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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 394069" data-attributes="member: 143">Book VI, Part 11The 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.</blockquote>

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