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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 397462" data-attributes="member: 143">Book VI, Part 12The three werewolves were a terrible thing to behold, but Dana’s mettle had been forged in equally terrible battles, and she did not falter.  Even as the lyncanthropes took on their hybrid forms, she called upon the pure light of Selûne’s power.  The energy of her patron came readily at her call, filling her with divine power.  “Tear her to pieces,” the leader growled, and his two companions rushed at her.  He himself hung back, digging a potion vial out of a pocket of his cloak and downing it in a single swallow.She was ready for the attack, and dodged rapidly to the side, snapping her spear around to meet the first creature’s rush.  The head of the shockspear, boosted by her enhanced strength, tore deeply into the werewolf’s shoulder, and the creature screamed in rage and pain as electrical energy coursed into it.  The other creature darted inside the reach of her spear before she could react, and tore at her with its claws.  She felt pain as one claw tore three shallow gashes across her torso.  The werewolf lunged in to bite her with its huge jaws, but she leapt back, sweeping the haft of her spear around in a sudden strike that caught the werewolf solidly in the head.  The blow didn’t do any real damage to the creature, but it distracted it long enough for her to spin back into a ready defensive position.The werewolves, all three of them now, were on her almost immediately, forcing her back.  She nimbly avoided their grasping and tearing claws, giving ground as they drove her back along the length of the trail, although it was clear that she would not be able to stay ahead of them for more than a few moments.  The werewolves were nearly as fast and as agile as she was, gifted with the natural talents of the beast that was part of their warped existence.  But even as they swarmed on her again, Dana called upon the moon goddess once more.  The werewolves leapt at her, slashing with their claws, but she suddenly darted up, straight into the air, leaving them behind.  She took another pair of gashes to her legs but then she was free and beyond their reach.The two that she had struck gnashed their teeth in frustration, but the leader would not be denied.  He fell into a crouch and threw his cloak out behind him.  The fabric caught the air, although there was no breeze, billowing out and enlongating until a pair of massive bat-wings protruded from his back where the cloak had been.  With powerful strokes, the wings carried the werewolf aloft into the air after the fleeing cleric. “You’ll not escape me, pretty,” he called after her.  “Escape isn’t my intent,” Dana returned.  She darted up through the canopy of leaves and spun to face him.  He was focused on his pursuit, coming on with great speed, ignoring the branches that tore at his face and limbs as he pushed through the forest canopy after her.  In the open air, hundreds of feet above the ground, the two combatants squared off against each other.  Dana called upon the power of her goddess once again, and a shining ray of searing light blasted into the werewolf’s chest.  The creature screamed in pain, but it came on nonetheless, its magical wings beating furiously as it rushed her.  The werewolf reached down to its belt and lifted an ugly black morningstar.  Dana flew back, trying to set her spear against its rush, but it was too quick for her.  Her side exploded in pain as the werewolf slammed its weapon into her.  She was knocked roughly around by the force of the blow, and felt the hot trails of blood dripping down her side before they fell away in hot droplets of red into the forest below.  The creature was incredibly strong.  Maybe that potion he drank, she thought, as she tried to recenter herself.  But the werewolf was pressing in at her, swinging its now-bloody weapon at her again.  She was able to bring the haft of her spear up in time to deflect the attack, but as it tore away the spines of the morningstar caught her forearm, tearing her flesh roughly.  She cried out as she nearly lost her grip on her magical weapon.  The werewolf cackled and came at her again, but Dana launched herself suddenly straight upward, narrowly avoiding another powerful swing.  With his magical wings he wasn’t as maneuverable as she was with her spell, but he adjusted and pursued, the bat wings beating furiously to catch her.  He’d nearly reached her when a magical dimension door sprung into existence directly in front of her.  She dove through the doorway and vanished, and the portal disappeared a moment later. “Damn you!” the werewolf cried, slashing the air where his prey had been a moment before.  “That’s right, run, bitch!  Run far and fast, or Ohleg will tear you apart!”Ohleg turned in the air, scanning the empty horizon in each direction, then dropped back down toward the trees.  He saw his two companions below, and veered toward them.  One of them pointed, shouted a warning. Ohleg turned, just in time to see the pegasus dive down out of the treetops, the cleric of Selûne mounted upon its back.  He tried to dodge out of the way as the pair sliced toward him, but the cumbersome wings were not able to move him in time to avoid their charge.  The spearhead tore with the full weight of the woman and her mount into his chest, crashing through flesh, muscle, and bone and blasting out the far side.  Ohleg’s morningstar felt uselessly from his hand as the momentum of the charge drove him rapidly toward the ground.  The pegasus pulled up twenty paces from the forest floor, its majestic wings catching the air in a smooth glide.  Dana released the spear, now heavy with the weight of the stricken lyncanthrope, and he fell solidly to the hard ground, the spear impaling itself deeply in the packed loam and quivering in the air as the cleric and her summoned ally wheeled away.  Ohleg’s two companions looked at the corpse of their leader, exchanged a glance, and took off in opposite directions into the wood.  Dana, meanwhile, curved back toward the site, the pegasus sharing her triumph with a congratulatory whinny as its wings carried it almost effortlessly through the maze of treetrunks.  She let the power of Selûne course through her, healing her wounds, watching as the two werewolves vanished into the forest.  At her direction the pegasus landed beside the body of the dead werewolf, and she dismounted to recover her spear.  Its magical cloak had been ruined, torn by that final thrust.  Oh well.  She wasn’t sure should could have brought herself to wear the awful thing in any case. She looked battered, blood caking her side even though her wounds had been healed.  Her skin was still tender where the beasts had slashed her, where Ohleg had slammed her with his weapon.  She found the morningstar lying in the bushes a short distance away, its black head slick with her own blood.  She turned to the pegasus, which nodded at her in respect before vanishing.  Once again she was alone.  She hefted the morningstar.  The ugly weapon repulsed her, but for the first time in a while, she felt truly alive.  Fighting for her life had forced her to tear away the cobwebs of doubt that had hung over her, if only for a few moments.  She now knew what she had to do.  But first, there was still a debt of blood to be paid.  Calling upon the power of her spell, she lifted up into the air again, flying like a dart in the direction that she’d seen the first werewolf flee.</blockquote>

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