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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Carnifex" data-source="post: 343330" data-attributes="member: 227">Darkness still hung heavy over the temple and environs. The front of the building, the steps and entrance, were slick with the blood of emn and beasts. The fitful torchlight illuminating the scene gave it a hellish quality. Three militiamen had survived. The babies had been recovered, none dead but all with small, fresh scars on their arms. Latorath identified these as evidence that the master had infected the children with lycanthropy. With no families left, they had nothing to tie them here still. The Inquisitor decided to take them with him to the Dawn Fortress, to have them cured of their affliction and put into the church orphanage. The villagers were safe - not a single wolfman had made it to them, though over two dozen militiamen had died around them to save these peoples lives. The elderly priest moved amidst the dead, muttering prayers. * * *Latorath strode over to the band. Wolf had already joined them by the twisted corpse of the master werewolf, silent and grim; the Inquisitor had taken a moment to check on Evant, the Templar still pinned down by the weight of his own armour. The werewolf's spell had drained him of even the strength required to stand up, but it seemed to be weakening - the knight would live, even though he had been mauled badly while prone. As the armoured cleric approached, the half-scream half-howl of a woman rose from within the back quarters of the temple, the werewolf whom they had captured, and who had caused all this, caught up in her madness once again. Latorath paused, looking solemnly down at the mangled body that had been the master. "I thank Solanthar for his deliverance; and thank you for your bravery this night." He arced his head up to look into the night sky. "That was truly a nightmare.""We will burn the corpses of the corrupted beasts upon the morning." He paused. "I'm afraid I can offer you nothing in way of payment for your courage. Nothing other than my sincere thanks, that is." ***The mercenaries did have a few more questions. Wyshria was worried they might be infected with lycanthropy, but the learned Inquisitor reassured her; lycanthropy was only passed on by a dark ritual, the legends that a mere bite transmitted it were not true. They set to patching themselves up with healing magic and bandages; they intended to travel on with the morning light. As it was the least he could do, Latorath gave them papers allowing them to requisition riding horses from the next Adbarian settlement they passed through.The sun rose over the village, rising up with the wreathes of rancid smoke from piles of burning bodies. From the death-saturated place Wolf's company of brave mercenaries strode forth, their sights set on the distant land of Naseria; they would have to pass over the wildlands to the west of Adbar, then over the Sarokean mountains, before they would reach that civilised nation and the work that they had been offered there. The journey would be a long one, upon which each of the band would have much time to reflect on what they had experienced, and to learn from what had befallen them. Yet eventually they would reach their destination, and once there they would become caught up in events that would change them forever.</blockquote>

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