Not too far from where Ashe was, another was making their way through the woods, and much like her they were wounded and tired.

Shen was not doing great. He had told everyone to separate when the Blight ambushed them. Lizz had died almost immediately and Kelvir had followed soon after, they hadn’t even had the time to draw their weapons before it fell upon them.

His plan had been to have the thing follow him and then hopefully scare it off with a Pricing or two allowing him to escape. The first part had worked; he had been the Blight’s next target after Lizz and Kelvir anyway so when everyone scattered it had chased him only distractedly slashing at Ashe when she had hit it over the back of its head.

Unfortunately Shen was not very fast compared to most people in his party, let alone a Blight almost twice his height. He could hear it as it was chasing him. Despite its size it seemed to be supernaturally proficient at running through the densely forested slopes and cliffs of Aberimm, nature itself seemed to make way for it, but it still made a lot of noise. Heavy footfalls accompanied Shen as he ran faster than he ever had, his lungs burned and he could feel a sharp pain in his side, but that relentless thump, thump, thump made him keep going. He kept leading it, running, dodging between trees, and sliding down a couple of steep inclines trying to slow it. But it did not slow, it kept getting closer, the footfalls louder .He had to get it just a bit further, just a few more seconds, just a few more steps.

As he was readying to turn and use a Pricing the air rushed from his lungs. A large appendage made of rotting wood, vaguely resembling a hand with three fingers, had wrapped around him. It slammed into his side with tremendous force. Force enough to lift him off of the ground and toss him into a briar. In his disorientation Shen looked down and was horrified to see that a ‘finger’ had pierced his gut leaving a terrible gash in his body.

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He was going to die. Elixir wouldn’t fix this much damage. Unfortunately for the Blight, he was still conscious, and that much Life and blood leaving him all at once meant that he could try his damndest to take it with him. It ran at him as he struggled to stand, and fumbled with a pocket on his side satchel. The Blight was big, a being of vaguely humanoid shape that looked to have been made of rotting roots and bark that had intertwined in a disturbing way to produce a three metre tall monster, a champion of decay. Its head grew into what looked like a five-pointed crown and its face, if it could be called that, was completely smooth with two completely dark eye-shaped holes.

As it got within two steps of Shen, he finally managed to grasp a small stone disk with his bloodied hands. Shen flicked the Pricing towards the Blight. As the small black stone was spinning through the air, the complex pattern on the face of the disc started glowing red with heat. The blood left on the Pricing ignited, fueled by the life leaving Shen’s body. The disc changed. It expanded. It became fire that took the shape of a bird, shrieking as it collided with Blight’s shoulder, engulfing it in a fireball and filling the air with the smell of burnt wood.

The Blight could not scream but Shen maliciously thought that, right then, it probably wanted to. It tried to put the flames out with its monstrous limbs but they were not yet natural. The Pricing would keep fueling them for at least a few seconds. The horrifying spirit turned and ran towards what Shen assumed was the nearest source of water. He had hurt it. It would survive but he had hurt it.

“And Ashe said I’d burn down the woods.”

Shen stumbled away. He was not surviving this but hopefully he would be able to walk long enough to get the elixir to Ashe. She had been slashed and Blight wounds were always bad.

-

Shen did not know for how long he had been walking. Or if he had even been walking in the same direction the entire time, blood loss and possibly a fever made it hard to tell. The trees started to thin. Shen could see a clearing or glade up ahead. The sight energised him, he ran forward, this could be the meeting point. The last thing Shen remembered before passing out was the glade. It was dominated by an enormous tree.

Etrosia [https://i.imgur.com/KfYAkT0.png]