The maze grew cold - impossibly cold - and the unearthly meat locker chill of his surroundings put Martin on edge. Reality seemed suddenly degraded, as though any moment a langolier might round the next bend on its quest to recycle space-time and swallow Martin and his questioning existence whole. All sensible mortal beings possess a healthy if relatively unexplored fear of being unmade: Martin contended with just such a demon now. He pressed on.
Goodness knows he'd be lost in the mage just as long trying to escape it, anyhow.
That was when he came upon the shaman.
His voice, every bit as skeletal as his frame, caused the gilded unicorn's hair to prickle in a wave down Martin's spine as he spoke of the relic of which Rostislav had spoken. He would be lying to say the object did not now pique his interest, what with how much effort others had put into finding it, but what he coveted was far less corporeal and - to him at least - far more elusive.
But he couldn't say that. No sooner had he opened his mouth than the withered creature had scuttled off deeper into the maze. Martin bounded after him, following the slap slap slap of his bony feet when he dipped out of sight, but the strange old man was too agile to keep pace. As the shaman's footsteps faded into silence, he caught a glimpse of creeping mist at his back and the ominous hiss of funereal air. He turned to see the ghostly apparition of a small housecat sitting sedately in the path from which he had come. It stood, arched its tail sociably, and trotted toward him with a floating gait, tendrils of mist billowing off its spectral flesh in delicate eddies.
The ethereal cat's meow struck Martin like a wall of sound. He buckled and the spirit leapt, erupting into the form of a great white lion. The unicorn recovered enough to balk away from the lunging beast, flung hard against the prickly bramble wall of the maze. The lion landed and sinuously pivoted to tackle him a second time, but this time he was prepared. Digging his hooves into the frost-hardened, soil, Martin lowered his horned brow and leaned into the lion's leaping charge, impaling it through the center of its chest. It dissipated instantly into smoke once more and Martin, his breath coming in short adrenaline-fueled flutters, staggered off northward through the maze once again.
@Random Events
