Hour of the Wolf (WHF)

[X] Extract the Venom
[X] Chase After the Beastmen

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Wordlessly, you decide to extract the spider's venom and take it with you; the advantages of its lethality are bound to offer more than make up for the slight delay it will imposeStepping close to the ruined remnant of the giant spider's head—your stomach churning as you get a fresh whiff of the foul-smelling ichor leaking from its body—you root around in your bag of healing materials for one of your precious burgundy bottles and stare at the spider's fangs warily. As long as your finger, articulated like a dog's leg, and tipped with a spike of some glossy black substance weeping pale venom, the dead thing's fangs look ready to leap out and stab you; images of the fangs piercing your body flitting through your mind.

Shuddering at the thought, you approach with, you feel, understandable caution and press the lip of your bottle against the spider's fang.


Only to jump back with a yelp as the fang lurches out.

"Sigmar's balls!" You cry as you land with a splash, your hand flashing down to the peasant knife at your hip ready to offer a futile defence.

A moment later, you freeze in place, the last echoes of your unmanful yelp fading into the woods as you realise the spider is quite dead, its fang flexing back and forth out of some dying impulse embedded in its muscles. Relieved as the spider's blind motion stills with a final judder, you sigh long and low, the pounding in your chest fading with each moment.

Shaking your head at the thought of dying to something already dead, you take a faltering step towards the spider's corpse, ready to try again, only to frown as you spy something gleaming in the moonlight where you once stood. A second glance confirms it. Dropped as you lept backwards, your bottle lies shattered on the muddy ground, the grey edge of a stone peeking above the ichor-stained mud.

You curse the stone as a pain runs through your heart. "Villain!"

A parting gift from your master, Rience, acquired sometime in his still-foggy youth, the burgundy bottle was all but irreplaceable; no boy of the woods able to pay the king's ransom needed to replace it.

Cursing again as you kick the glittering shards aside, you retrieve another empty bottle from your bag and uncork it, pausing to eye the now-stationary fangs with suspicion.

"Bastard," you tell the spider's corpse as you gingerly approach its still fang. Raising the bottle, you try again.


This time, the spider's wicked fangs remain stationary as you press the bottle against its envenomed fang, a fair flood of pale liquid spilling into the container. In moments, the bottle fills to the brim, a hasty retreat and a quick corking leaving you with a fair quantity of the substance. Without knowing the dosage, it's impossible to tell how much would be required to poison someone, but as sure as the sun rises in the morn, the light fluid will kill.

Restoring the palm-sized bottle to its place in your herb-filled bag, you spare the spider's ruined corpse—and the equally ruined glass shards in front of it—one last look before turning towards the beasts' trail through the woods. There is little question as to what you'll do, you realise.

"If they made it this far through the woods," you tell yourself, thinking of the refugees from Roslas, "then they'll be at Varrel and safe by now."

With those words ringing in your ears and a need for vengeance burning in your heart, you set off after the beastmen.


Fire and blood hit you with the subtlety of a club to the skull, the earthy fragrance of burning timber mixing with the metallic tang of spilt blood and the harsh stink of beastmen to produce a Pungent aroma that sets your nerves on edge. Hissing as you see a pillar of thick black smoke rising from behind the trees ahead of you, an orange glow filling the night sky and banishing Mannslieb's silver light, you slow your madcap dash and begin picking your way through the trees. Within you, Ulric's Gift stirs at the smell, a jaw within your soul opening wide to bare its teeth in expectation.

Consoling the wolf spirit within you with one part of your mind, another wonders. Have they encamped?

If they have, it would make your vengeance easier and harder to achieve, depending on if they were on their guard. A dose of poison in their food and drink would kill many raiders, while a sudden attack by your half-man, half-wolf form would set terror in their hearts. Either would sate your desires, though one thought brought more satisfaction.

Putting the thought aside, you push through bracken and branches with little regard for the scratches they leave behind, the heat of regenerating flesh warming you in the night's cold. Making your way through the undergrowth, the dull pounding of a lone drum meets your ears, the noise underscored by the crackle and roar of distant flames. Hurrying towards the sound, it takes you a moment to realise that the trail you have been following has steadily thinned, your passage through the woods growing harder and harder with every footstep you take towards the drumbeat until it's all but invisible. Trepidation rising, you follow the path towards the glow of the still-unseen flames with growing caution, the drumbeat growing louder and more insistent with every step.

Too big, you realise as you duck beneath a fallen fir tree. It's too big for a simple camp.

Your thoughts prove true.

Rising to your feet, you see a wall of fire burning past the trees before you, hungry orange flames licking the sky and sending up a shower of embers. All at once, the sounds of combat assault your ears, the braying cries of beastmen and the screams of men boiling up around you, an ice-cold dagger ripping through your heart. Hurrying forward, you press against a trunk and stare in wide-eyed fury as you see your prey for the first time since Roslas.

Seething like a river overfull, cloaked in darkness and illuminated by the raging flames, a half score of beastmen charge forwards with whoops and brays, spears and knives clutched tightly in their hands. Ahead of them, burning with a vengeance and smothered by smoke, something too small to be a village but too large to be a simple camp looms out of the darkness, the smattering of buildings surrounded by a palisade of rough-hewn logs. Following the beastmen's path with your gaze, you grimace at the field of clearcut stumps that confront you.

A woodcutter's settlement, you think to yourself as fresh screams ring out through the night. Poor bastards.

Your wolf agrees, a sudden fury and a desire to launch yourselves at the beastmen rising within you; your hackles rising in turn and your heartbeat spiking.


You jerk toward the settlement instinctively, the siren call of revenge almost irresistible and dark fur already sprouting across your body. Despite yourself, despite your earnest wishes, you wrench yourself to a halt, your wolf snarling at the interrupting. Gasping and shaking from the effort, your lungs burning and your skin crawling—physically crawling—you push the changes down, the worms beneath your skin slowly stilling and the dark fur receding.

We need to know how many there are, you tell yourself, your wolf spirit disagreeing furiously. We're no use to anyone dead.

We're no use to anyone if we're dead, you repeat as you crouch down and cloak yourself in shadow.

Doing your best to ignore the beast caged in your heart and the smoke that stings your eyes, you peer through the darkness towards the woodcutters' settlement and try to make sense of the pandemonium.


Between the stinging smoke, the blazing fires, and the constantly shifting light, it takes longer to make sense of the world your eyes reveal than you'd like, the braying of the beastmen a blood-curdling bass rumble.

Surrounded by a circular wooden palisade whose roughly hewn trunks have been sharpened into tooth-like spikes, the woodcutters' settlement is in its death throes already, beastmen by the score clambering up its wooden walls or surging through torn open gates. Stomping and bleating as if enjoying good sport, at least twenty Ungors stand watching the burning buildings or pawing at the dead and dying that lay in the muddy paths between buildings, short spears and bows held in their hands and used to vicious effect on those who linger too long. Striding between them and shoving them out of the way when necessary, you count at least seven Gors bellowing challenges to one another over paltry goods as two minotaurs watch with bovine indifference.

Here and there, men still live, a group of ten with their backs against the western edge of the palisade clutching axes in trembling hands as they try to fend off a handful of Ungors and Gors that jab at them with spears and slash at them with battle axes. As you watch, one of the Gor's cuffs the Ungor beside it with the flat of its blade and it lunges forward, a man letting out a pained scream as the goatlike creature's hooked spear catches him in the gut. Stumbling to the ground in a splash of entrails, the man vanishes beneath the press of the beastmen's bodies as they surge forward a moment later, the men retreating against the wall that has now become their prison.


Just barely visible amid the firelight and spilling smoke, you see one man at the back of the press furiously working at the wall behind him, his hands busy doing something to the wall.

A door? A part of you wonders as the fell creatures continue poking and prodding at their prisoners, the sound of their braying laughter rising from the burning settlement as another falls. An escape hatch? A weakness?

Regardless of what the men are attempting to do, it's clear that nothing you can do can save the woodcutter's settlement from destruction. Already burning fiercely, it will burn down to the ashes even if every beastman within its walls died or left, those trapped within its walls burning with it if they don't succumb to the raiders first.

You'd have arrived sooner if you hadn't fumbled the bottle.

The unwelcome whisper spills into your mind like poison, a black blot spreading amongst your thoughts.

Was it true? You wonder. It was only a few minutes at most, but a few minutes can change everything in a battle. How many men would still be alive if you hadn't wasted time by dropping the bottle? How many would be alive if you hadn't tried extracting the venom at all?

Your wolf stirs, and the image of two yellow eyes narrowed in anger flashes into your mind. All at once, the self-doubt vanishes as the spirit creature reminds you that could-have-beens and what-ifs are not the preserves of wolves.

Clenching your fists painfully tight, you drive the toxic thought from your mind.

Muttering soft curses, you turn away from the men and count the beastmen raiders, hissing as the number approaches two score. While you are no soldiering man or mercenary, your memories of Varrel tell you that a force this size is more a match for the town's homely militia without a Child or two to aid them. Worse still, you do not doubt that Varrel will be the raiders' next target; their antipathy for civilization drives them on almost as much as their twisted love for the dark gods. Though it might be only a fraction of the size of the herd that razed Roslas, the animal strength imbued in the mutants by the forces of Chaos renders even the lowest beastman a deadly threat to most ordinary men.

Article:

What do you want to do?

[] Leave for Varrel. There is nothing more you can do here. Charging in to slake your thirst for vengeance risks dying without warning Varrel's inhabitants and leaves them defenceless against the raiders.

[] Distract the Beastmen. You might be able to save some of the woodsmen. Distracting the beastmen would risk death, but give their prey time to finish whatever they're trying to accomplish, and you may even get your claws bloody.

[] Write-in