She pauses, briefly. "Do you or do you not see the aura of darkness?"

And then she's moving again.

Her left hand goes up, shines, and a gust of wind emanates outwardly. A strong wind, but still possible to move within for a normal person when aware of it. The wind can affect magical emanations, as the dark aura is mention in the legends.

"Announce your intentions, like a poor villain! I have my charms regardless." Halta has stopped being confused, and is more annoyed at this whole situation now.

That gets her a deriding noise and then something shoots forwards from the end of the staff.

It's quite sharp.

Sidestep, and after the movement the wind is pushing it off course as well.

When it impacts the wall (or her throne), inspection.

It goes through the wall. Leaves a small gap in the brickwork.

There's another one where it came from.

Poor brickwork, fancy footwork.

"Do you understand me when I say this has all been rather pitiable?"

"Oh, I heard you," she responds. "I'm just getting warmed up."

The throne catches alight (again).

Halta shrugs. "I suppose that with fifty years between any sort of significant movement it might take a while, but that would leave plenty of time to think of adequate defenses..."

And then Halta flicks her arm downward, suddenly dispersing the wind and changing it to her own magical silvery bolt at Avenira.

She dodges.

"Were you even trying?"

"Probing. You just showed me how fast you can dodge, and therefore how fast it needs to be."

Less anger, more focus. Halta is already warmed up, but waits for a moment.

"Lower bound," she sings – and then there's another dart.

And a second.

"Well they would fail to hit regardless!"

Now for these two incoming shots Halta tries (after dodging) to block one and redirect the other, to see if it's possible. After that would be the time to proceed into a legendary wizard battle, knowing a good deal of Avenira's strengths so far and having enough information to be able to fix the legends on the Demon Lord's power...

Blocking the knife is hard but doable, with magic. Redirecting it… less so.

And then there's a fireball.

Halta does a magic-assisted jump up to the ceiling, then drops back down after the spell has passed.

Something is wrong here... I suppose no regrets.

"With all due respect, in no joking or insulting way, are you holding back?"

"Do you want a new volcano in the landscape?"

Fireball.

In the middle of your castle?

Ceiling, floor. "Not necessarily, just..." Sigh. "Something about this is bothering me, is all."

Avenira pauses, at that.

"… Huh."

"It might be suicidal to keep trying to talk, but..." More said for herself, but said out loud.

Halta sighs, running her free hand through her hair. Her hair is pony tailed and tucked behind her clothes, but the sides are touchable. "Should I win, you will cease to be until I pass on, and I do want to know the truth of all this. Would be a bother for both of us if you keep being the Demon Lord instead of the Demon... Whatnot."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"A Lord is normally referring to a male?"

"Oh." Pause. "I mean it has a ring to it, unlike 'Demon Queen'."

Nod. "Demon Lady is quite strange in that regard. Lord is still slightly inaccurate, unless..." Thinking pause. "You said you have always been this way?"

"… 'This way' meaning female? Uh, I think I would've noticed if not."

"Just making sure, most of what I have to go off of," Halta gestures towards the journal, "is very inaccurate. I have heard of some spells along those lines, and you likely have access to them."

Pause. "Well, I have no way to know if you would have access to those spells."

"… Shapeshifting?"

She looks down at her hand, seems to notice she's stopped flinging fireballs, and – throws a small one.