Freedom & Folly II

Garrett was sitting on the porch, relaxing in his free time when he heard quick steps down the road. Since neither Faan nor Elissa had come out to meet the arrival halfway, it must be a very familiar person, which meant it was Nannade. He didn't expect her back so soon. At least she didn't bring anyone along.

When she came around the bend and into sight, he could see by her face, that she was as angry as seven beaten dogs, her eyes were swollen up and her entire lower body dripping wet and muddy.

"Hey, what happened? You look like something happened."

"Shut up!" she answered him. That wasn't good. Someone must have really messed with her.

She went into the hut and slammed the door. He tried to follow inside, but the moment he stuck his head in, she threw a pillow at his face.

"I'm getting CHANGED in here!"

He went back outside, then heard Elissa come out of her study. Nannade didn't even bother to answer any of her questions. Garrett peeked through the slit in the shutters. Elissa didn't give up, but her digging for answers caused Nannade to tear up and eventually stop. She didn't really cry, she was just getting teary-eyed. She had learned to hold back a lot of tears over the years but it seems she encountered a new type of pain. Garrett decided to leave the women alone and went down the path.

He reached the target that the girl and he often used to practice archery and knife-throwing. And from now on, most likely also spell-slinging. Having no Arcane Hand meant she would not be able to aim with her mind but instead had to aim with her body, but Garrett had little worries about that, the girl was amazing at aiming. Her small recurve bow leaned unstrung on a tree. He had told her many times to look after it better, not letting it lay about like that. It wasn't even fifty inches long, and even a bit smaller when strung, but she could still shoot arrows accurately over large distances with it. It had been a gift for her twelfth birthday and she had to train a lot just to be able to string and draw it. Garrett was not bad with a bow himself, but archery and climbing were the two things that the girl had already surpassed him in. And the bow's diminutive size allowed her to combine both rather gracefully.

He had been throwing stones at the target for practice for a while, when he heard people coming up the path yet again. From the steps he could tell that it was three in total. Elissa wasn't coming out from the hut, so he would have to take care of this one.

He stepped onto the road and saw, that it was Guardians of the Lodge in their typical surcoats and with staves, one of them with a spear.

"Halt! Who are you?" They said with a thick layer of unwarranted self-importance in their voice.

"My name is Garetas, I'm a guest of Elissa's."

"Why should we believe that?"

"Because you asked?!" He answered, unsure what they wanted to hear.

"Can you prove that?"

"Yes, but I'd much rather know what business you have with Elissa."

"That is none of your concern!"

"Well, I can walk with you to the hut, but you're just going to find Elissa being terribly busy there with a crying girl."

They of course didn't believe him until they did exactly what he had predicted. The two women were engaged in a very lengthy and careful dialogue about a certain aspect of human contact. The Guardians recognized the issue and showed themselves out immediately.

Garrett and the Guardians went back to the fork in the path, where he offered them his help.

"Look, I do contract work concerning the arcane. You can ask me and I will probably be able to help."

"Well, in the forest across the valley, people have been disappearing for a while now and now one boy came back badly mauled speaking of a giant wolf. We believe the spirits are angered for some reason. We'd need Elissa to sooth them and also take care of the boy."

Garrett thought about it for a while. If it really was a spirit, he could do little. "I think I'll go back and fetch the women. They'll be able to take care of it, just give us a while."

Garrett arrived back at the hut and listened just outside the window. They were still talking about things such as "careful" and "exploiting". Honestly, he thought she should have talked to the girl the day she started bleeding, but no, Elissa the Wise had to keep putting it off until it was too late. What a birthday to remember.

He decided to go in anyway.

"We really should go, apparently some boy got mauled by spirits, maybe."

Nannade washed her face, got changed, and the three of them went back to the fork, all readied up. Elissa had taken a toolbox full of her important medical supplies, Nannade had bravely sucked it all back in and was quickly writing a few formulas down on fresh papers.

They eventually arrived at the house of the boy who got mauled. Melanie's house. Elissa told Nannade to wait outside, but she was having none of it and came in anyway. When he asked what this was about, he got no answer from either of them.

Inside the house, Elissa was greeted by her friend Melanie.

"Quick, come, Frederick is badly hurt." She dragged Elissa to a bed in another room.

The boy that got attacked was really messed up. He was bleeding in several places, including his face and guts. His clothing was ripped apart, his right foot got mangled, the shoe hanging off in strips of leather and the bed was red all over. Nannade was visibly worried and hurried to his side, but when she did, another, older boy tried to talk to her, repeatedly apologizing, ignoring her increasingly angry defences. When the boy wouldn't let up, Garrett decided to put his hands on the boy's shoulder and show him a "No" rather than say one.

"Why don't you tell me everything about the attack? Outside?"

The boy came along. "I just found Frederick like this, alright? I followed him after Nannade ran away, and when I arrived, he was already wounded, he said he had chased the wolf off."

"What did he say about the wolf?"

"He said it was huge and had claws like hands!"

This did not sound good. It might have been a werewolf, which complicated things. "Anything else? Did it talk?"

"No."

"What did your brother do?"

"I don't know, he said the wolf just attacked him."

"Tell me exactly where the attack happened."

The boy told Garrett in detail how to get to the cave in question.

"Alright, we're done here."

The boy tugged on Garrett's shirt. "Please tell Nannade that I'm sorry."

"Sorry, boy. This is a fight you'll have to win by yourself."

When he came back inside, Elissa had stabilized the boy. He was asleep and pale. She was mending some stitched-up wounds with magic, but the amount of blood the boy had lost meant she could only do so much with his own life force. If she tried to heal too much with it, he could be endangered even more.

"I used a bit of life force and will stay here to watch over the boy. Garrett, what did you find out?"

"The older boy wasn't of much use except for the location and that it was a large wolf with claws like hands. Sounds like a werewolf to me."

Elissa turned to the Guardians. "Who was the first person that disappeared?" But the Guardians didn't know anything and just shrugged.

"Garrett, go with them. Look for any trace."

The girl spoke up. "I'll come with."

"No, you stay here and help Elissa."

"I'll come with or Frederick won't be the only boy that gets mauled today."

Her voice showed a fierce spark of spite and hate. Elissa's face gave Garrett approval to take her along.

"All right, but I'll give you some of my papers, just in case. And the guardians stay here. We work alone and it might yet follow the trail of blood to the house."

On the way up he sorted through his palm book and tore out a few pages for her. Mostly ones that required no control, so she wouldn't be inconvenienced by her lack of an Arcane Hand. The boy had given them a last description of the way, avoiding eye contact with the girl, and then they were off.

They went deeper into the forest, off path at a point with a marked boulder and arrived at a mound in the hillside. On top of the mound stood a tree, its roots held up the ceiling of a dark and deep cave.

"This must be the cave the boy had described. Stay behind me." Garrett took out a small, bulbous vial and put a few drops of oily flux into it. The vial started glowing in a steady white light.

Nannade pulled out one of her throwing knives and hooked her left ring finger into the metal ring that rested on the reel's barrel. Together they ventured into the cave, halfway ducked. A large portion of it seemed to have been dug with huge hands or paws. The stench of rotten flesh became noticeable, then dominant, then unbearable. They had gotten at least sixty or seventy feet in when the cave opened up and they could stand upright. A large chamber was dug into this part, in some sort of alcoves to the side was a small pile of mangled corpses, partially covered in dirt heaped onto it.

Neither of them could sense anything in the cave. The wolf must have truly run off. They made their way back.

"Teacher, what is a werewolf exactly? It seemed pretty huge from the looks of that room's ceiling."

"It's a being part wolf and part human."

"Where do they come from?"

"You know how a familiar is made when an animal body and an animal spirit of the same type are fused? Like crow-body to crow-spirit and cat-body to cat-spirit?"

"Yes."

"Well a werewolf is what we call a chimera, or abomination. Which is created when the two beings do not line up. In the werewolf's case a wolf spirit is bonded with a human body."

Nannade sounded disgusted. "Who would do that?"

"People who want power, or strength, or revenge. Spirits are deceitful and perfidious. They offer you one thing and take everything else. A werewolf is the result of the most inexcusable sin against humanity itself."

"What if it's not a natural spirit, but an abstract one like Elissa told me about?"

"Even worse. There are people who have given their souls in to abstracts like hunger, greed, gluttony, domination. Horrible abomination spring from these. Yet some crazy bastards worship them as gods made flesh. You don't need a warrant or contract or anything like that to kill them without consequence. Just do it, if you trust your abilities. They are powerful and inhuman. They can't be reasoned with and often won't even kill you but keep you half alive to satiate some perverted desire they crave."

"Alright." The girl's voice sounded eager to get on with the mission.

They were outside again and got to looking for tracks. They eventually found some leading further into the forest and followed them for a while, then the girl pointed out that she heard flowing water. Soon enough they found a little brook running down the side of the hill they were walking down. Below them knelt a huge beast, seemingly washing its face. It was huge, grotesque, humanoid but covered in shaggy fur and some patches of human skin. Its skull was mostly wolf but the area around the left eye was almost human. Its hands and feet bore huge claws with some fingers and toes still human-like. Garrett pulled the girl back behind a tree.

"We'll have to slay it. You stay back and help me with these." He handed her a few Invisible Fists and some protection spells. He was sure she'd recognize them. "Try to stay behind me a little so it doesn't have a straight line towards you. And do not listen to it! It will try to talk to you to make you confused, so be careful, the spirit will lie and exploit you!"

Nannade nodded. She obviously grasped the severity of the situation.

"Now, find a spirit and keep it by your side, don't be afraid to spend a few drops of blood if it attracts them better."

Garrett made his way towards the beast. He could hear its growl as he got nearer, but there was also some kind of sobbing in it. It turned its head and Garrett could see its eyes were red and watering, as if he had been trying to rub dirt out of them.

He put on his own flask's ring, then he snapped his fingers and a flash of fire appeared before his hand. He had to keep the distance and allow the girl to land a few hits. He took a throwing knife into his right, his parry dagger with the crystal pommel into his left hand. They would have to be his climbing picks today on this mountain of meat. The werewolf stood up. It had to be at least seven feet high. It stretched its arms out and showed off its fangs, then it leapt forward.

The beast landed on its hands with a thundering thud, but Garrett had rolled to the side and quickly cast his Constrictor. The beast was hindered for a moment but as its muscles and spirit struggled, the binds turned into ropes of sparks, and finally snapped with a crackling that lingered in the air for a heartbeat.

A SNAP, a Lance of Fire hit the beast in the side of the head. It howled and screamed in pain, smacking its burning fur out with its hands. Another SNAP, another lance shot forth and hit the werewolf. Garrett turned around to see what Nannade was doing. She had run out of Lances and resorted to her on flame she had designed. Her entire left arm was on fire and with wide swipes and swings, she trailed a roaring flame from her arm liked a burning whip that roared as it split the air in front of her.

The werewolf was fixated on her now, although she was keeping it at bay with her whip. Garrett loaded the Invisible Fist into his dagger's pommel and fired away. One hit the beast's jaw, then another one the chest. Neither had a significant effect, the monster struck out to Garrett, but he rolled away, then the beast continued approaching Nannade, only held back by her searing flame dance, Garrett himself was still to its side, attacking it from its right. He pelted the werewolf with invisible fists and sure enough, it seemed to show some effect, namely the werewolf turning its attention back to Garrett.

He decided to try a Cutting Wind instead, but although it created cuts on the beast's skin, they were neither deep nor long, especially not compared to its monstrous size. Nannade had decided to fling one of her throwing knives and it hit the monster in the back at the left shoulder. It sunk in quite deep, Garrett had underestimated the girl's proficiency with the knives.

The werewolf reached for the knife with his right hand while leaning on his left. This was an opening Garrett had hoped for, both his hands where occupied. He concentrated and propelled himself forward with a gust of flux. He sunk his dagger deep in the monster's right upper arm.

Quickly he rammed the other knife in as well and held on as the werewolf roared and reared up like a bucking horse. Garrett tried to land a stab to the jugular, but the monster's thrashing was too wild. It grabbed him and ripped him from its body, then slammed him on the ground.

Garrett was dazed. He saw the wolf approaching from above, jaws dripping with drool. A SNAP and suddenly, it flinched back. He saw Nannade standing there, pieces of paper in hand and getting closer.

He wanted to warn her, but had to dodge one of the wolf's claws bearing down on him. He rolled away and was standing again. He drew new knives from their sheathes and positioned himself between the girl and the monster. She tried to get closer, but he kept getting in her way on purpose.

"Out of the way!" she yelled at him.

"Keep your distance!" he yelled back.

"Just,… let me do this, I got him!" she said

The werewolf was rather calm right now. Fangs and claws still bared, but breathing deeply. Garrett looked how it moved, side to side, slowly, carefully placing its feet. Garrett looked at Nannade. The two were as if locked in a dance. She too moved side to side, slowly, carefully placing her feet, while whispering something, as if talking to the beast. The monster would just have to take a step and she would be within swiping distance.

He used this opportunity and threw one of his knives, then leapt forward with his other at the ready.

"NO!" the girl screamed, then the wolf awakened from his trance.

With a swipe of its claws, it swatted Garrett out of the air like a fly. The wolf barked and was about to stomp on him when a fiery lash hit its face. Like a tendril it seemed to snake its way into its mouth, wide open to suck in air.

The monster broke out in a violent fit of coughing and hoarse howling. It rolled on the floor and fell against a tree, which tilted to the side like a loose fence post.

Nannade, her left arm still burning, came to him. "Are you alright?"

"I said stay back!"

She was helping him up, looking at him with a worried face rather than angry. "I was staying back. I had him!"

"Yah, I doubt it will recover from a fire to the lungs."

The beast tired itself out, howling dreadfully. When it had finally come to rest on the floor, still coughing and trying to get back up again, Garrett got close. He took his knives and stepped towards the monster's head. It tried to fend him off, but its muscles failed it. He ran his blades in deep and down its jugular. It took quite some while to bleed out.

"You did well." He said to Nannade.

"Thanks." Nannade seemed genuinely proud of herself. She had all reason to, Garrett thought.

"Did you entrance it somehow?"

"I was dancing for the spirits." She said with a smile. "It works surprisingly well, even on the spirits of abominations apparently. I tried to slow it's breathing, so I could time the flame better, but you got it fired back up again. It was luck at that point."

"Going for the lungs was clever."

"We weren't doing any damage with fists and cuts and fire from the outside."

"Keep that head on your shoulders and it will serve you well." Garrett had noticed that she was able to cast her spells quite quickly. "You seemed to have a trusty one at your side."

"The spirit? Yes, it stuck around well, I think it likes me, but it's gone now."

"Sounds like a prime candidate for a familiar."

At that remark, she smiled even wider. "Sure, why not?"

He had noticed only now that at least one of the hits from the wolf's claws had left some serious cuts on his chest. "Let's get back, I need Elissa to take a look at me."

"I can do it, we should close it sooner than later." Nannade got to inspecting the wounds and pulled some simple healing spells from her palm book. "These use blood as a source of energy, so you'll be tired."

"Fine, go ahead."

The girl had done a good job patching him back up. Being trained by a healer had its advantages. He himself knew the stuff but barely ever did it these days. He immediately noticed his strength leaving him. If he fell asleep now, the girl would have to drag him back to the hut.

They returned to the town and the notified the Guardians, who verified the corpse and paid Garrett a hefty sum out of their bounty pot. The older boy seemed glad to see Nannade unharmed, but again, Garrett blocked the boy off with a glare.

Elissa was still by the side of the boy, who was still asleep but stable. She checked on the girl's work and was content with it. She left some medicine with Carolus and Melanie. They thanked her and promised to pay their due in time, then saw the three off.

"What a birthday to remember." Elissa said on their way home. "Let's have a relaxing evening together."

"I'll hit the hay, I am spent for the day." Garrett said. All in all, it had taken quite a toll on him. He would regenerate before their mission in eighteen days, but he'd have to rest now. He managed to eat something before falling into bed and asleep.