Interview with a Werewolf

It's a beautiful day for such grim business as questioning a werewolf, yet here you are. Walking down the gray halls of Vardama's Temple toward the housing area where the werewolf in question waits for you. A few feet from the little room you can see the pair of armed-with-silver guards who were placed on either side of his door. They nod to you as you draw closer, but don't move from their stations. Once you're close enough that it's clear that this is the location that you're headed for, the pair glance at one another.

"We require anyone entering to touch the silver of one of our weapons. As proof that they are not were-creatures of some variation. Just as a precaution." The one on the left nods as the one on the right speaks. They're taking this very seriously. "Also, no harm is to come to the prisoner while you are inside. He's under our protection per... Ah... Your orders." At this the man blinks and looks at Silmeria. Seems he didn't recognize her until then.

Telamon doesn't take offense at the slightest. Indeed, as he was walking down the hall, he was flipping a coin idly -- the flash of silver as it lands back in his palm like a sparkling star. "An entirely reasonable precaution," he admits with a grim smile. He pockets the silver coin, before offering his hands to touch one of the guards' silvered blades.

"If it's not one thing slinking into the city, it's another. And what with the refugees... it's easier than ever." Tel sighs. "What can you do, though? We couldn't leave those people outside the city to face the wights." Once the guards are satisfied, he waits to be admitted.

Silmeria's normally sweet face is as hard and cold as the granite of the Temple, as she walks down the hallways, Telamon and Auranar at her side. Her own pistol is peacebonded, but glowing, as the spirit within has been awoken and requested to be present for this proceeding.

As she stops and listens to the guard's precautions, she nods along, finding them perfectly acceptable in such a state of affairs.

When the guard finally recognizes her, her stony features crack a bit, allowing a small, genuine smile though. "Quite all right, and I stand by them even now that the accord was broken." She removes one thin black glove, holding out her hand for the silvered weapon to touch.

At first, Auranar seems a little trepidatious about touching one of the sliver blades. Either due to the silvery nature of the weapon, or just a keen dislike of weapons in general - either way. She waits a moment in hesitation, but nods and touches the weapon gingerly with her fingertips. A soft sigh leaving her lips when no sign of lycantropic reaction occurs. Silmeria's words leave her expression carefully blanked, but her eyes are dark and angry.

The guard on the left offers his weapon for the examination, waiting to be sure that each person is not a lycanthrope before resheathing the sword and then opening the door for entry into the room. The room is exceedingly small. Enough so that with the four of you in here, with the bed, it's a bit squished. Which only makes the man who sits on the bed look even larger as he rises to his feet. His blue eyes flash as he spots Silmeria and he offers a rough grin. "Guess something must have gone wrong if you're here. Am I being let free?"

Telamon looks at the man with a rather disturbing expression. Blank and chilly. "It's under discussion." He doesn't take a seat, opting to lean against the wall as Silmeria and Auranar file in. "There were some... developments. I'll let Silmeria fill you in, before we get to your... disposition." He folds his arms, studying the man with those starry eyes, measuring him and watching.

GAME: Telamon rolls sense motive+3: (17)+13+3: 33

"You are being *questioned,* ser," Silmeria responds, lifting a finger. "The ritual failed, and the assassin sent here to try again has failed. Your people don't seem to understand a few very, very basic concepts -- what an accord means, and how to make one in good faith -- and now we are here to wring what few drops of truth we can from you. Mori, dear? Make a record of our time here, for transcription."

Under the peacebond, the intricate traceries on her pistol glow ashen, and a distorted, aharmonic voice speaks to the room, devoid of inflection. ((Understood. Transcription proceeding.))

"Understand this very well, ser; the Nightmare's people have succeeded quite well in making an enemy of this Temple. My word is the only protection you have. *I* am your only friend. I suggest you ensure I think well of you."

For her part, for the moment Auranar stays silent, but her dark eyes are not friendly toward the werewolf. In fact, if looks could kill, then the poor werewolf would not have survived the first few moments of her being in the room. However such magics are beyond Auranar at the moment, and the werewolf endures... for now.

The werewolf glances around the room, verifying for himself Simeria's statement. Indeed, the number of friends he has in this room seems severely limited. If existent at all. He turns his eyes on her last and shrugs. "Don't rightly know what you expect me to say." He thumbs his belt. "I don't know anything. I've been here this whole time." He glances down.

Telamon almost languidly raises a hand. "Oh, don't say that. I'm sure you know a fair number of things -- Gustov, was it? Yes, Gustov. Though I doubt you know -everything-. After all, the infiltrator didn't bother to spring you. He must not have thought you were worth it."

The half-elf keeps his eyes on Gustov. "I can see right through you, as clear as glass. You think you're about to die. You want to sell your life dearly. But you know... there might be a way out of this that doesn't end in you impaled on a silver blade. Why don't you settle down a bit?"

GAME: Telamon rolls diplomacy+5: (13)+19+5: 37

"Indeed," Silmeria confirms. "It was by my order that you not come to harm. If you cooperate, it will remain so. If you have no wish to die... Well, there are ways to ensure a long and comfortable life. So... let's start with something simple, ser. The man who led your camp. I would like his name, please." One hand comes up, indicating the bed. "If you'd be more comfortable seated, ser, by all means."

Auranar shifts uncomfortably, glancing toward Telamon. The thought that the wolf is about to try for the door makes her step away from it, not wanting to be caught in a fight. She grinds her teeth in anger that he might try to run rather than answer them, but the other two have it well in hand it seems to her and she doesn't want to mess things up.

The werewolf grinds his teeth and glares at Telamon. "Oh, I want to live, but how's that that I'm supposed to now? Caged like an animal for the rest of my life?" He looks at Silmeria. "Even if you set me free, he'll see me dead. I'm a werewolf. You guys can't afford to let me go even if you wanted to." He sighs, his shoulders sagging. "I knew the moment that they left me behind that I was going to die here. It's just my time."

Yet he makes no move toward the door.

Telamon arches an eyebrow. "Ah, there we go. I didn't think you were totally resigned to death. But, Gustov, nothing is certain, nothing is set in stone. What makes you think the rest of your life might be in a cage? I grant, we might have you shipped somewhere so that you're out of our hair... I hear Am'shere is nice this time of year... but that's hardly a death sentence."

He inclines his head towards Silmeria. "And as she said, we are still bound by the accord even if your master broke it. Let's have no more talk of death or killing. If your master wants you dead, perhaps you should repay his loyalty... or lack thereof... by answering the questions." He pauses, then continues, "And consider this: what kind of pack leader treats his pack so casually, so cavalierly?"

Silmeria nods along with Telamon, her eyes fixed on Gustov's face. She has *so much anger* towards those sworn to Caracoroth for what they've done, attacking *her people* in their home. And yet...

"Yes," she says softly. "You *are* a werewolf. And until recently, that wasn't very much of a concern in this city. Everyone knows that Eluna will gladly harbor any werewolf who doesn't want to be part of the Nightmare. The people you ran with, have changed all that. Thanks to your Alpha, and his master... I fear that few werewolves will find safety in these walls for some time. *They* kicked over that peace, like a bratty child kicks over a tower of blocks. And then they abandoned you, knowing as you do that they left you to your death."

Frowning, she shakes her head. "But they were wrong about so many things, Gustov. Why not this, too?"

GAME: Telamon rolls diplomacy+5: (9)+19+5: 33
GAME: Silmeria rolls diplomacy+2+2: (18)+18+2+2: 40

Auranar finally speaks up, clasping her hands before her. "There... might be a cure. I can't make promises, but if you can tell us what Silmeria asks... I'll try to see that you get back to your old self. No more running. No more of this werewolf business. You could go home. Wherever that is." She tentatively looks up. "Just help us."

GAME: Auranar rolls Diplomacy: (16)+3: 19

Gustov sits down suddenly, the defeat in him thick in the air. He hunches his shoulders and shakes his head. "No cure for me girlie. I've changed too many times to go back to being just a man." He sighs and looks down at his hands in his lap. "Nor is there much satisfaction to be had in turning them over to you. They're the only family I've had in moons. When my real family found out what I was... They kicked me out. There's no going back. Not now."

He seems... not at all like a beast suddenly. Just a man who's made too many bad decisions to know how to get out of the dark. "Marsward Seraquoix. That's the leader of our troop's name. Our head Alpha. Not that'll do you much good."

Telamon laughs softly. "Did you not hear her words, Gustov? Eluna is not cruel, nor will she cage you. I have seen her, and... if you wish, I will speak to her temple on your behalf." His lips quirk up. "I will not say the road will be easy, but at least you'll be alive to complain about it."

The name, of course, means nothing to Tel. "Marsward Seraquoix. At least, that's the name he gave you, Gustov. But still... every scrap of information has its benefits. Like eating an elephant. The trick to eating an elephant... is one bite at a time."

Telamon's offer to speak for him prompts a raised eyebrow from Silmeria, but she doesn't seem inclined to question it. "I don't expect it *will* be satisfying to give them up, Gustov, and I'm sorry. But I do understand how it feels to be lost in the dark, with no way to know how to get out from under it."

Lowering herself to the ground, she kneels, sitting on the heels of her boots. "I meant what I said; you have little left to lose, but could stand to gain the chance at a life. *Any* life, better than this. And I will see that you have the chance to get it."

Again Auranar falls into silence. She meant what she said though, and if the man is willing to offer aid, she'll do what she can for him. She clasps her hands before her and watches the interview. She feels less angry now and more... sorry for the guy.

Gustov blinks at Telamon, his offer, but shakes his head. Not really believing it. "What do you want?" He asks Silmeria. "I mean really? What information do you think I have that you want so badly?" His hands rest on his thighs, empty and open. He doesn't really seem that instilled with hope for the future.

"Honestly? *Anything,*" Silmeria says, removing her spectacles and massaging a headache away from the bridge of her nose. "We know *what* the statues are for, we know what Marsward *said* he wanted to do with the Mourner. We know that they have people inserted all *over* this blasted City, but we don't know who or where. I understand that you might not have been highly placed, but *anything* pertaining to your Alpha or the other packs, anything they might have spoken of around you, any problems they might have had? All of it, *any* of it, will be valuable just for being something we did not know before."

Auranar keeps her peace while Silmeria speaks, but now she almost vibrates with the desire to hear what the werewolf has to say. Any bit of knowledge could be the answer she needs to finding out why they were targeting Verna. How. Why. If and how they might do so again. She's worked with less.

"I'm pretty low in the pack." The werewolf admits, his shoulders are slumped. "Even as one of them I couldn't get very far. I know that the order to make more werewolves doesn't come from Marsward though. It comes from Him. Caracoroth."

He grips his knees suddenly and his eyes flicker around the room. "He wants to feed through us. Wants everything human to fall before him. He's so hungry..." He breaks out in a sweat and his breathing changes subtly, as if he's been running rather than sitting on the bed. "I can feel him in my head sometimes. Pushing me to kill so that he can eat. It's more than a voice. And the more you kill for him the stronger he gets. I know there are thirteen packs in all. And they're all searching. Searching for three things and you've made enemies of them by taking so much of what they want. The avatar. The Mourner. The totems."

Telamon listens intently, dark eyes contemplative. "They're trying to break his avatar free. Which would be bad, to put it mildly." He steeples his fingers, regarding the werewolf over them. "But even with his packs... feeding him, breaking free is something of a struggle even now. Hence the need for the totems, to break them."

His lips curl up in a sardonic expression. "And of course there was an interesting tale I heard out of Chandor's Crossing. Three strange, wolf-like undead were seen among the wights. Sometimes, death really -isn't- the worst thing that can happen to you."

GAME: Silmeria rolls sense motive: (20)+15: 35

"That's a tale you'll have to tell me sometime soon," Silmeria murmurs, and draws in a slow, deep breath. Her eyes move to Gustov, examining the man's reactions, his posture. Replacing her spectacles, she rises to her feet.

"I think that, perhaps, we don't need to say that name anymore, ser Gustov. It seems to treat you poorly, and you don't deserve poor treatment in this moment. This is a place of peace, for the living as well as the dead. You deserve it, too."

Auranar actually steps forward, drawn by curiosity and concern. "Is he alright?" She asks Silmeria quietly, as quietly as she possibly can in the hopes of not being overheard. In all truthfulness, she would rather know sooner than later if he's going to turn into a werewolf…

GAME: Auranar rolls Sense Motive: (5)+3: 8
GAME: Telamon rolls sense motive+3: (20)+13+3: 36
GAME: Silmeria rolls sense motive: (6)+15: 21

The man's eyes go blank and dark, his iris and pupil becoming immense so that he looks almost blind. "Caracoroth will win. He is the Master of Nightmares. We are compelled to do His bidding." He grabs for his belt buckle, shifting it and popping it open to reveal a small vial hidden inside the belt. He quickly pops the cork.

GAME: Telamon rolls CMB: (12)+5: 17
GAME: Silmeria casts Chains of Perdition. Caster Level: 9 DC: 15

Telamon's eyes go wide as Gustov gets... well, overruled. "Oh, shit, stop him! He's possessed!" He lunges for the man on impulse -- that happens a lot -- grabbing for the vial, but he's not Aryia, and he loses his grip to fall to the floor with a startled yelp.

GAME: Silmeria rolls 1d20+9+2: (19)+9+2: 30

What Silmeria says in response to Auranar is not fit for polite conversation, and as Telamon leaps to physically stop the vial from touching Gustov's lips, the Speaker has a similar plan. A quick prayer to the Lady, a sketched sigil in the air, and ghostly gray chains waver into being, wrapping around the wrist of his potion hand, and pulling it against the wall. "Auranar! Take the bottle!"

If this man is to die this day, then by the Greay Harpist *it will be his own choice.*

GAME: Auranar rolls 1d20+1: (2)+1: 3

Auranar startles as the man pulls out what looks like a noxious vial even to her eyes, and when Silmeria yells at her, she hastens to obey! However as she moves across the room - too hastily - Telamon goes down and she trips over the poor half-elven man. She lands on the floor with a sound thud and groans. "Sorry!" Her cheeks flame with embarrassment. Some help _she_ is.

GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+6: (15)+6: 21

The man's hand shakes as it rises to his mouth. Will and force of will colliding. It's not enough though. He chugs the dark vial thoroughly and gasps in obvious pain as it enters his body. Smoke rises from his mouth, his body jerks and yet... he doesn't die. Not immediately. Instead he seems to be in agony, screaming as the vial falls from his numb fingers.

GAME: Telamon used a Antitoxin.

Telamon pulls himself up, one hand diving into his haversack. Coming up with a metal vial embossed with a skull-and-crossbones, with a red circle-and-bar across it. "Not yet," he grates out. "You. Can't. Have. Him. You piece of shit, you worthless pustule in the planes, I'm not letting you take him!" With that, he grabs the man by the hair in one hand, pulls the stopper out of the bottle with his teeth, and force-feeds the foul-tasting (but beneficial) alchemical remedy to the man between his screams.

GAME: Silmeria rolls heal: (14)+11: 25
GAME: Silmeria used a Wand of Cure Moderate Wounds.

"HEALERS!" Silmeria bellows, startlingly loud in the tiny room, and thumps on the door. "HE'S POISONED HIMSELF, GET A HEALER!"

Rushing to Telamon's side, the Speaker draws a thin bone baton, tapping it against Gustov's throat, and swears. "...That's not just poison, Telamon... *he drank silver.* Please tell me you can get him to throw up, somehow, because this isn't going away soon otherwise."

The wand looses a cool current of healing magic into the poor werewolf, but it's only delaying the inevitable.

GAME: Auranar rolls heal: (7)+6: 13

"Oh for..." Auranar doesn't know that much about healing, but she knows how to get what's gone down to come back up. Wiggling to get closer to the werewolf she has about ten seconds to think about what a terrible idea what she's thinking of _is_ before she does it. She shoves her hand in the werewolf's mouth. Two fingers reaching down his gullet and her hand dangerously dangled in his maw as she seeks to force him to relieve himself of the vial that he imbibed.

GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+6: (1)+6: 7 (EPIC FAIL)

The werewolf's eyes go wide as Auranar's hand goes in his mouth. He starts to bite down. Reflex maybe. Maybe it's something else. It doesn't matter. Suddenly the werewolf loses his lunch, and everything else he's put down his maw rather forcefully. It's a mess. It's on Telamon. On Auranar perhaps exceptionally. It's even on Silmeria. Saving lives is dirty business.

After a moment of silence the door bursts in with the calvary. Late as always. The two men are holding their swords and looking... surprised. "I'm a healer." One of them offers, looking confused at the horrible scene before him. "What'd you guys _do_ to him?"

"...Saved his life," Silmeria says, looking down at the soiled front of her cassock and wrinkling her nose. "He was compelled, during questioning, to drink wolfsbane and silver. You can imagine it's not agreeing with him." Stepping aside, she waves the one who volunteered himself as a healer to her place, and looks ruefully up at the one remaining. "...You wouldn't happen to have any arcanist leanings, would you?"

Ugh. This is... okay, it's not quite as bad as that time they went in the sewers, but... Telamon just... shakes his hands in disgust. A long silence, as he stares at the guard. "-Somehow-," he growls, "he was carrying a hidden vial of poison in his belt." He glances at Silmeria. "Something with silver, you said. Probably belladonna as well."

His eyes are dark, stars whirling in them, as he regards the dazed, probably semi-conscious werewolf. "Caracoroth came into him. Forced him to drink it. But we wouldn't let him be claimed." He looks up again. "He will need healing. Get to it." With that, he gestures, flicking the mess away from Auranar's clothing first.

GAME: Telamon casts Prestidigitation. Caster Level: 9 DC: 16

"Ah. Bless you." Auranar says to Telamon as he flicks his fingers and cleans the mess from her clothes. "Allow me to return the favor." She flicks her own fingers and Telamon is similarly cleaned of the mess on his own clothing.

"I might not have much magic to my name, but I can manage this much." She looks at the werewolf. "Do you think that he'll be alright now?"

GAME: Auranar casts Prestidigitation. Caster Level: 3 DC: 13

The werewolf slumps to the ground, only semi-conscious after his ordeal. The healer moves forward to offer some healing to the prisoner and the other gives Silmeria a small but apologetic smile. "No ma'am. But it seems your friends are, and I'm sure they're willing to help. I should... help my comrade." He nods low to her and moves to aid his companion in moving the werewolf to the bed.

Telamon turns to Silmeria next, realizes she got splattered too, and gestures deftly to strip the... mess away. "Sorry. I thought it was just Auranar and I who caught it." He sighs. "Quick thinking, both of you. My compliments." He rubs the bridge of his nose. "That was... a near thing. But still," he grins at them suddenly. "To spit in the eye of the Nightmare... that's a good story."

GAME: Telamon casts Prestidigitation. Caster Level: 9 DC: 16

"I thought not," Silmeria chuckles, unfastening the ties of her cossack, from collar to waist. "I'll just put this with the day's laundry, then."

And *just* as she shrugs off the outer robe, revealing a hauberk of *ridiculously* fine and intricately-woven mithril links, Telamon's spell clears the mess away anyhow. "Or... not."

"It'll be an even better story," she says with an answering grin to Telamon, "if we can end it with 'And Gustov lived happily ever after, to the end of his days.' And I'm now *quite* interested in seeing that it does so."

-End