[quote][i] [color=a36209]Back in Humanity, there's a saying about the world beyond our walls: [u]"Make sure everything is dead."[/u]. While I strongly disagree with the notion's callousness, that our hunters often tend to take too literally, I can see why it has endured as a traditional truth. Till this day, I can't count the number of times that I had plucked what look like ripe fruit, only to find myself being given chase by the tree or bush that bore it. It has tortured me into a habit of poking anything gently with my stave before I walk, sit, sleep or do anything ...to anything. A paranoia without bounds is rather torturous. Now as I sit here on this rocky outcrop, chewing on my last rations from Susan Goodhouse's cellar -the only safe food I have as I write this, I feel the sting of yearning plucking at the hinds of my every thoughts. ~Yearning of a comfortable bed I can sleep in without wearing this suit of sweltering armour, a warm fireplace that does not risk setting everything around me ablaze, and food that doesn't leave me wondering if I'm eating someone's child by mistake. ...Rue be the day I find the last meal I had was the dutiful spouse of a now widowed wife. ...Perhaps. Perhaps it is time. I've wondered many a times if I should forgo my morals and live vicariously, it'd be much easier, most certainly, surely the native denizens of this land are not as picky as me with regards to the marvel of life come sating of one's appetite? When with orcs, do as orcs do. Right? Considering that possibility. Barring the stupendous amounts of wild magic out here which I must be careful of, it tempts me everyday to just lash out at everything and whatever remains to become my food shall be consumed without ceremony. At which point I would probably be prowling on all fours and frothing at the mouth... ... ... ... But I shall digress another day, my seat is rumbling in a fashion my bodily exhaust does not, for a while now, and I astutely conclude that my pressence on something's back is starting to toll on my welcom---[/color] [/i][/quote] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/stJJE12.jpg[/img][/center] [img]https://i.imgur.com/Fsyxg6g.png[/img]riggs closed his journal and quickly rappeled down the vine he had used to climb up in the first place. [i]The small hill shook again.[/i] This time he heard a screeching far off into a distance ...from somewhere along the amber-gray horizon, his ears perked inside his helmet and craned his neck to look over his shoulder while a cold feeling slowly clasped around his gut. ...Maybe the staled jerky didn't agree with him. Upon touching the cave floor, he picked up a clear bottle that had been sitting in the sulphurous rain all this while, only to spy a curious sliver of flesh retreat hastily back under the hill, [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/aAbeS7g.jpg[/img][/center] [b]"Pardon me for the intru-"[/b] [center][color=dimgray][i][b]STOP talking to snails![/b] [/i][/color][/center] "..." The voice in his head seemed more agitated than usual - he mused. [i]It was curious how these molluscs that were usually brave, too well aware that their size and stinging mucus were more than enough to deter any who might try to hurt them as they grazed undetered on the sour moss that grew abundant in this withered biome. ....But something had this one spooked ...enough so that now even the slow movements of Briggs' relatively small hands now scared it into hiding.[/i] Once more he stood up, looking over out at the dimming landscape - whatever that was out there, would have to wait. His supplies will only last him a night more if he did not find a way to restock and he wasn't about to waste this rare relief from the forsaken rain by turning back. Not when he was this close to rumoured civillization. But Briggs would remember this and come back one day, [i]one day,[/i] the eerie sound etched into memory already haunting him with prospects of new discoveries ...and something worse, even as he now continues his journey past the border of the badlands. [i]His grip strangely unwilling to leave the sword by his side...[/i] ----------------------- [hider=Mentioned] [@World of Terra] [/hider]