Path of Exile Talent Competition

Icy cold. Something clammy, meaty clawed at her ankle, pulled. A blinding flash of light. She kicked free, lunged forward. Her head broke the churning surface of the sea and she sucked in air, hair plastered to her face. Another flash, lightning making its jagged path to the horizon, thunder heaving and roaring so close she felt its rumble in her bones. In the brief brightness she could see the limping, wounded form of a ship, torn sails flapping, listing dangerously close to capsizing entirely.

A fresh wave, salt-sharp and freezing, rose up and slapped her back beneath the surface, sending her spinning into the depths. Debris and bodies boiled up out of the darkness around her, twisted in various attitudes of shock and fear. One person still struggled weakly, disoriented, swimming down rather than up. Eyes burning, she waited for the next flash of lightning. Something huge and dark loomed out of the depths. She squinted at it.

It seemed the prison ship was determined to kill her even now.

-

She started awake, gasping, snorting damp sand. Thunder rumbled somewhere far off. A fine, chill rain fell. A bother, if she hadn't already been soaked through. Everything hurt. Propping herself up on her elbows, she gingerly pressed her fingers to her forehead and they came away flaked with dried blood. It was a wonder she hadn't drowned.

Dragging herself free of the sucking surf, she staggered to her feet, limbs numb. Farther down the strand, two corpses leaned against a chunk of driftwood. She was alone then, it seemed, but perhaps she could find something of use. Limping towards the tangle of limbs, she froze when one body's head lolled towards her and offered a wan smile.

“Bastards dumped near two dozen of us off of that ship,” he croaked. “You and me, we're all that survived the swim.”

She watched him warily. He had a shred of mast jutting from his gut. A belly wound was a poor way to go, but a breathing man was a dangerous one. He coughed wetly and sucked in a ragged breath.

"Never was much difference between Exile and the death sentence. Once I catch my breath here we'll take a look around. See what Wraeclast has to offer." He weakly flapped a hand, indicating further up the beach. "I thought I saw some smoke at those ruins up the beach. Could be worth checking if there's-"

Sand crunched and the man's cadaverous companion abruptly reared up. The corpse pulled the wounded exile close, like a lover, bowed its head as though hunting for a kiss, then fastened his teeth to the man's cheek.

She edged around the pair, ignoring the squelch of gnawed flesh and shrieks of terror and pain, bent, and tore a branch from the sand. She felt it at once. The wood seethed. The black slime that coated it was more than algae and exposure to the elements. She stared down at it, teeth bared in a rictus of a smile, the sounds of carnage scant inches away now falling on deaf ears.

"The very sand shivers with malice," she said, voice soft. "There is a power here that welcomes me." The branch felt to her touch as though it buzzed in agreement.

Facing the risen corpse, she squared her shoulders and held her impromptu wand aloft. She jabbed forward, as though she held a fencer's foil and not a stray bit of flotsam. The air rippled, as though above a cobbled road in the midst of summer, and the corpse jerked back, bloody foam dripping from its jaw.

She gave the wand an appreciative look. “Hm,” she mused. “Yes, this will do.”

-

“What a strange little rock.” She rolled it around in her palm. The stone was blue, but not brilliantly so. No one would have mistaken it for a precious gem. In fact, if she simply tossed it up the beach, she might never find it again. But it called to her, the same way the bit of driftwood had. She held up the wand.

“Curious.” There was a knot in the wood that hadn't been there before. On a whim, she pressed the stone to the warped bit. The wood greedily sucked the stone into itself and held it fast, the fibers clinging to the stone's surface as though they had always been one and the same. She shrugged, stood, and aimed farther up the beach. A gout of flame leaped forth, dropping to the sand some distance off and turning it to glass.

Her lips twisted into a pleased smile. Thaumaturgy had got her in this predicament and it looked like it would be getting her out of it, which suited her just fine. She looked down at her would-be companion, the splinter in his guts and his face half chewed off. Being alone suited her just fine as well.

She strode on up the shore, toes numb in the chill surf. There had been civilization here once, she noted. Bits of buildings stuck up out of the sand like ruined teeth from a prizefighter's gums, salt-blackened and moldering. Crab-like things the size of a dog scuttled among the bricks, raising their tails menacingly and chattering as she passed. She blasted a clutch of them away with a well-placed ball of flame, wondered vaguely if they had any flavor to them as they thrashed and curled in the heat, then went on her way.

In the crook of a tumbled wall, she found a crate. Likely cargo from some other unfortunate ship of justice-dealing and its crew was hardly needing it now. She needed something to pry the crate open with, however, and she was not willing to risk breaking her wand in the attempt. She kicked at it, spongy wood groaning in protest beneath her bare heel.

She snatched a fair-sized stone off the sand, intending to bludgeon the crate open. She was rewarded instead with the gaping mouth of a previous exile, crushed beneath the fallen masonry. Sneering, she brought the stone back down with a force. Crate, skull, it made little difference to her. The risen corpse's rot-swollen head splattered, spraying her shins with gore, oddly warm for something so long dead.

Finding her way into the crate and emerging with a pair of moth-eaten slippers and something that vaguely looked like an empty sack of potatoes, she continued. It was not long before she stopped again. Farther up the beach, she saw a silhouette, vaguely man-shaped, and very near to the walls of the sanctuary she was aiming for. However, the walls were still far off yet, and the man's form was already very, very large.

She peered through the sea mist at it, him, whatever the thing was that barred her progress. It wandered back and forth along the wall's perimeter, its motions half confused meandering, half the predatory stalk of a creature that has its prey cornered, but can't quite reach it. She watched it for a moment, then shrugged. There was no way around the thing, she determined. She certainly wasn't throwing herself at the mercy of the sea again.

The behemoth heard her coming. The man, if an enormous one, whipped his head around at the sound of feet slapping on sand. He had a gaping wound on one side of his skull that still seeped rancid gore in spite of the cadaverous pallor of his flesh. Through his breast, where his heart should have been, pierced a great sword, its metal rusted and its leather worn thin by the weather. Elsewhere on his mountainous form bristled the evidence of failed attacks, a dusting of arrows as grisly quills.

She stopped some distance away from him. The man grunted, licked his lips, roared. The bellow tore wet from ragged lungs, cut abruptly short as a ball of fire slammed into him. Undeterred, bits of rotting clothing aflame, he stalked after his assaulter.

Backpedal. A pause to aim. A roar of flame and a burst of light. The smell of burning meat mingled with the fish rot of low tide, but still, the monster came on. Another feral roar. The beast reached up and pulled the blade from his chest with as little care as though he were pulling it from any other sheath. He came on then, faster somehow, despite his wounds, closing the gap between them. Would the scars left by her burns be just another testament to the futility of life in Wraeclast?

The monster screamed. She felt herself scream in defiance in return and flung another gout of fire. Then, all at once, the creature's knees buckled and he toppled mere feet from her, his massive weight knocking her from her feet. She pulled herself free from the twice-made corpse, covered in blood and wisps of her own singed hair floating about her face. She sat next to the monster, legs tucked beneath her, and looked down at the thing that had towered over her moments before.

"I like you better this way," she told him, pushing herself to her feet. Exhausted, but victorious, she walked the final stretch to what she hoped would be safety with nothing left to bar her way save for a rickety driftwood door.

As she stepped, wet with sea mist and blood from the behemoth on the beach, up to the wooden door and the pair of furtive eyes that peered at her from behind it, she washed up on the beach. Dark with thaumaturgy, draped in silk and wicked riches, thrumming with power, she spat sand from her mouth and pushed herself to her hands and feet. She glanced up the somehow familiar strand. A body propped against a fallen log lolled his head towards her and offered a skeleton grin.

“Bastards dumped near two dozen of us off that ship,” he croaked.