---

In blackest night, in highest tower

Incense and candles burn

Mage in desperate meditation

Firelight falls on furrowed brow

Head in hands, gray mane draped across ancient tomes

Clouds race past the moon

shadows of impending doom

In the shadows on the highest point of the hill

Solitary figure clad in crimson

The enemy swells as a tide

The horde relentless

Across the field, the horned bastard

Evil manifest

Minutes become hours become days he casts on

Symphonic, the attack

Battle unceasing

Weary arms dispatching one and the next

In trance

The sky becomes crimson

Sulfur winds and ash

Battalions in flame

Bones without flesh

Hands rise again

Indiscernible phrases

Hands rise again

Braided intricate spells

Hands rise again

Arcane incantations

Hands rise again

Lightening rends the heavens

Magenta firmament

Fog and frozen gusts

Shards of ice rains down

Into their carcasses

Body and mana exhausted

Sleep refused

Overtaken, delusional

Hallucinating, faltering

Vulnerable

Wickedness finds its mark

The mage falls

His blood pools

As hope abandoned

The sky explodes

Sapphire radiance blinds

Resurrection

Maleficar

Power beyond understanding

Fortified by rage

Fire rains and flesh flames

Acrid, pungent fury

Death from afar

Maleficar Validus

Restored

Empowered

Relentless

Merciless

Victorious