His Night Vision spell kept him from running blindly into trees, but he was running fast enough that he still fell multiple times. The pain in his arm flared with every misstep, almost making him pass out a time or two. The sound of the rock giant crashing through trees behind him though, always brought him back to his feet.He knew he wasn’t running as fast as he could have because of his shoulder, so when he got a fair lead, he decided to do something about it. Running up to the trunk of a stout tree, he screwed up his courage. Giving himself a few test swings, he practiced slamming his shoulder into the tree Lethal Weapon style. He counted off, “One, Twooo,” a faint whimper escaped his mouth with the word ‘two.’ He didn’t stop his rhythm though, and with a mighty surge he slammed his shoulder into the tree and said, “THRREEEE!”The pain that had felt like a constant horrible burn exploded like a supernova. Waves of impossibly hot plasma like pain assaulted his consciousness and stars colored his vision. He dropped to the ground as an undignified and somewhat ladylike scream ripped itself from his throat. Looking over at his shoulder which still protruded forward awkwardly, he wailed to the heavens, “Well that didn’t work at ALL!” Another whimper escaped his lips, but the sound of breaking branches and a heavy tread reached him, and he knew it was time to run again. Despite his injury, Richter’s magic enhanced speed exceeded the rock giant’s despite their disparity in size so keeping ahead was not a problem. Unfortunately, this was a marathon, not a sprint. His endurance just couldn’t keep up with the rock giant’s relentless pace. Struggling to do so precipitated several near death experiences during Richter’s bleak flight through the dark forest.Once, he made the mistake of looking backwards to see how close the giant was. When he looked forward again, he slammed his face smack dab into a tree branch and fell to the ground, dazed. The monster’s thuds grew ever closer and by the time Richter was back on his feet, it was barely ten yards away. As he started running he had to dive forward because it threw its tree at him. The monstrous club flew wide thankfully and crashed into a stand of evergreens. The brush with death was close enough that it felt like his heart was trying to leap free of his chest and put just a bit more space between it and the giant. The pain in his shoulder had flared again when he hit the ground, but his adrenaline let him keep going. Richter got back up and kept running with the disappointed howls of his pursuer driving him to greater speeds. A second time, the rock giant put on an unexpected burst of speed, and made a swipe that caused Richter’s cape to furl from the near miss. He only saved himself by blindly throwing himself down an embankment. He rolled faster and faster until he landed with a bone jarring, breath stealing thud. As he fell, he heard the rock giant tumbling down the slope after him, no more in control of its descent than he had been.His breath had exploded from his lungs upon his landing and try as he might he couldn’t get back up immediately. As he worked to inflate his chest, he expected to be crushed at any moment by a giant rocky hand, but it didn’t happen. When he could finally breathe again, he looked over and saw the giant flailing about. Its incredible weight had driven its legs into the ground up to its waist.
