11-01-2009, 06:46 PM
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 Jantus had gone exploring. It had been important for everyone to stay together for a time, but the massive alpha wasn't the emotional pillar for anyone in his party, and he used that relative freedom to get him off the hook and an excuse to look around. This wasn't the first time he had explored the human city; he'd had to cut through three times already on his way to and from Phoenix Valley, so he wasn't going in totally blind. Still, the place seemed strangely fragile to him. At seven feet and ten inches tall, a little over three feet wide, and over five hundred pounds, human relics all seemed very tiny and very easily broken. Living things were solid, but humans usually made hollow things which were very light given their size, or made of brittle materials (excluding their works of metal, which would corrode and become brittle, but which were quite strong if found in good condition). The remains of their cars were uniformly bigger than he was, but he could roll the things over easily enough. It was actually from a car that he had taken his current weapon: a weather-beaten, broken car axle, which was heavy on one side. The vehicle itself had been rather small, smaller than most he'd seen, which made the half-axle between its two rubber feet just small enough to be usable to him. His friend Skoll had warned him against the limitations of such a weapon, but he hadn't heeded him. There was shock value to the thing, and those who didn't steer clear out of common sense alone usually found they lost whatever he hit with it. Kneeling down--not always easy given his size--he scented the tarred earth. He couldn't smell anything interesting, yet: most of the human smells had long ago faded away from this place, the city wind-blasted and overgrown, slowly being reclaimed by the growth of the wilds. Sometimes their machines would have some still in them, or he'd smell a new chemical, but since he had no knowledge of the working of machine, and knew better than to breathe too deeply of human toxins, he usually had to pass such interests by. What he could smell was hardly new to him; he'd smelled the same on his first travels through. The rotting wood of structures which he was too big to safely enter, the sharp smell of iron, which sometimes meant good tools were available, other assorted scents from the myriad useless components of derelict human structures. He hadn't come in looking for anything in particular, but he never knew when he'd get lucky. Sometimes, very rarely, he could find alcohol in these places, which made for lots of entertainment if he could get enough to affect him. There were other substances, many of them one could allegedly grow, which he had heard of or sampled. There were occasionally other amusements or wonders in human places, like the rare working vehicle before it died out (unbeknownst to him and others it was as often as not the result of an empty gas tank) or the papers with pictures that had been kept dry and intact over the decades. It always helped to run into a wolf who lived in the city you were exploring if you wanted to find the best stuff, though. |