Happily Sliding Downward...
The Never Ending Quest - Episode 8319
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Lady Andrea Croix again found herself in a new place. It looked as if
it had been beautiful, once, but now it was a blasted ruin. Where before
there might have been a fertile grove, there were now only twisted thorns
and the charred stumps of what used to be trees. A chill wind whipped
through the area. A circle in the center was cleared, save for seven moss encrusted tombstones. Andrea was naked, cold, and alone, her friends nowhere to be seen. She felt wretched and frightened here. Gradually, she became aware of voices drifting on the wind. They sounded like moans of pain. Suddenly, a shriek sounded from the direction of the tombstones. Her head whipped around to look, and she noticed a rippling of mist in the air. It resolved itself into a frightful apparition, the ghost of a woman, clad in a white robe. The robe was spattered with blood from a wound in her chest, and the woman's face looked frozen in an expression of horror. As if this wasn't disturbing enough, the wraithly form spoke. "So...the last sister comes to us now, when the coven is shattered. Fritha did well, though it may be too late..." "What? What are you talking about? How do you know Fritha?" "Time enough for tales later... Come now... sister... and for the first time know home..." Andrea shrank from the ghost. It figured. Another person wanting her powers, wanting to chain her. She needed to get away from here, and fast. She needed to get to the forest, where she knew no one would ever try to tie her down again. She knew one way to run faster than the wind. With the beast in her unleashed, she could get what she desired, and damn the consequences. She reconsidered though. What if she lost herself when she became a werewolf? No. Nothing that felt that good could be wrong. She wasn't losing herself, she was finding herself. As the wraith drew nearer, she gave her animalistic urges full reign. Each change had felt better than the last, and this was no exception. She became a creature without boundaries, without needless fettering of any of her impulses. Andrea uttered a bloodcurdling howl and left the ghost far behind, running into the wilderness... Andrea woke in a cold sweat, her heart again pounding in her chest. Frantically, she looked about, trying to see if, as before, the dream had left her subtly changed. She needed to know, she told herself, as she took stock of her body. It had grown. The small, thumbnail-sized patch of hair had spread. Now, more hair had sprouted to join it. It had become a strip of soft fur, stretching from just above her navel downward, where a thick clump of it wreathed her nether regions in a ruff. She continued examining herself, and found a second change. Though it was easy to hide them in her hair, her ears now came to gentle points at the tips. Thankfully, the others were not awake yet. It seemed even Astra had fallen asleep at the watchpost. Andrea wondered at the meaning of the changes as she donned the fur cloak and made sure her ears were hidden by locks of her chestnut hair. She thought back to the stories about the ergot mushroom contagion, and the hunters the King had sent out to deal with the werewolves that plagued the land afterward. The tales had said that the hunters eventually developed a way to spot the werewolves during the day. Supposedly, as time went by, the werewolves features changed, while still remaining human. She looked over at the crouched, sleeping form of Astra. Was it her imagination, or had the warrior woman's features taken on a more feral cast in the past week? It could well be. Andrea crossed the encampment, careful not to awaken anyone. She wondered why her curiosity was getting the better of her. After all, she reasoned, her curse was a welcome thing to her now. She just had to wait for her chance, when she could slip away and become the powerful, unrestrained, almost sexual thing the disease in her veins had given to her. She neared Astra. She reached out, trying to draw back the cloak Astra had thrown over her shoulders while standing guard. She still wasn't sure if the princess of Aquilaria was a light sleeper, but she just had to see if the same thing was happening to the warrior woman. She was about to grasp the fur of Astra's cloak when she noticed another disturbing thing. The trail behind them was gone. The trees ringed them on all sides, and the stream was nowhere in sight. The young noblewoman's shriek quickly woke the others.
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The Traveler
3/16/2000 7:03:29 PM
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