Into this tormented land stumbles a half-grown dragonling, blood smeared liberally over his chest and arms. Not his own but blood that is black and reeks of magic nevertheless. As Vorgulremik's hands strike the parched ground, it raises a thin cloud of dust.

The wind rises to a dull drone, like bullroarers far away over the horizon.

Vorgulremik sneezes to clear the dust from his nose, and looks around. Not what I was expecting, but at least there's mana here.

Vorgulremik looks to the horizon, trying to see anything beyond the wastes.

The blood pours down Vorgulremik's chest and arms, disappearing into the ground. Something moves beneath him.

Vorgulremik leaps back at the stirring, eyes wary…

"Mortal blood," a skull nearby almost seems to say… Almost, because though the voice comes from its direction, nothing was heard. From another direction: "Give us to drink… "

Vorgulremik hmms… "What's in it for me, wraith?"

Where Vorgulremik previously stood, a skeletal riding beast twice as long as a horse and of apparently reptilian cast stirs its skull from the ground. Earth cracks. The skeleton shivers.

Vorgulremik takes a few more steps back, unsure of how fast the skeleton can move.

"Give us. Give us and we will… " As if interested, wraiths of smoke and dust curl closer to join a circle around the necromancer-dragon. A warrior Kattha turned stone hisses, "Mana. He draws mana. Power."

The skeletan riding beast sheds one of its two fore-limbs as it tears itself from the ground. Little matter. It has five others.

Vorgulremik flicks some of the blood covering him at the skeletal dray. "Killed by necromancy, were you?"

The dray snaps at the blood and then rears agressively; the ghosts nearby howl with frustration. "Do not waste it! We are to be feared!" Skeletal hands close around Vorgulremik's ankles and as if by answer, the stone warrior lifts its helmet to reveal… Nothing inside the armor. Bits of rock fall away from the corroded helmet. "You are like him… Akahazam. Do you have your warding circles? Do you have your spells to shield your soul, Spirit Mage?"

"Fear. Fear if the answer is no… " he whispers.

Vorgulremik narrows his eyes, "I have protection enough from echoes such as you." He resists the urge to tear free of the bones gripping him. "I would banish you now, if I had any mercy. But your condition is obviously well deserved."

The wind rises to a low moan, and the air is tinged with ozone and the acrid smell of fires.

Vorgulremik breathes in the scents, eliciting pleasant memories.

Vorgulremik says, "Release is what you seek, is it not?"

The hands slacken. "Not release… " Another ghost this time, one heavily robed and whose spectral arms are draped with ghostly semblances of talismans. "Revenge. Return. Life from those who stole it from us."

The skeletal dray stalks near Vorgulremik, its skull almost seeming to snuffle at his feet. Its tail flickers back and forth agitatedly.

Vorgulremik looks around, and considers the state of decay. "I wager that those you seek are far deader than you by now."

Vorgulremik grins, "Although… perhaps they still live. What would you give to have them?"

"Those who live now, do so because we are dead! You… You are like Akahazam. I smell no magic circles. I smell no wards. I smell rich blood. Perhaps we begin our revenge now, by draining you." A coyotish muzzle probes from the robes as the mage begins to drift toward the dragon.

Vorgulremik takes another scraping of blood, and feeds it to the dray instead. "How short-sighted of you to consider such action."

The dray whuffles. It scrapes its ribs against Vorgulremik's side, causing some of the cracked ones to chip and fall off.

Vorgulremik wonders if the skeleton would support his weight, but says, "How long have you waited for one to enter your grasp? One who understands your needs, and can… help you?"

Vorgulremik runs a clawed hand across the dray's skull in a mockery of a caress, smearing more blood across it.

A pause. The ghost that was once a mage, evoked from caked battlefield dirt and bones that once were enfolded by flesh, bares its fangs in a slow grin of spectral teeth. "As Akahazam. Clever words. Clever promises. Can we trust you to succeed where he failed?"

The dray produces a faintly audible rumbling. Its eyes begin to glint as if fireflies were set into the sockets.

Vorgulremik grins, and presses down on the dray's skull, to see how firm it still is. "Trust? Trust is something you pay for. You have not offered me anything yet."

The yellowed bone cracks a little. Fragile.

Vorgulremik tsks, and stops pressing on the skull. "What would you give in return for your life, mage?"

"Can you keep what you have?" The magician advances again, then stops as the dray snaps at it. "I could take your body… Live again in mortal flesh. Can you stand against all of us?" Nevertheless, his appearance gives Vorgulremik the impression that he is annoyed somehow. Like wood creaking beneath a heavy weight, more skeletons creep toward the gathering.

Vorgulremik laughs, a surprising high-pitched sound. "My *body* would do you little good, Revenant. I'd suck your soul if you had any real power left in it, but it's as mouldered as your corpse." He pats the dray with the pretense of affection, giving freely of his bloody vest to it.

Again the mage hesitates. "Show me your power. If you would be Akahazam, you must master us." He signals to the dray and exclaims something in a foreign language like the crackling of a fire: faint, but there. The dray whinnies and backs away a little. Perhaps if it had ears, they would be folded flat. But the earholes can show little emotion.

The dray's firefly-eyes glitter.

Vorgulremik snorts, "Waste power to master what? Bones and dust?" He holds up a palm, and makes a slit in it with one claw to draw a trickle of blood. He reaches forward to smear it across the dray's skull. Living blood, my blood, my life. Serve me. Vorgulremik hopes the old spells that litter the wasteland have enough power to hear him.

The dray growls. Its bones seem a little stronger, the glow in its eyes brighter, as it lashes its tail and hisses at the mage. Ghosts nearby groan and howl at the waste. "Give us!" "Our blood… Our drink… " Skeletal warriors clutch at the dray which kicks at them, sending bones flying, and more rake at Vorgulremik's legs and side.

Vorgulremik growls himself, and lashes out at the skeletons with his wings and tail.

Vorgulremik holds his cut hand up high for all to see, and calls, "Those who would serve me and feed, destroy the weaklings that stand between us!"

Brittle bones snap, and fingerbones and old claws scrape down Vorgulremik's scales. The mage snarls, "Clever, clever… " Behind the ring of ghosts desperate to feed, more ghosts and skeletons begin assaulting the fragmented bones, but it is difficult to tell which is which. From everywhere rises the howls of "Feed us! We starve!"

Vorgulremik feels the hunger in his own belly, and projects that through a weak glamour he takes a few moments to prepare. After the strain of transition, it is all he can muster.

Vorgulremik leaps atop the dray, "Destroy the pitiful mage who couldn't protect you from this fate! Only the strongest will be fed!"

The mage begins reciting an incantation, a whisper on the wind, as the fight wends on. The dray protects Vorgulremik's side as well as a trained warrior would, lashing out with its hard hoof-bones and its one remaining forelimb with vicious claws.

Some of the skeletons turn their attention toward the mage. They throw themselves against his defenders, the slow but rock-solid warriors, and more bones fly with the sound of shattering glasses. The wind rises again, swirling dust around the field.

As encouragement, Vorgulremik flicks more blood at the mage-ghost's feet.

A light mosquito-touch on Vorgulremik's mind. Something… Trying to get in.

The fight howls as mana pours in, and skeletons rise to do battle once more…

Vorgulremik hisses and pulls back his glamour, pouring his magic into a psychic shield…

Vorgulremik spreads his wings to catch the winds. You enjoy this chaos, don't you, wind?

The touch turns to an insistent hammering on the psychic shield. Senses not quite there suggest to Vorgulremik… The little bit of magic he can command here through main force of will only draws increasingly larger amounts of wild power, that feeds the ghosts here. The mage's attempts to break through the shield grow stronger.

Vorgulremik snarls, and leaps at the mage-ghost with outstretched talons and fire churning in his throat.

But the attempt to divert attention to the ghost mage has paid off, as the skeletons help to clear a way before Vorgulremik. They nuzzle eagerly at the spilled blood, now a black smear in the earth.

The ghost mage cries out, drawing an illusory dagger as he breaks off the incantation. The touch vanishes from Vorgulremik's mind.

Vorgulremik releases his flame at the ghost when he is just outside striking distance.

The flame… passes through the ghost. He screams at first, and then breaks off into a bubbling laugh. "Clever, clever dragon, you cannot hurt me that way. But I can hurt you." The ghost mage points the dagger toward Vorgulremik and begins to chant again.

Skeletons scramble over the stone warriors, beginning to weigh them down by sheer mass and desperation. What was once a splash of blood is now a thin line.

Vorgulremik snarls and leaps back out of the ghost's reach. He spreads his wings to take flight…

Near Vorgulremik, the dray (now half fragmented and with its left middle leg dangling by nearly shattered bone) has been joined by several other warrior skeletons.

The mage lunges forward toward the leaping dragon, shouting the last syllable…

Vorgulremik blinks and lashes out at the dray and other warriors, unsure if he's fed them or not. He loses track of the ghost mage completely as he spins around…

Vorgulremik's psychic shield begins to tear as his concentration is disrupted by magic.

The dray squeals in surprise and anger as the wing-lash sunders half its ribcage, then turns and snaps its tail against Vorgulremik, causing the entire spine to shatter.

The dray collapses in writhing agony, and the other skeletal warriors are beginning to go down.

Vorgulremik growls, and turns to face the mage…

The mage calls loudly to the other spirits, "He is ours! Seize him! Seize him!" The ghost wavers as several Vorg-aligned skeletons snap at him, seeming to eat away rags.

Wisps gather closer. They radiate unnatural chill.

Vorgulremik growls, "Destroy him… " He smears his own blood on the nearby warriors to bolster them in their attack.

The tide of the battle turns slowly, living blood and mana against the ghost-mage and his cohort. Another mind-touch pounds against the dragon's shields… And then fades.

"Mercy! Mercy, master," the ghost-mage wails as the last of his stone-warriors shatters beneath the wait of long-rusted weapons. "I know many things… "

Vorgulremik hisses, "Do you wish to be taken away from this existence then?"

The skeletons snap at his robes, causing them to billow thin threads of spirit-force.

"I… I am at your disposal," the ghost-mage says with despair ringing in his not-quite voice.

Vorgulremik grins, and approaches the ghost. His shields begin to part, gaping like a maw. Millions of spirits seem to throng behind it, reaching out in hunger just as the skeletons did… "Very well then. Only the strong shall feed… "

Bones lie again on the field, with the remaining warriors those who answered Vorgulremik's promise of blood. The dray's firelight eyes go out slowly.

The ghost-mage shimmers as Vorgulremik's hands close on his frame. With a wailed accusation, "Betrayer… " he fragments.

Vorgulremik feeds on the mage's spirit and knowledge.

Knowledge… A new language. The gleamings of years of education in the College Esoterica. Tantalizing tidbits of spells, cantrips, a mind-mage's lore… Pitifully worn and tattered by the toll of time, even more by the brutal feeding. There are scraps of history, of gossip that must be long outdated, of politics that have long since ceased to matter.

The last shred flits away, and then Vorgulremik becomes aware again of the pleads that surround him. "You promised blood. Feed us… "

Vorgulremik purrsss at the rush of knowledge, and lifts a large femur bone from the collapsed dray before turning to the warriors…

Vorgulremik looks over the victorious warriors. "You failed to dispatch the mage." The dragon lays into the skeletons with the heavy bone.

The skeletons groan. They too cry out, "Betrayer!… " and lash out with their long bony hands and claws at Vorgulremik's sides, his neck, his face…

Vorgulremik snaps with his jaws and lashes with wings and tail.

With a dull roar what once might have been a fierce lion warrior rips a clawed hand down Vorgulremik's cheek. Several claws break, but one gouges through the scales to the skin and blood beneath…

Vorgulremik roars in pain and outrage, blasting the lion with flame before he can use the blood he's drawn.

The lion Khatta's bones char. He falls beneath the attack of the enraged dragon… And then there are no more standing on the field. None except the alien necromancer from another universe.

Vorgulremik pants, standing upright and leaning on the long femur bone. "I think… I think I'm going to enjoy destroying this world… "