Moving Day....

Astra 9

The demifoxes are back and they DO NOT look very happy....

However, every once in a while miracles happen.

God, being kind, has given one to us this day.

See, the demifoxes here are not here to try to end us. No, people who are on the move to murder you were you stand generally don't have every item they own on ponies and wagons.

One demifox in particular is moving about like he's in a daze, or drugged.

Way he's surrounded by other demifoxes, escorting him (or guarding him), seems to suggest something.

"Looks the way Lester would look as a child," Synizn, familiar with past encounters with the man while he'd been barhopping in town, mutters to himself.

Probably because that is him, Grailing says to us all, mentally, Even in this form he wears and the state his "friends" have him in, I recognize the berk.

Synizn blinks, staring over at the dazed demifox as he stumbles on by, then nods as he sees the man inside the demifox form.

"Lester must have figured out the increasing signs within himself and tried that folk cure for lycanthropy you told me about," Tarin adds, leaning over and talking softly to us folk with mere human hearing (hadn't mastered "mind speech" yet), "You know, the distilled wolfbane stuff? Stuff that actually accelerates the curse? Bet you the demifox hunters found him still stunned, standing in the pile of his suddely too large clothing!"

Would explain much here....

Ah, but of course they didn't recapture him in time, Andrea guesses, Why else this massive exodus we see here.

Yes, it's rather odd that we should be about while this is all happening....seeing enough so that all the pieces fall into place like this, you say?

Brother, you are talking to the wrong Amazon! Remember, I can write a book about odd luck! Odd things happen about and around me. Life was relatively normal up until age eight and then, poof! First my now adopted mother, Anina (I adopted her), disappears into thin air. My version of Aqualaria back on my old world gets invaded, throwing everything into utter lunacy.....and let's not mention the fact I met what would have been my older self.....

Oh, my life has been grand and lovely. Surrounded by loving family and friends, but if you think....

.....

Ah, forgive me. Thinking back to those old days still gets to me sometimes. Have been called fiery at times in nature and I guess I just had a "flare up" as it were. Sorry to have taken it out on you, listener.

No, this is just middling strange, friend. That and more than a little sad, really, this....

"Moving day," Jarlath, my love, mutters to himself sadly.

He said it softly so only I and those with sensitive ears can hear.

I believe that this meeting was mere circumstance, really. Things like that do happen, even here and back on Terra Prime.

We had landed in a secluded spot that was a short walk to a major road actually leading to Wallants. Roads lead places, after all. Places that people want or need to go.

Though some of the demifoxes give us dark looks (one being none other than Rush Shabot), that is all we get.

Almost feel guilty about the whole thing, but not really.

Confused? Okay, let me explain.

The original demifoxes of Terra Prime got subsumed by human beings accursed with a special brand of neo-lycanthropy created by Minestus. A few rituals and stories remained, assimilated by the were-creatures (mostly to maintain a low profile), but nothing much else. On this world in this reality, such has not happened yet. We came at a time when the curse was just in it's inception phase. If things had gone differently, it probably would have died in that phase with the capture of this world's Fred and Astra. Who knows. But it happened that things got out of hand with the Silver Eyes upsetting everything by kidnapping my demifox sister and "her" Fred AND throwing everything into chaos to where a newly infected/cursed Lester could escape. The man's bad habits as well as olden Slavic style traditions like sharing cups and plates will bring about a chaotic change throughout the land that is bound to become rather ugly! Bluntly put, I think there's going to be a lot of human beings turning into demifoxes here soon. I think that the remaining fearful human beings will start up all kinds of extermination programs and such to wipe out a plague they feel is in their midst, thinking that'll fix things while overlooking the real culprits (vice and olden customs). I believe that if the demifoxes are foolish enough to stay around, then their community is going to be razed!

No, they are few in number and with few real assets on their side. If a human mob tried to raze an elven or dwarven community, the community has the means to defend itself rather easily. Elves have mighty magics coupled with swift fighting styles that can cut a human mob to mincemeat! Dwarves are tough customers who are organized warriors, capable of handling disorganized human mobs.

Demifoxes might be good woodsman and good hunters, and perhaps fair fighters....but not good enough to stop a crazed human mob set on their destruction.

Demifoxes have only enjoyed a marginal acceptance amongst the more numerous human population, anyway. Witness where they had lived by before! Only the foolish, destitute, or desperate folk not associated with the Black Market Cult live in or near Wallants. Too many unsavory folks about doing business there on this world. Too many shady and dangerous dealings. Being that the demfoxes are not the first two kinds only means the last. They are desperate.

Now, with the gifts that the "cure" to demifox neo-lycanthropy we unwittingly unleashed upon this world, the mundane demifoxes are going to get the assets they so desperately need....whether they really wanted it or not, alas. With the regenerative abilities as well as the shape shifting, the demifox will become a more competitive....viable species on what will become a changed world. Add to the equation (if they are smart) them going to a land where the human beings will accept them with open arms, not shunning them? Much better chances for survival, especially since the Southerners in the Undiscovered Country will keep the Northerners from coming down to bother them.

My only worry is that the demifox hunters didn't spread the "cure" to those "infected" human beings while in their hunt for Lester. Oh, in my mind's eye I see them question every seedy inn and brothel and whatnot, searching for an increasingly furry Lester. The "cure" wouldn't stop the accursed from changing....but it WOULD snap into action to kill the neo- lycanthropy once the shift happened. That's how the demifoxes of my group say it'll happen.

Being mage types, I give them my trust in such magical matters....especially since I know my friends!

Oh, but still despite the good that can come of this....as much as can be wrung from it (given we can't well stop the wildfire that has begun even before we well arrived on this world)...it still breaks the heart to see all the little demifoxes trudge down this weary road.

Well, I console myself that we've done what we set out to do and a bit more, hopefully. 'Tis up to them now to work it out. Can't do everything for everyone, Champion or no.

At least, at the bottom of it all, the only ones who actually know of what Demifox Astra and Demifox Fred will be well AWAY from Aqualaria and Allaria.

There is that angle, as crass as it sounds.

The adventurers soon depart that plane of existence and after a brief stay over (drinking tea with Dr. Vincent) back on Terra Prime, they teleported back to Nantucket Earth.

Their first real eye catching sight was a rather grim one. A traitor named William Walker had been captured by one Roland Deschain awhile ago here in Nantucket and put on trial by the folks here about. After a fair trail, with Roland and his band giving witness testimony, the jury had come back with a unanimous vote. Ugly as it was, Walker was soon hung.

Oh, some would call it inhuman, but then again the guy wanted to go steal the advanced weapons from Nantucket and carve out his own little empire for himself, killing all who'd get in his way. Not like the Nantucket folks met out this punishment for light crimes....

That said, like before at another hanging, the Elder Roland looks solemnly on....and takes a splinter from the gallows, just like he had at another traitor's hanging back on Midworld.

William Walker's death had been swift, but....

Well, the corpse was being taken down to be buried when the adventurers popped back in, startling both sides somewhat.

After that, the adventurers soon were on their way over to the Voyager.

See, it had something to do with a bit of destiny....one could say.

1. Jenny Elf had been showing increasing signs of something going on inside herself that spoke of something odd. Ti'mma, being as she was, came along with her to lend comfort and aid if need.....

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