Ancient Artifacts

Vesper · 07-23-2012, 08:47 PM

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Word Count › 449

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls
The most massive characters are seared with scars

Vesper had assumed all of Inferni explored, but other than the occasional venture deeper in the caverns to snag a bat on the wing for lunch, she had not been very thorough in her investigation of her home. Much of her reasoned that she simply didn’t need to; she had already claimed her den, and any other grotto was either claimed or could be in the future. It wasn’t any of her business what the rest of Grimwell was like.

Today, however, her opinion was different—or at least her actions were. She’d wanted to head out to patrol the borders in her usual clockwork way, but Stark had been firm in telling her to do something else for once in her life. The raven had added that he would pick up the slack, which left her with nothing to do (besides going to see Myrika, but she kind of wanted a bath first).

After twenty minutes spent huffing at her cave wall, the scarred coywolf finally shifted shape and picked up the oil lantern she’s salvaged from the destroyed Boreas camp. Lighting it was a bit of a task, especially since she always lost track of the supplies needed to spark and fuel the fire, but eventually she had a glowing beacon held out before her as she ventured through one of the tunnels into the limestone arteries of Grimwell.

She spent some time following the River Lethe that flowed through the stone, but at last she headed closer to the surface away from the annually flooding waters. It was at this point that an odor caught her attention: that of a clan member, judging from the marshy coyote smell, but not one she recognized. Barely hesitating, she changed direction and followed the scent-trail into a large cave, where she stopped and stared at the walls.

Vesper was no stranger to the concept of written word or drawings, but she hadn’t actually seen many in her short lifetime, and certainly not any as old as this. She held the lantern a bit higher to see where some of the crude sketches of elk and bird stretched onto the ceiling, and it was then that the light threw a stranger’s shadow on the far wall. She turned quickly, her hackles rising before she remembered the scent that had drawn her in in the first place.

“Hello,” the Centurion greeted before the rest of her brain caught up with her. Curiously, she quickly scanned the other: a young woman, a lot more stocky and thick-furred than most coyotes she knew, with a pelt of silver-tawny. “You’re new here,” she added; it was not a question, but it certainly implied some.

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