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Acerbus was still gone, busy doing his own thing in the forest. He'll come back eventually, when he stops feeling too lazy to walk back. During the night, his hanging coat attracted a strange kind of thin string to it. It seemed to be spider's silk, but entirely black. This wasn't out of the ordinary for Acerbus, seeing that his coat was meant to attract spiders in the first place.

After finally noticing that the sun came up, he decided to keep wandering aimlessly. He closed his hand into a fist, extinguishing the black flame. Acerbus planned on bringing it back later if he found something interesting.

The young sheep then turned to Crystal, all blushy, and ... lost his composure as he suddenly got embarassed :
"uh well actually I don't know if I can pull it of without my staff so watch out for a fall..."
And before She had the time to insurge herself, Yuki had already untied the hammock with easyness before falling to the ground.... and behing caught softly by a cloud of his white dust shaped in the form of a normal sheep.
Jumping off to the little blue and purple field he laughed is heart out, apparently surprised that it had even worked.
"You can come dow Lady Crystal !" he said at the woman before realising she had already fell off the hanged platform by his fault.
"Oh right, I should have jumped and not unhooked the whole thing... how clumsy of me.."

As if by reflex, when Crystal fell she'd feel pressure and pain in her back as two deep, purple, and twisted bat like wings burst from her back. Catching wind they would carefully glide her safely down before rapidly rotting away with only deep purple scabs left behind. Shakily Crystal would readjust her top to hide the holes in them behind her pack. After the short wave of pain Crystal finally beamed a smile back.

"That was so cool! Where did you learn your magic?" Crystal would ask before walking towards the path once more.

Acerbus is deep inside the forest... where he can't be seen... suddenly, the shade of the trees around him goes darker and dimmer, almost as if night has fallen again...

A shadowy figure can be seen, appearing from the shadows, with a large beak on it's face, and a raspy voice of a male's...
The voice could be heard coming from the being... "Go back..." It raised one of it's hands, and a bright blue glow began to flow from it.

The satyr backed away, keeping a safe distance from the creature. At first, he was angry that something like that startled him but he calmed down quickly.

"Why should I?" Acerbus asked the silhouette. He appeared more interested than afraid, as his ears perked up slightly. The black flame ignited in the palm of his hand again, ready to resort to violence if needed. He continued to stare at the stranger, keeping his hearing clear.

The figure rasps once again... "Go back..."

Blue fame encircles the ground around figure, with lines of the fire slowly making their way toward Acerbus...

"Don't make me fight you, pal." Acerbus smiled in an attempt to cover up the anxious feeling building up in him. He didn't dare to move his eyes away from the creature.

He gripped tightly onto the metal bracelet that was wrapped around his wrist in a way that it was part of him. Now seemed like a good time to practice blood manipulation, not that it was a good idea.

Suddenly, the blue flame around the area turned vibrantly red, and the figure raced toward Acerbus with lightning speed, gripping his neck with a cold hand tightly, and raising him into the air attempting to choke him. A harsh snarl could be heard from the shadowy figure. "YOU DARE DEFY ME BOY? I'll rip you to bits for your foolish ignorance!"

Acerbus stared with widened eyes, not bothering to resist. He fidgeted with his bracelet more, twisting it. The blade built into the bracelet wasn't long enough to reach bone, but long enough to expose blood.

"Y-Yes." He barely managed to slip past his desperate breaths for air. If he was gonna die, he might as well have fun doing so.

As the strange powder flew on her on back to the jar and then was put inside the bundle, Yuki began to happily pick the new flowers he had grown over the night to put them into the other jar.
Blushing as if telling a secret the young sheep shyly answered :
"My Master taught me so that I could protect the herds... But I never were any good at magic... I'm just capable enough to use the items he left me.. Like this powder it-...
...
There's something wrong, the staff shouldn't be glowing like that..."
Suddenly frightened asif he had seen death, Yuki rose an awfully woried gaze at the Human :
"We.. W-We should... shouldn't ... Where is our ally ?!"

At first Crystal didn't understand, but soon the realization quickly washed over her face as she frantically looked around. She knew he was going to walk around for a bit but he should be back by now.

Her eyes dropped to Yuki as she hurriedly said,"We shouldn't have let them go on their own. Come on we need to find them and quick." Deep down Crystal was already thinking about what may have happened to their other ally, and none of it was good. At a dead sprint Crystal ran, calling out their name.

An otherworldly snarl could be heard from the figure, then, a clawed hand rakes over Acerbus' chest, creating deep slashes.

He hears the voice of Crystal and drops Acerbus. "Well, let's just see if your friends can save you now..." Just as quickly as the being appeared, it vanished out of sight, with the darkness and fire fading away...

"I don't need friends to save me. I can save myself!" Acerbus growled back, not caring if the creature heard him or not. He moved his hands, forcing his exposed blood to move with them. The blood was crystallized into sharp spikes, hovering by Acerbus. With another motion of his hand, the spikes flew towards where he last seen the figure.

He pushed himself off the ground and stood, slouching as he stared into the distance. Frustrated that he let that happen, he twitched and grumbled to himself.

Following the running woman with difficulty, Yuki had a faint bleat has the light of his shepherd staff went off.
He sighed in relief before realising that, even if the danger was gone, maybe was his ally wounded or worse, and instinctivly he thought for himself : "If they are wounded, then we won't had enough firepower to face any more danger and I'll be in more danger.."
He shook his head off in disgust at his own egoistic animal thinking : he was taugh better than that..
Hurrying up the caprine picked up the quick pace of the human and searched for their collegue with as much as his wimpy shout could do.

In the distance she could have sworn she heard something, but rather than doubt herself Crystal immediately turned for it. Within moments she could see her ally and regret quickly washed over her. He was hurt pretty badly, with several gashes going straight through his chest. She's make his way to him,"Hey! What happened?" Before hearing the answer she turned to Yuki? Do you know how to heal this?"

The greatest regret Crystal ever had is that her power isn't unlimited. Namely, she couldn't heal anyone, herself included.

All noise was a blur to Acerbus, as he was too angry to be communicated with. Once he heard Crystal, he swiftly crystallized more of his own blood and shot it towards her. Acerbus barely missed and snapped out of his state after realizing it was his allies.

"Don't touch me. I did this to myself, so I can heal myself too." Acerbus lied. His hearing cleared itself as Acerbus was slowly calming down. "What are you doing out here? I told you I'd sneak away during the night. That was also really dangerous that you found me while I was practicing."

Looking down at his bare feet Yuki whimpered in his docile voice :
"Please excuse Lady Crystal , it's my fault if She ran to your help, I .. thought You were in some danger : don't blame herfor my misdids..."
Shivering while still bowing his head, the incubus hide his frail body behind hid staff as if it would be off any help.

"You don't need to say sorry for me Yuki, cause I'm not sorry. What if something actually happened to you? What would we do? We're a team, and we'll be the only ones there for one another. What we're going up against is way over any one of our heads, but together we just might do something. I'm not asking you to like us, I'm just asking that you trust us." Crystal would pause for a breath and put on a light smile,"We don't have to fight alone anymore. Against all odds at least we have each other. Let's not break that."

The dawning sun rises over the horizon... it is now morning. It is a clear sky, with no clouds.

A cool breeze flows through the Isle...

Even here, inside the middle of an elderberry forest, the city in which The Lich is supposedly in can be seen in the distance...

Acerbus stared, unamused. He began to walk away as Crystal was talking, losing interest in such a serious conversation. He didn't even bother to close up his wounds, letting the blood drip. Letting out a long sigh, he held up the black flame again and followed the path it created. The path was only seen by people with an odd sense of sight.

"Boring conversations aren't my thing either." Acerbus said with a smug expression, delighted to find what made his allies tick. "Seen my coat anywhere? It's kind of important."