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How long had she been down here?

Days?

Weeks?

Months?

It all was a blur to her as she stood, barely balanced in the thick, murky depths of the swamp. Here she had been, the amalgamation who had been granted the named Morana, broken and forgotten after offending her creator when she only sought his praise. The price she paid for sending a few arrows into her creator's sister, Alma, was a new existence at the bottom of the largest peat bog, the bog where Magnus the Creator's puppets worked to turn preserved pieces of flesh into undead foot soldiers.

She had been ordered to work alongside these bloated tinkerers after her hands had been torn from her body. She'd been forced to experience pain again, the agony of a body not entirely her own to begin with. She was like those foot soldiers, pieced together into something new, something to breathe life into.

It was agony in these waters. She could manipulate very little with only stumps where her hands were and her stitches ached. She felt the urge to breathe but could never draw oxygen into her absent lungs. She wished for death daily, hourly in this place. She'd stopped trying to assist in creature building long ago and the tinkerers never noticed as she huddled to one corner of the bog's depths.

In the silence of the waters she was free to think. This was a gift bestowed on no other creature Magnus created, a free will and the ability to think. The madman wanted someone to talk to. Someone to think like him. What he got was Morana, a loyal if arrogant lackey that only infuriated him. Now here she was, doubting her creator... hating him, even. After an unknown amount of time passed he had still not granted her release from this agonizing pit and it was on this day she renounced her loyalty to Magnus, to the Nails.

When the moon was low in the night sky, the tips of Morana's pale horns broke the bog's surface. Using her stumps and doing her best to fight the crippling agony, she slowly climbed up the bank and out of the peat. With her torso on land she took a moment to lay still and breathe and tried her hardest not to whimper. Indigo hair matted and dripping, she cast her eyes about to see if she'd aroused suspicion.

Nothing. The creatures milling about were puppets, things set to a repetitive task with no interest in that which was like them. Only Magnus was of concern and the man who thought himself a god was now seated again on his stump of a throne, head in his hands and looking worse for wear.

Pulling herself out she awkwardly made her escape. Her severed hands were likely long gone, cast aside by Magnus. She couldn't risk looking. Her destination was far from these wastes, far indeed from her goal. She'd seen it only a few times but knew the way by heart.

Escaping the Nail encampment was far too easy compared to the pain she endured. Her stitches were on fire and she suddenly became aware how cold the world was now. The further she got from the swampland the more open the world became and the colder it was. Snow blanketed the landscape, a beautiful powder that seemed to absorb sound as she trudged through it, bare feet now screaming with pain in response to the cold.

When she began to wonder if her suffering would ever end, her destination came into view: The Claw Arms boarding house. The place looked quiet, like much of the world. The tenants were likely asleep, warm and content... for a brief moment, Morana hated them for their comfort while she suffered. Sense soon returned and she stumbled out onto the road that divided the boarding house's property and the thick woods beyond.

As she drew nearer she heard a slow, rhythmic chopping sound. To one side out in front of the building was the man her creator wished eternal suffering on. The man who went by the name 'Rot'. He had an axe in his hands, chopping firewood, a distant look in his blue eyes.

"I-I..." Morana tried to speak and only croaked. The sound was enough to jar Rot's concentration and his downward swing missed as he sunk the axe head into his chopping block. The eyes that met hers reminded her briefly of Magnus before recognition entered his expression.

"You..." he whispered, face contorting in a mask of hate. So he recognized her after all...

End part 1