| The three were creatures nervously follow the trail to the entrance
to the cave. Even the Foresaken aren't stupid enough to come near the entrance,
Loam thinks. Yet, here he and the others are going right in! He shakes
his head. Maybe his wits had been addled by that club!
They enter the cafe, and see signs of . . . . fierce battle. Burn marks
and melted rock denote intense heat and other things. Some type of magical
battle has happened here, recently. Strange.....
The three would be heroes enter into a HUGE chamber. Alicia gasps as
she sees the corpse of the mighty dragon . . . . or the mangled remains
of it spead over a large part of the floor. The stink of rotting is almost
too much for the lycanthropes to take. They then come up short as a human
looking figure comes forward. It also has the smell of rot on it, and half
of it's face has been ripped away, exposing a metallic skull underneath.
"Golem." whispers Alicia fearfully. There is much to be fearful about.
These magical constructions have a tendency to turn on their creators,and
then on any human life around them.
"Close enough." the thing says in a raspy voice that has a metallic
twang to it. "That's not the correct term for my type, but for the momment,
it's close enough.<o> "Ah, the newest lab rat." the golem laughs, looking
at Fred. "The one that 'Monreau' was so happy about. But, where are my
manners, sit! Please."
The three nervously sit at a nearby table that the magical creature
puts back upright.
"You guys must have a million questions, but I'm running out of time
here before I move on." the golem says. "So I'll give you a capsulated
history of what's happened here."
"Okaaaay." Fred says nervously, ears twitching nervously as the hackles
of his neck stand up on end.
"It's like this." the golem says. "You know that this, and several other
island enclaves are the experiments of the lizard. About his 'biological
philosophy.' Well, that was crazy enough, even for a dragon. Sure, he could
experiment and modify the spell that inflicts lycanthropy on the victim
without any thought of being effected himself . . . . lycanthropy only
works on humans! But, the lizard went totally round the bend, and came
to the conclusion that HIS creations were the next step in the evolutionary
ladder, and that normal humans now a hinderance that must be gotten rid
of for the next phase. To make it short, he cooked up a magical plague,
nasty thing! Totally lethal to the human host, and sticks around forever
as it piggybacks on the systems of other, nonhuman hosts. So, even if the
first wave of the plague doesn't get all the humans, it'll happen sometime
in the near future. And the bugger is so advanced and nasty, that chances
of finding a cure are NIL.
"I was called in to stop the wyrm, but was one step too slow. The plague
was already underway, but I didn't know until that pirate ship's crew dropped
dead on the beach before burying it's loot. People got it, died suddenly
. . . . real quick! It's world wide.
"So, now this is were Fred and a few other newbies come in." the golem
adds after a few stunned momments the were creatures had. "Fred and a few
other's lycanthropy had been modified to totally PREVENT them from becoming
Foresaken! Originally, lycanthropy always produced Foresaken, but the dragon
tinkered with it, got you guys, and finally isolated the key factors that
causes a victim to go bannana's......lose his or her humanity. To make
it even more interesting, there's a little addendum in the matrix that
makes up the most INTERESTING effect on the earlier . . . . non-Forsaken
models. It upgrades their Lycanthropy matrix to the new model!
"Well, I know that probably sounds cheesy, and it's all sudden." the
golem laughs hollowly. "I've managed to secure most of the silver from
the Forsaken and the pirate sight. That, and I've wired this place to explode
and bury this place. I'd leave NOW! Have a nice day." the golem falls over,
and lays there. There's a beeping going off from some strange blue barrels
with these flashing red lights on a grey box on the side.
The speed at which the lycanthropes leave the cave and duck for cover
is amazing even for them. And it proves that that speed was necessary,
because a goute of fire shouts out of the cave mouth, and then the mountain
collapses on itself.
The lycanthropes get up, shakey, and get the heck out of there......
|
