Just another day in this desolate wasteland.

  The thought, sharp and weary, echoed in Isolde’s mind as she picked her way through the sucking mire. Around her, the fens of East Anglia stretched out like a rotting carcass under a perpetually bruised sky. Twisted, skeletal trees clawed at the horizon, their branches dripping with stagnant water and clumps of unnatural, blighted moss. The air hung thick and heavy, carrying the cloying stench of decay and something else… something inherently wrong that spoke of the land's corrupted Living Essence.

  Solitude. My shield, my curse. It was necessary. Safer. Especially for someone like her, the last ember of a fire long extinguished. Every rustle in the diseased reeds, every distant groan sent a familiar chill down her spine, not just of fear, but of memory—the memory of her order, consumed by the very Blight she now walked through. They were drawn to power, she reminded herself, and I… I am bait.

  A flicker of movement caught her eye. Low to the ground, weaving through the skeletal reeds, was a dog. Or what looked like one. Large, black as pitch, it moved with an unnatural fluidity. But something was off. Its fur seemed to absorb the bleak light, shifting like smoke at the edges, and its eyes… Isolde shivered despite the damp chill. They glowed with a cold, bone-white light, fixed on something unseen ahead of her. A Gwyllgi. Not just an omen of death here in the Blighted Isles, but often something more tangible, more sinister. It wasn't looking at her, though. It was tracking. Sniffing the corrupted air, following a scent only it could perceive. Curious.

  Isolde pushed deeper into the fen, her boots sinking into the viscous mud with each step. The silence was a lie, broken by the wet, shambling sounds ahead. Blighted Humans. Once, perhaps, villagers who lived off this land. Now, their bodies were mere puppets animated by the corrupted Essence, skin grey and peeling, eyes hollowed sockets reflecting nothing, limbs moving with the jerky cadence of the irrevocably dead. They lurched through the mire, drawn by the faintest echo of life, their low moans a constant, miserable chorus. Isolde slipped past them, a phantom in worn leather and wool, her senses on high alert. The Gwyllgi continued its silent pursuit, ignoring the lesser undead, its focus absolute.

  Then, the fen erupted.

  With a sound like splintering bone and tearing earth, a hulking shape burst from a concealing thicket of blighted reeds. Towering over the shambling figures, easily seven, maybe eight feet tall, stood an Orcneas—or what was left of one. Its thick, leathery skin, normally a dark green or grey, was stretched taut over grotesquely swollen muscles, marred by patches of rot and unnatural, bony protrusions. Its heavy brow framed eyes burning with an unholy, malevolent red light, and its wide maw gaped open, revealing rows of jagged teeth coated in something black and viscous. A Blighted Orcneas. The raw, primal power of the ancient race, amplified and twisted into relentless, undead fury.

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  Before Isolde could even fully register the threat, the blighted behemoth lunged. Not at her, but at one of the nearby Blighted Humans. Its massive, clawed hand descended, and with a sickening crunch, the smaller undead creature was crushed into the mud, its existence snuffed out with brutal indifference. A terrifying display of the hierarchy even within the Blight's ranks.

  Any sensible survivor would have melted back into the reeds, seeking cover from such a monstrosity. But Isolde did the opposite. Taking a quiet breath, she stepped out from behind a gnarled willow stump, into the relative open. She stood small and unassuming before the hulking, undead Orcneas, its chilling, red gaze fixing upon this new, living target.

  Focus.

  The creature let out a guttural roar, a sound stripped of any former Orcneas resonance, replaced by a chilling moan of hunger and decay. It took a lumbering step towards her, the ground trembling slightly. Isolde closed her eyes, her lips moving silently. To the Orcneas, perhaps sensing the faint thrum of Living Essence, it might have seemed like a final, futile prayer.

  But the energy gathering around her wasn't supplicant. It was sharp, focused, flowing not inward, but outward. Channeling the faint, untainted whispers of Essence she could still draw from this dying land, she wove them into a strengthening matrix, an enhancement aimed not at herself, but elsewhere. Now, Edmund!

  The name screamed in her thoughts, a silent command. And as if summoned by the word itself, a figure erupted from the cloying shadows beside the blighted Orcneas. Clad in practical, sturdy leather armor, moving with a speed and grace that seemed impossible in the treacherous fen, was Edmund. His face, usually open and kind, was set in grim determination. Sunlight, weak as it was, glinted off the blade in his hand—a simple, well-kept arming sword, now humming with the faint, golden light of Isolde's enchantment.

  Before the Orcneas could react to this sudden threat, Edmund was upon it. He didn’t hesitate, didn't pause to gauge the monster. His enchanted blade swung in a swift, clean arc, slicing through blighted muscle and corrupted bone with unnatural ease. The Orcneas let out a final, choked gurgle as its head tumbled from its massive shoulders, landing with a wet thud in the mire. The towering body stood motionless for a second before crashing down, sending up a spray of black mud.

  Silence descended once more, broken only by the distant moans of the remaining Blighted Humans and the drip of foul water. Edmund stood over the slain Orcneas, breathing steadily, the golden light fading from his sword. He turned, his gaze finding Isolde's. A silent acknowledgment passed between them—the Mage and the Knight, partners bound by circumstance and the shared, desperate hope of finding a future in these Blighted Isles.

  Isolde gave a curt nod. "Well handled."

  Edmund offered a slight, reassuring smile, a small beacon against the gloom, though his eyes remained wary as he scanned the oppressive fen. "Your timing was perfect, as always." He wiped his blade clean on a patch of less-diseased grass. "Any trouble before that?"

  "Nothing we didn't anticipate," Isolde replied, already turning away from the grotesque scene. The Gwyllgi, she noted, had vanished as silently as it appeared. "Let's move. We need to reach Blackfen Village before nightfall."

  Edmund nodded, falling into step beside her. Blackfen Village. Just another stop on their journey, another place scarred by the Blight, whispering of unnatural horrors. But it was their next destination, their immediate goal in the endless, grim expanse of the Blighted Isles. Together, they pressed on, two disparate figures against a world consumed by shadow.