In the jungle, sound comes from all around. Exotic birds warbling in the branches, gurgling streams running down channels of rock, animals of many different kinds scampering through the overgrowth or jumping from tree canopy to tree canopy. With all the background noise, it's hard to focus in on one thing. But for hunters, it's a necessity.

Slithering. Crunching.

A green snake, slipping its way through some underbrush, over crumbly fallen leaves. Probably looking for food. Maybe small rodents, maybe insects, maybe even a bird's egg if it could find a nest.

Snap.

A twig cracked nearby. The snake smelled blood. It stopped in place, lifting its head to peer around.

A large boar stood above. Its brown fur was matted down with mud and stumpy, yellowed tusks protruded from the sides of its snout. The fur around its mouth was wet and reddened. Though it had recently eaten, it had grown hungry again - and the snake seemed like an easy snack. Boars, unlike their domesticated cousins, weren't docile livestock. They were omnivores, and when they wanted meat, they would kill for it.

The snake barely had time to move. With a grunt, the boar lunged and stamped one of its cloven hooves down, catching the snake beneath. It squirmed and spasmed around desparately, trying everything it could to escape and failing pathetically. But, before the boar could kill it with another stomp...

Thwok!

An arrow. It flew in from out of nowhere and sunk into the side of the boar's head. It reeled, went stiff, went limp, and finally collapsed over onto its side. Relieved, the snake wriggled away, nerves shaken from the near-death experience. On the way to safety, it heard what sounded like a much larger snake slithering up to the dead boar.

But it wasn't a snake. At least, not completely.

Seen from the waist up, it was a dark-skinned human woman, with a body toned from exercise, her green-colored hair the only odd thing about her. But instead of legs, she had the scaly jade tail of a serpent, ten feet in length and as thick as her torso. Though the little snake had no way of knowing, its savior had been a distant cousin: a lamia: part snake, part human.

Her name was Jadania. For a while now, she had been on an expedition to prove herself as a true warrior, a title all lamia of her tribe strived for. This jungle was only her latest stop, and it reminded her of the rainforest she had called home all those years. She had no idea how far away from it she was. But she didn't let that bother her.

"Dum de dum de dum." she hummed happily to herself as she reached the dead boar. Bending over, she ripped the arrow from her kill and watched the projectile wither away into gray smoke. Her special bow fired mystical, cursed arrows out of thin air - it felt a little strange to go hunting with the thing. She hoped the curse didn't stick around on the meat.

It was a long, strange story. At the beginning of her journey to prove herself, Jadania had slithered her way into his temple, an ancient structure filled with tests, traps, and trials. One by one she passed them, and at the end, someone was waiting for her - a dark, amorphous figure just nearly out of the corner of her eye. It called itself a "god of shadow," and it had a few gifts for her. The magic bow was just one of them.

Gripping it by the hind legs, she slung the boar over her shoulder and began to slither back to her camp. This would be her dinner for tonight, and tomorrow she'd be headed off through the jungle again. She wondered how long it would take her to get to that Goldport place the scroll talked about...

Suddenly, she heard a loud, rumbling, guttural noise from behind. Something big was moving towards her, and turning around, she saw that it was a massive, wooly monster. It resembled the boar she had just killed, almost like a super-sized version of one. Its red eyes were filled with rage, and it snorted gusts of hot air as it stamped the ground and dragged its hoof back repeatedly. While the boar's tusks were small and stumpy, this monster had dangerously sharp ones long enough to skewer three people at once.

"Oh, no." she said to herself. She lifted the boar up. "Was this your little brother?" she asked, genuinely apologetic.

The monster let out another grumbling roar and stomped towards her. Before she could move out of the way, it rammed its head into her stomach, throwing the dead boar from her hand.

Thanks to their tails, its very hard to knock down a lamia. Jadania absorbed the shock of the attack by rearing back on her serpentine lower half, taking the opportunity to hang her bow on her shoulder and pull out two long, serrated blades she kept tucked away in her dark leather breastplate.

The monster leapt back, dragging its hoof on the ground again as Jadania regained her usual posture. Instead of rushing to meet him, she slithered towards a nearby tree and began to work her way up it, pulling her way onto the first branch, then letting her tail do the work. The monster boar looked on in confusion - it had never seen a creature like this before - and after her entire body had slithered its way up into the branches, it charged again.

Thwam!

It slammed head first into the tree, something that would daze any other creature, but thanks to its reinforced skull was barely felt. It backed up, then - thwam! - slammed it again, shattering bark and sending splinters flying out. Other animals skittered away as it reared back for one final headbutt, sensing what was about to go down.

The noise was enormous, and for a second after, it seemed like the entire jungle went quiet. When the boar hit the tree again, it smashed apart a huge chunk of the wood. Structurally unstable, the tree toppled over, whamming into the ground and kicking up a storm of dust and leaves. Birds squawked loudly as they flew up from their fallen home, and animals who had been in the tree's way struggled to free themself from the mess of shattered pieces of trunk and twisted, collapsed branches.

And, after all that effort to get her down - the lamia was nowhere to be seen.

The monster boar grunted, padding towards the tree. Where was the snake-woman? She had just up and disappeared! As it rooted around in the underbrush, trying to catch her scent, a towering shape loomed in from behind.

Jadania hadn't been in the tree when it fell. She had moved all the way to the canopy, where the tree limbs were tangled in with the branches of another, and passed into that one. From there, all she had to do was wait until the beast was distracted... and now, she had it just where she wanted it.

Bringing around one of her knives, she let out an animalistic hiss. The boar whipped around to face her, surprise in its eyes. She plunged the blade down, and it sunk into the monster's skull, killing it instantly. Letting out one last weak roar, the monster's legs collapsed beneath it.

The lamia pulled back, drawing her knife and wiping the blood off with her fingers. Hopefully that would be the last monster to attack her today.

After day had turned to night, Jadania treated herself to an extra large helping of grilled boar. She sat outside her tent, which was pitched up in a little clearing in the middle of the jungle. The fire crackled and warmed her up with its glow, the skinned leg of the monster boar trussed-up over it. Her bow laid on the ground near her, and she had taken off her leather armor, leaving her in a roughspun shirt.

As she watched the fire, she played with something in her hands. The thing that had started a new part of her journey. A scroll, which had been closed with a wax seal when she first found it, but had long been opened and read over at least a hundred times.

Jadania thought back to that day. After she had met the shadow god for the first time, it had zapped her off halfway across the world - it figured the best way to help with proving her worth was to dump her somewhere completely unfamiliar. Any lamia that could escape a situation like that just had to be a true warrior, right? She'd return home to her rainforest and regale everyone with tales of her adventures, then they'd have to give her some respect. No one would underestimate Jadania!

While she had been working on making her way home, a strange event caused this detour that she was now on. At the time, she had found a temporary shelter to stay in - an abandoned lodge in the middle of the woods. One day when she woke up, she noticed that the window was cracked open and a strange scroll had been left on a table near where she slept. An invitation to a tournament in a faraway place called Phoenix Island, which told her to go to a city called Goldport.

Without her noticing, somebody - for some reason, she always pictured them as a beautiful woman - had snuck into her house and left it there. But to what end? Were they going to be at the tournament as well? 

It piqued her curiosity to no end. She had decided that she just had to make her way to the tournament, no matter what. It would be a good way to prove her worth, and to test her powers. There were a few of the shadow god's "gifts" she hadn't gotten to use yet. And maybe, just maybe, the mystery person would be there too.

Jadania yawned. Pulling her armor over, she tucked the scroll back into one of the many hidden compartments. Tomorrow, she'd continue on her way to Goldport. But for now, she needed to sleep.

Jadania

Age: 125 (which is young for her species)

Bio: A lamia that spent most of her life with her tribe in a dense rainforest. Since she wasn't recognized as a true warrior amongst her fellow half-snakes, she decided to depart on an expedition to prove her worth. This journey brough her to a temple deep within the forest filled with trials. After defeating the temple's tests, a god of shadows appeared to her and gave her powerful magic. Since then, she is still on her expedition to prove herself.

Abilities: A talented assassin who utilizes knives, throwing needles, and a magical bow that fires cursed arrows. Her shadow can move on its own and even kill the shadows of others, causing them to suffer continuous damage. Additionally, she can use her serpentine lower body to constrict her enemies.

Appearance: Dark brown skin, sky blue eyes, and long green hair. While her upper body is that of a toned human woman, her lower body is a muscular green snake tail ten feet in length. She wears black leather armor which holds her knives and needles.

glenn-fletcher

Up next: Rep's chapter. Thank you guys for the support so far! I've always wanted to branch out from my romance/comedy stuff and write something really action-packed, and I'm having a blast doing this series.