Gemma Larsen/Introduction

You'd think people don't die of tuberculosis anymore. It's so Victorian, and surely we have cures? As it turns out, they don't always work.

She'd been sickly for a while. The illness refused to leave her body, so there she was in her hospital bed indefinitely. She'd been there for years, in and out of the ward. Moving was hard, but she had a laptop that she ran a blog from. It was moderately popular, enough to pay the bills.

She was testing new drugs to treat the TB, but as it turns out, they didn't even slightly help. That's probably what killed her.

It's hard to say if her introduction to Stygia was incredibly lucky or incredibly unfortunate. Depending on who you ask, she either was taken in by a group of comparatively altruistic devotees, or she was brainwashed by a dangerous cult. The group called itself the Penitent Creed, and claimed that the only true path to transcendence was by righting the wrongs commited in life. In short, a wraith needed to make a positive difference to the lives of the quick in order to be allowed to transcend to heaven.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the group was arrested by the hierarchy, their new initiate included, and brought before the law. Their punishment was, it was mockingly declared, a test. If each one could survive a period of total isolation without giving any ground to their shadows, then they were free to go. If, on the other hand, they were found wanting, the forge was always waiting.

A year of incarceration went by. The shadow whispered, cajoled, threatened, pleaded and ranted. Gemma did her best to meditate and remain calm.

Gemma doesn't know if any others were released after their imprisonment, but somehow she came out of the ordeal unscathed. On being released, she fled to the shadowlands around prospect, hoping to escape the hierarchy's grasp and earn her redemption.