Night of the Full Moon

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 14134

"We wait," Fred answered. "Tonight is the night of the full moon. Being trapped here is the best thing for us if we're going to turn into savage monsters. But once the madness has passed, then we can plan our escape." Astra raised a brow, "Escape? Then you have no intention of cooperating?" Fred smiled wanly, "Not if they can't guarantee that I will be restored my humanity." Astra nodded with understanding.


Inside of a locked and barred room sat two strange looking creatures. One was Lord Fred D'Honaire. The other was Princess Astra of Aqualaria. They both stood only three feet tall and each had a bushy fox's tail. The similarity in their appearances stopped there. Fred looked like a strange little boy, his face (apart from his fox ears) quite human. The skin of his body though was anything but normal. It was a strange red color, very similar to the red hue of the fur which now covered nearly the whole of Astra's body. Her face was muzzled and had the features of a woodland fox. Her hands and feet were more like paws, although they had all the dexterity and nimbleness of human hands. The reason they looked different from each other apparently lay in the fact that Astra was pregnant, although the details in their differing bodies didn't really concern them very much. Muzzle or no, Fred wanted to be human again just as much as Astra did.

They had both been this way for almost a week now, ever since the night they were reunited with each other in a forest in the foothills of the Goth.

The dragoness, Malachi, had told them that they were werefoxes. The fact that the sun was shining in the sky above their heads when she had said this should have alerted them to the fact that this didn't quite make sense. But at that time they hadn't really cared about what they had become, they just wanted to be restored to normal again. But after meeting a group of like appearing creatures that called themselves demifoxes but had no connection to lycanthropy whatsoever, they once again turned their attention to the question of what it was that had actually been done to them.

After having been examined and questioned by an elder of these demifoxes, they had come to the conclusion that they had not been turned into werefoxes after all but rather had been changed into demifoxes who were cursed with lycanthropy. This was an odd thing though since the demifolke were quite immune to lycanthropy, and transformative magic in general, and the demifox elders found Fred and Astra's uncanny metamorphosis quite alarming. But once again neither Fred nor Astra were much interested in the specifics. They had come to the city of Walants for one thing and one thing alone, to regain their humanity. Everything else was unimportant.


Within the private room of the demifox elder Boshwyn Ringroot a group of demifoxes sat in quiet conversation. The arrival of Fred and Astra had sent shockwaves through their small community. For years now they had suspected that dragons had been behind the repeated abductions of demifolke throughout the area. They had heard rumors that one such dragon, Minestus, was attempting to create a new Race, a slave Race akin to the demifolke. But though magic could do many things, it could not grant an inhabitant of the mortal world the powers of Creation. Those were for the gods alone. Minestus could corrupt, torture, and exploit any Race he chose but he could not create a wholly new Race. At least, that was what they had always thought. But then came Fred and Astra, two humans who were now, however impossible it was, demifoxes. It seemed then that Minestus had actually succeeded in his mad quest, for if he could turn humans into demifolke, warp one Race into another, creating something never seen before certainly was not beyond his bounds. With power like that Minestus could enslave the entire world. But even more terrible than just slavery, his victims would suffer the loss of their very identities, that special binding that made them who they were. If that happened, his slaves would become just as mad as Minestus was.

But he was not the only threat.

There was another dragon, Moreau. The werebear Synizn had warned everyone high and low that this dragoness was bent on destroying Walants, indeed all of MalBoncton and the rest of Ryngaerd as well. The monster was delving into arcane sorcery, practicing sacrilegious abominations. The aim of her evil was in mastering the moon madness, the curse men call lycanthropy. This frightened the demifolke not at all, for only humans could suffer from lycanthropy. But Synizn claimed that Moreau would change all that and spread the curse across the world like a plague in which every living being would change into a murderous beast when the moon shone full.

Was she the dragon behind the abductions? Was the race of the Demifolke being used to test her evil powers? Worse yet, was she in league with the mad Minestus? The two vile dragons working side by side?

Ringroot did not know for sure. But according to Fred and Astra Minestus was now dead, killed in battle with yet another dragon. The dragon Malachi. And why? Because Malachi had wanted a small, glass figurine called the Crystallic. With it she had claimed that she could undo what Minestus had done to Fred and Astra. Simply put, with the Crystallic she would have had the power of the gods, the power Minestus had craved for and finally usurped. But she died instead and with her dying words she had commanded Fred and Astra to give the figurine to Synizn. Synizn the werebear. Synizn the dragon's pawn. The demifolke of Walants had long suspected that Synizn had been carrying on a dark game of subterfuge in the service of dragonkind. They had been ever vigilant for any sign of his dark deeds, keeping an eye out for any compatriots he might have and keeping him under surveillance when they could. But Synizn had some skill in the mage arts and within Walants he was a man feared and shunned. His comings and goings were almost never out in the open and they dared not confront him themselves. But they never stopped watching. And then Fred and Astra had come.

There was no doubt now that Synizn was a dragon-slave and an enemy to the demifolke. But it was the demifolke who now had the Crystallic. And they would keep it. Safe from their enemies, safe from Synizn, safe from the dragons. But was it already too late?

Even though Minestus was now dead, there were still other dragons, and there was still Moreau. If she indeed had been in league with Minestus then it seemed quite certain that Fred and Astra were infected with lycanthropy as Malachi had claimed. And that meant that none of them was safe.


Darkness descended over Walants and a full, bright moon rose up over the countryside. The howls of wolves and other creatures echoed in the night air. The demifox elders rose up from their seats and made their way to a locked and barred room. Their hearts were heavy for they knew what they would find when they reached that room. Two snarling half-beasts clawing at the door, or ripping each other apart. It was therefore a complete shock when they looked through the small window cut into the door and saw Fred and Astra calmly playing chess with some rocks and pieces of wood. Fred looked up and smiled, "Good evening elders. As you know the moon is in the sky and guess what, I don't think I'm a werefox."

"Demi-werefox," Astra corrected him and took out one of his pawns.

"Or maybe were-demifox," Fred countered and trapped Astra's mage.

"Whatever," Astra replied and moved her rook. "So do you think they'll let us out now?"

Fred looked back up at the barred hole in the door and at the faces that peered through it. "Well Elder Ringroot, it seems we were all wrong about our supposed lycanthropy. And I can tell you I am quite relieved. Werewolves, or werefoxes for that matter, in my country end up gutted and burned on trash heaps. Though to be honest we don't have much of a problem with it up there. I think our reputation scares them away. But that's neither here nor there. Now, would you kindly please let us out of here?"

  1. Ringroot confered with his fellow elders...

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WolfRun

1/8/2001 1:15:11 AM

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