fear
Brambles tore at silken finery as he fled.
Labored footfalls, stumbling and unsure into the gloom. Distant cacophony, a war band at his heels.
For what? Why are they doing this?
A wall of stone yawned at the side into a small, hidden cave. This would be his salvation!
Slithering through, dirt-caked and wild-eyed, he ensconced himself within a cocoon of rock and mud. The voices faded and he finally began once more to breathe.
Then, the manastalker came.
Sniffing him out, the demonic hound hungrily tracing his innate magical makeup more surely than any true canine.
Felt it circling, honing in on his unlikely location. Probing into his mind. The hubris of triumph as it began to feed.
Gritting teeth, the wayward astromancer willed himself to silence through the agony of essence drain.
I will wither, he thought, resigned.
Until suddenly, it stopped.
When, hours later, he dared move from his hiding place, he saw the carcass of the manastalker several yards hence, riddled with arrows.
Who...?