The sky was not entirely bright and the wind was still blowing, but the waves were already calm and the rain had died down. Nannade crawled ashore after hours of drifting, some of which had been washed from her brain by exhaustion and coldness. Her mind had been stretched to almost a single thread, but she kept on crawling on land, beyond the tidal line. She was cold, so very cold, but on the sandy beach she would find no fire wood and she did not know any way to scale the steep cliffs ahead and whether she would find wood there either. Just surviving would have to do now.

She let herself fall into the sand for a while and before she knew, she was asleep.

She woke up under a brighter sky, even colder, hungrier and more beat down that before.

She finally got up and looked around. Her barrel was not far from her on the beach, rocked by the occasional waves. Some other flotsam was there with her. Parts of the Vigilantia no doubt.

She picked herself up and made sure her backpack was still with her. All of the stuff in there was soaked. The diary was torn and tattered. A few coins remained inside, but most importantly, the leather scrap in which she had wrapped the large acorn was still there and the acorn was still inside.

She set out down the beach. The cold winds made her shiver and her mouth jitter, but hopefully, walking would warm her up somewhat. More and more cargo came into sight, most of it useless to her. Empty crates and barrels. Some more parts of wreckage. A few weapons, she picked up a spear to have something; she hadn’t have her knives or dagger on her when the storm hit.

Shehadn’t seen any survivors yet, but after she had cleared a bent she saw someone. First she thought it to be another survivor, he was hunched over something lying on the beach. When she called out and he stood up to face her, she saw he was not wearing a sailor's clothes or a Mage’s robe. He wore simple clothes of leather and fur. His face was scarred and tanned, a thick bushy moustache adorned his upper lip. The thing he had been hunching over was a corpse, unmistakably a sailor of the Vigilantia.

The man seemed agitated and yelled at Nannade in a language that seemed familiar but still unintelligible to her. He drew a short axe and waved it about.

“Calm down, please, I mean no harm. I need help, please help me!”

He did not let up and defended the corpse, obviously his to plunder, against her slow and peaceful approach.

She continued to come close and decided to drop the spear. She was in no condition to fight. He made quick steps towards her and she decided to move back. No point in getting into a fight anyway.

As he got closer, he must have seen something in her, because suddenly, he decided to charge for her.

Was it her backpack? Her pristine body? Her exotic exterior? She was worth something now! He reached her and swung his axe.

Nannade blocked the strike at his arm, careful not to be hit by the axe’s blade. Her defence succeeded again and again, no small thanks to Ssil’s vigilance, but their body could not muster the strength to strike back.

He kept pushing her back, she would stumble sooner or later. It was time to strike. Her fist went straight to his face and hit, but it was too weak to cause any harm. He swung his axe from below and the blade sank into her exposed armpit.

Blood drained from her arm quickly, soaking her clothes. She lost all strength and fell backwards.The man stood above her now and she heard herself whimper

“No! Please!”

He put his left hand to her throat and struck out with the axe, ready to end her for good. She shot her left hand forward in a last attempt to catch the blade. It came down.

A wet rustling sound and a red soaking serpentine shape shot from her left sleeve, wrapped around the axe and yanked it out of the man's hand. The serpent's banner had moved on its own, the fresh blood like a conduit for Ssil's will.

As Ssil wrest the weapon from the man’s hand, he lost his balance and fell on Nannade. The banner brought the axe to Nannade’s hand, like reeling in a fish on the line. The man, full of panic, tried to stop it, but to no avail. She had the axe. Blindly, she brought it down where she thought his head would be. It sunk in, she pulled it out, sunk it in again, pulled it out, sunk it in again. Again. Again. Blood, brain and bone splattered over her, into her eyes and mouth, but she kept going a few more times. When she had lost her last bit of strength, she left the axe where it stuck in the man's head.

The twitching corpse laid on her, blood still seeped from her armpit. The bleeding needed to be stopped, but she was too weak to ever free herself from the heavy corpse.

The serpent was already acting. The banner wrapped tightly around her armpit, applying pressure on the wound and covering like a huge gauze, but she had lost too much blood.

Coldness and darkness took her.

She awoke again in oblivion. Everything was dark, not even warmth was discernable. A distant muffled grinding sound and constantrocking as all around her. A soft and moist weight was on her, she breathed in rot and decay. She could not move, too great was her weakness and the weight. She tried screaming, but her weakened lungs could not defeat the oppressive atmosphere.

Finally, the grinding and shaking stopped. The weight was alleviated bit by bit and finally, she managed to push something out of the way.

She emerged with a gasp. The cold air tore her skin, the bright sky scorched her eyes. She screamed as loud as she could and people around her answered in fright. When her eyes had adjusted, she saw men standing at the edge of a hole, throwing in dead bodies. She sat upright in a cart loaded with even more dead bodies. The shovel-wielding man right in front of her was visibly startled, she tried to say something, but before she could come up with anything, a metallic CLUNK hit the back of her head and knocked her back out again.