I unleashed another bolt of violet power, targeting the warrior that Frostmane just tossed around. As before, the magic hit the warrior, striking him in the back, before bouncing to hit the acolyte and the summoned wolf. None of them looked entirely pleased about that.

  Frostmane did not care about the werewolf’s rage. He was no mere beast, nor a barbarian ruled by his emotions. With calculations as cold as his icy breath, the wolf darted forward, and once more threw the warrior to the ground, keeping one of their main combatants out of the melee, if nothing else.

  The sorcereress next to me unleashed a burst of five magic missiles, all curving to strike the Acolyte, peppering him with impacts. It wasn’t much, in the grand scheme of things, but anything which kept him from focusing on casting more spells was probably a good thing. I certainly wasn’t complaining about having more magic on our side.

  Frostmane’s fangs found the warrior’s flesh once again, but this time the werewolf managed to keep his feet. With feral glee, he hacked at Frostmane, two vicious strikes cutting deep into his side. Spurred on by this success, the werewolf made to slash wide, in a horribly telegraphed blow. Unfortunately for him, he forgot where he was, as the sword crashed against the stone wall of the mine, and clattered to the floor.

  Vestele touched Frostmane’s side, and said, “Do not worry, Frostmane. This fight is already ours. They just don’t know it yet.” As she did so, her unholy powers flowed through her hand, healing the worst of the wolf’s wounds.

  The acolyte growled loudly, fighting against Siora’s spell. With a roar of rage, he broke free of the pose he had been paralyzed in. His eyes focused on Siora, and said, “You are going to die slowly for that, girl!”

  “Hah! I’d like to see you try, fleabag!” Siora snarled back at the acolyte. With measured movements, not offering an opening to the wolf beside her, she cast a spell. A wave of power pushed out from her. The feral madness fell from the eyes of the summoned wolf and the warrior, but the acolyte’s zealous madness and the sorcerer’s charmed befuddlement remained.

  I unleashed another blast of arcane power at the warrior, and he was overcome with a rather severe case of death, thanks to the scorch mark on his chest. The bolt then jumped to the Acolyte and the wolf. “Almost done! Just a little bit more!”

  Frostmane whirled about, and sank his fangs into the summoned wolf. Blood sprayed for a moment, as he ripped the wolf’s throat out, before the wolf disappeared back to the plane from whence it came. Turning back to the acolyte, he stepped forward, snarling. “One little pup left.”

  The sorceress stepped back, keeping distance between her and the acolyte. Once again, she unleashed five missiles, which arced unerringly into the priest’s body. Maybe we could keep this one for more than an afternoon?

  Vestele muttered a prayer to the Queen of the Succubi, and divine power washed over her, healing her wounds. “All right. I’m running low on healing magic today, just so everyone knows.”

  The acolyte spit on the floor. “The Beastlord aids me!” Divine power suffused his body, healing him somewhat. Frostmane snapped his jaws as the acolyte then began pulling back, down the hallway. Perhaps he was going to try and find help?

  Siora moved into the hallway, and turned to face the retreating acolyte. Gritting her teeth, she said, “I doubt most of my spells will do much to one like him, but this should at least help!” She threw a spell at the priest, causing him to stagger slightly as it hit him.

  I didn’t know where the priest was headed to, but I knew it wouldn’t be good for us if he got there. I unleashed another bolt of power at him, hitting him in the gut, as he raised his shield to protect his face and chest. “Frostmane, finish it!”

  Frostmane charged forward, covering the gap between himself and the acolyte in mere moments. The acolyte roared in defiance, but when five hundred pounds of muscle landed upon him, and Frostmane’s jaws grabbed him by the collarbone, he collapsed to the ground. And this time, he did not even try and get up, losing consciousness, and, with it, the battle.

  My breath caught in my throat as I saw the cavalcade of windows before my eyes. I knew that adventuring was the high-risk, high-reward way to getting levels, but I had not expected to be advancing so quickly. And the rewards! The new invocation was going to be perfect for dealing with these fiendish werewolves. The Frostchylde Wardancer, on the other hand, was interesting, but it wasn’t like I was meeting many people using cold attacks in this forest.

  Shaking my head to clear away those thoughts, I started stripping the bodies of the fallen. Frostmane had already dispatched the Acolyte by the time I got to him, so he offered no complaint against my examining his gear. There were plenty of magical items in the mix, but, for the most part, they felt… standardized, in a way. Like they had all been built up over time, and drawn from a cache to be given to these werewolves.

  As I looked over the weapons and armor the werewolves had, the thought that these were just items hauled out of a weapons cache was reinforced. These were just stripped-down versions of some of the pieces that some of the other Malarites had used. For instance, the only difference between the chain shirt and the one we took off the wolflord earlier in the day was the materials used, steel, instead of mithril.

  While magic items were not cheap, an organization could commission them in numbers, and store them. It had been thirteen years since the seal had started weakening. Thirteen years was plenty of time for the Malarites to stockpile weapons and armor, especially if it was simpler items, like these.

  But, out of everything, it was these simple enchanted belts that made it clear that this was not a random push. The Malarites knew what they intended to do, and they had prepared. These items were useless to any but afflicted lycanthropes, but for a group gathering a strike force of powerful werewolves, it would be invaluable.

  The biggest weakness of lycanthropes, from what I could see, and from what the lore told me, was that weapons made for humans did not usually work with their wolf or hybrid forms. The second biggest was the fact that those afflicted with the curse rather than granted it naturally had trouble controlling their forms, making them far less effective in an actual fight. No matter how skillful a warrior was with a blade, if a bad hit in a fight awoke his bestial side and trapped him in the body of a wolf, they would be less effective.

  The Malarites had planned against that. The Blood Moon not only converted those afflicted by the curse more quickly, but it gave them levels in combat classes. More importantly, it locked them in their hybrid forms, preventing them from experiencing any of the difficulties of normal werewolves in their first few months of living with the curse.

  But the cost, as we had seen, was that they were less effective in combat than those who could use weapons and armor. Which the Malarites, who had more practical experience with the curse than I could hope to, should have known. So, what if the Blood Moon was only the first step? Something like priming a pump so that it can then be used?

  The implications were disturbing, to say the least. If the Malarites were able to effectively weaponize the curse, and then control the outcome as they had, they were far too dangerous to let live. Fortunately, we had someone here who could, hopefully, answer some of my questions, Siora’s new pet sorceress.

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