Blacktail Deer Plateau buried in the dark

@Saena - being vague about his previous thread as it is ongoing and empty. Also this is a lot of bleh, so you can ignore the majority of it. He's tired and hungry and looking for a place to rest for the night.

The feeling of fleeing the Neverwinter Forest was both liberating and depressing. He couldn't quite decide on how to feel, and chose instead to compartmentalize what had occurred. Tryphon would deal with the encounter later. He hollowed himself out as he moved, letting names and faces slide from his mind as he threw himself into a run. It was not a common sight, seeing Tryphon out and about with such gusto; he wished to be away from the memories, and so away he would go.

As the boy moved south he caught the scent of a herd, or of something, and the hunger in him won out. His path veered eastward for a few miles. He did not hide his presence as he once did, knowing that this herd would not be the same one he had spent weeks tracking. They would be frightful creatures. Their offense to his very presence would likely lead to a failed hunt, but Tryphon was desperate — he was always desperate.

He found patches of dead grass bitten down to the root in some places. Patches of grass which had been flattened by the boxy bodies of deer or elk, or some kind of ungulate. He followed the trail they left in their wake with their hungry mouths, and eventually his route took him northward alongside a hastily flowing river. Tryphon was deterred by the water the same way he was deterred by the sea. The scent of it, the sound, it did not sooth him but rather, caused such agitation that he lost the trail of the herd on more than one occasion. 

The river thinned as the earth rolled, becoming undulated with hills (and punctuated with a vague sulfuric scent, how strange). The herd was nowhere to be found, but at least the river had quieted down. Tryphon had lost himself to his anxiety once again. With the absence of the river's rushing waters to fill his ears he was made acutely aware of his pounding heart and ragged breathing — he had been running too hard. 

Around him was a crown of mountains; with the return of his Eeyore-slouch and lethargic gait, Tryphon began to work his way up the ridge and on to the plateau, if only so he could have a nice view as the evening began to fall.