. Reaching down with pallid fingertips, the beautiful moon, brushes against each and every shard, even as they break upon Barvalone’s dagger like waves upon the shore. Suddenly the whirlwind of ebony halt, kicking up a small cloud of grit from the tavern path. Hardly a second passes before the battle mage brings that devastatingly quick sword arm flying across, the flaming ruby edges of his blade erupting in a din as it rings forth against Dhamaed’s. In a fury, the elf leaps upward, leaning forward in the air with his wait, allowing the raven-haired necromancer to charge through as if the lissome Drow had never stood there. Over Barvalone twists, piwafwi and pall hair creating an intermingled and twisting opposition. Through that incredible twisting throng shoots forth the keenly edged blade. A crimson inferno runs over the tip, and the night air screams as Barvalone strikes the dangerous weapon for the nape of his vampiric foe’s undead, and unprotected, neck.

Dhamaed plants his feet into the muddy earth, kicking up great clouds of grit as he jolts into a standing position.  The faintest hints of pain flicker through those emerald orbs, the singed skin upon his arms and torso beginning to blister and freeze.  The finely-crafted blade held within his mangled hand vibrates violently with the force of the collision, and with one calculating glance the vampire decides that he has no idea where the drow hias gone.  Troubled thoughs flicker across his mind, throwing him into a dimension where pain never ends and evil never dies, ever.  Dhamaed’s body, chilled by the icy winds, begins to tremble violently and his breath is drawn in  harsh, sobbing gasps.  His eyes shut tightly, and his free, uninjured hand drops to the hilt of his weapon of choice—not Redemption but Retribution!  The blade he had allowed to fall back into its bindings flies free now, slicing a curved path throguh the air as it ascends in a swerving arc.  With a clink that could have either been pure luck, or intuition, the ruby-bladed dagger is knocked away from Dhamaed’s unprotected neck.  Paying no mind to the owner of said weapon, the vampire bends at the waist, thin digits sliding around the hilt of the projectile blade.  A howl of agony rips through the air, as a jolt of electirc pain shoots up Dhamaed’s arm.  With a furious cry, he drops the blade, his sandaled foot kicking it across the way and through the tavern doors, and only then does he turn toward Barvalone.  However, while the blade is gone, the inferno is not, and it swirls in chaotic patterns upon Dhamaed’s new brand.  Intricate carvings appear, burned into the steel by Barvalone’s foolish spell, and with a slight push of his legs, the vampire sprints toward Barvalone!  Three long strides does he run before faltering, the blade sinking down into the mucky earth.  Its owner rests upon the hilt, breathing heavily for reasons unknown.  Pain wracks through his every fiber, yet the thin lips of Dhamaed move in silent prayer.  The ground beneath Barvalone explodes suddenly, violently!  Blackened flames rise up from the mud to surround the drow in an inferno of abyssmal proportions.  Driven by the power of the day, and Dhamaed’s own, the vampire has conjured what almost appears to be the wrath of hell upon his foe. 

Barvalone lands in sheer silence, glowering at the ineffectiveness of his attack. Finally, the Drow opens those fiendishly dark eyes, either one shimmering with a twinkle of pure hate beneath a gauzy film of uncertainty. Every tensed muscle quivers uncontrollably, though only a bit as the ague finally begins to seep into the dark elf’s marrow, chilling the very fiery blood which pumps through his slender, angular body. Likes he has so very often, with the cries of tortured victims, the screams of slaughtered children, mothers, fathers, and every other semblance of the innocent, Barvalone shakes away the gnawing, nagging cold, tossing it from him without a second thought. Turning on heel, squaring with Dhamaed, Barvalone offers a long, twisted smile that smacks of condescension. One foot goes forward, padding softly into the dirt. Another moves, and the earlier follows, incredibly leaving not a mark in the path. That unsettling smile does not disappear as the rumbling of the earth, its peals agony, waft upward like a fetid stench, knocking against Barvalone’s senses just as intensely. Springing upwards like a dark arrow, the magi can be seen rummaging through numerous pockets. But the sight is lost to Dhamaed’s explosion of hell-born flames and blasted earth. High up, exploding from the twisting and stretching fingers of agonizing wrath, Barvalone appears, all vestments in tatterdamelion and charred form. Spinning over headfirst, the amazingly nimble Drow clears the ever-reaching grasp of stone and pyre, coming down with hair tossed awry and singed at the tips. A maddened look set deep into those red eyes, Barvalone calls out with musical chanting, rocking the very earth upon which you stand. Sage’s eaves quake and shudder, moaning for the sudden abruption to stop. But as he falls, the spell blade continues the chant. A blue-grey pinpoint appears upon the soft earth, shooting up in a deep, chromatic beam that attaches soundly to Barvalone’s palm, holding him mid-air like some great, lustrous phantom. Suddenly, screeching and pining, a lattice-work of glacial trails explodes from the surrounding lands, creating spidery ways to the pinpoint. Barvalone smirks down upon Dhamaed and snaps his free fingers. Suddenly the very earth comes undone, exploding into a terrifying quake that inhales ice and flames alike, sucking them down towards the pinpoint in a vacuum that slowly, with bellicose force, turns upon the latent necromancer.