The forest lay in ruins around her as hunger gnawed at her bones. Nothing moved atop the cliffs, but she had found a path down to the valley below. By now, the white mists had made it halfway up the wall and showed no sign of slowing for all that they did not seem particularly fast.

As she began her descent, a sudden thundering sound split the awful quiet that had been left in the wake of the moon's departure, rolling over the world in a seemingly interminable manner. A lightning bolt came crawling out of the mists at the foot of the mountain, an incandescent sphere crawling towards the sky and moving so slowly that even she could clearly see it.

Lightning bolts that were significantly more normal scattered back of it, vanishing into the mists below and stirring them into shining vortices. It was an oddly stirring sight, simply based on the scale of what was happening. As she looked on, the air shaking around her, a second crawling lightning bolt rose out of the mist and the thunder redoubled - it was if the sky was screaming, the soundwaves clashing discordantly.

Alex started properly hurrying down the narrow - and certainly unnaturally formed - path down the cliff. The moment she entered the mists, the howling noise vanished and all she could hear was her heart beating in her chest. Unfortunately, she also lost sight of the edge. She could see the way ahead of her, for the next few steps at least, as a dark shadow beneath her feet and that was it.

It was, she thought, luck that the first fish came up the path only to find itself disintegrating into raw potential at the end of her spear. The next creature was not so polite, leading to Alex precariously twisting about herself as she tried to strike it.

Obviously in the mist she could make out no colours, but the fins were obvious - as were the teeth, which glimmered with malevolent green light. If she had had anything to bet, she would bet that they were venomous.

They were also fish. Even if it took her a while, since a narrow stone path on a cliff's edge was not the ideal battlefield for the twitching stabs of her spear technique she slew each one she encountered, corpses scattering into shimmering dust that fell away into the mist.

Finally, she reached the bottom of the cliff, the valley floor rising like a vast shadow on her right. She carefully stepped off the path. Her yelp as she sank up to her ankles into cold mud was swallowed by the damp white blanket that covered everything.

It was instantly followed by the glow of many, many teeth. The following melee was torturous, made worse by the fact that Alex had to struggle through the ankle deep mud and the fact that she was facing multiple foes at once when she had only been attacked by solitary fish on her descent.

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Still, the alien instincts of her technique prevailed, twisting and torquing her body about herself until none of her enemies remained.

A step later, and she found herself up to a knee in mud, her natural gracelessness almost sending her to the ground - this turned out to be a stroke of good fortune, as a moment later something darted impossibly quickly through where her chest would have been.

Alex steading herself, and held up her lantern for all that it was not lit. "Cursed thing, why can't you just be li-" The breath vanished from her lungs, her body screamed out for air and strength and a violent burst of magenta light lit up her murky surroundings, clearly illuminating three things.

First, that the mud in front of her was shallower again. Second, a snake that was rushing towards her recoiling with a faint wailing hiss. Third, and finally, a shrine on which rested a frogfish of gargantuan size, glaring at her with masses of bulbous, malformed eyes that leaked foul ichor.

"Oh. Lunch." Alex coughed as oxygen rushed back down her airways, relieving the pain of the lanterns light, which even now was dying.

For unlocking the use of Aura, +2AP.

For fully unlocking the use of the Tarnished Lantern, Omvorthox grants you a Least Blessing.

Her eye burned. A moment later, the mist immediately in front of her face thinned a bit and the taste of water and salt filled her mouth to fade away only an instant later. She barely noticed the foreign hunger in her blood consume the AP yet again - of course, fully missing it was impossible but between the sudden loss of air and the imminent danger, Alex almost managed it.

The snake recovered and shot at her again. She almost screamed as the alien instincts the Challenger had embedded in her twisted her arm up. In a twist of irony, the fact that she still hadn't replenished her breath was what prevented her own cries, and she was rewarded by the despairing death cries of the snake. It, unlike the fish, did not disintegrate into dust.

+1% Bloodline Assimilated By Conquest.

Alex regarded the creature at the end of her spear. "No idea how to eat you..." She peered through the mists, trying to spot the frogfish-like monstrosity and its shrine from earlier. It seemed like a spirit, or at least, one spirit adjacent. Which meant she would be able to burn it in her lantern for light and fuel for her body.

She licked her lips, feeling a slight divot on her tongue. A moment later, scents flooded her mouth, and she knew where the creature was.

Alexandra Johnson

Faction: Monster

Subfaction: Itinerant

Species: Human

Blood: 15(+4.5% Endurance, +15% Bloodline)(+1.15)% Bonus Bloodline, Total:(16.15%)

Bone: 10(+3% Tool Use, +10% Aura)

Flesh:10(+3% Technique Efficiency, +10% Regeneration)

Blessings: [Identify(Justice)][Omvorthoxan Devouring Eye]

Techniques: [Spear-Fishing][Walking]

Equipment Slots: [Weapon: Spear][Offhand: Tarnished Lantern]

Bloodline: First Serpent