[color=92278f][h2]Claudio[/h2][/color]

The man woke up. His head hurt, his chest hurt, his arm hurt. Everything hurt. He tried to move, and realized he was lying on soft sand. A stiff breeze came in, smelling of salt and charred wood, telling him that he'd been at some sort of fire on the beach. Something had happened... An explosion? Lots of fire. And... An attack.

An attack? Shit. He got up and searched for his armor, to find it neatly piled up beside him. The breastplate was cracked open like an egg. He looked down at himself and saw himself covered in blood-soaked bandages - looked pretty bad. Whoever had tried to help him must've seriously thought he was a goner, with these wounds, but he could at least move again. He took a look around, trying to get a feel for whatever had happened.

The airship was half-buried in the sand, with long gashes along its wood and brass construction where it had been ripped open by a rocky outcrop, and the balloon was completely incinerated. Something must've made a spark near it when they crashed. The fire in the camp had gone out days ago, too, it seemed.

All around him, bodies were laid out neatly, with sheets placed over them. His entire team was dead, save for one person, who was missing. Surrounding the camp were more corpses - dozens of them. He couldn't identify the species - some sort of native creature, at any rate. Big, with green skin and tusks. He decided to call them Orcs, at least until he found a better word for them. Blood was everywhere, and several of them had been ripped to shreds, bits of gore and bones strewn across the sand. One other kind of creature was also present, closer to the airship. Blue skin, vaguely fishy appearance. The pieces he could gather together made it appear as though it were bipedal - a fishman of some sort. Large pieces of shattered shell were everywhere, and small tentacles were strewn upon the ground, with black-green residue splattered across the side of the airship wreckage.

Judging by the carnage, something had apparently really, [i]really[/i] pissed off the mage, whatever her name was. She usually preferred to keep things clean, from what he remembered of her on the ship. If she wasn't here, she was somewhere else, which meant that he pretty much had zero chance of ever finding her again. Good, she was a pain in the ass anyway. But if everyone else was accounted for, that meant that she had tried to save his life. Fuck, he'd probably have to thank the little weirdo if he ever ran into her again.

He returned to the camp and gathered some supplies, then tried to put on his armor. He noticed something moving under the bandages on his right forearm, which weren't particularly bloody. He ripped them off, and screamed - a writhing mass of [i]something[/i] was on his arm. Little did he know what the mark meant.

Fortunately, he probably would never find out, because he was absolutely [i]shit[/i] at outdoor survival, and couldn't read the stars to save his life. When he wandered off, it took him only a week to realize that he was completely and hopelessly lost, and he was running low on water. Not a soul came across him, and he collapsed - another victim to the Continent.