Travels through the Wild West: Books V-VIII (Epilogue)
- Thread starter Lazybones
- Start date
They could have come close to stopping the entire invasion with a single well-placed Wall of Fire.
Of course, if you were going to take a large number of people captive and sacrifice them, who would you kill first? The warriors, already deprived of weapons and armor? Or perhaps you would take the spellcasters first -- the ones that can do the most damage with the least amount of equipment. (Not counting monks...
)
I'd say that the reason there weren't any spellcasters to help out is because they were all exterminated in the attempt to revive an evil god...
Of course, if you were going to take a large number of people captive and sacrifice them, who would you kill first? The warriors, already deprived of weapons and armor? Or perhaps you would take the spellcasters first -- the ones that can do the most damage with the least amount of equipment. (Not counting monks...
)I'd say that the reason there weren't any spellcasters to help out is because they were all exterminated in the attempt to revive an evil god...
Lazybones
Adventurer
Regarding the urdunnir: wolff has the right of it; dwarves in general don't typically have a lot of arcane casters to begin with, and it is likely that the duergar would have slain (or sacrificed) those remaining during the long years of slavery. And of course, many of the high level urdunnir would have been killed in the assualt on their town, as they would have been most prominent in its defense (and least likely to succumb to the stun gas and/or psionics that the duergar use to take captives). Most of the duergar that Lok freed had warrior or expert levels, with a few assorted other classes of generally low level thrown into the balance. The way I conceptualized it, none of those remaining were more than 6th level, with most far lower. I didn't stat them all out, of course, as they were always intended to be supporting characters.
But thanks for the questions, I appreciate the opportunity to elaborate on the logic behind the story.
And now for today's update...
* * * * *
Book VI, Part 10
Delem fled through a tortured landscape, over an expanse of dark gray stone that was all jagged angles and harsh edges. A thick, acrid smell hung in the air, burning his lungs with each breath, and the sky above was the color of old ashes, lit by a diffuse light that came from no sun or other heavenly body. When had he last seen the sun, the real sun? He couldn’t remember.
What he could remember, however, was the demons. They were coming for him again, chasing him across this nightmare terrain, dark forms that pursued him inexorably across every gap and barrier. He knew that he could not escape them, yet he ran anyway, his brain unhelpfully filling his thoughts with images of what would happen when they caught up with him.
He glanced over his shoulder to check their progress, and saw a line of them clamber over the lip of a ridge that he’d traversed only a few scant minutes before. Dretches, their fat, bulbous bodies carried forward on stick-like legs while their slackened jaws smacked and tasted the fetid air. Among the least of the demons, they would still have no difficulty tearing his body apart, he knew only too well.
His route carried him into a twisting defilade, and soon the demons dropped out of sight behind him. They were still there, he knew, still coming for him. The trail down grew steeper as the stone walls to each side reared up higher and higher, until he was running through a narrow gap between two vertical, crumbling cliffs. Then the trail bent sharply again, and the cliff to the left fell away, revealing a vast open chasm that seemed to go on forever. His only recourse was a treacherous ledge that ran back up to the right, and without hesitation he ran in that direction.
A buzzing sound came into his perceptions, a sound that rapidly grew both louder and more persistent, approaching from somewhere down below. Delem fell back against the dubious shelter of the cliff face, his hands probing for somewhere to hold on, his mind swimming as that droning noise filled his senses and threatened to overcome him. He felt tired, weak, drifting into a sleep that would never end...
That temptation was almost soothing, but Delem knew too much already, knew that the promise of rest was a false one. He shouted out in defiance at the air and the stone and the things that filled this terrible place, this perversion of familiar places that were normal and real. Even the echo of his voice was twisted, coming back to him with an almost mocking tilt to the familiar syllables, teasing him.
The buzzing noise took on an even higher pitch, its source revealed a moment later as two man-sized forms drifted up over the lip of the ledge from the chasm below. The creatures were like houseflies grown to the size of sheep, except that their faces were both intelligent and corrupted, demonic visages that sneered at him for resisting the siren call of their magical droning.
Chasme demons, whispered a voice in Delem’s mind, the part of him that remembered all of the terrible things that he’d experienced in the Abyss.
There was no escape, for the things were ahead, blocking his route up the ledge. But as he fell back his probing hands felt a crack in the stone of the cliff, a tight passage that led off to some other destination. He knew he was being led, toyed with by the demon masters of this place, but there was nowhere else for him to go, the uncertain dangers of the crack balanced against the very certain perils of the demons that now threatened.
So he darted into the crack, barely squeezing through the narrow space, seeking escape even while that small rational voice inside him whispered that there was no escape from this place.
The passage led deep into the stone face of the cliff. The droning noise fell behind him as he made his way further down the corridor, but he was not so naïve to think that the demons had given up the chase. Then, so suddenly that he didn’t realize until he was through, the corridor gave way to a chamber, a small round bubble in the stone that was open to the sky above. No escape that way—the walls all around were hundreds of feet high, and virtually sheer.
As his eyes darted around frantically, seeking any small possibility for escape, he saw movement in one corner of the confined space. Three lean, feral forms rose up out of the deep shadows there, and came toward him. They looked human, almost, until one caught sight of the unnatural way that their bones jutted from under their skin, or the hairless, sloping faces that gave way to jaws full of sharp, rending teeth. They carried longswords with jagged, serrated edges awkwardly, and their walk was almost a stagger as they ambled closer.
Delem knew that it was all a lie, that the awkwardness of the three creatures belied a ferocious strength and speed that would be unleashed once they were close enough to their prey. Rutterkin demons, vicious and stupid and cruel things that delighted in inflicting torments upon sentient creatures weaker than they.
They spread out in a half-ring that closed in upon him, driving him back until there was nowhere for him to go. Their jaws drooled thick gobs of saliva in anticipation of the kill, and they slashed the air with their blades, delighting in the look of terror that flitted across Delem’s face with each step closer they came.
“No escape, manling,” one hissed.
No escape...
Something snapped inside of him, a burning rage that came so suddenly that it overran his terror in a raging torrent. It coursed through him like a wildfire, sweeping away all doubt and thought until only the white-hot purity of his hatred was left.
And then the power came to him.
The demons laughed and rushed at him, but their evil cackles turned to cries of pain as their world exploded in fire. Delem extended his hands and launched a second stream of burning hands at them, and then a third, until their leathery flesh had become blackened and charred and the three rutterkin collapsed in smoking piles of ruin.
Even as the last of the rutterkin stopped twitching, however, he heard the familiar buzzing noise from up above. Delem looked up to see the two chasme demons swooping down from above, closing the distance to him rapidly.
But Delem no longer felt fear, and the power came once again at his call. The first chasme staggered as the full force of an Aganazzar’s scorcher blasted into it, ravaging its insectile form. The flames scorched its wings, causing it to veer awkwardly off to the side. The second tried to dodge out of the way, but it avoided its smoldering comrade only to take a blast from a second scorcher that tore into its bulbous belly. Its buzzing replaced by an incoherent screeching, the injured demon retreated swiftly back up into the air toward the top of the canyon above. The first demon tried to do the same, but its injured wings did not carry it fast enough as Delem fired a series of blazing magic missiles into its fat body. It let out a cry of pain as each missile blasted into it, finally subsiding as it fell limply to the hard ground below.
Delem watched it fall. He heard a strange sound, a wheezing, awful sound, and belatedly realized that it was coming from him.
He was laughing.
Dark forms appeared in the mouth of the narrow passage that led back out to the cliff ledge. Dretches, shambling forward, a small army of them. His original pursuers, caught up to him at last. They made no effort to form a line or organize their numbers, but simply came onward in a disorganized mass, drawn inexorably by the irresistible lure of a living soul.
“So, you want my power?” Delem said, nearly shouting as he faced the demon horde. “Very well then, I will give you POWER!”
He pointed, and at his call a bead of liquid fire erupted from his fingertips, blasting across the space that separated him and the demons until it exploded into a massive ball of flaming death in their midst. Most of the demons were instantly blasted into blackened mounds of crispy flesh, and when the flames and smoke cleared, only a few scattered remnants staggered about, disoriented.
They didn’t last for long.
When it was over, Delem stood there alone, breathing heavily, wisps of smoke from the carcasses lying around him curling around his body in the faint hints of wind that made it into the depths of the canyon. The smell was acrid, terrible, but rather than filling him with disgust it actually brought a kind of exhilaration, welcome payback against the creatures that had tormented him for so long. His power had returned, and he would not be a helpless victim again. Logic told him that he was still trapped in the Abyss, and that his meager spells would not hold off the hordes of demons that dwelled in this evil place, but logic didn’t feel as good as the hard proof lying in blackened heaps all around him.
He felt a disturbance behind him, and turned just in time to see a massive form materialize out of the air, a mere ten paces away from him. It was a familiar form, warped in shape like all demons, as though someone had taken a collection of disparate parts and forced them all together into a loathsome whole. It stood nearly nine feet tall, all muscle and power. It was roughly humanoid, although four arms rather than two spouted from its torso, two ending in huge pincers and a second set that protruded from its chest ending in slender, almost delicate hands. Its head was like that of a huge wolfhound, except that its large red eyes shone with a cruel and fiendish intelligence.
It regarded Delem with those eyes, and the sorcerer felt the power rising up within him, almost eager for his call.
But the demon raised one of its small hands to forestall him, and it kept its distance.
“What do you want, glabrezu?” Delem warned, as flickers of barely-contained flame gathered around the fingers of his left hand.
The demon guffawed. “Do not think to test your powers against me, human. But I have not come to do battle with you this day. You have regained that which you have lost, and the Master would speak with you now.”
The demon reached out with an almost-human hand, beckoning him to come to it. Delem hesitated, but then realized that he had no real choice.
Besides, the chance to confront the being behind all of this, behind his torments, was too great—and terrible—to pass up.
With his power seething in him, he walked over to the demon, and reached up to take its offered hand.
Both of them shimmered and disappeared.
But thanks for the questions, I appreciate the opportunity to elaborate on the logic behind the story.
And now for today's update...
* * * * *
Book VI, Part 10
Delem fled through a tortured landscape, over an expanse of dark gray stone that was all jagged angles and harsh edges. A thick, acrid smell hung in the air, burning his lungs with each breath, and the sky above was the color of old ashes, lit by a diffuse light that came from no sun or other heavenly body. When had he last seen the sun, the real sun? He couldn’t remember.
What he could remember, however, was the demons. They were coming for him again, chasing him across this nightmare terrain, dark forms that pursued him inexorably across every gap and barrier. He knew that he could not escape them, yet he ran anyway, his brain unhelpfully filling his thoughts with images of what would happen when they caught up with him.
He glanced over his shoulder to check their progress, and saw a line of them clamber over the lip of a ridge that he’d traversed only a few scant minutes before. Dretches, their fat, bulbous bodies carried forward on stick-like legs while their slackened jaws smacked and tasted the fetid air. Among the least of the demons, they would still have no difficulty tearing his body apart, he knew only too well.
His route carried him into a twisting defilade, and soon the demons dropped out of sight behind him. They were still there, he knew, still coming for him. The trail down grew steeper as the stone walls to each side reared up higher and higher, until he was running through a narrow gap between two vertical, crumbling cliffs. Then the trail bent sharply again, and the cliff to the left fell away, revealing a vast open chasm that seemed to go on forever. His only recourse was a treacherous ledge that ran back up to the right, and without hesitation he ran in that direction.
A buzzing sound came into his perceptions, a sound that rapidly grew both louder and more persistent, approaching from somewhere down below. Delem fell back against the dubious shelter of the cliff face, his hands probing for somewhere to hold on, his mind swimming as that droning noise filled his senses and threatened to overcome him. He felt tired, weak, drifting into a sleep that would never end...
That temptation was almost soothing, but Delem knew too much already, knew that the promise of rest was a false one. He shouted out in defiance at the air and the stone and the things that filled this terrible place, this perversion of familiar places that were normal and real. Even the echo of his voice was twisted, coming back to him with an almost mocking tilt to the familiar syllables, teasing him.
The buzzing noise took on an even higher pitch, its source revealed a moment later as two man-sized forms drifted up over the lip of the ledge from the chasm below. The creatures were like houseflies grown to the size of sheep, except that their faces were both intelligent and corrupted, demonic visages that sneered at him for resisting the siren call of their magical droning.
Chasme demons, whispered a voice in Delem’s mind, the part of him that remembered all of the terrible things that he’d experienced in the Abyss.
There was no escape, for the things were ahead, blocking his route up the ledge. But as he fell back his probing hands felt a crack in the stone of the cliff, a tight passage that led off to some other destination. He knew he was being led, toyed with by the demon masters of this place, but there was nowhere else for him to go, the uncertain dangers of the crack balanced against the very certain perils of the demons that now threatened.
So he darted into the crack, barely squeezing through the narrow space, seeking escape even while that small rational voice inside him whispered that there was no escape from this place.
The passage led deep into the stone face of the cliff. The droning noise fell behind him as he made his way further down the corridor, but he was not so naïve to think that the demons had given up the chase. Then, so suddenly that he didn’t realize until he was through, the corridor gave way to a chamber, a small round bubble in the stone that was open to the sky above. No escape that way—the walls all around were hundreds of feet high, and virtually sheer.
As his eyes darted around frantically, seeking any small possibility for escape, he saw movement in one corner of the confined space. Three lean, feral forms rose up out of the deep shadows there, and came toward him. They looked human, almost, until one caught sight of the unnatural way that their bones jutted from under their skin, or the hairless, sloping faces that gave way to jaws full of sharp, rending teeth. They carried longswords with jagged, serrated edges awkwardly, and their walk was almost a stagger as they ambled closer.
Delem knew that it was all a lie, that the awkwardness of the three creatures belied a ferocious strength and speed that would be unleashed once they were close enough to their prey. Rutterkin demons, vicious and stupid and cruel things that delighted in inflicting torments upon sentient creatures weaker than they.
They spread out in a half-ring that closed in upon him, driving him back until there was nowhere for him to go. Their jaws drooled thick gobs of saliva in anticipation of the kill, and they slashed the air with their blades, delighting in the look of terror that flitted across Delem’s face with each step closer they came.
“No escape, manling,” one hissed.
No escape...
Something snapped inside of him, a burning rage that came so suddenly that it overran his terror in a raging torrent. It coursed through him like a wildfire, sweeping away all doubt and thought until only the white-hot purity of his hatred was left.
And then the power came to him.
The demons laughed and rushed at him, but their evil cackles turned to cries of pain as their world exploded in fire. Delem extended his hands and launched a second stream of burning hands at them, and then a third, until their leathery flesh had become blackened and charred and the three rutterkin collapsed in smoking piles of ruin.
Even as the last of the rutterkin stopped twitching, however, he heard the familiar buzzing noise from up above. Delem looked up to see the two chasme demons swooping down from above, closing the distance to him rapidly.
But Delem no longer felt fear, and the power came once again at his call. The first chasme staggered as the full force of an Aganazzar’s scorcher blasted into it, ravaging its insectile form. The flames scorched its wings, causing it to veer awkwardly off to the side. The second tried to dodge out of the way, but it avoided its smoldering comrade only to take a blast from a second scorcher that tore into its bulbous belly. Its buzzing replaced by an incoherent screeching, the injured demon retreated swiftly back up into the air toward the top of the canyon above. The first demon tried to do the same, but its injured wings did not carry it fast enough as Delem fired a series of blazing magic missiles into its fat body. It let out a cry of pain as each missile blasted into it, finally subsiding as it fell limply to the hard ground below.
Delem watched it fall. He heard a strange sound, a wheezing, awful sound, and belatedly realized that it was coming from him.
He was laughing.
Dark forms appeared in the mouth of the narrow passage that led back out to the cliff ledge. Dretches, shambling forward, a small army of them. His original pursuers, caught up to him at last. They made no effort to form a line or organize their numbers, but simply came onward in a disorganized mass, drawn inexorably by the irresistible lure of a living soul.
“So, you want my power?” Delem said, nearly shouting as he faced the demon horde. “Very well then, I will give you POWER!”
He pointed, and at his call a bead of liquid fire erupted from his fingertips, blasting across the space that separated him and the demons until it exploded into a massive ball of flaming death in their midst. Most of the demons were instantly blasted into blackened mounds of crispy flesh, and when the flames and smoke cleared, only a few scattered remnants staggered about, disoriented.
They didn’t last for long.
When it was over, Delem stood there alone, breathing heavily, wisps of smoke from the carcasses lying around him curling around his body in the faint hints of wind that made it into the depths of the canyon. The smell was acrid, terrible, but rather than filling him with disgust it actually brought a kind of exhilaration, welcome payback against the creatures that had tormented him for so long. His power had returned, and he would not be a helpless victim again. Logic told him that he was still trapped in the Abyss, and that his meager spells would not hold off the hordes of demons that dwelled in this evil place, but logic didn’t feel as good as the hard proof lying in blackened heaps all around him.
He felt a disturbance behind him, and turned just in time to see a massive form materialize out of the air, a mere ten paces away from him. It was a familiar form, warped in shape like all demons, as though someone had taken a collection of disparate parts and forced them all together into a loathsome whole. It stood nearly nine feet tall, all muscle and power. It was roughly humanoid, although four arms rather than two spouted from its torso, two ending in huge pincers and a second set that protruded from its chest ending in slender, almost delicate hands. Its head was like that of a huge wolfhound, except that its large red eyes shone with a cruel and fiendish intelligence.
It regarded Delem with those eyes, and the sorcerer felt the power rising up within him, almost eager for his call.
But the demon raised one of its small hands to forestall him, and it kept its distance.
“What do you want, glabrezu?” Delem warned, as flickers of barely-contained flame gathered around the fingers of his left hand.
The demon guffawed. “Do not think to test your powers against me, human. But I have not come to do battle with you this day. You have regained that which you have lost, and the Master would speak with you now.”
The demon reached out with an almost-human hand, beckoning him to come to it. Delem hesitated, but then realized that he had no real choice.
Besides, the chance to confront the being behind all of this, behind his torments, was too great—and terrible—to pass up.
With his power seething in him, he walked over to the demon, and reached up to take its offered hand.
Both of them shimmered and disappeared.
Broccli_Head
Explorer
I thought that all demons had fire resistance around 20. Could I be wrong? Or is Delem wielding something else...like spellfire?
In any case, I am enjoying seeing Delem's descent.
In any case, I am enjoying seeing Delem's descent.
Lazybones
Adventurer
From the SRD:
So, you're not wrong, in fact, you're exactly right. Delem should have remembered that his fire had no effect against the ghour demon, but perhaps he can be forgiven, given that he's had a lot on his mind lately.
Hmmm... could someone be manipulating our dearly departed sorcerer?
Muwhahahahaha...
More to come...
So, you're not wrong, in fact, you're exactly right. Delem should have remembered that his fire had no effect against the ghour demon, but perhaps he can be forgiven, given that he's had a lot on his mind lately.
Hmmm... could someone be manipulating our dearly departed sorcerer? Muwhahahahaha...
More to come...
Lazybones
Adventurer
Hey, Horacio, while I've got you here:
You still willing to host my SH while I'm gone in October? I've been writing furiously, and will hopefully have 6-8 chapters that you can post for me while I'm on vacation. Can I email you the file next week? You can reply here or at my work email: kmcdonal@cde.ca.gov.
I may even have a few evil cliffhangers for you to use...
Thanks,
Lazy
You still willing to host my SH while I'm gone in October? I've been writing furiously, and will hopefully have 6-8 chapters that you can post for me while I'm on vacation. Can I email you the file next week? You can reply here or at my work email: kmcdonal@cde.ca.gov.
I may even have a few evil cliffhangers for you to use...
Thanks,
Lazy
Lazybones
Adventurer
Book VI, Part 11
The sky above was a single flat sheet of thick gray as Dana walked along a lonely road that meandered its way generally to the north. The air was still, but pregnant with the promise of impending rain. Far to the north, too far to be threatening, an occasional flash indicated that for some distant place on Faerûn’s surface, an autumn storm had already arrived in all its force.
The road led into a wood, and the muted air of the overcast day deepened further into shadows. This wasn’t the busy coastal road that ran up the length of the Sword Coast to Waterdeep and beyond, but one of the innumerable backwater tracks that connected the many villages and other isolated settlements scattered throughout the Western Heartlands. These frontier communities became more rare the farther one penetrated into the North, and the land became harsher even for the most doughty of homesteaders.
For in the Forgotten Realms, nightmares walked the land, and evil was a real thing that struck without hesitation or mercy.
Dana shook her head to clear it of such gloomy thoughts. She’d been in a funk ever since that night of the moonfire ritual. Although most of what she’d learned had not been a surprise to her, fitting with what she and her friends had already deduced, somehow it was that much more painful to have the grim facts of Delem’s fate confirmed for her.
And there was the enigmatic quality of the goddess’s final message. That one had given her several sleepness nights already.
For the moment, her course was not clear to her. Freed even of the vague mandate to seek out information, she felt unanchored, drifting on an aimless course. She’d finally decided to head north, although it had taken her a few days to own up to the real reason for that choice. She had never been very good about acknowledging when she needed help, particularly the sort of help that she needed now. In some way it was an admission of weakness; an irrational feeling, but one she could not shake deep down within.
She had the power to travel faster now, much faster indeed when it came down to it, but she had deliberately chosen to walk the long leagues that separated places of note in this largely empty land. She needed time to think, to work things out in her mind, but as the solitary hours blended into one another on the open road she felt no closer to reaching any kind of resolution.
A sound from the underbrush startled her from her reverie, fairly close.
“Who’s there?” she queried, shifting her longspear from her shoulder to both hands.
In response, three shadowy shapes emerged from the brush, around the trunk of a massive tree that fronted the trail, its roots forming a sort of low wall that had aided in their concealment. As they stepped into the open the three figures resolved into the forms of men, rough-looking men with thick beards and dirty tunics of ragged cloth.
They were armed, all of them, and they moved with a confident swagger as they approached her. Which was one the leader was instantly obvious, for he was significantly bigger and stronger than his fellows.
“Well, well,” he said, his voice a leer. “What do we have here...”
“I will give you one warning, not to trifle with me,” Dana interrupted him. “I am no common traveler, and while I do not seek trouble, I am prepared to deal with it when it finds me.” Her voice was calm, but inside she felt the familiar tingle of anticipated action, part rush and part tremor.
The leader laughed, and started to retort, but then he caught sight of something he hadn’t noticed before. Dana’s moon mote, a sliver of liquid fire on a chain around her neck, the marker that identified her as a priestess of Selûne.
“A child of the moon lady,” the man said, and his lips smacked as though a plate of steaming venison had been laid before him. “Malar sends us a great gift indeed, boys...”
They came forward, spreading out to take her from all sides at once. Their expressions now were feral, hungry, and they made no move for the short-hafted axes at their belt as their fingers clawed at the air. Dana cursed inwardly as she finally realized what she hadn’t seen before, recognized the true nature of these bandits.
The young woman gave ground slowly, knowing that a sudden movement would bring them down upon her in an instant. Her spear crackled with the power stored within, its head shifting back and forth as the three closed in around her. They seemed to be in no hurry, taking the time to enjoy the fear of their prey.
And then they began to change. Their forms twisted and thickened, their fingers elongating into real claws, fur erupting from their skin, their already feral expressions morphing into something truly monstrous.
Werewolves.
The sky above was a single flat sheet of thick gray as Dana walked along a lonely road that meandered its way generally to the north. The air was still, but pregnant with the promise of impending rain. Far to the north, too far to be threatening, an occasional flash indicated that for some distant place on Faerûn’s surface, an autumn storm had already arrived in all its force.
The road led into a wood, and the muted air of the overcast day deepened further into shadows. This wasn’t the busy coastal road that ran up the length of the Sword Coast to Waterdeep and beyond, but one of the innumerable backwater tracks that connected the many villages and other isolated settlements scattered throughout the Western Heartlands. These frontier communities became more rare the farther one penetrated into the North, and the land became harsher even for the most doughty of homesteaders.
For in the Forgotten Realms, nightmares walked the land, and evil was a real thing that struck without hesitation or mercy.
Dana shook her head to clear it of such gloomy thoughts. She’d been in a funk ever since that night of the moonfire ritual. Although most of what she’d learned had not been a surprise to her, fitting with what she and her friends had already deduced, somehow it was that much more painful to have the grim facts of Delem’s fate confirmed for her.
And there was the enigmatic quality of the goddess’s final message. That one had given her several sleepness nights already.
For the moment, her course was not clear to her. Freed even of the vague mandate to seek out information, she felt unanchored, drifting on an aimless course. She’d finally decided to head north, although it had taken her a few days to own up to the real reason for that choice. She had never been very good about acknowledging when she needed help, particularly the sort of help that she needed now. In some way it was an admission of weakness; an irrational feeling, but one she could not shake deep down within.
She had the power to travel faster now, much faster indeed when it came down to it, but she had deliberately chosen to walk the long leagues that separated places of note in this largely empty land. She needed time to think, to work things out in her mind, but as the solitary hours blended into one another on the open road she felt no closer to reaching any kind of resolution.
A sound from the underbrush startled her from her reverie, fairly close.
“Who’s there?” she queried, shifting her longspear from her shoulder to both hands.
In response, three shadowy shapes emerged from the brush, around the trunk of a massive tree that fronted the trail, its roots forming a sort of low wall that had aided in their concealment. As they stepped into the open the three figures resolved into the forms of men, rough-looking men with thick beards and dirty tunics of ragged cloth.
They were armed, all of them, and they moved with a confident swagger as they approached her. Which was one the leader was instantly obvious, for he was significantly bigger and stronger than his fellows.
“Well, well,” he said, his voice a leer. “What do we have here...”
“I will give you one warning, not to trifle with me,” Dana interrupted him. “I am no common traveler, and while I do not seek trouble, I am prepared to deal with it when it finds me.” Her voice was calm, but inside she felt the familiar tingle of anticipated action, part rush and part tremor.
The leader laughed, and started to retort, but then he caught sight of something he hadn’t noticed before. Dana’s moon mote, a sliver of liquid fire on a chain around her neck, the marker that identified her as a priestess of Selûne.
“A child of the moon lady,” the man said, and his lips smacked as though a plate of steaming venison had been laid before him. “Malar sends us a great gift indeed, boys...”
They came forward, spreading out to take her from all sides at once. Their expressions now were feral, hungry, and they made no move for the short-hafted axes at their belt as their fingers clawed at the air. Dana cursed inwardly as she finally realized what she hadn’t seen before, recognized the true nature of these bandits.
The young woman gave ground slowly, knowing that a sudden movement would bring them down upon her in an instant. Her spear crackled with the power stored within, its head shifting back and forth as the three closed in around her. They seemed to be in no hurry, taking the time to enjoy the fear of their prey.
And then they began to change. Their forms twisted and thickened, their fingers elongating into real claws, fur erupting from their skin, their already feral expressions morphing into something truly monstrous.
Werewolves.
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