Gaspard sharpened his blade. It was all he could think to do, for now. He knew that any attempt to infiltrate the palace and kill the beast that had been the king would be a suicide mission, at this point. Meagerly equipped as he was, Gaspard knew he might stand a chance to kill the king alone, but such violence would likely attract the attention of the guard. Gaspard could not imagine winning a fight against such a massive, armored creature. Taking a moment to pause and listen to the city around him, Gaspard ceased scraping the whetstone against the edge of his sword. He waited for one breath, then two, then three, and when he was sure the silence reigned, her went back to sharpening his sword. He repeated the process, taking irregular pauses as he sharpened the sword. He never allowed himself to establish a pattern or rhythm, anything a wily predator might make use of to sneak up on him. After taking a few passes along the edge of his blade, Gaspard took another pause. He smiled to himself as his cautious habit paid off. The unmistakable sound of a lumbering creature in the distance met Gaspard’s ears. It was yet faint and far off, but Gaspard sheathed his blade and turned towards it regardless. He crept his way to the door of the home that sheltered him and tried to peer out the window, and saw nothing. Making doubly sure that the coast was clear, Gaspard danced his way through the streets, avoiding the slick, rotting corpses that choked the path. He moved with purpose, ever close to the walls, and passed in and out of homes when possible. Gaspard kept an eye on the path ahead and saw movement ahead. He tested the door of the nearest home and found the lock was broken. He headed inside, hoping to find a good point of view on the beast lurking ahead. A vantage presented itself, though it was far from ideal. While the broad window did have a view of the city street, it was also mere inches away from a rotting corpse. The former owner of this home was affixed to his kitchen wall thanks to several knives skewering his torso. In the days (or perhaps weeks, Gaspard had long since lost count) since the Mad Moon, his decaying flesh had begun to slough off his bones, but the knives remained deeply embedded in his body, and in the wall behind him. Gaspard covered his mouth and nose with a clean cloth to try and stave off the smell, and took a post next to the pinned corpse. Any glass in the window had long since been shattered and fallen away, giving Gaspard a clear view to the outside world. About five yards from the window, not one but two maddened beats lurked. Both roughly equal in scale, and appearing mostly unchanged from the men they had once been, though their leathery red skin and sunken eyes marked them as anything but human. One was on its hand and knees, feeding like a beast on the corpses that choked the gutters, while the other shambled forward on a badly broken leg, barely moving as it dragged itself forward. The shambler got closer to the feasting monster, and the feaster gave a rough snarl of warning as its meal was threatened. Gaspard had rarely seen two monsters so close together. Gaspard eyed the corpse to his right, still pinned to the wall by knives. He had an idea. It took no small amount of effort, but Gaspard managed to remove one of the knives from the body. The unfortunate former homeowner slumped slightly as the small blade slipped free, but the numerous smaller knives yet held it in place. Gaspard cleaned some of the blood and bile from the blade and tested the heft. He flicked his wrist once or twice. More than likely, he was going to make a fool of himself, but Gaspard wanted to try something. He returned to the window and double-checked to make sure that neither of the beasts had noticed his presence. Confident that he was out of sight, Gaspard took aim, closed one eye, held the knife aloft in his right hand, and threw. The metal blade bounced off a cobblestone once, rebounding off the stones before bouncing into the feasting monster, handle-first. The noise and the sudden impact at least succeeded in upsetting the beast, as Gaspard had hoped. He stepped aside, out of sight, as the irate demon began to vocalize its anger in the form of a hoarse, guttural growl. From his hiding place, Gaspard heard the continued yowling of the feasting monster, followed by a sudden burst of movement -and then a sickening crunch, muffled thrashing, and finally, silence. Gaspard allowed the quiet to linger before he dared return to the window. Where there had once been two creatures, there now stood only one -with the limp leg of the other dangling from its gullet. The shambler had somehow distended its jaws and swallowed the other beast whole. It’s jaws, neck, and torso bulged at every side as they struggled to contain the mass of one full-grown man within the body of another. Seemingly unperturbed by the fact that it had swallowed it’s own body weight in a single bite, the shambler shambled on. Gaspard allowed it to go about its business. The beasts could be turned against each other. That held potential. Great potential. Gaspard sat at the barren kitchen table, stared at the corpse pinned to the wall, and contemplated his next move.