The Guard Captain
Session 3
Having confronted the guards in their holding/reception area, you managed to convince them not to return you to your cells while Rasiu remained out of sight. You came to know that Ander, the older of the two, was the one in charge of the pair. With Steve, who was looking decidedly twitchy, he seems willing to entertain the idea of you helping them with the current “problems” they were facing.
Originally intending for Ander to take Atticus to his captain alone to discuss this, the wiser man saw through your gambit to try to get “Twitchy” Steve alone in a room with the remainder of the group and began leading the whole group to the captain. Moving you into a courtyard of sorts, you found yourself surrounded by barricades, war machines and high walls, which Smitty took a keen eye towards. You were brought before the captain and the guards who had focussed attention on the external wall, which was barely visible over the barricades.
To Ander's chagrin, the captain immediately ordered your re-arrest and demanded that you be placed back in the cells. Though he tried to make his point, the captain was having none of it. When addressed by Atticus and Smitty, a usually “charming” pair, the captain was immediately affronted, demanding to know why peasants were addressing him. The foppish and arrogant man seemed primed, ready and unassailable. It was, of course, at this point that Twitchy lived up to his name and a bolt flew past the ear of Smitty, impacting into the barricade right by one of the guards.
Taking this as an attempted attack by yourselves, the captain ordered the guard into action and drew his own sword. Both sides began trading blows, though Ander refused to fire, but it wasn’t until a mysterious bolt flew from behind the captain that things became truly interesting. Firstly, that bolt had come from the external wall and some of you spotted a patch of green clothing in that general direction. The bolt struck true and, along with the unusually coloured blades and weapons you were carrying, the Captain’s feeling of invulnerability was being tested. Growling something to himself about it being too soon, one of the most horrific things you’ve ever seen occurred.
The Captain’s body rippled and tore before you, changing from a man to some form of half-human, half-wolf beast. Some of you recall tales of these sorts of things from before the purge but this one seemed different from the diagrams and descriptions you have seen. All the same, you began trading blows with the creature, whose new form was almost too much to handle for the group. After Rasiu was knocked unconscious, Smitty managed to cause more damage to the party and Ander than the creature with a war machine, things were looking rough. With a well placed, powerful healing spell, Aldrich brought Rasiu back from the brink and almost as if it were a signal, the group closed in for the kill.
Surrounding the creature, it was Atticus who dealt the killing blow – a cut the to the hamstring bringing the creature down to a more manageable height before a cleaver blow to the head split it straight down the middle. The lights in his wolf-like eyes blinked out immediately, and his form shrunk back down to full humanity once more. Shaken and scared, most of the guards looked to Ander, who reluctantly took control of the situation. He explained that he could grant you a temporary pardon for your crimes if you could investigate this for them – your crimes were nothing compared to the situation that had developed.
Though Smitty made a brief push for power (which was remedied by a swift staff to the gut) Ander guided you to the chapel, provided food and water, and left you to rest for the remainder of the night. Taking some time to get to know your new compatriots, you eventually turned in for the night, wondering what this horrific remnant from the time before the purge meant.