She is on a beach. There's sand, and water, and a collection of crudely built huts nearby. A young boy and his mother are roasting fish together over an open fire.

How nostalgic. The ragged edges of the tear in reality behind her fade back into normality. She fondles the hilt of the long silver sword hanging at her side as she slowly walks over to the fire.

The mother looks up, sees the stranger and what is behind the stranger, and murmurs something to her son. He follows her gaze, looking somewhere between curious and concerned, then gets up and scampers off toward the huts.

Oh no you don't.

She reaches out a hand in the boy's direction and mutters a spell, locking him in place.

He yells in fright.

An old woman with a concerned frown emerges from one of the huts. She looks at the boy. She looks at the stranger. Her frown deepens.

Are her actions upsetting to the village elder? Wait until she sees this next bit.

Drawing close to the fire, she stops. She allows the hunger to come to the fore once more and a gaping maw opens from her torso. Lashing tentacles reach out and snap around the mother, dragging her in. She'll have just enough time to scream before being consumed entirely. The maw snaps shut and vanishes.

The Spirit-eater licks her lips.

The village elder actually doesn't look all that upset; her eyes narrow a little, that's all.

The hundred tons of seawater coming up the beach, on the other hand, look downright aggrieved, insofar as water is capable of emoting. The precisely-targeted wave arrives very rapidly, with surprisingly little noise for that much stuff moving that fast, and lands like a very large, very wet hammer.

The bulk of the water parts around an invisible barrier just above her body. She staggers a little, but is otherwise unharmed.

That was unexpected. She'll take a moment to renew and amplify her defensive wards before proceeding.

The first wave is followed by several more in rapid succession. The village floods. The old woman is swept away without a trace, dissolving into the churning foam.

It's possible she will sense a vast power flashing by, racing through the water with the speed of a lightning strike, from the old woman's hut out into the open sea. Then again, it's possible she might not.

The water pulls at the boy, attempting to dislodge him from her spell.

New magic. Interesting. An elemental? A shaman of some sort? She hungers.

She raises both hands and mutters, and a burst of intense cold radiates out, freezing the boy and the water. She strides over, drawing her sword. With a swing, she shatters him into pieces.

The water, abruptly, leaves.

All of the water. The bed of the nearby river is now bone-dry. The village is crusted in salt left behind by the vanishing flood. The ice she made sublimates and is sucked away without a trace into the all-devouring dryness of the air. The ocean recedes, dropping away to leave the beach littered with dessicated fish.

Hmm.

Is there high ground nearby?

The ground rises gently as you go inland from her current position; there are also a few low hills on the other side of the ex-river.

Not likely to provide defensive benefits.

She begins walking seaward.

In the distance, past a mile or so of the desert formerly known as the ocean floor, she may observe the retreating water gathering itself up into a vast wave.

That's more or less what she expected to be happening. She casts two spells in rapid succession: one to straddle the boundaries between planes to greatly reduce the effects of physical attack, and one of true seeing. Is the old woman located in any particular spot?

Not... as such, no. She's out there somewhere, but very diffusely, hardly distinguishable from the ocean itself.

Also, the wave isn't dropping. It's just standing there, tall and... pointed?

...It's an arrow. A mile-high arrow embossed on the surface of the sea, pointing directly at her.

Calling for help, perhaps? But from who, in such a fashion? Doubtless she will learn, soon enough. And then they shall learn of her.

In the meantime, she approaches the sea more closely.

It stays well out of her way.

A man descends from the sky on great grey owl's wings. He circles once, high above her, and then glides down for a landing on the vacated seabed.

There is... a lot of him. Not physically - he's tall, but well within the range of ordinary human variation - but magically; the well of his power seems just about bottomless.

Mmm. She wants-

She's fondling the hilt of her sword again as she watches him land.

He asks her a question, in the local language which she does not speak.

There's a spell for that.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that."

"I said," he repeats patiently, "mind telling me what's got the ocean so alarmed about you?"

"I'm not quite sure. It seems to be a rather disproportionate response to two simple murders."