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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iron Chef BBQ" data-source="post: 959568" data-attributes="member: 1844">Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?  (run of 06-16-03)Our intrepid band of weary adventurers stands around the broken bodies of the Brightwing sisters.  They are deeply saddened by the deaths of these bright and capable women.  Borin, Lucre and Marja are all pretty badly wounded so as the party discusses what to do next, the healers wander from person to person attending as best they can.They decide to light the speak with dead candle they found in the tent of the Charduni anti-Palladin.  Kel holds the candle, lights the flame and addresses Mira.  Dark black smoke curls up from the candle and swirls around the dead figure.  The smoke penetrates the body, through the ears, nose, mouth, and they hear a slow sucking sound, and high-pitched squeal that starts out very faintly and grows in intensity until they are covering their ears against the terrible wail.  Mira’s body writhes in pain.  This upsets Kel, but he holds the candle tighter and begins, “What killed you?”“Glowing eyes.  All I saw were glowing eyes in the darkness.  Terrible.  Help me!”Sweat is pouring down Kel’s face.  “Where?”“In the alley near my aunt’s.”  The body screams.  “The pain!  Make it stop!”Kel is flustered and anxious to put poor Mira out of her misery.  He means to ask if they were attacked before or after they went to see Willow, the enchanted shopkeeper, but instead he asks, “Before or after you saw your aunt.”“Before,” Mira cries.  The candle burns low, and the flames lick at Kel’s hand.  They are hot, and Kel drops the candle.  The flame goes out.  The smoke stops, and Mira’s body falls lifeless.“I asked the last question wrong,” he apologizes.  The entire party is shaken.  Marja puts her hand gently on Kel’s shoulder.  “We can assume it was after seeing Willow, on their way home.  You did good.”They gather up the bodies as best they can and head back to town.  They discuss what to do next.  Lucre feels an obligation to figure out who killed the sisters, and Kel points out that once the trail grows cold, they may never be able to solve the murder.  Borin, however, will not be swayed from their mission.  Kalina concurs.  They must all be focused on Hooffall.  Tracking down this killer would certainly put them in danger, perhaps even cause more deaths, and make helping Hooffall all the harder.  Marja thinks that this may actually be a ripple effect from the problems at Hooffall.  Save Hooffall, solve the murder.  Lucre and Kel are persuaded.  They will all stay focused on their mission, BUT they will return this way to find the killer when their mission is completed.They stop at the Inn to speak to Regger.  It has occurred to them that they don’t know the name of the sisters’ aunt or where she lives.  He, of course, knows.  She lives at the end of Big Head Alley, and her name is Miss Charlotte.  She used to be the schoolteacher, and is really smart, hence the name “Big Head” Alley.  As they step into the alley, Fang’s hackles rise.  He backs out of the alley and is afraid to proceed.  Kalina spends time calming him.  He isn’t being very clear, but she tells the group that whatever he’s afraid of is no longer in the alley.  He says he smells, “a grave, big, bad and angry.”  Finally, Kalina manages to coax him through the alley, and they find themselves standing at the door of Charlotte Brightwing.Suddenly, the realization of what they’re here to do hits them.  They all become sullen and gloomy.  Deke knocks at the door.  Miss Charlotte is white-haired and spry.  Her sharp blue eyes sparkle.  She asks them all in, and Kel breaks the news.  “Right outside my house?” she mutters.  “I didn’t hear a thing, and I stayed up half the night waiting for those girls.”  Then she drifts into reverie.  “They were good girls, they were.  Always helping other people.  And very bright.  I taught them to read and write in this very room.”That gives Lucre an idea.  “Marja, show her the note.”  Marja pulls the note supposedly written by one of the sisters from her pocket.  Charlotte is sure that’s not either of their writings.  In fact, she’s pretty sure it’s not anyone from this town.  She has personally taught everyone in this town for two generations to write, and she taught the way her predecessor taught her.  No, that is definitely not Treadle handwriting.  She wonders if this has something to do with all the mess they’ve been hearing about Hooffall.  The party is surprised.  So few people in town ever mention troubles there.  Well, Charlotte concedes, the town likes to keep their troubles to themselves.They leave the poor woman to her to her grief and head back to town.  Marja and Borin head for the temple to speak to Magyar.  The others head back to the Inn.  Kenyan has an idea.  He tries to casts detect magic, but Regger protests.  “No making with the boom in my bar!” he protests.  “No, no,” Kenyan bluffs.  “It wasn’t a spell.  I was preparing to sing you a song.”  Kenyan strikes a pose and begins to sing.  Remarkably, he manages to sing a song about a happy frog, and between the verses, he casts.  As he suspected, Regger glows with enchantment magic.Distracted by Kenyan’s song, Regger doesn’t notice Kalina casting too.  She dispels the enchantment, and they question the hafling.  Nothing seems to have changed.  They tell him about the spell.  The only thing that seems different is that he has a vague memory that he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone something, but he can’t remember what that might have been.  “I seem to have a hole in my brain,” he muses.Our adventurers hit the road which is more like a well-worn path through the woods.  Kalina, in hawk form, scouts up ahead.  Everyone is tired, many are still wounded so they move slowly on horseback.  They stop to munch on bread, cheese and ale around mid-day.  The cheese those little haflings make in Treadle is pretty darn tasty.About two hours later as they’re coming to the bottom of a small valley Marja hears something up ahead.  “I hear a dog panting,” Marja says.  “A what?”  The others are perplexed.  “A dog panting.  You know, like this: ha, ha, ha.”  As the group begins to laugh at Marja’s dog imitation, they all spot dark forms cresting the hill in the distance.  Fang growls.  He can smell them from here – Wolves!The group spreads out with Kenyan taking his customary defense-of-the-rear position saying, “Everybody fan out in the classic protect the bard pose.”Borin tumbles from the saddle and runs up the hill.  Lucre also dismounts, but instead of running to meet the huge creatures, he spends a moment to reach inside his head to unleash his power.  He calls it reach, but the rest of the group call it weird freaky arms.  Kel spots a pair of glowing eyes.  Remembering Mira’s post-last words, he charges on his mount, a huge war horse.  Both of their armors catch the dim light through the trees.There are six wolves, the one in the middle has the yellow glowing eyes and is much larger than the rest.  All are larger than Fang.  Kel reaches the largest one and scrapes across its side with his lance.  Suddenly, Kel is surrounded by wolves.  One puts a huge slash through his horse’s right rear leg severing the tendon.  Three others lunge, pulling Kel from his steed and ripping at his body.Kalina swoops down onto Kel.  Fang rushes in too.  Touching both the young warrior and his horse Kalina calls upon the power of the surrounding pine trees.  Fresh sap-filled needles fall upon them filling the air with a strong pine scent.  Suddenly, the wolves turn away.  They can no longer see or smell Kalina, Kel or the horse.  (invisible to animals)Now the only creature within the wolves’ reach is Fang.  The wolf-leader rages, foams at the mouth and lunges at Fang.  Over the growls the sound of Kenyan singing fills the air.Borin rages and moves into a position opposite Fang.  The masterwork battleaxe flies through the air down onto the back of the nearest creature.  He’s getting used to the extra height this elf body gives him.  Out of nowhere Lucre is by his side (psionic burst) charging the same creature, his sword crashing down into the wound left by the axe.The wolves rush from Kel to these new attackers giving Borin, Fang and Lucre an opportunity to attack again as the creatures approach.  All three create huge gashes across the creatures’ torsos.  Lucre severs a back leg, but then the wolves attack!  They tear at Fang’s throat, and he falls unconscious.  The party gasps as one as they see him fall.  Garnet, Marja’s familiar, is particularly alarmed to see a fellow creature drop to the ground.  “That’s why I wear my animal friends as jewelry,” Marja reassures the tiny snake delicately wrapped around her wrist.Marja rises into the air and hovers over the red-eyed wolf, out of reach of its jump.  She fires magic missiles down upon its nose and eyes.  The wolf snarls and snaps, but being unable to reach Marja, it bites at Lucre tearing a bloody gash in his arm.Kalina swoops down and regenerates Kel while Kenyan attempts to inspire fear, but these dire wolves don’t seem to be afraid of anything.  From a safe distance, Deke, the tiny filcher, shoots arrows into the fray.Borin barrels in with a full attack.  One!  Two!  His great axe crashes down on the back of the red-eyed wolf.  A sickly cracking sound rises over the howls and snarls.  The glowing red eyes go dim, and the creature falls.  Borin continues his swing straight through to the next wolf severing off a leg.  Moving like a whirlwind, he spins 360 degrees and catches the same creature under the chin.  This beast falls dead next to the corpse of its leader.  He turns again and lops off the ears of the next wolf within his reach.Lucre clucks in admiration as he turns his attention to his closest foe.  His sword comes down hard on the creature’s back, snapping its spine.  Its back legs go limp, and it is unable to lunge.  Lucre steps out of reach of its snapping jaws and taunts it.Again the wolves close in attacking the nearest conscious members of the party.  Kalina yells that this behavior is odd for wolves.  With their leader dead, they should retreat.  She suspects mind control.  She swoops down to stabilize Fang.  Since she has now touched an animal, she and Kel are now visible and scented to the wolves, but they should have more interest in the animate Borin and Lucre than in the unconscious, but rejuvenating Kel.Marja, Kenyan and Deke continue to pepper the remaining three wolves with ranged attacks, magical and mundane.  Borin tumbles in to flank with his cousin and lops of the jaw of the nearest wolf.  Remarkably, the creature does not fall.  Lucre counters by cutting off the creature’s tail and finally gets his kill.  The poor jawless wolf looks at its tailless hind end and dies of ignominy.There are two wolves remaining.  They attack Lucre who is beginning to look bad.  He fears he won’t stand through another attack.  Marja shoots six magic missiles, one at a time.  She kills one wolf and wounds the other.  Kenyan moves into harm’s way and heals Kel back to consciousness.  Kel sits bolt upright scaring the bloody crap out of Kenyan.  Kel hears the faint whinnying of a horse in his ears.  He mumbles a prayer of thanks to Corean.Deke sneaks in with his rapier and skewers the lone wolf in an indelicate location.  The creature turns in surprise, and Borin swings with all his force.  Finally, the party drops in exhaustion surrounded by the bodies of the slain enemy.  The healers tend to the wounded while sheepskins are donned.  Borin laughs at the thought of how they must look as they turn into sheep and back again for the healing properties of the transformation spells.  They find a copse of trees and set up camp for the night.  All fall into a sound sleep except those keeping watch.Since Deke has great night vision and no spells to sleep for he takes the midnight watch.  He hears a sound in the brush and sneaks in to investigate.  He sees a figure shrouded in red smoke.  Although he is completely hidden, he can’t resist.  He steps into the clearing and ….  Suddenly, the party is awakened by Deke’s screams. Deke staggers into the camp clutching his neck.  He looks noticeably weakened.  “I mooned it, and it bit me!”</blockquote>

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