Hold Me, Batboy. (open!)

"Gwenigwoo?" The strange cry echoed throughout the great stone caverns of southern Dheathain. Before the residual sound could fade, the creature emitting continued its haunting howl.

"Oooo-ooo-ooo-oooOOOooo."

Wedged inside a red sandstone crevasse filled with luminous fungi, the batboy cooed softly to nothing and no one, except the insects and small creatures that shared the tunnels and caverns that were his home. His song floated around gnashing stalactites and stalagmites, echoing in time with the drip, drip, drip of deep-ground moisture.

The batboy spun around on his hands and feet, face bathed in the bio-luminescence as he dipped into an alcove he had carved with craggly fingernails. He had no hair on his head nor chin nor upper lip, but a fuzzy black fur coated his ears, beneath his arms, and around his groin. His skin was pale, though not unhealthy in its pallor, looking almost blue in the cavern's strange light.

His dirty hands pulled a large insect carcass from the hideaway. He had been too tired to hunt, and so he would eat one of the less-tasty bugs he had saved. They always tasted better fresh, when the viscera dripped and he could drink his fill of warmth. But the cold, ashen-dry body would sustain him as well. His powerful teeth chomped the bug to bits, which he readily swallowed.

The batboy curled up and lay his bald head down to sleep, shivering. He did not understand what was happening to him. He felt as though he had just exerted himself on a great hunt, and yet he had lain around the entire day. All he could think to do was sleep, and hope he had the energy to find fresh food when he awakened.

(The batboy is sick! I am hoping that someone will find a reason to come into the caves and pull him out, although whether it's to help, hurt, or use him is entirely up to your characters. Come one come all, I don't bite... oh wait, haha!)

"Strange sounds from a cavern?" Zack Blaze, former prisoner of Alerar and known terrorist for all of Althanas asked as he took another sip from his mug.

"Aye, it seems as though nobody is willing to go near the damn thing," the blonde bearded dwarf returned Zack's drinking with a swig of his own ale, the small warrior possessing a much laxer way of thirst quenching. streams of yellow mead watered down the braided facial hair of the three foot adventurer before he put the cup down and continued. "The thing is wailing as if it has a mind of it's own. Some are starting to say it's haunted, or it might have a bear in it."

"Or worse," Blaze replied as he took the napkin at his table and dabbed the corners of his mouth.

"You mean like, two bears?" the dwarf's eyes widened at the prospect to a loud sigh from the street fighter.

"Your perspective is too narrow, my good man," Zack rubbed the bridge of his nose as he began to stand up. He place a few coins in front of his seat at the table, and then a few more in front of the dwarfs. "This drink is on me, and payment for the information. Appreciate it." He then slowly began to leave the backdrop of the tavern.

"Good luck fighting -three- bears," the shortstack mumbled under his breath as he took another rambunctious drink.

~~~~

"Well, this should be fun," Zack commented at the weird sounds the cave walls echoed out, almost as if they dared somebody to enter its maw. The street fighter cracked each of the knuckles on each of his hands, and then popped each side of his neck before he walked into the darkness. A single flame ignited around the fist of the warrior, a makeshift torch for his spelunker-like journey. The winds of the outside soon became faint upon the skin of the light complexion Blaze and he found himself surrounded by black save for the orange embers around his fingers.

"I swear to the Thaynes, if there are four freaking bears in here..."