Approach cautiously and fight magic with magic

You take several deep breaths as you enter the fog, reaching into your belt pouch for a small vial. Activating your magic you take one last enhanced breath, and scatter the contents over yourself. A chill goes up your spine as a strange sensation suffuses your slender form and your flesh and armour turns ghostly. In fact as wraithlike as you appear to yourself, you should be undetectable to anyone else, so long as your breath holds! You creep silently forward in flowing strides, stalking your prey.

Several shadows lurk within the swirling murk, but you avoid them easily and pass unchallenged closer and closer to the centre of magic. Ghost or not, your magical defences are very aware of the peril you are closing with, radiating warning tingles across your skin in waves. You have rarely felt such powerful sorcery outside of the elven academies and you approach even more cautiously.

Eventually you reach a hollow in the most, a space occupied by a coldly beautiful human woman. Her eyes are silver and sparks crawl through her blonde hair. Both hands clasp a staff taller than she is, the crystal atop it radiating sphere after sphere of glittering crystal fog. It dulls, thickens and darkens as it reaches the dome edge and joins the sea of dark magic expanding across the battlefield. Your heart pounds and you have to **** yourself to calm your mind before your desperation to take a breath overwhelms you. Now and again the sorceress sweeps the staff in a full circle and each time she does you can sense her Will seeking you out. Her scowl shows she is failing to find you but she is clearly aware of danger nearby. You hear a whir and clank from above, imagining those damnable spheres patrolling overhead. You must act quickly before you are detected!

You cast about, sending your elemental magic questing across the earth and through the air, searching for weapons. The need to breathe is becoming urgent when you feel like you have located what you need. With effort of will you send deep buried roots writhing up out of the soil, crawling up the limbs of the Sorceress, binding her legs and questing higher. Your breath finally hisses out and you immediately feel more solid and heavy, the earth beneath your feet becoming more real to you. Your increased contact strengthens your pull and the saplings entrapping the human woman thicken and gnarl.

She is fighting back with magic, sparks of flame and intense light beating back the growth trying to snare her. Her mouth is fixed in a hateful grimace and she barely manages to keep her arms free. The cloak is ripped away from her as she struggles, whirling the staff in a scything motion, sending splinters flying and blackening your marauding branches. Gaining ground you can feel her groping for your mind, trying to locate you within her mist. Her staff sweeps out to focus her efforts, exactly as you were waiting for.

You flare your magic, giving away your position immediately. But the effort is worth it as you draw on rocky ground to the south, a place where the very bones of the earth break through. The first wave of rocks hits like a hailstorm, the chunks becoming bigger and more jagged. A lump of granite the size of her head catches the outstretched staff and sends it flying, and you breathe a little easier. But even without her point of focus the Sorceress is a dangerous opponent. The dark clouds above her swirl and send down tight spirals of whirling clouds and air. All but the heaviest of the boulders sleeting across the clear circle start to be deflected wildly, spewing in all directions. Dribbles of blood run down the tanned skin of your opponent, but your view is intermittent thanks to flying debris. You stagger to the one side, trying to shift position and still maintain your concentration, dragging more and more chunks of rock through the air. She is **** to use lightning to blow apart two incoming boulders almost as big as she is. She sends the jagged shards flying at your position but she has lost her fine control without her staff and they fly wide into the fog.

She can’t keep this up endlessly but then neither can you! Your strength is fading keeping up the continuing stream of stone. Earth element has never been your strongest discipline. You stick to smaller quicker chunks but tighten your grip on her legs and hips, crushing mercilessly. She shrieks as her knee pops and the wind drops briefly as her concentration falters. Unfortunately it recovers before you can do more than a glancing blow to her shoulder.

You notice the fog is beginning to dissipate above and around you with the constant current of air circulating within. Patches of blue sky are peeking through the thick dome. At least your distraction has kept her from engulfing your soldiers.. though you can only imagine what carnage is being wreaked outside. Gritting your teeth you draw more roots up from below and redouble your efforts, determined to end this witch at least. Thick splinters of stone and rubble whip down at her trapped form, coming closer and closer to finding their mark. Desperately she begins to spew out lighting from her fists whilst maintaining her barrier of wind. Much of the lightning works to break up incoming missiles but every now and then she hurls bolts in your direction, forcing you to dodge or defend yourself. It speaks volumes of her raw power that you find yourself almost at stalemate despite your advantage over her. Little by little you are getting closer to victory though, one missed move by her and she will be crushed or overwhelmed with crawling plant life.

Just as you are pressing home your advantage relentlessly, something odd whizzes past your ear. Not the usual magical or rocky missile but something else. Then something crashes right into your side with some ****.. something not sent by magic. You falter in your attack and glance down.. at the metal carcass of one of flying mechanisms. Even as you look another hits nearby, and another. You dive out the way as a fourth crashes down through the clearing mist into the ground where you were standing. You curse, glancing up at the sky for more telltale gleams but **** to turn your attention back to the Sorceress. With your concentration broken and the steady barrage of boulders ceased her attention will turn to you in no time.

Indeed as you spot her again she whoops in triumph, her staff called back to her hand. Precise burning strikes begin to whip through your enclosing branches, gradually freeing her even as her glowing eyes settle directly in you in terrible fury. She sags against the staff and the thicket of stumps, her legs not supporting her properly any more. Her hips seem twisted somehow.. but she seems truly dangerous nonetheless.

Your own strength is nearly tapped from your gargantuan attacks as you consider your options. Another hurtling metal sphere makes your mind up, forcing you to dash out of the way. You turn it into a charge, whipping your sword from your back into your hands on the run. You pour the last of your magical energy into its runes, the razor edge glowing fiercely as you give your warcry and close the distance at pace.

Her eyes widen from her semi prone position, she has nowhere to go and her own powers must have been drained with your titanic struggle. You hurtle closer like a slender juggernaut but seemingly in slow motion, your sword arcing from on high, sweeping toward her as her lethal staff rises to point at you.. You snarl at her, straining to end her evil.. the staff tip glows, your sword edge sings.. the very air crackles.. and the world explodes around you both..!