Event Search Results

The Pack

A group of adventurers were hired by a town council to exterminate a witch named Bealthea who lived in a series of caves in a mountain overlooking the village. They had directions to the caves and some of them were mapped out from when it was a dwarven mine. But when the party got to the main room indicated on the map, they found themselves trapped in a room full of animal pelts. As a group they fell asleep. Strange dreams followed for many days, fitful awakenings to strange smells and sounds. One day the wakefulness came after hearing the voices of men, speaking of the 'skinning time'. One by one the party raised their heads to see a group of men with knives, approaching them where they lay. Oleg the dwarf fighter was the first to stand, feeling strangely out of place as he could only get to his hands and...his hands were paws! He looked around at his fellows, and all were animals. One of the men pointed at him, saying, “that one first, he shouldn't be conscious yet!” As they neared him, he could sense their fear, he could...smell their fear. With a snarl that should have been a war cry, Oleg leapt onto the first man who fell with a scream. The rest of the party were similarly roused, and attacked the other men. Soon, all the skinners were dead, flesh ravaged and bitten. Oleg and the others looked at each other, and realized who and what they had become. Feral creatures all, ensorcelled by the witch to be skinned and butchered. But they had become the butchers themselves, easily defeating the ones sent to kill them. Still trying to make sense of what happened to them, they slunk out of the caves to the snowy slopes of the mountain, until they stood on the bluff overlooking the village who had commissioned them to slay the witch in the first place.

Below, the two men who had initially approached the party about hunting the witch were leaving the back door of the tavern. The parties' eyes shone in the dark night, their ears perking up, seeing and hearing clearly what transpired below. The men were talking, and they wore some garb and equipment that was familiar to the party. “That's my sword he's wearing” growled Aelyssa the elven ranger, now a mountain lion.
“And my bow” snarled Riga, the human fighter, now a grey wolf.

The man who called himself Brenn and who wore Aelyssa's sword spoke, “The auction for the items they had went well, we did pretty good. After Bealthea sends us the new pelts, we can leave for the city.”

The other man, who the party knew as Kris, nodded then added, “Next time let's see if we can get a higher level group. They'd have better gear than this lot.”
Both men walked to the inn, where there was the sounds and smells of people and merrymaking.
“I'll rip their throats out,” snarled Riga. Oleg, the group's leader, now a nearly black wolf, said, “Aye, they have that coming, but what of the other people in the town? Will we be able to stop killing once we've started?”
Ripjack the rogue, now a lynx, purred a response, “They may all be in on it, or they may not be. There will certainly be the very old and very young, and Oleg is right, I feel more comfortable all the time in this skin, do we not all? If we fight as a pack, we may do more slaying than needs be.”
Oleg purred what may have been a sigh, “Aye, we'll have to figure out how this reckoning is best handled, but at some point, “ he looked at each of us, “we'll be settling up with that witch as well.”