[ the blood from the cut oozes thinly down your arm, just shy of the red mark upon it. ]
[ around you the city is quiet, though far from silent to your natural senses. Somewhere to the east, the crunch of two or three fatty lizards grazing away; the faint padding of a curwiss atop crumbled walls; scurrying tet, intermittent, brief, cautious as all too-small creatures must be. ]