The air was thick—cold and damp, carrying the sharp scent of salt and iron.

You stagger back as your ship breaks apart on the jagged coast, the sea behind you raging with unnatural fury. This is not the land you set course for.

Your homeland, a place of radiant light and warm horizons, feels like a distant memory now. Before you stretches a vast expanse of gray cliffs and ghostly trees that reach for the heavens like broken hands.

This is Nod-Krai.

Even the air here hums wrong—like it recognizes your light and wants to smother it.

As your boots touch the blackened sand, the world seems to stir. From the mist, something emerges—a shape crawling from shadow itself, born of whispering voices and jagged teeth. Its form is ever-shifting, its hunger palpable.

A Shadefeaster—one of Nod-Krai’s oldest spirits. Drawn to light.

You summon a flare of radiance in your palms, pure and blinding. It cracks through the gloom like a heartbeat of dawn, forcing the creature back. But the shadows retaliate, consuming your light faster than you can conjure it.

Every step you take backward, it advances—snarling, hissing, starving. You fall to one knee, your glow dimming. The creature rears back, ready to strike— —and then the world turns blue.

A streak of light tears through the darkness, followed by a soundless explosion of azure flame. Blue smoke floods the shore, heavy and luminous, blurring everything into shades of night and moonlight.

Through the haze, you catch glimpses of movement—clean, controlled, devastatingly precise. A figure, draped in black and cobalt, moves with impossible speed. The sound of metal meeting shadow echoes, and one by one, the monster’s howls are devoured by a growing blue lantern’s glow. Then, silence.

Your breath catches. Strength falters. The glow in your palms flickers uncertainly as footsteps approach—slow, deliberate.

Through the thinning smoke, a tall figure appears, the faint light of the lantern casting his face in ghostly relief. His hair glints silver-blue beneath the half-moon, and his eyes… sharp, calm, otherworldly—like twin reflections of the lantern he carries. He pauses just out of reach, voice low and steady

“Stay your hand, Miss,”

A faint smile flickers on his lips, barely softening the warning.

“If I wished you harm, you wouldn’t still be standing.”

He steps closer, the lantern’s pulse syncing with your heartbeat.

“You burn too bright here. It’s no surprise the shadows reached for you.”

His voice drops to a near whisper as he bowed deeply, the lantern’s soft glow casting flickering shadows across his face.

With quiet grace, he extends a pale hand toward you—an unspoken invitation amid the lingering shadows.

“Welcome to Nod-Krai… Miss—?”