[b]Miriam 
Chapter 1: A girl and her dog[/b]

Miriam held the item up against the dim light of her torch. A brilliant ruby locked within a rustic, golden pendant. Stunningly beautiful but ultimately useless, she stuffed the item within her mud-crusted bag nonetheless and drew a weary sigh as she glanced around the room. Once, it had been a home for some nobleman or merchant-lord, now it was nothing but a breeding pit for filth and sorrow, and the only inhabitants were people like Miriam, hoping to find salvage within such graveyards of the past. 

She tried not to imagine how the house had once looked, how this whole town could have looked, but found the depressing thought hard to erase. She stopped to glance out onto the streets from her vista on the top floor, the row of smaller houses encircled the ruins of the mansion, all faded replicas of torn, gray roofs over frost-touched streets. She drew her fur scarf tighter around her neck and left the depressing sight. Had to keep moving.

The corridors of the mansion weren't much prettier to look at, and even worse, they held even less loot. Miriam puckered her lips and gave off a sharp whistle that rang through the halls, after a moment of silence it was returned by a jolly bark and some scampering one floor down, now she knew where Leia was at least. Miriam walked with idle steps to the final room on the floor and twisted the knob on the door, unlocked, but the door wouldn't budge. 
	"Typical." The scavenger mumbled lowly to herself and for a moment set her bag down, from it she retrieved a small pick-axe and swung it into the door frame, she twisted it in and then pressed, forcing the door open by result. It was a movement she had practiced enough.

The dust and crust of time was easily wafted aside and Miriam stepped into the dark room, torch held before her to provide some light. She scrunched her nose and sneered, unlike the rest of the house, which smelled like damp wood and soggy cloth, this room had a much stronger and suffocating stank. The actual space was very wide, what was once a nice carpet lay spread out on the floor and in the center there was a large fireplace that led to the chimney. Miriam glanced around the area as her low light allowed, scanning it with idle boredom, she had given up on finding any food in here a long time ago, and anything else, while maybe worth something back in town, was useless to her out here. 

Once she had gotten halfway around the room something began to appear out of the darkness at eye-level, Miriam squinted her gaze and focused in on it, taking a few steps forward. A face, staring down at her with unmoving, cold eyes. Miriam skipped half a step back and inhaled in sharp fright. She froze up in anticipation, torch held defensively in front of her. Waiting for something to pounce, but nothing came. Could it have been one of the dead, she had seen them before but had always had the availability to run, in here, she wasn't so sure she had the luxury. She felt her heart pound, eyes staring ahead into the darkness where she had seen the monster, there wasn't a sound aside from her breathing and the more she waited, the more she realized, nothing happened. She dared to inch forward and take a second look, which forced her to scoff irately at herself, it had only been a painting. Miriam examined the man in the picture with dour emotion, a lord, no doubt. With his velvet cloak and stupid, chubby face. Then, Miriam heard a shuffle behind her and made to turn, meeting her canine companion. "Leia-" Was as far as she got started before her eyes twitched upon the truth of the situation. Somehow she recognized the face of the lord, he was pale, sickly thin and entire face sunken and hollowed, completely opposite from the regal man in the picture. His maw opened and gave a chilling shriek while groping his arms forward in desperate flailing. Miriam fell back, she stumbled into the wall and gave off a yelp, dropping her torch in the process. The hollow remains of the lord pressed on after her, it took a stumbling step as it tried to sink its frail fingers into the scavenger. Miriam twisted aside by instinct and twitched her gaze about, her torch lit up the feet of the dabber dressed corpse but nothing else, she couldn't see her exit, or anything else for that matter. The dead man came shambling after her again, moaning incoherent words with his decayed throat. Miriam gulped, clenched the hilt of her pick-axe with a shock of fright and in the same movement swung it out vertically in frightful desperation.

As she opened her eyes again she tugged at her pick-axe, finding it stuck in something firm. She grimaced in disgust upon spotting what, its point had gone through the head of her undead opponent and appropriately stuck into the painting of the very same man. Miriam let out a "Blech" as she twisted the pick-axe out of the mushy skull and the corpse sagged unto the floor with half a jaw less. She coughed out and fought the urge to spew, scampering over to her torch and quickly making to leave the room behind.

Leia waited for her down the stairs, letting out a giddy yap at the sight and thumped her shaggy tail against the floor. Miriam passed the large dog speedily, patting at her own thigh to call it along. "Come on." She called, and Leia followed obediently. Miriam gathered the few things she had found and swung her bag around in short adjustment before leaving the estate, she looked up at the gray exterior and felt a chill down her spine - She shook it away and started off, if there was one of the dead here, there might be more, and Miriam did not intend to find out...