<div class="floatright">(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/rcburner/Huntsman.jpg)</div><br/>It is said that Atayo City draws all sorts of strange people from all over the world.  It is a haven for both the obscenely rich and the wretchedly poor, the infuriatingly arrogant and the laughably withdrawn (though neither last for very long), and is home to some of the most eccentric individuals ever to grace the pages of the history books.  It is a conglomeration of so many different cultures and sects and races and groups and tetherball teams that to call it the world's Mixing<em>Pot</em>seems terribly inadequate.  It would be more accurate to call it the world's mixing<em>Olympic Swimming Pool</em>, where everyone is struggling to stay afloat with one hand and beat their neighbor with the other.<br/><br/>Therefor it was not at all unusual that, in the middle of the Industrial District, where massive flumes and blackened spires greedily clutch at the stars and obscure them in smoldering fogs, there sat a tiny cottage surrounded by a nondescript picket fence, like something plucked out of a children's faerie tale.  It seemed entirely untouched by all the grime and filth around it, as though it had settled into its own little bubble and decided to ignore everything distasteful around it.  Anywhere else it would have seemed entirely plain and ordinary, but here it stuck out like a rather charming sore thumb with lovingly maintained shrubbery and a freshly cut lawn.<br/><br/>But inside was another story.  If one were to be invited inside, one would find the interior to be quite a bit larger than the exterior would suggest.  If the world wasn't so full of magick and trickery, one would have thought that the landscape of factories behind it had merely been an elaborately painted backdrop to conceal the real size of the house.  But since it<em>was</em>a world so full of magick and trickery, it was clear that supernatural forces were at work.<br/><br/>It opened up into a vestibule that seemed to go on forever in all directions, with a staircase built for a giant at the far end and literally thousands of doors lining the four walls--including ones that should have rightfully led back outside again if the building had any common sense or respect for the laws of physics.  It would take years to explore the complex labyrinth of rooms, with all their peculiar artifacts and portraits and sculptures and books and knick knacks, but for now only one room was important, because only one room was occupied.<br/><br/>It was a cozy living space, all plush mauve carpeting and scented candles casting flickering displays of fiery gems across the rich brown walls.  It even had a lovely fireplace, except instead of staying nice and compact like a fireplace should, it stretched on for a good seventy to eighty feet.  Above the mantle a wall soared upwards to fantastic heights, and if not for the hanging lamps the view would have surely plunged into shadow.  Nearly every square foot of it was overtaken by trophies of various sorts, from gargantuan fish to severed heads, from strange twisting antlers to teeth and jaws that seemed more than large enough to swallow a man whole.  There were even a few startlingly dangerous claws and tails hanging this way and that.  Most of them were from beasts, but every now and then a humanoid face would leer gruesomely from the macabre display, or a slender finger withered away to skin and bone would be latched firmly against a plank of wood.<br/><br/>And before it all stood a man.  A tall gray man that seemed to be composed entirely of sharp angles, to the point where touching him might very well have drawn blood accidentally.  His attire suggested he might, at any moment, sprout wings and fly out the nearest window to suck the blood from some hapless virgin maiden, though thankfully his tastes were not quite so exotic.  Though he was about as grim a figure as they come, The Huntsman's face was turned up in a rather silly, almost nostalgic smile.<br/><br/>He was staring at a head towards the bottom of the wall, a massive and ugly thing that stared back at him with glassy eyes.  It looked to be some sort of monumentally large reptile, but with a set of horns so wide and tall that they almost fused together into a crest at the back of its skull.  The scales were red and faded, but still shined with latent power even after death.  A dragon, and a large one at that<br/><br/><strong>"Perhaps a bit of proper company is what you need, eh?"</strong>he said to the head, hands gripped around a slender cane, but not for support.<br/><br/>And with that, he turned and left the room, leaving the multitude of faces to stare silently at nothing.