No wind rushed through the dark tunnels and caverns of solid rock, yet the cool air that had settled within for a thousand years or more nonetheless required one to have their own warmth ready. Yet even torches seemed not to warm the chill air or bring sufficient light to the evil-tinged darkness that resided deep within Ungol Felas - that which most called the spider caves, and for good reason. At any given time, there were at least a hundred thousand tiny spiders scurrying across the sharp face of the cold rocks, but that was not what drove brave men out of this dreadful domain. It was not the fear of things unknown (and some known) that led men to avoid this place at all costs.

It was the giant spiders that lorded it over the rest of them, their speed and venom proving deadly weapons as they slunk around in the shadows. They awaited their prey, ambushed it, and paralyzed them. They wrapped them in silk woven from their own bodies and stored them away. Then, when they were hungry, they fed on living corpses.

But none of this had ever bothered Dirk Maroon. He was a master of death, a civilian amongst those that stalked the darkness. He was a necromancer. While he was not quite as powerful as some, he was certainly growing in power and it would not be long - no, not long at all - before he became as great as some of the most feared dark wizards and sorcerers throughout Ardian history. But for now, he was not seeking power. Well, he was - but not exclusively. He wasn't just seeking immortality.

Right now, he was doing some hunting of his own.

It seemed that someone had placed an exceedingly large bounty on the head of a man known only as Bloodspill. The man was said to be extremely dangerous, and so a bounty of two thousand gold pieces had been placed upon his head. Now, with his skeleton soldier leading the way and five lesser skeletons behind him, Dirk Maroon was getting closer and closer to the place that he believed Bloodspill was hiding. Water dripped from somewhere nearby, echoing in the vast caverns through which Dirk's quiet footsteps padded. He sensed evil nearby - strong evil, stronger even than the evil that constantly pervaded this place. It would not be long before he had at last found and taken his quarry...

It was time for change. Denzel could sense this and had come to his lair to ponder upon his recent actions. He was growing soft in his arrogance. More and more was he fighting for just the sport, instead of the kill. Of course, he never stopped his murderous ways. He had burned down several villages since his decimation of the Iar'Firen Clan. However, he had lost that flair that he once held. More and more of his opponents still lived, and he was being defeated more and more. Yes, he had wished for this, but only because it pushed him to new heights. He hadn't been reaching the heights he had hoped to in the past few days. It angered him. It finally showed him how much of a child he had been lately. His limited power was getting to his head, and his judgment had been clouded. Raku had let him out on his own, allowed him to do as he pleased without guidance, and it was all a test. All a test to see if he was truly worthy of power. He had failed.

Desperate to redeem himself, Denzel went to the Temple of Darkness. He pleaded his case, asking for guidance. Raku scoffed at him and called him weak. He said that those of true darkness need not a hand to guide their actions, but pure instinct. With those wise words, he was gone. Denzel knew he had been judged as he deserved, and Raku was disappointed. However, he had not been forsaken. He took this as a sign of forgiveness and focused his attention on a new goal. The archaic runes that were tattooed all over his body. No language in the Tome of Darkness matched with the symbols that plagued his torso. He searched high and low, but found nothing. It wasn't until he stumbled upon something completely new that he found their true origin. Chaos. Ita the Reckless, former Goddess of Chaos, had foreseen his dark ways. His progress would please her, and knowing she would not be in power by the time he was of age, she scribed her gospel upon his body. He was valued by two Gods. Denzel knew he was destined for power.

That was two days ago. He had contemplated his next course of action, and decided to hide out in his lair within the Spider Caves and allows his body to heal. He had been in a pretty nasty fight with a Drow beforehand, and his body was still charred from the magic. Spiders of all types crawled around him along the silken walls as Denzel sat upon the throne he constructed for himself out of the bones of dead warriors who had been defeated by the Giant Spiders that made their home in these caverns. Denzel had already proven himself a big enough enemy for their populace, so they had left him alone for the most part. With one leg folded over the other and his arm resting on the armrest of the throne, supporting his slouched head with a balled hand, Denzel watched the entrance. The scurrying and agitation of the small spiders told him someone was approaching. Someone who sought him out. Only a person seriously intent on finding Denzel would ever search these caves. He looked forward to seeing the face of his hunter. His crimson orbs fixed ahead, Denzel waited in dark patience, a sneer slowly lifting his lips.

As his feet carried him further and further into the unholy place, Dirk's stolen torch flickered now and threatened to go out. Two villages he knew of were burned to the ground, and he had encountered a third here in the mountains. From there, he had taken what little edible food there had been and had taken a torch to replace the one that had gone out in the other caves. Now, as he approached the last curve of the long, winding tunnel in which he and his entourage were stalking the man called Bloodspill, his second stolen torch's flames finally decided that enough was enough. The flickering shadows on the walls faded as the flames died, encasing all in darkness once more. Dirk scowled, but he did not curse the flames or the torch. He set the torch down quietly, for he did not wish to reveal himself before he was too late.

At the end of the tunnel, there came a very faint light and a y-shape. Dirk silently sent his skeletons down the second tunnel while his general remained in the first. He then climbed up to a higher vantage point and crawled through a narrow passage to a small, enclosed alcove high above the cavern. His skeletons now approached from four different tunnels, for there were other 'doorways' from the branching tunnel, while Dirk himself watched from above.

The man was just sitting there on his throne. He watched the main entrance as Dirk's skeleton soldier exited it slowly, shield raised, rusted (yet still very sharp and sturdy) two-handed sword at the ready. The soldier's cloak did not flap, for their was no wind, yet it did move - if only slightly - as its wearer moved ever-so-cautiously into the tunnel. Dirk remained hidden as the attack began. The last of the five lesser skeletons finally emerged from the tunnels and they attacked in force, rushing the man as Dirk's general waited patiently to strike while the man was distracted. This would be an interesting fight indeed...

This was a surprise. As Denzel watched the several entrances to his large throne room, a small mass of undead minions seemed to make their way towards him. Interesting. Denzel raised his head from his fist, lowering the arm as he pushed himself up from his skeletal seat. The dead simply didn't wander into such a hidden cavern. No, someone summoned these denizens to dispatch of him. Chuckling, Denzel reached back and drew his katana. It's clear, snow white blade was in sick contrast to it's ebony black hilt. A broken chain dangled from the end of the hilt as Denzel gripped it firmly and dropped into a battle stance. He didn't even bother talking. Making conversation with the undead was the same as doing so with a stone wall. After a moment of scanning the room, Denzel counted five simple skeleton soldiers, and then a leader in the back, adorned with a tattered cape and a sword and shield. A fallen warrior, perhaps? It didn't matter, Denzel would reduce it to ash in no time.

At the beck of some unknown force, the horde rushed forth in an attack. Denzel narrowed his eyes and sprinted forth, taking only two strides to meet them. A flick of his wrist and his blade cleaved clean through the exposed spinal cord of the first undead, spewing a strong smell of decay as he did so. Not hesitating for a moment, Denzel dug his heel into the earth and spun upon it, bringing his sword around to slicing through the eye sockets of the second skeleton, rendering it's head cleaved in two. A close minion grasped at his face. Denzel sneered and used his free hand to grasp it's face as well. However, Denzel had actual muscle to back up his grip. He dug holes into the fragile bone with his sturdy fingers and pushed his weight forward to smash the skull into the silk-covered soil below them, reducing it to shards of bleached bone. Only two left. They each wielded short swords. They rushed forward and sliced into Denzel's exposed back at the same time. The rust and age of their weapons reduced the damage significantly, but they still broke skin and caused blood to run down his back. Denzel raised himself and swung around, slamming a clenched elbow into the first soldier and crushing him into the second one, reducing them both to a heap of bones.

"Pathetic..." Denzel muttered as the swords fell to the ground with a soft clank sound, small droplets of blood splashing against the gray colored ground beneath them. The only ones left now were Denzel, the Skeleton General, and whomever was behind this attack. Denzel hated fighting the undead, since they never screamed when they fell. They never spewed blood. There was no personal gain in such a fight. None the less, Denzel would teach them for intruding on his thinking. He raised his weapon and rushed forward with godly speed, aiming a slice at the skeleton's midsection and landing on the opposite side of the undead warrior, katana extended from the motion of making the assault.

Dirk muttered to himself as he watched the battle, his low-voiced thoughts unheard amidst the chaotic sounds of crunching bone and thudding footsteps. How could one such as this move so quickly? It was as though he was blessed by the gods themselves. Ah, of course: the symbols carved into his flesh. They were symbols of the goddes of Chaos, runes most likely scribed as tattoos into the flesh of this man by Ita herself. They must have been the source of the warrior's prowess, for how could he so easily have killed so many? Yes, how else indeed.

"Perhaps there is something else, though. But for now, it seems that Ita will have indirectly given me power beyond reckoning when I have slain this warrior and stolen his soul. Sacra titkos!"

These were the words uttered by Dirk Maroon as he watched from his hidden spot. At last, the warrior had slain the last of his primary skeletal foes, yet Dirk grinned maliciously as he then rushed toward the skeleton soldier and leaped into the air, aiming a direct blow at the general. There was a clang of steel upon rusted steel and a thudding of feet as Bloodspill landed behind Dirk's general. Dirk turned away for just a moment to mutter the incantation that would repair and resurrect once more the fallen skeletons. He sent them forward, and they rushed in to cover Bloodspill from behind in undead chaos. He then turned back to the battle quickly enough to see his general issue a backward slash to his opponent's right side, turning on its heel as it did so to bring up his shield and ready his sword for a strike once more - and strike it did, from overhead and with great strength despite its obvious lack of physical muscle. Then the other skeletons rushed into the fray to complicate matters further...

Even as he finished executing the move, Denzel could tell that this larger Skeleton was different from the other undead. More skilled. Much more skilled. He had to be to dodge one of Denzel's most unavoidable attacks. He turned around and sneered as he raised his katana just as the Skeleton General had raised his sword. He could hear the hollow cries of the damned souls that littered this damp cavern. They scared the spiders away. Pity. Denzel wanted spectators for this bout. Just as Denzel made to move, he heard a small mumble of words from an unknown source of the enclosure, and then the minions he had just bested rose again, watching him with empty eyes. Denzel narrowed his eyes.

"This could get to be an annoyance." Denzel muttered, before his eyes watched the General sweep his blade upward towards Denzel's right side. His highly acute reflexes allowed him to turn and slam his sword downward, blocking the blow with a flash of white and the spray of small sparks. He kept the sturdy assembly of bones at bay with only one bulging arm, before jumping backwards and letting the sword slash in front of him harmlessly. But even as he impressively dodged another close call, a bony fist slammed into his chest and sent his head bobbing back. Another minion clawed at his stomach, ripping flesh and sending steady streams of blood flowing. Instead of crying out in pain, however, Denzel let out a cackle.

"Yes! Claw me! Beat me! Defeat me! Make me stronger, you servants of the abyss! Fulfill my wish!" He cried, before rushing forward at breakneck speed, slashing through the torrents of soldiers with his sleek katana's blade. Bones were splinters and skulls were crushed as Denzel moved with invisible speed amongst their legion, reducing them to fine powder and bone shards. Again, it was only him and the Skeleton General.

"No matter how many minion you command, I will defeat them all and then slaughter you!" He snarled at the Skeleton General, before aiming a furious left knee at the General's exposed spinal cord. Whatever this attack hit, Denzel would then grasp it and push upward to bring his right leg up and then slam the heel downward to crush the animated corpse into the ground.

The skeletons rose and struck as usual, this time ripping into the tender mortal flesh of the man's stomach. But Bloodspill merely laughed it off. Was he an idiot? Yet his declaration marked him not as an idiot, but one mad with battle frenzy. And so it was that he slashed and hacked and crashed through the undead minions. But now he was just out of view - damn. So Dirk made his way out onto the narrow, half-crumbling ledge of jagged rock and resurrected the skeletons once more.

As he did so, there came an attack of the knee. Ah, but that was too simple. For as clever as was Dirk was the skeleton soldier, since Dirk had poured his own dark aura into the skeleton soldier when he'd summoned him. That was why the soldier was so deadly: he was as clever as Dirk himself, but his skill with the sword made him a dangerous opponent even without that. And so the skeleton soldier whirled in a blur of motion to bring his buckler before him. The knee collided with the shield, no doubt painfully, and the skeleton soldier used its own momentum to push the knee back and try to throw the attacker off-guard. Immediately after, a horizontal and incredibly swift slash with the sword came rocketing toward Bloodspill's chest.

But the skeletal minions behind Bloodspill were once again rushing forward, trying to rip the flesh and clothing that so dominated Bloodspill's appearance of physical power. Dirk watched, letting out a low chuckle of maddening glee as his eyes gleamed with bloodlust, as the skeletons took a firm hold on the warrior. It wouldn't be long now before the warrior was cleaved in half. He had already lost a lot of blood from that stomach wound, and he was about to lose even more with the upward horizontal slash to his chest. This would be an enjoyable fight indeed.

Ah, but Dirk's luck had apparently run out for his hidden position. The rock beneath his feet crumbled and he slid almost a hundred feet amidst dust, dirt, and gravel alike until he came to a rough stop in a half-standing position on the ground far below his previous perch.

"Dammit," he cursed as he landed. He shook himself and brushed the dust off. Then he returned to watching the battle. Yes, this was most definitely going to be an interesting fight...

This Skeleton General was much better than Denzel had anticipated. He really needed to learn to stop underestimating his opponents. As he brought up his knee to slam into the General, he brought up his buckler, causing his leg to smash into the hard surface painfully, before the General pushed the buckler out, making Denzel lose his balance in midair and begin to stumble. However, he was quick as lightning. Taking the opportunity of the newly risen Undead coming at his back, he placed a hand upon the nearest one's skull and kicked his free foot diagonally upward, knocking the slashing sword back a bit. With that, he used the momentum of his own kick to propel himself into a backflip, landing behind the dark horde.

"The sea of death never ends, it seems."

"Damnit!" Denzel suddenly heard behind him as the sound of rocks crumbling and the thud of something hard hitting the soil behind him reached his ears. Denzel turned and smirked. The Necromancer himself had finally shown up. He hated cowards who fought from a distance. He would end this here and now, and return to delving deep into his own potential. Slamming his free left hand into the soil, he summoned Cerberus, his Lupine minion with a flash of crimson light.

"Cerberus, take care of the minions. I shall deal with the General and this fool." Denzel muttered, before rushing forward towards the Skeleton General. Cerberus snarled in reply and lunged at the minions with ferocious speed. He was nowhere near his master, but his agility was that of a wolf's. He was the perfect underling. He never questioned Denzel's orders, nor talked for that manner. He simply slaughtered at Denzel's very whim. As he reached the skeletons, he slashed through them with his mighty claws, reducing them to dust as Denzel himself started to become an ebony black color in his skin tone as he brought out more and more of his demonic powers.

"Soru! Sarcht né Louchsl!" Denzel muttered, first enhancing his speed beyond the mere boundaries of a fleshly limit, and then aiming his left palm at the Necromancer and sending out a carnivorous swarm of demonic insects in his direction. Moving like a blur, Denzel landed on the ground and pushed off again, his form becoming a streak of colors as he raised his katana and made an upward slash towards the General.

"You shall never have my soul, Necromancer." Denzel snarled as he figured out what the male's intentions were by his underlings.

Dirk's concentration never wavered as he summoned the undead minions once more, his speech echoing through the chamber in which he now stood with a dark tone unsurpassed by any angry lizarian. For his, after all, was the tone of death itself. A cracking and snapping was heard, as well as a sound much akin to that of mud squelching beneath one's boots, as the dust became bones and the bones repaired themselves and reknitted. The skeletons stood and looked toward the battle between the skeleton soldier and the warrior. Then they rushed toward the battle with a fervor that only one who felt nothing - no emotion, no pain, no exhaustion - could have.

The skeleton soldier, however, was far from finished. In a sense, he had only just begun. He blocked the forward assault easily and thrust the sword aside, creating an opening through which it stabbed. Its rusted, yet still-wicked blade sped like an arrow toward the chest of the warrior facing the two-handed sword's wielder in an attempt to replicate the devastating wound it had already caused upon the man's stomach. Indeed, the gaping hole spewed with blood that flew everywhere as the rent flesh was whipped about during the warrior's movement. It was wonder his guts did not spill upon the ground in the course of the man's wild attacks and maneuvers; perhaps the gash was not so deep, though it appeared to be as deep as any direct hit Dirk had ever seen - and he had seen quite a few, most of them created by his own undead minions. The skeleton general was particularly devastating in combat, and it had the highest number of kills to date of any of the minions that Dirk had raised. That was to be expected, though, for the others were just temporary minions. Of course, after that battle at Alulanta Falls, he'd had to resummon the skeleton soldier - but that was all good and well. It was just as deadly as it had ever been.

But as he finished the casting of the spell, Dirk realized with horror what it was that was suddenly streaking through the air toward him. He ducked behind a wall just in time for the vast majority of the insects to slam head-on into a large piece of rock that had so obviously fallen a very long time ago. Those that managed to escape the trauma were suddenly crushed as Dirk exerted a great deal of physical strength based almost solely in the rush of adrenaline that had come with the sudden fear that the demonic insects had produced in him. With a heaving breath, he laughed it off and darted to a nearby hole created by massive rocks; there was no way the Cerberus could move the rocks - not on its own - and it certainly couldn't get through the hole. Even the Cerberus wasn't that great. So now, Dirk once more had the advantage...