Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Samuel Leming" data-source="post: 1950330" data-attributes="member: 16462">"Ah, there's nothing like a good run", thought Maldordo as he chased and bedeviled birds on the rooftops of Selby-by-the-Water.  He was exercising and playing, not hunting.  Maldordo remembered well the first, and last, sparrow he brought down.  Coughing up that feather-laced hairball was not an experience he ever wanted to repeat. Maldordo would have laughed if his natural cat form permitted it as he leaped and scattered a small flock of pigeons.Hearing an almost silent 'caw', Maldordo jumped across a narrow alleyway and crept cat-quiet up to the apex of the peaked roof.  Peering over he spotted the largest, fattest corby he'd ever seen. The ugly black carrion crow was looking intently back and forth at the street below, her back squarely towards the amused cat.  "What's a corby doing here? This bird would be worth hacking up a feather-ball", Maldordo thought as he crept over the roof's peak and down towards the plump bird.The corby was seemingly oblivious to Maldordo's approach as he pounced, but she took flight a split instant before his claws could dig into her back. His momentum carried him skidding out over the edge, but Maldordo twisted around to catch hold at the last second.  As he hangs over the roof's edge, he notices the full barrel of rain water directly below.Scrambling rapidly back onto the roof, Maldordo noticed out of the corner of his eye the corby landing on the roof's peak.  Keeping a careful, but nonchalant, watch on the carrion bird, Maldordo immediately sat down and begans to groom the fur on his forelegs as if nothing at all had happened.  This was no normal corby!"A bath?  I just tried to give you one, you silly mouse," cawwed the corby in the language of cats.Glancing over at the dirty black bird Maldordo casually replied, "Many have remarked that grooming would be a good habit for your kind to cultivate.""Shut up, Maldordo, and listen to the humans walking below us", replied the large crow. The oddity of this strange and arrogant corby knowing his name was enough to give him pause."They say t'was a giant cat! Perhaps a panther out of the Weirwood or a summon'd Hellcat!", said a tall human wearing the garb of a workman."Nah, was probably wolves driven to hunger by the winter", replied a shorter workman walking beside the first. Maldordo watched the pair pass by while keeping the corner of his eye on the bizarre corby."No, I heard they found the paw prints of a cat larger than any wolf. They say it snuck into someone's farmhouse and snatched a child while the bumpkins were out huntin' it," said the tall one."Well, whatever it was will be sorted out soon enough.  Those villages will be full of winter-dulled adventurers before the week is through," the second workman stated as the pair turned a corner.Maldordo turned to address the fat corby just as she launched herself rapidly into the air and flew off towards the river. "That must be what the humans refer to as a 'queer bird'," he thought to himself as he started to trot towards a second-storey balcony with stairs down into an alleyway half a dozen rooftops over."This creature distracts its enemies and preys upon the weak.  That certainly does sound like a cat", thought Maldordo as he leapt one of the wider alleys onto the balcony.  While sauntering down the stairs he thought, "If this is a feline cousin, he must have no idea of the crap storm he's called down upon himself hunting humans this close to a large town. This cat needs a good talking to! I better go see what's going on down there before anyone else gets hurt."At the foot of the stairs Maldordo looks down the alley both ways before beginning his transformation. Where once crept a black shorthair cat, a short though handsome man with black hair now walked.  Maldordo began to grin. He adjusted his black studded leather for comfort and checked his rapier as he began to walk towards the south to leave the town to go check on this marauding 'cat'.Maldordo stopped grinning as he thought, "What if this isn't a cousin at all, but one of those evil weres that can assume the form of a feline?  That would not be good at all!""Well, there's nothing like a good run," Maldordo said to himself as he resumed walking towards the farmlands south of Selby-by-the-Water.".</blockquote>

Verification