Digit, now... alone?

Digit couldn't see the snapdragon any more. The clearing, the cabin, it had all vanished from view behind her. She slowed her pace to conserve stamina, but kept glancing furtively around as she briskly continued to retreat, expecting to be pounced upon from the shadows at any moment.

That was until she saw something that froze her dead in her tracks.

She looked upwards, fearing a potential dive-bomb attack, and gazed upon a chilling, blood-red sky. The full moon, in its shining crimson glory, was like a gaping wound in the world, leaking a sense of eerie malice into the atmosphere.

Sounds of the forest around her filled her ears as she caught her breath. What she had taken for the howling wind rushing past her was in fact a cacophony of howls and moans echoing throughout the woods, reverberating with grotesque sexuality.

Pain blossomed from her finger and spread throughout her hand! She dropped to the ground, her possessions softly scattering in the grass beside her, and clutched at her wrist as she desperately tried to stifle a scream. It felt like it was going to burst! Like a balloon being inflated close to its breaking point, there was a great pressure, an urgent need for release!

The noises intensified in her ears, to the point she felt like she was drowning under wave after wave of screams and groans. Her breathing got faster, but her lungs felt unsatisfied with every gasp. She couldn't even hear her own thoughts over the screams, there was nothing but screams, and she realised that she was screaming along with them. How long had she been screaming? It felt like not even time itself could penetrate the wall of noise.

Digit watched in horror as her fingertip started to glow black, somehow emanating darkness as if it were light. A turquoise aura hovered at the edges of the darkness, intensifying as greenish-blue bolts of electricity arced between her knuckles.

Her arm jerked out in front of her, and she whispered a word so loudly that it seemed to erase all other sounds. It was not a word she knew, or could even comprehend the pronunciation of, but it crawled past her lips all the same. A crackling beam of black & teal energy blasted out from her finger and slammed into a nearby tree, showering the area in fragments of bark and woodchips.

A wave of dizziness rocked her as the pain receded from her arm. For an instant, she thought she saw a glowing turquoise mark on the back of her hand. Then she blinked, and spots danced all across her vision.

A chill ran up her spine as she felt a breath in her ear. She spun around... but there was no-one there. The wind washed over her, making her shiver again, and the moans of the forest once again came back into focus. This time though, they felt much less overbearing... they were just background noise.

She shakily got to her feet, glancing from her hand to the tree and back. The trunk had been dented by a good few centimetres, as if it'd been hit by an ogre wielding a war hammer.

That was decidedly not prestidigitation.

What the hell did that ring do to me?

She flinched at a rustle in the bushes behind her. She spun around, instinctively brandishing her index finger like a weapon... but nothing emerged from the shadows. It was just the wind.

She let out a deep breath. She may not know what exactly had just happened, but if she could repeat it, it might give her a substantial edge in surviving this crazy place. And hadn't she always wanted to learn new spells? Maybe a life-or-**** scenario is just what she'd needed all along to jump-start her magic?

Every explanation she gave herself felt hollow. She knew that none of them made sense. But right now, she couldn't afford to go crazy dwelling on it. Every fibre of her body told her she was still in danger, and she should at least move from this spot in case her inexplicable explosion had drawn any attention.

She picked up her scattered items and took back off into an unsteady hover. She took a second to look around. Her sense of direction had been thrown off almost completely, but she picked a direction she believed to still be away from the cabin, and fluttered slowly away.

Undetectable to her was the marking which accompanied her. On her back, sat vertically between her wings, was an ornate tattoo of a turquoise eye.

(1 action: cast eldritch blast)

(1 action: travel)