Episode 11: We start getting a clue as to what is going on here

When we last left this bunch of misfits, Malek was power-reading the book while the rest of us had a bite to eat and settle in. Meghan wrote a quick note to the town mayor to let him know we'll have more information in the morning and to sit tight out of sight. Paul delivered the message, then went and found himself a tasty morsel to munch on his way back.

Malek powered through the book and gave us the cliff notes version of this "fictional story". Essentially there was "a city" that was plagued with a werewolf curse. Men tried to defend the town but were not successful ... until they started drinking the blood of their enemies and became known as the Blood Hunters. There was, of course, a price to doing this though and over time they would lose their sanity and then become werewolves themselves. The Blood Hunters swore an oath not to have children, as the werewolf curse would be passed to the children. Then one day a paladin named Luthis learned about this town and it's issue, and vowed to correct the issue. And he was successful for a time, though he had to kill some of his Blood Hunter friends after they turned to werewolves as well. Some went into hiding, and it appeared things were dealt with so he left. Those hidden Blood Hunter werewolves then broke their oath, and started having children. Children born to the Blood Hunters are born as werewolves. Upon his return Luthis found out what was going on and tried to fix what was going on, but this time the entire town turned on him as they had integrated to an extent. Luthis didn't want to kill the innocent and was seriously injured. Dying from his wounds, he turned to his deity Erastil, and used his dying to power the wish that would cure the people of the ailment.

We put two and two together and realized the bright flash that dispelled magic back in town also dispelled Luthis' dying wish. If the story is to be believed, and the evidence we are seeing tells us it's probably closer to the truth than what we know, that is. The crazy librarian lady may be eccentric, but perhaps not crazy.

So we settled in for the night with a watch in place, but about 2/3 of the way through the night there's a commotion from the tunnel. The individual on guard at that time woke us all up so we could get out of the farm house before whatever was in there came out. So we're all outside of the farm house when Shinara and two acolytes arrive. Shinara is the priestess of Feria we were dealing with in town, and it turns out she's a werewolf. Luckily she's a good werewolf and wants to work with the townsfolk and the werewolves to bring this to a peaceful end.

Unfortunately the rumble from the tunnel was a pair of angry werewolves, who had stern words for the traitor Shinara, and the fight was on. Lutor was promptly knocked unconscious (the player had a family emergency so we just knocked his character out for this session), and Fizzledorp had no armor on, but we dug in and did non lethal damage to the werewolves hoping to knock them out.

The angry werewolves were not in such a lenient mood and went full out for Shinara. So the angry werewolves are going full tilt at Shinara, and we're slapping them with the sides of our swords and punching, trying to knock them out. We were successful in the end and tied them up, then had Thonk our "fist mage" carry them down to the room with the cells in it.

At this point its almost morning so we decide to return to the townsfolk hiding in the woods and finish up our resting there, and report back. And because Shinara wants to start a dialog with the townsfolk, we bring her with us. However, she's a werewolf. So we "tie her up" (in a knot she can get out of) and bring her back as our "captive".

We're able to finish resting and doing morning routines so everyone has spells and are healed, and somewhere in here we leveled up to level 4 so now we have more health and more abilities. More on that to come!