Nerissa

Nerissa

Mermaid ✧ Female ✧ CN ✧ Barbarian 5

Str 20 ✧ Con 16 ✧ Dex 18 ✧ Int 13 ✧ Wis 11 ✧ Cha 11

Nerissa had been freediving when the creature struck, striking out from the shadows of the reef. She barely had time to react, seeing its blazing orange eyes rushing towards her, the glint of pale teeth as its jaw opened wide to swallow her legs, a blinding flash of pain as it clamped down around her waist. Blood swirled around her in the water, her consciousness fading...

She blinked awake, for a moment thinking herself washed up on a beach before she realised she was lying on the sea bed. Panic gripped her for a moment, the terror of drowning, the memory of the attack. She tried to swim upwards, her legs not responding, looking down to see the creature still clutching her, its eyes gazing back at hers. It writhed about, as if trying to free itself, teeth digging again into the her torn flesh, making her black out again...

The next time she awoke, the pain was a faint memory. She looked down again, the long form of the serpent lying still, her torso pulsing slightly as gills took in water. She shook her head, hair shifting about in the water, stunned she was alive... much less transformed by the creature. She ran a hand down her torso, her skin now deep blue scales, glittering a little in the dim light filtering down from the surface. Her fingers were tipped with pale claws, matching the teeth that now seemed fused with the scar tissue around her middle. How long had she been asleep, she wondered?

Nerissa tried to move her legs, the serpent writhing a little as she did, realising as she experimented that it was a part of her now, like the tail of a mermaid. Albeit a very strange and terrifying mermaid, those eyes still blazing in the water. She spent much of the next few hours exploring her body, the fact she could breath so easily through her gills, the strength of her new arms, the sharp teeth that filled her mouth, the frills her ears had become. Nerissa kicked off from the ocean floor, quickly getting the hang of propelling herself through the water with it, powering up to the surface - arching gracefully through the air before splashing back down into the deep. The sun and the surface felt oddly alien to her now, preferring the gloom and shadows of the ocean.