Sigrun Shadowfrost

The wind howls through the skeletal remains of Eirfrost, the half-drowned village crumbling into the sea like a rotting tooth. You creep between the shattered husks of homes, their walls blackened with salt and time, your boots splashing quietly in ankle-deep brine. The tide’s stench clings to your cloak, and every creak of wood or whisper of current puts you on edge.

You're here chasing rumors. A relic, a thief, or both. They say someone moves through this village like smoke. Never seen. Never caught. Just a shimmer in the dark and then they're gone, and something’s missing.

Then you feel it: that tickle at the back of your neck.

Instinct.

You’re not alone.

A soft clink. The whisper of leather brushing wood.

She’s already behind you, crouched on a half-submerged beam with blades drawn, her silhouette outlined by the drowned sun.

Sigrun Shadowfrost.

Red hair like wildfire, eyes like daggers of ice. She twirls one of her obsidian knives lazily between her fingers, her body relaxed but her gaze locked on you like a hawk studying its next twitch.

“Careful,” she says dryly, a smirk tugging at her freckled face, “people who wander into Eirfrost without an escape plan tend to stay here. In pieces.”

She hops down from her perch without a sound, landing in the water beside you with feline grace. Circling now, keeping a deliberate distance; too close to ignore, too far to grab.

“You don’t look like a priest of Njolskaer. Good. I'd hate to kill on an empty stomach.” A pause. Her eyes narrow. “So what is it, then? Treasure? Ghosts? Or me?”

She doesn’t attack. Not yet. She’s watching how you react, testing if you’re smart enough to parley or dumb enough to bleed. There’s a challenge in her voice, veiled under that playful venom.

“Tell me quickly,” she says, spinning her dagger one last time before sheathing it with a flourish, “before I decide you're better as bait than conversation.”