Great White

Braylec’s bunch meets up with Garguth and Vildar at the inn where they refresh themselves and prepare their spells before leaving for the temple.

The temple guards say that the priestess is buried behind the temple and are not at all keen on digging her up. They insist that permission is granted by qwerty before they allow anything to happen to their priestess’s rest. Thanodel sidles off to find the grave and though it is unmarked he is able to make it out. Garguth stakes out asdfg’s house while Braylec makes his way to qwerty’s. A bloody qwerty greets Braylec and invites him into his hut. He has been busy butchering a deer but listens to Braylec’s entreaty. He agrees that as long as they put everything back the way they found it and that he is present then they can go ahead. He will meet them at the temple in a couple of hours. Garguth, Vildar and Thanodel keep watch while Braylec carefully unearths the body. Sheylea again casts speak with dead and the corpse shudders and opens its eyes.

“Who killed you?” asks Sheylea.

The corpse splutters but her shredded neck makes the words difficult to understand, “It was a great beast the like I have not seen before.”

“Can you describe it?”

“It was huge, much bigger than a man. It had fangs and long sharp claws. It was covered in white hair.

Sheylea asks her last question available to her before the spell ends, ”Do you know what it was?”

“I have never seen one but I have heard of them.” The corpse closes it’s eyes and speaks no more.

With the deed done they rebury the priestess and qwerty speaks solemnly “I hope you got the information you needed.”

It is decided that Tiyana attempt to gather information from the woodland animals. Since the murder too place at night they settle down to wait. Thanodel goes back to the grove and asks Fëanáro to go find out what he can from his fellow squirrels. After waiting a few hours he has to go an find his little friend to find he has been hopping around aimlessly the whole time. He arrives back at the inn as the rest are preparing to leave. They follow Tiyana back to the clearing where with Thanodel’s assistance she talks to an owl who tells of wolfs who change into men and the large white wolf who controls them. It makes them go to the mine.

Armed with this information another night of surveillance is planned. As they approach the mine Tiyana tries to discern the wind direction but it is Garguth that tells them all that the breeze is coming from the south. With less change of the wolves smelling them this time Thanodel and Tiyana take position 200 feet to the west of the mine entrance, Braylec and Sheylea 100 feet further west, with Garguth and Vildar 100 feet north of that. Tiyana changes form and melts into a wolf.

They don’t have to wait long before two wolf men approach the mine and while talking they look in Tiyana’s direction. They change themselves into human form and continue talking “I definitely smell a unfamiliar wolf in that direction” one points directly at Tiyana. Tiyana lopes of in a circular route over the hill to the north of the shaft and repositions herself to the east. The two at the mine loose the scent and revert to their werewolf form and stand guard.

Shortly many more wolf men scurry into the mine led by a great white werewolf. He watches over them all and then follows last. Thanodel tries to move away quietly but the two guards start at the sound and change form into wolves. They sprint after him as he runs in Braylec’s direction. He manages to get a couple of arrows off at them before one clamps down on his arm and he calls “Braylec!”

Braylec and Sheylea clank off in Thanodel’s direction and Garguth and Vildar cut across towards him. Thanodel stows his bow and draws his swords ready to face the werewolves they growl and snap at him. The rest of the werewolves issue from the mine but head off south to the village passing directly in front of Tiyana, the last two stop and growl at her. Thanodel gets a lucky swipe at one of them in front of him and as it falls back it changes into a man from the village. He just sits looking at his hands, dazed. Braylec thunders up but Thanodel shouts to him “I can deal with these, the one we want is still in the mine” and Braylec races past. Sheylea stops to pray as the remaining werewolf takes another bite out of Thanodel. She finishes her prayer and the whole area lights up as if it was daytime. As Vildar crashes through the undergrowth Thanodel surprisingly hacks the werewolf’s head off. All four of them chase after Braylec who is now reaching the mine entrance to see the great white werewolf emerge snarling.

Tiyana dazes one of the werewolves in front of her and turns tail in the opposite direction, curving back north towards the mine.

Braylec slices at the werewolf who retaliates with a swipe from each clawed hand they both stagger under the blows. Thanodel arrives and earths both swords and draws his bow ready. Vildar joins Braylec and hacks at the werewolf while Garguth goes behind them to flank it. It retreats to the shadow of the mine and Braylec advances hacking at it again and again. It tears and him and bites, again they both stagger at the damage they both do to each other. Vildar closes in and stabs it but there is no room for Garguth. As Sheylea prays to cure Braylec’s serious wounds, Thanodel lets of a volley of paralysis arrows that the beast just shrugs off. The great white werewolf chooses to rip chunks out of Vildar instead of finishing off Braylec and he pales as the blood spurting from the massive rents in his full plate armour splashes to the ground. With a final effort Braylec gets a decisive blow and the werewolf howls as it falls back into the mine.