Blue Claw fed another monster core to his greedy Totem as he dragged himself the rest of the way out of the Hungry Ground. He’d come so close; why had the Spirits decided to turn his Storm of Life into Hungry Ground? Hadn’t they said that the power would grow until he reached the Blighted Peaks?

What was the Wrath of Crystal they spoke of? It almost sounded like they felt fear, and the Spirits never felt fear.

At least they’d protected him from the end of the Storm, the Hungry Ground, and the attacks of the Blighted. For a moment, he regretted that neither his apprentices nor the warriors sent by the Council of the Tree had been protected, but some things were always up to the Spirits. Their Word was that they could only protect those close enough to them, and it seemed that was only him.

It made sense, in some ways; he was old, and this Cleansing was his final task. He’d planned to return home as another Spirit, especially once he burnt his Life to Call the Storm.

Now, that was impossible. There was no one to carry his banner back to the People. If he passed forward, he would be trapped, stuck in the half-life of a Lost Spirit. It was worse that he wouldn’t be alone; many of the warriors and all of the apprentices had carried Spirits as well, and they were lost. Many were destroyed by the Hungry Ground, but others were simply abandoned on the plains where they fell. Blue Claw wished he could do something for them, but there was nothing to do.

The Blighted Peaks needed to be cleansed, and he was the only one left to try.

While he was thinking, Blue Claw emerged from the Burnt Land that surrounded the Hungry Ground. It was merely hot when he saw a mismatched group of four-legs waiting ahead of him.

No, he was wrong. One had the proper six; a Flying Kin of some sort. Blue Claw stopped in shock.

What was a Flying Kin doing with four-legs? Were they here to help, or were they Blighted as most four-legs were? It was a curious enough sight that Blue Claw knew he needed to find out. It might be the answer to dealing with the Blighted Peaks or it might mean his death, not even passing to the Spirit Realm, but his cause was lost without help anyway.

He only had so many monster cores, and while his Totem needed far fewer now that its Spirits were no longer having to protect him from the Hungry Ground or the Blighteds’ Stings, that would change the closer he got to the Blighted Peaks. Blighted were never willing to be Cleansed, and these Blighted seemed exceptionally capable at preventing it.

If he’d only had the time to establish a proper Home Camp!

Blue Claw wasted a moment wishing for something he hadn’t had time for; it would have increased the odds of successfully cleansing the Blighted Peaks considerably; more than that, it would have meant that they wouldn’t need to rely on the Fragile Path to have a Home. This land was warm and welcoming, except for the presence of the Great Blight; it would have been so much better if they could have waited until Blue Claw’s Spirit could aid his best apprentice against the Peaks.

That would have taken years, and it was not to be.

Blue Claw turned slowly towards the strangers and walked towards them. The Flying Kin’s presence was a sign from the Spirits; Blue Claw simply wished he could read it before he reached them.

“Greetings?” The Flying Kin spoke first. That was a good sign, though the fact that he used the ugly often-Blighted language known as Bridge instead of the tongue of the People was not.

Blue Claw took a good look at the Flying Kin. If he was Blighted, it would be a terrible thing.

The Flying Kin shone with an inner light to Blue Claw’s Detect Blight. He was unBlighted; more than that, he was Pure, destroying Blight wherever he went. His presence wasn’t just a good omen; it meant his mission might even succeed!

“Greetings. Why are you here, on the Plains of Loss?” Serenity could hear the capitalization in the way the centaur spoke those words.

Still, Plains of Loss? These weren’t really what Serenity would call Plains, especially not after the results of the lightning storm. “Did you just name this place?”

The blue centaur seemed completely shocked by Serenity’s question. He didn’t reply for long enough that Serenity decided to ask another question. “Why are you here, anyway? You don’t seem to be here just to conquer?”

The centaur actually recoiled at the question. Serenity hadn’t expected that sort of reaction, conquering was a normal reason to join an invasion. Why did the question bother the centaur?

“Conquerors? Is that what our Kin think of us?”

Wait, what? Kin?

Serenity was confident he seemed just as surprised as the centaur had when the centaur continued, “Have others fallen so far, so fast, for us to be seen as conquerors? No! We are the last of the True Ones, the last who stand against the Blight! We must cleanse these lands of it, bring them back to what they should be, allow our Kin to rise as they should! That is why we came, and despite the Loss of our Kin, we must continue!”

Great. A fanatic.

Serenity rewound the statement and found that one word stuck out. “When you say blight, what do you mean?”

The centaur stared at Serenity as if it didn’t understand the question for a moment. When it finally spoke, it sounded almost lost. “You do not know Blight. Have our Flying Kin fallen so far? Once, all knew and fought Blight, but you do not know what it is. So you wonder if we come to conquer for you know no better. You must learn, but first we must fight the Blight.”

The centaur nodded, clearly emphasizing its belief in its words. “Blight is the poison of the world, the corruption and downfall of all who accept it. This world is badly Blighted, it is everywhere. It must be Cleansed, and our goal is the Blighted Peaks. That is enough to earn us a place. A place where we can grow and prosper, to launch new expeditions against the Blight!”

Serenity frowned. He really, really hated fanatics. “You still haven’t said what blight is.”

“Blight is blight. It is what happens when the that which is becomes that which is not, and yet does not return to the warm embrace of the All.” The centaur shook himself a little as he looked at Serenity. “But you know this. You are Cleansed, you are Pure. Why do you ask what it is? You have removed it from yourself.”

Serenity still didn’t understand what the centaur was talking about, but there was only one sort of “cleansing” that seemed to make sense. “Do you mean Intent? Leftover bits of magic? There isn’t much of that here. There are bits of magic, but Earth is really quite clean. There are very few practitioners.”

“That can cause Blight,” the centaur half-agreed, “But it is not Blight itself. Magic done with the aid of the Spirits is free of Blight, for it gives back to the world as it takes. No. Blight is…”

The centaur looked around for a moment. He seemed to stare at each of Serenity’s companions before bending down to pick up a rock from the ground. “This has Blight. It is not much, but it is not solely on the surface. It has been flooded with Blight for a very long time, everything here has. If I were to simply remove the Blight, it would do much more than that.”

The centaur seemed to look through the rock, then looked back up at Serenity. “I will purify it now. Watch and see.”

It was a long wait. Serenity looked at the rock in every way he could think of but all he saw was a rock. The rock started looking somehow fragile, almost flaky as he watched, so Serenity tried looking at the centaur, to see what he was doing to the rock.

There was a thin stream of mana traveling from the mage to the rock. When Serenity looked at it closely, he could see that there were voids developing in the rock. They seemed to form shapes; one near the surface caught Serenity’s eye. It looked like the negative image of a seashell. “Fossils. That rock has fossils in it, and you’re removing them.”

The word “fossils” didn’t translate well into Bridge, so Serenity translated it reflexively as “ancient life”.

“No,” the centaur disagreed. “There is no life here. Only the Blight left behind.”

“Is Death Blight, then?” Serenity watched as pieces of the rock started to call off. It was limestone, after all.

The centaur shook his head. “Death is death, it is normal. Blight happens when death passes beyond death. That is not the only Blight but it is one.”

“Undeath,” Serenity muttered. The centaur was clearly another fanatic who hated the undead. They were unfortunately common; Serenity was grateful he was no longer undead. Not yet undead? Whichever. Hopefully he would never be undead.

The thought brought Serenity back to the present. He wasn’t here to find out what Blight was; he was here to find out what they could do with the centaur. No one was quite willing to just shoot him out of hand (especially after he showed that even without the storm he was basically bulletproof with whatever item shield he was using), but at the same time no one wanted to let him go free. “You want to cleanse the Blight. What will that do to the people who live near wherever you’re cleansing?”

The centaur seemed to shrug. “Kin will leave. Not-Kin will leave or die and be cleansed.”

Fanatics!

Serenity shook his head. “And if we put you in a safe place, will you stay there?”

Serenity didn’t really expect locking the centaur up to work very well, but it was worth asking.

“My duty is to cleanse. I cannot cleanse if I do not move. My tribe died to bring me here, I must recover their Spirits and cleanse their deaths.” The centaur clenched the hand holding the rock into a fist, crushing the remaining “rock” and sending powder flying. “The Blight must be Cleansed.”

“If we let you stay here to clean up after your dead?” It was the largest concession Serenity thought he could get; giving the centaur an area of land this large would be a hard sell, even if he never left it. If it was temporary, it would work better, but then they’d need another place to keep the centaur.

The centaur shrugged. “I am Blue Claw. I was the Claw for this Cleansing. I will Cleanse my people, then I will travel to the Blighted Peaks and Cleanse them.”

Given what Serenity remembered, the Blighted Peaks had to be why the centaurs went to Denver in the past; the only “Peaks” nearby were the mountain range, and it wasn’t called the Defense of Denver afterwards because a different location was attacked. Serenity gave him one last chance. “Can you show me exactly which areas need cleansing? There is a city in that direction.” Serenity waved a hand in the general direction of Denver.

“A city?” The centaur repeated the words, then shrugged again. “Cities are breeding grounds for Blight. Encampments must be cleansed every year to prevent the buildup of Blight; it grows faster in a city. If there is a city in the Blighted Peaks, cleansing it is needed to cleanse the Peaks.”