* '''Mark of Exploration:''' "Take off your skin, and whip the flesh beneath. Again. And again. Seven times, for seven shifts, and the seven skins beneath it. Once you bathe in the lye for the last time, you will begin anew."These are the Marks of Exploration, fraught with danger to body and mind. # '''Temptation: Exploration''': It has occurred to me that I hold the key to new frontiers.# '''Dedication: Exploration''': I have dedicated myself to appeasing my curiosity. I will find those places that have remained unfound, no matter the cost.# '''Ascension: Exploration''': The Anaconda may have touched me, yet there is no visible Mark. She has passed unseen, and I remember nothing of the ritual nor of those places I have ventured to before. I know this to be the Third Mark.# '''Ascension: Exploration''': The Fourth Mark has brought hungers to my mind, and stillness to my soul. I venture to familiar places and leave finding them strange. Yesterday I watched the muscles beneath my skin during the bath of lye. Tomorrow, perhaps, I shall do so again.# '''Ascension: Exploration''': The Fifth Mark leaves my skin fragile, and easily torn. It pulls away with the slightest wound, and leaves the skin below free. I can stay still for days, watching the movements of the little things in the dirt.# '''Ascension: Exploration''': The holes in me grow ever-wider. My skin is pale and peeling, like layers of paper imperfectly glued to a frame. I have never done this before. I have always been doing this. This is the Sixth Mark.# '''The Shedding of Skins:''': I have passed through the Tricuspid Gate, smooth and sinuous as a serpent. No, I am a serpent. Have I always been a serpent? My memory is full of openings. My name is... My name is... My name is... Who am I?