*( history sticks to your feet ) .. [sor]

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[atrb=background,http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz129/sorrelpaw102/ChellTable1Middlecopy.jpg?t=1342632476] "Speech" The heat didn't particularly bother Chell. She was used to it, her early years in Egypt had taught her more then a couple good tricks to avoid the heat. Half the time she didn't even use them, her short, course fur was hardly a bother under the sun. Or maybe was just use to it. Probably the latter. But whenever she had spoken to someone, it was always the same thing - "Blahblah, it's sooo hot, blahblahblah hot, I'm dyinggg..." Usually, these kind of creatures were stupid, and often lured into Chell's masterful claws. One particularly annoying cat had faced a slow, painful death during her testing. Chell decided that she would put the cat in a small, cardboard box and let it sit out in the sun, seeing how much the cat inside of it could take before the heat became to much. Unfortunately, the cat, whose name she had forgotten later on, had died of a mix between asphyxiation and heat exhaustion before Chell was compelled to release her from the box. Oh well. She could always find more test subjects. Creatures around these parts were so easily tricked by the mere mention of free food. It was quite silly. Chell's stomach made a small rumbling noise at the mention of food, and the feline was reminded of why she came here. It occurred to her one night, when she was working on rearranging some bones she found outside the city limits. Rats and mice often looked for dead food, and what was more dead then a sack of bones? So she made the short trip out to the Natural Hissstory Museum. Hunting was a bit of a challenge, nowadays. With her sense of smell and taste gone, and the scars around her muzzle to prove her accident with the acid, her ability to detect and hunt prey was solely up to her eyesight and hearing. Both of which had improved since the accident. But it wasn't really enough, sometimes she got lucky with prey, but it was always a slim chance. Chell had become rather scrawny, due to the fact that all the prey was either being eaten, or leaving to find more water. But she survived. She always did. The feline padded through the long, shadowy corridors. The building had long since been in disrepair, the floor was scattered with glass and dust. Behind the shoddy feline was a single trail of footprints leading through the settled dust. How long had it been since another living creature had walked these halls? Chell turned into one of the rooms, then, out of random curiosity. Half of the exhibits in this room were crumbling, but some of the skinless creatures still stood tall and proud. Just bone and wire holding them together. Chell liked them, they had a sense of false dignity to them. She found it very funny. To bad they were all dead. Just like the humans. Halting the rambling in her mind, Chell tried to be as quiet as she could, creeping about the room, straining her ears to hear the tiniest footsteps or the quietest squeak. Her eyes swept the room, front and back, waiting for something to move. Chell anticipated the movements, but after sweeping the room three times, the feline found nothing in particular. She simply flicked her ears, glanced at the bone creatures again, and moved back outside to wander the hallways.

[sorcerer]

There were mice here, but Rumor wasn't hungry. He trotted unconcernedly through the dark..mousem?..thinking cheerily of his most recent piece of news. A wedding. How exciting. The entire city would be pleased to hear about this.
Or, well, most of them. Maybe one or two animals. But after that the rumors would spread and everyone would know. He knew this.
The little black tom turned a corner and wandered along through the mousem. He stopped to study a display of shiny rocks and hummed to himself. They were very attractive, especially a large purple one. He would like that one, he was thinking.
Unfortunately, the rocks were surrounded by glass, and after scratching at the surface of the case for a minute, he gave up. He would find a better rock later on, he supposed. Bigger, shinier. Purpl..er. Rumor moved on, past the other rocks in their boxes made of indestructable glass.
He found a broken case, but the contents were only old shells and bits of brown rock with patterns. Nothing interesting or pretty. The cat sniffed at the bits of old stone and passed on.

The next room was full of paintings. Rumor studied a few critically and muttered to himself about the composition and subject matter. Two-legged things with wierd faces? Nandarthals? Who cared? Humans, maybe. Humans cared about dead things a great deal, it seemed like. Rumor couldn't understand why, but maybe it was fate or something. That must be what this mousem was. Some kind of..temple for..dead things. That explained the rooms full of furry statues of animals he'd seen earlier. Also the rocks and paintings and things. Rocks were pretty, and Rumor liked them, but he tended to lose them anyway. After all, one couldn't really eat rocks.
He passed through the painting-room and moved on to the next. It was full of giant bones arranged into odd shapes. Rumor sat by the first one, a towering sculpture, and stared at it.
It didn't make any sense to him, and a brief study of the plaque beside it didn't help. The letters were all gibberish. The tom humphed slightly at them, stared back up at the giant bones, and flicked his tail. Modern art. Ridiculous.

The next hallway proved to be more interesting, if only because inside it was another cat. Rumor paused for a second to make sure the other animal wasn't dead or a statue or painting or something. It seemed not to be. It was, after all, moving.
He sat down politely, vaguely aware that he was probably invisible in the darkness, and cleared his throat importantly.
Harrumph.
Rumor had been practicing this.

[offtomars]

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[atrb=background,http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz129/sorrelpaw102/ChellTable1Middlecopy.jpg?t=1342632476] Chell was merely minding her own business, padding along the dusty floor, glancing occasionally at the strange articles that hung by a mere thread to the wall. The paint was peeling, the walls starting to crumble, and occasionally the small feline came across a leaky water pipe. When she came across such a thing, she eagerly lapped at the liquid, for she was becoming quite thirsty with all this adventuring. Most other creatures would have thought the taste of it to be vile, but hey, there were perks to loss of taste. It was plain to see, wandering around the halls as Chell was, that some rooms fared better then others. Less crumbly-ness and destruction. The reason Chell couldn't tell, nor fathom. As time passed, and she entered and re-entered empty rooms, she became more and more curious. And, as these things happen, the small tabby soon because determined to figure it out. The question - "Why in the hell would one room be more structurally sound then the one right next to it?" Human stupidity. Ah, that could certainly be it. But Chell was cultured in these things. The builders of these fine structures had to be quite sophisticated in the art of building strong metal towers. Suddenly, a small 'Harrumph' interrupted Chell's ambling about. The tabby jumped, surprised at the noise. Her fur rose, anticipating anything. Dark halls were a great place to hide and prepare to maul your next victim. Plus, she hadn't heard or seen anybody when she came into the hall. But alas, Chell could hardly see the cat that had made the vaguely impatient sound. He blended into the shadows just fine. The place was dark, to an extent, only a dim light shone through the cracked and not-so-cracked windows. The lighting fissures had sputtered out not long after the humans. But from where she was standing, the tom looked rather small in stature, but with big amber eyes. She flicked her tail, calming her nerves. She wasn't, in fact, beginning to hear voices, it was merely a small feline like herself. Chell narrowed her eyes. Was was so important that he had to go and spook her for? He could have just padded by, nodding politely, and Chell would have been fine with that. She admitted to herself on more then one occasion that she deliberately avoided talking to people (Again, she didn't really care. But it was nice to know it from herself. If that made any sense.). As if it would make her feel better, the tabby sat very neatly and politely as the stranger did, twitching her ears ever so slightly. A crooked smile appeared on Chell's scarred maw as she cleared her throat, louder then the tom had. "Harrarrarumph." Chell had not been practicing this, however, and it sounded more like a stifled sneeze or cough then a real true throat clearing.