The Forsaken Hero
I closed my eyes and let out a shuddering breath. My fingers were numb and cold, my arm aching where the needle pierced the vein. Something clattered onto the pavement, and I looked down to see the needle. It had slipped out of my hand. Nothingness swirled around me, bringing the first sense of peace I'd felt in my short, miserable life. There was no one to miss me, and no one I would miss. There's always someone else to beat or rape. The regulars would move on quickly. I died. Only...wasn't death supposed to be dark? And since when did 'nothingness' have so many gods? Discord: https://discord.gg/PX3xqJdZMY
The Verdant Grove
Heartland City had many bathhouses, both public and private, far more than any city I'd visited. Here, they took it as a luxury, not simply a necessity. Tana's eyes shone as we skipped into the Verdant Grove, her favorite among the private bathhouses.
The bath was a small, tiled indent in the floor fed by twin streams of water flowing from a nearby statue. It was far from their most luxurious, but a small, single bath was all I could afford at this point. Even before I slipped into the water, billowing waves of steam enveloped my body, tickling my nose with the scent of flowers. My skin glistened with condensation, the smooth, hard texture of my horns growing slick and glossy.