Part 8 - the unfortunate mishaps of Podunk and my home town

The Bar Wench decides to live with her curse and learn to control it. I feel slightly uneasy about her decision, but at least we still have her…

The next day the city seemed to have a hand on the werewolf problem, and was making amends. We’ve been gently prompted by the city guard to leave before we cause more trouble. I asked Briar to stay at the inn while I picked up a few more things and she stomped her hoof at me. Odd, I thought, but then I went about my business. My first stop was at the stables. Perhaps a stable hand would know more about Briar then she cared to tell me. The stable manager gladly shared what he could, after I softened him up with some offhand questions. He showed me to her private stall, separate from the other horses. The manager told me that a woman, who Lord Pendral was quite fond of, was the only one who took care of Briar. Instantly I knew that person could only be the shape shifting succubus we’d fought earlier. I went inside the stall. It was notably larger than the other stalls and lavishly decorated. As I looked around the room, I discovered a hidden trap door on the floor. I hesitate at first, thinking it might be rigged. Finally I gather some courage and open the door. There’s a stair case leading into a dim room. The steps appear wide enough….for a horse to go down. The room below was a stark contrast to the room above. It looked perfectly suitable for the fiery beast Briar was. It smelled of rotting meat, and there was coal and ash all over the ground. I find a book seated on a pedestal in the corner of the room. I pick the book up to examine it, but I don’t open it. The outside of the book is leather, and the pages of the book don’t appear to be the regular pages one would see in a normal book. It also looked like the edges of the book had been chewed, as if Briar had been reading the book…I pocket the book and left the stable before the manager has reason to question my absence.

When I return to the inn, I get a sinking feeling that Briar is hungry as she eyes some of the animals passing by. I was wondering when I’d have to confront Briar’s dietary preference. We leave the others to go “hunting” before Briar devours everything living within the city. When we get to the forest, the trees and shrubs seemed to make way for Briar as she galloped by. Oddly enough, her hooves didn’t seem to make a sound. I clearly tell Briar not to go after anything humanoid or dangerous, such as a bear. Briar gave me a sideways glance that only a horse could give you, as if I were crazy. Suddenly she stops and sniffs the ground. Briar stalked forward like a cat as she approached her prey. I was able to glimpse the heads of a heard of deer when suddenly Briar leapt forward. I grabbed a hold of her would be mane as her horse body shed into the fiery demon creature I saw in the temple district. She killed two deer with her hooves alone, and breathed fire on a third! I was too shocked to say anything as Briar – the creature – chowed down like a ravenous dog. Before long we were off again, killing and devouring more and more deer. On her twelfth deer, I asked Briar how many more she needed to eat until she was stated. Briar stomped her hoof three times.

I gawked at her, “Fifteen deer? Briar how am I going to sustain your outrageous appetite?”

Briar stomps thirty times and then makes a crude gesture that could only mean the rise and fall of the sun.

“So you need to eat fifteen deer every month?” I ask.

Briar stomped once in confirmation.

“Okay, we can do that,” I say satisfied.

Briar’s sudden silence is concerning me. I asked her why she won’t talk to me but all she can do is throw her head and stomp at me. Her silence seemed to come about after walking through the circle of good…There must be something wrong with circle. I asked Gideon if he knew why the circle would have caused Briar’s “speechlessness”, but he wasn’t able to yield any useful information.

I send Briar back to the inn so I can get a few more things. When she’s gone I ask Isaac to check out the book I’d found. No, I hadn’t told Briar I had it. I wasn’t sure of the book’s contents and wanted Isaac to check it out before confronting Briar about it. Isaac casts some magic’s and tells me it has some illusionary spells on it, but it probably wasn’t harmful if read. Isaac opens the book and we read it together. There are no words in the book, but each page contains moving pictures. The book depicts a group of young demons, and what appears to be a young Briar. As we flip the pages the demons seem to get older and older. At the end, a huge demon kills all the younger demons and only Briar remains alive. Then Briar meets a man – Pendral – and he takes her back to our plane of existence…Isaac closes the book and hands it back to me. It’s obviously Briar’s journal and Isaac suggests I return it to Briar as soon as possible. I decide to keep the book from Briar until I can link with her and talk to her about it.

We all return to the inn and argue where to go next. Finally we settle on heading straight for Duke Lupik’s city to confront him, but on the way, we’d stop by the sink hole to collect some of the treasures we left behind. I pick up Briar’s barding and a new saddle from the smith before we go. We stay at the sink hole a couple days, knowing a full moon was on the way and the Bar Wench would turn. We lowered her into one of the sink holes the night of, for everyone’s safety.  The next morning everyone awakes intact and the same as the night before. The Bar Wench seems to have control over her shifted form now.

For whatever reason, Isaac decides to pull out Hubert and has the sword detect evil. Immediately the sword detects Briar as evil.

I instantly stand up for Briar, “She’s not evil! She walked through a circle of good…” I fall short because one, Hubert was now making accusations that I was evil for defending Briar, and two, I suddenly realized that Briar and I probably didn’t walk through a circle of good.

After much convincing, Hubert decides he was wrong and neither Briar nor I are evil. We were still several days away from our home town Podunk, and in the interest of getting there quickly before the town was overrun by werewolves, Isaac devises a plan for us to teleport directly to his house. Briar urges Araja to share her newly acquired circlet, which allows her to change her form, by nudging her and biting at it. Araja puts it on Briar’s head and Briar turns into a beautiful woman. Now Isaac can transport everyone, including Rekka’s wagon and draft horses to the location. We blink out of existence for a second and the next we’re out in front of Isaac’s place, as if we’d never left.

While Isaac goes back for the others, I take Briar aside and ask her about the journal. She instantly becomes defensive and asks for the book back. I don’t with hold it from her and she sticks it in her would be saddle bags. I told her I looked at it, but didn’t understand much of it. When I asked if she wanted to talk about it, Briar began to cry tears of blood. Briar and I go to sleep in Rekka’s large tent that night, but she doesn’t sleep close to me like she used to…she curled up in a ball, now back in her horse form, with her back to me.

I was sound asleep when the Bar Wench shook me awake an hour later. Apparently something was wrong – very wrong. I quickly rouse Briar and discover a pool of blood beneath her. Had she been crying this whole time? The Bar Wench quickly tells us Isaac and Billy had gone into town. There were werewolves all over the place and they’d already killed a couple. He wanted us to meet him at the house he and Billy were currently sheltered at. I suit Briar in her new barding and we silently head out. Briar and I reach the town first and it appears to be deserted. Billy suddenly waves to us and we quickly make our way over to him. I hear Isaac’s voice greet us, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Apparently he was invisible and standing next to Billy. Isaac tells us he and Billy already took care of the twelve patrollers, plus one of the werewolves that was stationed in the house. There seems to be a guard stationed in each house, with hostages inside. Isaac says the leader is waiting in the center of town at a circle where all the werewolves are supposed to meet every half hour or so. They instruct us to get the villagers to safety. Billy and Isaac would meet us a few minutes later once they took care of the leader. I guess the werewolf’s boss was going to be showing up at high moon, so it was important that all the villagers were safe.

Araja, Rekka, Gideon, and the Bar Wench finally arrive and I fill them in. We begin going house to house, instructing the villagers to flee. When Isaac and Billy meet back with us, all the werewolves are dead. He hurriedly instructs us to get all the villagers out of town and run for the river. Suddenly there’s a massive, blinding explosion. There’s lots of screaming, one sounded like Rekka. I ask Briar to find Rekka. A second later we find her. Rekka’s eyes are bleeding and she’s writhing in pain. Billy tries to heal her, and her pain subsides.

Araja mentions that one of the screams she recognized to belong to her dead sister…I’m not sure how that’s possible, but at this point I’m willing to believe most anything. There’s nothing left of the village but a smoldering crater. Briar and I go back to Isaac’s to retrieve Rekka’s stuff. Luckily the blast left the farm house mostly intact. Upon returning, I’m told the villagers have safely made it to the river. We leave them, knowing their safe and make our way toward Duke Lupik’s city.

Briar keeps watch that night and hunts for game. The forest was burnt to ash when we woke the next day. While mulling over the events of last night, Briar disappears, and then returns a while later. Briar borrows Araja’s circlet again. She explored the fiery crater while she was gone, and reminded her of home. For a second it looked like the woman Briar was getting choked up. Briar tells us that she saw beings in the flame that she used to know, who are now dead. She’s positive there’s no portal or rift to the demonic plane. She doesn’t seem to want to share more about the beings and I think they might be the beings Isaac and I saw in her journal. Briar gives back the circlet.

Araja asks Billy if he can sense any marked beings and points to Rekka. Araja starts checking Rekka for a mark and finds them deep within her pitted eyes.

We get back on the road and I demand that we stop back at my home town, which was on the way to Lupik’s city. I can only hope the werewolves haven’t destroyed my home. When we get there, it’s very quiet. It was fairly early in the morning, but these were farm people. Where were the farmers? As we came closer we could see the animals were malnourished and very thin. The walk ways were over grown and the grass in front of the houses had grown tall. All the buildings were dark. With a lump in my throat I head straight for my family’s house. No one is home. Oddly enough, the house appears to be in perfect shape. Everything was in its place. I went to the town center to see if I could find one of the circles Isaac described in Podunk. After a bit of searching we found one and I fell to my knees…my family was gone.

“The blood of the Lychens will spill for what they’ve done!” I yell.

Araja tried to convince me it wasn’t the werewolves fault, but I was too angry for reason, “Araja, UNFORTUNATELY my family and my whole village is dead. All who were involved will DIE. Briar, can you pick up any lychenthrop scent trails on the outskirts of town that don't belong to the Bar Wench? I never should have left....This is all my fault! I should have warned them about the wearwolves! I thought I was going crazy - men turning into wolves, and then back again. My anger toward my father blinded me, and I thought no one would believe me. Their blood is on my hands.....”

Rekka tries to tell me it’s not a big deal and that I’d be better off not going after the werewolves. This only fuels my anger, “My family didn't just die. They were MURDERED! Murdered Rekka! It wasn't an accident - they knew what they were doing. Why should you care? You never had a family,” I muttered the last sentence under my breath knowing full well it wasn’t a nice thing to say, but it was out faster than I could take it back.

Rekka turns on me and screams in my face that she had worse. She then called me a coward – a COWARD – for running away when she had escaped from her master to save her own life…I stood there speechless and watched as Rekka stomped away.

A little while later Briar, in human form, tells me she can smell werewolves in the area, but she can’t be sure if they belonged to the werewolves that lived in the area or the intruding werewolves. I slowly turn toward Briar. My eyes were so wide they could have fallen out of my head.

I gulped, “LIVED here,” I repeated for clarification.

“Yeah, it's pretty obvious there are/were a lot of werewolves living here,” Briar said nonchalantly.