Siora turned to her pet werewolf, and smiled. “Now, dearie, what is your name?”

The sorceress smiled at the beguiler, and said, “My name is Maura.”

“Very good, Maura. Now, will you be a dear and return to your human form? My friends and I have some questions we’d love to ask you.”

Maura nodded once, and shuddered, before her form twisted and reformed to reveal a woman with fair skin and blonde hair. With a smile, she stretched slightly, like she was working out a kink in her shoulder. “What do you want to know?”

Maura’s story was a sad one. She had originally been born in Winterhaven, a port city far to the south. That land was a fascinating place, on the edge of the Aurilblood Jungle, the massive glacier that abutted directly with the tropical rain forests of Sangara on the seaward side. It was said that, in the center of the jungle, there was a volcano that was somehow connected to the elemental planes of ice and cold, so that even the lava which sometimes erupted from its peak burned with cold.

The name, of course, came from the Great Troubles, as did Moonwood. I remembered the stories that Emeline, the Priestess in Sleetmouth, had told me in the time before I went home. It was said that Auril the Frostmaiden, Mielikki the Forest Queen, and Mystra the Lady of Mysteries joined forces against Kossuth the Firelord, Garagos the Master of Weapons, and Set the Defiler of the Dead. Those three had, themselves, joined forces in a mad gamble to force their way back into the godly realm by burning and slaughtering as much of the living world as they could. The battle ended when the three goddesses combined their power in a single magical attack that froze the jungle into eternal winter, driving fire from the land so completely that the very plants and animals were changed into icy variants, making it the only frozen jungle in the world.

At any rate, Maura was originally from Winterhaven, but was taken as a child by the Huntlord. In that time, Blackfang had come to the south, for reasons she never discovered. Her magical potential was spotted by one of his companions, and that night Blackfang came and slaughtered everyone, stealing her away in the night.

She survived the bite, and the change, on the journey back to the North. She was just six winters old. Now, a woman of eighteen winters, the cult of the Beastlord was all she knew.

Most of the ones who had come with the Huntlord to the Moonwood were similar to her, children who had been taken in by Blackfang or his companions and raised within the cult. They followed the Huntlord willingly, with true devotion, because his will was all they knew. He was the center of their world, the Alpha of their pack.

When they had gotten to the Moonwood, and the Blood Moon rose in the sky, she had been forced to change to her hybrid form, as had the other afflicted wolves. Unlike the newly afflicted, who became little better than berserkers, going where they were told by the leaders of the pack, she retained her senses, and her magic, while the newly changed all became warriors. The leaders had said that they were there to delay the inevitable response by the Selunites, when it came.

Siora frowned at that. “They expected a response?”

Maura nodded. “Oh, yes. Moonwood may be isolated, but it would be impossible to cut it off entirely without someone noticing, and send some kind of response. Sanna said that, from the moment they killed the priestess, the clock was ticking on how long they would have until a response happened. So, most of our efforts have been put towards slowing any response, in the hopes that it can be delayed until the Moonfire Seal is destroyed.”

Frostmane growled softly. “And, so far, it is working perfectly. We can’t just go and leave these wolves at our backs, and every day we delay getting to the temple is another day that the Huntlord has to gather strength, and prepare. How long until the seal breaks?”

Maura shook her head. “Oh, I don’t know, but according to Mistress Rena, it should be any day now. The Master went out into the forest with several of his closest followers. They were going to do a ritual to try and finish the job of breaking the seal, while the rest went to prepare the way.”

I nodded at that. “And what about you? Why are you here, if the others have already moved on?”

“We were told to guard the mine, both in case the ritual did not work right away, and to try and slow down anyone headed our way from the Shrine. One of the Huntresses came with word of the attack on the Shrine, so we knew that whoever did it would come here, next. Our job was to kill them, if we could. And if we couldn’t, the Master ordered us to bleed them as much as we can.”

She looked me over, and said, “Well, all of them except for you. You are the black-winged angel that was in the town, yes? The Master got a report of you, after the attack on the village was pushed back. Now that you’ve become such a thorn in the paw, he’s ordered you to be captured, so that we can sacrifice you. Even a fallen angel would make for a powerful sacrifice, and would help empower the pack before we attack the temple.”

I tried to stop myself from chuckling, but that only made it worse. Bursting out laughing, I fell back against the wall, wings outswept. “Oh, by the Goddess! Me, an angel? I think not! If you were looking for someone connected to the higher or lower planes, then the demon twins are the ones you should be looking for. I am no angel, but one of the fey.”

Vestele cleared her throat. “Actually, the fey make for good sacrifices, as well. Not to mention the fact that you are the servant of a rival Goddess to the Beastlord, and are a Twiceborn. While it would be no match for the higher celestials, I have no doubt that your soul would actually be just as powerful, if not more so, than a lower-tier angel’s in a sacrifice.”

Siora giggled. “Not to mention that you would be just as dead, either way. Sure, even if it doesn’t offer the kind of power he is wanting, it won’t matter that much to you, since being dead would really foul up any plans you might have. I’ve heard that death tends to interfere with your life like that.”

I settled back down, and grinned at the girls. “Fine, fine. I’ll try not to find it quite so entertaining.” Turning back to look at Maura, I asked, “So, how did you become like the fiendish wolves that we’ve been fighting?”

Maura nodded. “Ah, that was the Master’s doing. When the Blood Moon began, he filled the Wolfen Grail with the blood of celestials, infusing it with dark purpose. When the Blood Moon broke, we drank from the cup, all of those who were left. We became infused with the essence of the demonic beings of the lower planes. The Master and his trusted group also drank, and they became even more powerful than we are.”

Well, that was less than good. The fact that we were getting such good intelligence from the charmed sorceress was nice. However, I would have been far happier if the information she was giving us wasn’t so very distressing. The fights against the fiendwolves had been bad enough. The idea of there being harder fights to come was distressing, for all kinds of reasons.

Looking at my companions, I could see that they were agreed about this not being the most hopeful situation. Still, there was no need to panic, just yet. There would be time to figure out our next step later. For the moment, however, we needed to focus on clearing out the mines.

I focused on Maura again. “How deep do the mines go? Have you ventured far into them?”

The sorceress shook her head. “Oh, no. only parts of the first two levels of the mine are actually open. Sometime long in the past, there was a cave-in. All the passages going deeper into the mine are completely blocked. Apparently, it was just a simple iron mine, but the valuable minerals were all played out, and the one blacksmith in the pitiful town never needed more than enough iron for some nails, now and then, which he could get near the surface, so there was no desire to clear it out.”

She paused for a moment, and then said, “Anyways, the mines in Chantresville are better equipped, so the Mistress said. So, any raw ore they needed they got from there. The Mistress said that their blacksmith was mainly kept in business by shoeing horses and making nails, along with the odd piece of cutlery or some repairs. A score of ingots would keep him in business for a season or more. No need for the mine, or miners, unless there was metal worth more than iron in it.”

Siora smiled at Maura, but I could see that it did not reach the Beguiler’s eyes. “So, this Mistress of yours is pretty chatty, then? She seems to tell you a great deal. Or are you high up in this branch of the Hunt?”

Maura blushed, and said, “Oh, no. I’m just a member of the Pack. But the Mistress, she, well, she has plenty of appetites that she hunts to sate, and not just of the culinary variety. She is always happy to share her thoughts of what is going on, once the wolf has been ‘fed’. And even on nights when I am not joining her, we all bed down together, and it isn’t hard to hear what she’s saying.”

Ugh. It seemed that the damned priest we killed at the Shrine wasn’t the only pervert in the ranks of these Malarites. From what Maura was saying, they basically stole children, and raised them into a cult of sex and blood, brainwashing them into unholy warriors that thought of themselves as family. It was sick, and wrong, but it was an effective way of allowing the Huntlord to keep control of his Hunt. The fanaticism we’d seen in the wolves so far made more sense now. The wolves under the Blood Moon had no choice, and these ones had all been indoctrinated, even before they became partly demons.

Frostmane came to the rescue, and changed the subject away from the quasi-incestuous lifestyle of a cult ‘family’ sleeping all together. “So, only two floors of this mine, then? How many of your fellow cultists are there here?”

Maura took a breath, clearly torn on whether she should talk about that. There was a difference between talking about the general plans everyone in the cult knew of and confirming how many of her people there were in the mine. At least, in her mind there was, but that was all that mattered, in this case.

Melinda’s Bluff check: 1d20+28 = 34

Maura’s Sense Motive check: 1d20+1 = 21 (Fail)

Stepping closer to the werewolf, I put my bloodlust aside for the moment, or tried to. There would be plenty of time for killing, later. For now, we needed information.

“Maura, we need to know how many of your friends are here, otherwise, how would we know if we missed any? You wouldn’t want to deny us a chance to meet all your friends, would you? Even if some of them might act mean, they could turn out to be friends with us, too. Doesn’t that sound great?”

It wasn’t my best performance, but, apparently, it was enough. Maura smiled at me, and said, “All right. Let’s see. There’s Sana, Jasper, Nathanial, and Bolton. They should be in the den room. Carver, Bando, and Larson should be with Mistress Rena, in the Ritual Chamber. Fingol, Revan, and Tucker have harvesting duty today, getting the meat from the arrays.”

The sorceress paused, thinking. “Hmm. Who am I forgetting? Oh, that’s right! The twins! I don’t know their names, because they never speak where we can hear them, but they came by teleporting from… somewhere way off to the East. They aren’t wolves, like we are, but they still follow the Beastlord.”

I nodded. “That’s great, Maura. So, how many of them are demonic wolves, like you are?”

“Oh, all of them, except for Mistress Rena, and the twins. I’m not sure about the twins. They smell like brimstone, like the fiendish wolves do, like we do now, but they don’t smell like wolves. And the Mistress? She is so much more than just a wolf!”

So, ten of the ‘new’ wolves, one ringleader, and two wild cards. That wasn’t too bad, honestly. Things could have been much worse. They weren’t great, but it could have been much worse.

Looking at the rest of the group, I nodded. “All right, we have the beginnings of a plan. Let’s go meet with our new ‘friends’.”