Session 8 - Chapter 1
THE MOON’S CHILDREN
They walked south, past the crossroads. They hurried as the shapes of black mist began to re-form from the graves there.
The road curved to the east and they walked until the road came close to the thick wall of trees that marked the start of the black forest. Beyond the first few coniferous trees the forest was steeped in mist and what little sunlight entered it filtered through in pale rays. The forest floor had scarce underbrush, as the canopy of evergreen needles and ash leaves didn’t allow much to grow down here in the dark. The woods looked as forbidding as any dungeon entrance.
Arianna and Gerrit were especially wary of the woods as they recalled their first night in Barovia, walking the road. The feeling of being surrounded by immense lupine shapes that glided through the mist like sharks came back to them now and they shivered at the thought.
Luckily, they had some time to prepare. They continued walking on the road and entered Barovia. Once there, they located the blacksmith’s shop that Gerrit had found on their second day in town. The door still hadn’t been opened- apparently the blacksmith had never returned.
The group pulled off the planks that covered the door and forced it open. Once inside they gathered a pile of the silver they had on hand- silver trinkets, silver belt clasps, silver coins- inside a pot and lit the burner beneath.
You must use the color of the moon’s own light, Miolho had said the night before after a few snifters of drink had been downed.
To kill the werewolf, one must use the metal that is as born of the moon as he is. Silver is only made under moonlit mountains, or so I have heard it said.
Once the silver was melted Arianna began dipping her arrowheads into the mixture and placing them to cool on a rack. Toufghar was studying his immense greataxe. “Does anyone actually know anything about smithing or metallurgy here? I mean, dipping arrowheads is great, but how are we going to apply this to our main weapons?”
“I don’t think anyone here knows,” Gerrit said. “We don’t even know if a simple silver-plating will work.”
“So why are we even wasting our time on something that could be a dead end?”
Gerrit didn’t look up from the set of thick silver rings he was attempting to solder together. “I’m guessing you haven’t been in a tree at night, surrounded by these things. They’re the size of ponies.” He held up his makeshift set of silver knuckles and turned them over as he examined his craftsmanship. “I’m not taking any chances.”
The Lightbringers stepped through the trees from the plains and entered Svalich Woods.
Here, the mists turned slowly in the shafts of light. The trees faded away in the fog to tall pale lines in the distant gray. The dead pine needles and black soil crunched softly as they walked to the south.
None of them really knew where they were going. The Svalich Woods were vast, and Madam Eva had only told them to seek the Tome where the moon was hidden but most powerfully felt. The werewolves were all they really had to go on. Arianna kept a watchful eye out for tracks.
They had been walking for twenty minutes when Gerrit cocked his head. “Listen… does anyone else hear that?” Everyone stopped and listened. The pale notes of a pan pipe were drifting from the forest ahead.
“Stay here, I’ll scout it out,” Arianna said. She moved towards the music, passing silently and quickly through the trees as if she were walking on feathers. The trees thinned somewhat as she made her way. Dim gray light spilled through the canopy, and the ground grew choked with undergrowth. A wide swath of clearer ground formed something like a path or trail.
An elf was seated on a branch, some thirty feet above the ground, playing a slow and ethereal song on his pipe. He didn’t look at Arianna, but she knew he had seen her- she had made no effort to stay hidden. She decided to join his song as a means of offering peace and began singing softly along with the song, which was an elven lullaby she recalled from her childhood.
When the song was through the elf lowered his pipe and spoke in soft elven. “What evil do you bring to these woods?” He never turned his head to look at her.
“We bring no evil. We come in search of the moon’s children.”
“You ought leave.”
“Perhaps, but we have rather important business here.”
“You ought leave.” The elf went back to his pipe and played on.
Arianna, having nothing more to say, turned to rejoin the group. When she reached them, she relayed the information and as there was nothing for it, the party all readied their weapons and walked forward. When they reached the clearing, the elf was gone. They were about to walk through when Toufghar stopped. “Noises. Movement.”
Arianna whipped out an arrow and nocked it. “Where?”
“Just beyond the mist. Saw a shape. I think we’re not alone here.”
“You’re not,” the elf said as he stepped out from behind a tree to the rear of the group. They whirled to face him. He was unarmed and looking irritated. “You’re surrounded. I don’t believe you understood my meaning when I said ‘you ought leave.’”
Thendrick, who was closest to the elf, was known to Toufghar and Arianna as having something of a quick temper. He wouldn’t anger easily, but if he perceived a threat, he was more likely to attack than to back down… and he would attack swiftly, with a frightening glare in his eyes. This often belied the thin and affable sorcerer’s demeanor, but it was just as much a part of him as his aptitude for grooming and dressing in finery. He stepped closer to the elf and looked him in the face. “By what right do you have us surrounded? We’re as free to walk in these woods as you are.”
“You should turn around.”
“You should make us.”
The elf sneered. “Did you come from that village? Did they send you? They will die screaming if you don’t-“
Thendrick blasted him in the face with a powerful rash of purple light-bolts. The elf cried out and leaned on the tree. He looked off to his left and nodded, and something there broke from its position in the underbrush and ran south. At the same time, several large shapes began loping in from behind the clearing’s thick trees. These were wolves that stood five feet tall at the shoulder and slavered pinkish froth from their maws.
The elf stepped behind the tree he’d been near and sounds began to come from behind it. Wet sounds, popping sounds, like celery sticks being snapped inside a waterskin. The elf’s grunts of pain turned deeper and throatier.
Arianna fired at the wolves as they ran in. Toufghar swung his axe up to meet the first one as it leaped and his silver-coated greataxe thunked into its ribcage. It yelped with pain and circled the group, favoring its side. “I think the silver-plating worked,” Toufghar said.
Gerrit smashed a wolf in the face with his fist, which was holding four silver rings that had been melted together. The silver “brass” knuckles did their part and the halfling cartwheeled away from another wolf’s attack as the first reeled from the punch.
Thendrick stepped cautiously towards the tree as the noises slowed and the elf stepped back from behind the tree. He was now nine feet tall and still standing on his hind legs, though his body was entirely covered with fur. His elongated torso rippled with muscles and shaggy fur. The head was a mockery of a real wolf’s head- a lengthy muzzle lined with too many teeth, furious eyes that were bright yellow, triangular ears that were long almost to the point of being lapin. It growled deep in its chest and swung at Thendrick, clawing deep tears in his expensive robes and flesh.
Thendrick stepped back quickly, trying to summon the energies for another spell. The werewolf stalked toward him.
Ashlyn’s silver-coated sword cut through fur and bone. She had dropped a wolf already and was holding off the others with some effort.
Arianna did her best to keep some distance so she could fire her silver-tipped arrows, two at a time, into the faces and torsos of the werewolves that tore at her companions.
Gerrit mostly served as a bait and distraction, flipping about and lashing out with a well-timed blow here and there.
Toufghar was having a fine time wheeling his greataxe about and hacking off werewolf limbs until a set of jaws clamped around his upper arm and shook, tearing free a number of tendons and almost shearing off the skin there entirely. The half-orc roared in pain and clubbed the werewolf in the face with the butt of his axe, then finished him off with a furious horizontal slash.
Thendrick unleashed a palmful of bees that glowed like embers and shot into the face of the elf-wolf. The monster howled in pain and died, its face immolated by Thendrick’s magical attack.
The other werewolves were dealt with in short order and the party was left gasping for breath, surrounded by the bloodied corpses of several elves. With a quick round of healing spells and potions the party got moving again. It wasn’t even noon yet but they were hoping to be done and out of the woods before dark.
Coming up
THE DEN
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