[center][h2][color=goldenrod]Terilu[/color][/h2][/center]

Ivraan's voice comes in as a far away blur. Terilu hears it a half-second after he hits the floor, a command- or a plea, it's hard to tell which of those is which in the midst of a battle- to "Drop your last skeleton and focus your efforts on the other undead around!"

The bat has to catch his breath first. A wraith like this is a real evil. Not something that dabbles in evil, like Terilu does. Or revels in it, like his old master Arynn had. But an evil in and of itself. It's soul is a black hole. He can't stand it that Ivraan is probably right. 

He pulls his mystic power out from over the last skeleton, releasing it, as the giant Galaxor is failing to kill it just as Terilu failed. The huge warrior is too slow for it, just as the skeletons were. But as he gives up and turns his attention to the minions at the outskirts, smashing them up, Terilu's spirits begin to lift.

"[Color=goldenrod]Oh yes, Galaxor, yes![/color]" shouts Terilu.  This is good. As Galaxor crushes the weaker skeletons, Terilu feeds on their deaths. He pulls in all the power from them that he can; there's plenty of it. Of all the companions he's met today, Terilu thinks the giant is probably his favorite. He's a brute, but brutes have a natural purpose to them. The trail of bones this creature leaves wherever he goes is evidence of that. Terilu wishes he could reanimate them all, but his spirit still aches where the wraith twice wounded him. He won't make the same mistake of sending minions at it again.

Instead he pulls on the dark magic until he can force himself to his feet. He rises up slow and swaying, probably looking a bit like a zombie himself in this tomb's half-light. Ironic. He certainly feels undead at the moment- he looks at the wraith, the thing that is in a way the manifestation of all his own goals. An undead that rules over lesser undead, an immortal that can't die because it isn't alive. 

He [i]hates[/i] it.

It's that petty, childish kind of hate, the sort born out of jealousy. The hate you have when you see someone else being what you wish that you were. But hate and jealousy both are good for bad magics. Terilu thinks of them as his fuels.

He reaches out towards it with his left hand at the same time that he reaches out towards it in the spirit. In one quick flash, he tears at its soul, or whatever it has [i]instead[/i] of a soul, and tries to rip it from this world. It shouldn't work; a midling necromancer like Terilu really shouldn't be able to wound some lord of the dead like this. But in this moment, with it so distracted by his companions and with jealous vitriol burning like coal inside him, Terilu is almost shocked to feel his magic working. The wraith stumbles. Face contorted with agony. The bat is delighted to realize that its the same kind of agony it had just inflicted upon him.

"[color=goldenrod]Ha![/color]" he shouts in triumph, his body still swaying in the dark. "[Color=goldenrod]In the name of Ad'itie and all Eratie, by the power of necromancy, I swear that I will put you back in the grave![/color]"

The wraith lifts its head to him. At the look in its eyes, Terilu feels his gut lurch and all his victory turn to fear. He's hurt it. It's vulnerable, more than it was. He knows that much. The others could probably hurt it now. But evil made vulnerable is also evil made cruel and vindictive. "[color=gray]Ad'itie I know of,[/color]" it says in its hollow voice, the voice of a sepulcher, "[color=gray]and necromancy I know very well. But who are you?[/color]"

It rushes the distances between them, not half as fast before, but still too quick for the spiritually wounded Terilu to get away. It reaches him and in two quick slashes of its blade, the bat's blood is splattered against the wall. It aims for the wings next and hits its mark again; two nasty gashes have appeared on Terilu's left wing. It laughs as he screeches.