...With a Second Beat, the Earth Spews Forth Life...
The sound of hooves upon cobblestones echoed through the narrow empty streets. In the darkness of shanty homes, alleyways and beneath bridges, the homeless huddled to escape the rain that poured from the sky, creating the pools of ochre water that lay still in the streets and caused the stench that hung heavy in the air.
Where was he? Alexi screwed up his nose at the stench and contemplated his state. The last suburb was...Innsdale? Carvanale? There were so many names for the same streets and buildings around here, a suburb could be a few blocks or a dozen miles around here, no wonder the merchants called the place The Labyrinth. It wasn't a maze per se, but you couldn't find your way out if you listened to the locals...
Sometimes he thought he heard her in the night.
Before he left the Castellean said to him:
"The city has a life of its own boy, there are stranger things in the alleys of this city than in your worst nightmares. The city has a way of burrowing into your soul, bringing out the worst in you that wasn't there before."
He looked up through his visor, peering past the drizzle of rain that ran off his helm. Aheah of him lay another street, another suburb, another place of misery. One thing about this place though, there were more taverns and inns than any other shop, it should be easy to find a place to get out of this accursed...
...Alexi peered at what stood in the middle of the street...
...
It was like a horse, maybe. It looked different, and had large horns on its head*. He'd not seen any animal like this before, he'd seen little more than dogs, cats and rats for the last month (sometimes the occassional horse).
The thing snorted at him and bolted into an alleyway, tearing up the cobblestones as it ran and forcing the homeless to dive into the streets to evade the creature's terror.
It took a moment to recognize the creature after it had fled. But it couldn't be, those creatures we that of myth and tale.
It was a Stag.
[sblock]*Intelligence Check (DC 5) +18 - Success[/sblock]