The dark, cloudy skies hanging over Boughbog would hinder those who might see Corwin; the mist and the drizzle which rose from the scattered rainfalls, even more so. The guards would have no reason to link Corwin to the crime, but the nearby eyes of Big Hat and Scar-Face just might. One could never be too certain.

The mist created and gathered by the spell would be stationary, he knew, but it serve well enough to get him away from the scene undetected....





The unholy symbol felt colder in his grasp as the airborne droplets gathered around him, concealing his form from view. Confident in his spell's obfuscation, he made his way back to the gate.





"...If we see anyone trying to leave the bazaar," one guard behind him instructed another, "we question them. Four clouds of plant-killing gas in four different shops...most suspicious. See if anyone's story helps us sort out what those two gutter-dwellers have told us...."





Cunningly, Corwin avoided the main street and made his way back to Ruprecht's alchemist shop. Ruprecht looked Corwin over with a deal of concern. "Welcome back, Corwin. So...the vagabond alchemists...."

"...sabotaged, all four of them. They'll have no further business in this town."

A slight chortle rippled from the alchemist's growing smile. "Excellent work, Corwin, excellent work," Ruprecht beamed, tossing a readied pouch onto the countertop for Corwin. "I believe you'll find a bit more in there to pay you for your trouble. Ah, prosperity, how soon you will return to me...."





"It has been a pleasure doing business with you, young Corwin," Ruprecht offered in thanks. "Is there anything else I might do for you while you're here? You're already familiar with my vast wealth of alchemies, philters and ingredients...."


Corwin >

i wouldn't say evil... selfish yes, but not evil. seeing as two of those idiots got caught, it's probably a good idea to make myself scarce. time to take my stuff and go to the lucky heart and look up Gaston.

The Lucky Hart tavern's interior was dim yet warm and cozy, and the aromatic essence of lindenwood lamp oil coupled with the lingering scents of fresh rye bread and roasted meats. Jera, the buxom barmaid, sashayed from table to bar and back again, her white cotton dress shifting lazily across her calves as she attended the customers. Among those customers, so many craftsmen and merchants seeking respite from the weather, a table near the kitchen door propped up the foodstuffs and forearms of four guards, two of whom being Gaston and Norbitt from the front gate.

As the maplewood tavern door shut soundly behind Corwin, several tavern patrons looked up from their repasts to notice Corwin, and Gaston was one of them. "Oh, Corwin!" Gaston hooted with an eager wave. "Come! We've saved a chair for you!"


Corwin >

"thanks Gaston" Corwin said "I can't stay long though, Mother wanted me to get back home tonight, something about the stars being right or something." as he wrung out his hair he commented "It's purely Miserable out there today.""

Gaston loudly downed a draught of his ale. "Huh. Your mother still has more of that jiggery-pokery magic going on, I take it. Not that I have any grievance with mages, as long as they don't stoop to the black magicks...oh, Jera! Here now, lass!"

Approaching with a weave and a sidestep, Jera leaned forward beside Corwin, sending a cascade of soft brown hair pouring forth over her shoulder and onto his. "Ah, welcome back, Corwin! You look drenched to your bones!" she said, speaking directly at his ear as she rested his shovel against the table's edge. "You should try our turnip soup; you get a big bowl and a cup of amber ale for a pence today. So Ruprecht the alchemist mentioned last week how your mother had gotten sick. How has she been feeling lately?"


Corwin >

"That'll do nicely Jera, but only becaused I promised Gaston that id stop by for a drink and a bite. I'll probably be back in a few days anyroad." Corwin said

"In fact," Norbitt offered, slinging a copper coin to the buxom barmaid across the broad table, "I'll be paid a right bonus for standing watch for the mayor during the coming May's Eve festival. I'll buy Corwin's ale and soup for him. Mayhaps he'll continue with his tale of his mother's dealings, aye?"

"Mayhaps. I'll return anon, gents!" Jera pouched the pence and sashayed back to the kitchen as Norbitt brushed the crumbs from his girth and returned to his ale.

Gaston winked to Corwin with a thrust of his thumb to the kitchen door. "She's a right lovely girl, eh? A pity she's married to that lucky cartwright of hers. So what's this you were saying, then?"


Corwin >

"as to mothers dealings.. Well I have no proof.." Corwin sighed apologetically.

"The people involved would all deny it most vehemently. I know that usually, she just sells potions and such for the villagers, But her reputation as "The dark witch of Ainsley woods" is pretty well deserved. I've seen her use magics to ruin a farmers fields, withering the crops on the stalk and killing the livestock."

Corwin looks absently into the flames on the hearth, pauses for a second, takes a deep breath, and begins again.

"Lately there's been an increase in the wolf activity around our place that I can't explain. Mother is unconcerned, but I was hoping to be able to spend some little of what I've been able to save on getting a boarspear or something that I can use to keep them at bay, but have had little luck finding one that feels "right" to me."

"Gaston, You're with the guard, maybe you have some old gear available?"

"Aye," Gaston affirmed, "we've a small surplus of weapons at the guard posts in case any guard's regular arms should be lost or broken. We can't hand over any weapons or gear provided by the master-at-arms or the mayor or...fah, Lord Borogon himself, but we do happen across surplus arms from time to time. A fish merchant left his trident behind as he quit the bazaar one month; it seems he'd finally set enough coin aside to purchase a sailing boat and a large trawling net, so his days of spearing fish for his living were done. Come to the bazaar's guard post with me when we're done here, and I'll let you have it."

"...An' I'd like to ask 'bout the farmer who got his fields razed," interrupted a brown-cloaked stranger seated near the hearth, turning on his stool to face Corwin and the guards. "Old Bran O'Craddock got into a spat with young Wender Loraton o'er the watering hole that crossed their lands. Some of Loraton's cows waded through the pond onto O'Craddock's lands, trampled his chicken trellises an' set free a good six Tuckermond Reds, who weren't long for the world till the foxes got 'em past the fence. O'Craddock returned in time to see what had happened, took his spear an' killed Loraton's wandering cows on the spot...four of them, to be told."

The stranger finished his tin of ale and slid the cup across the table for Jera to find, then resumed his tale.

"I was one of O'Craddock's harvesters for that autumn, an' I was in the tomatoes when I saw it two days later. The terrible green cloud descended on the far reach of O'Craddock's land an' crept towards us, killing all in its path. The barley withered an' died, the tomatoes withered on the vine...I got the rest of the hands an' we ran from that cloud of poison as fast as we could. An' we passed the cows an' the pigs, who knew no better to run before the cloud washed o'er them...I swear on all that's holy, I never heard dying animals scream like that before. An' I'll never forget the sounds as long as I live."

Jera swept the stranger's cup from the table and took the stranger's offered pence as she turned away.

"So was that your mother's work, then?"

It was.

But would Corwin be wise to admit that?


Corwin >

"I honestly don't know whose fields it was, when the man came to our place he was hooded and cloaked. I'll tell you, I was never so scared as I was that day. I was supposed to stay at home, but I snuck out after mother left to follow her. Gods...I wish I'd obeyed her and stayed home..." Corwin shudders and gulps down his ale.

Though the guards seemed concerned--perhaps even moved--with Corwin's airs of misery and misfortune, the stranger only lowered his gaze, passively stroking his bristled chin in thought, rising to stand and turning for the door as he took up his broad-brimmed hat with his sinister hand.

"Mayhaps O'Craddock will find interest in the dark witch of Ainsley Wood all the same. Be seeing ya."

The dirty cloak swayed behind the decrepit stranger as his tall, lean frame wove through the barroom towards the door. Norbitt shook his head disparagingly. "Bloody old creepy bumpkin sort. Well, Corwin, 'tis a shame to hear of your mother casting wicked spells for coin, but truly we're but town guards. As much as we would care to help, your mother has done nothing 'gainst the town of Boughbog."

"...and we pray that she never does," added Gaston curtly. "Please keep us abreast if our town ever does anything to draw her jaundiced eyes against us, aye?"

The hot bowl of turnip soup slid across the table to Corwin, guided by Jera's lithe touch. Her coy smile bid Corwin to enjoy as she sauntered lightly to the next table.


Corwin >

"I will..." Corwin said.

after taking a bite of turnip stew, he turned to Norbitt.
"Speaking of town guards... I don't suppose you would have any openings." he ventured slowly. "With the way mothers health has been since the accident, I was thinking of finding a way to pick up some extra coin and learn a trade, after all she won't be around forever, and I need to learn how to do something besides be an errand boy.

"Haw!" snorted the guard Handkel, slamming his mug down across the table from where Gaston sat. "You can have my job, lad! Boughbog hasn't any future and I've no plan of stayin' here. As soon as my horse is done birthin' her colt, I'll be showin' the mayor my backside and leavin' for Nellowswann. Windwater has riverboats that move supplies to and from the ships in the harbor, and those boats need roustabouts, and roustabouts earn good coin in Nellowswann...better than a guard in Boughbog earns, anyway. I'll ne'er again have to fear wakin' up in the dead of night and findin' a vampire at the door wantin' to get in, neither."

Sternly glaring at Handkel's outburst, Gaston shook his head dismissively. "Handkel, you've been voicing this plan of yours for six months and I tire of hearing it. I find myself wishing for your horse to just birth one already."

"Aye, imagine how I feel, friend. The blasted horse seems fit to bear a dragon from the duration of things. So come that, a roustabout's life it shall be for me. Pelor's nose, if I hadn't a wife and a son, I'd not hesistate to do better for myself and sign a paper for one of the merchant princes. Their sailors and deckhands get unseemly good pay, e'en better than what the roustabouts get. Mayhaps they'll take Corwin on as their cabin boy. Heh...and he might still get better coin than I get now, there's the devil of it...."

Tactfully changing the subject, Gaston turned in his seat and addressed Corwin again. "I should be going home to my wife soon. There's a bad moon in the sky and I shouldn't leave her alone on a night like this. I can fetch that spare trident for you, if you still want it. You might even find there another something worth keeping."


Corwin >

I'd apprecaite it Gaston.. I'm almost done here, and honestly turnip soup isn't exactly my favorite. Let's go take a look at that stuff."

"Very good, Corwin, very good. This way, then. And I'll see you gents in the morning."

Gaston left his coins on the table for Jera to pocket, trading words and gestures of farewell to his comrades as he turned for the door with Corwin two steps behind.



"Ah, here we are. Take a look at this rubbish and see if anything takes your fancy."

Gaston's keyring was locked back onto a dutiful stud on the sinister half of his belt as he lifted the lid on the rather large oakwood chest in the guard shack. Expectantly, Corwin glanced over the orphaned offerings. The mentioned trident and a cast-off boat oar--both too long a fit for the chest--stood in the corner behind it, and a meager offering of lost goods lay in the chest's maw: a tie-bundled dwarven bagpipes, its pipes of pressed brass tarnished in ill-green specks and its painted horsehide patterns worn with age...unsightly, yet possibly functional. A spare cart wheel jammed into the chest's interior at a tight angle, its design solid and its birchwood two-foot diameter virgin and unmarred. A woman's hairpin, crafted from tin, its design flat and unremarkable. A lone bronze spur, its boot mount's finish well-scratched from use and its mate missing.

"Well, that's all we have for now," Gaston shrugged, almost apologetically. "Do you see what you might like, then? We'll be pitching the lot into the woods come next weekend, so they may not be here later."


Corwin >

Why don't I just take the lot off your hands then and save you a trip?" Corwin offered. "I can dump them in the woods just as easily as you and I'm already going to be headed in that direction."

"Very good, then!" affirmed Gaston, tossing the dwarven bagpipes into Corwin's waiting arms. "And particularly take that infernal thing away from here! Iona fancies herself a minstrel and dabbles at playing it everytime she's on watch here, but she never succeeds at creating more than an ear-biting cacophony. My mind cannot stomach another day of it, by Ehlonna's teeth...."



"But I'll speak with Captain Moroverton tomorrow morning when I come on my watch. You may have come across him once or twice before; he oversees the city watch of Boughbog, Bereghel's Green and two other towns I can't recall. If you're earnest about your intentions of joining the town guard, you may speak with him then. Surely a good-hearted soul like you should be most welcome in our ranks, eh?"

The hour was late, and Gaston was clearly eager to get home. Already the forests were clad in a dusk brought sooner by rain-laden skies and resonant with the howling of wolves, and Corwin faced the choice of either going home to face his ill-mannered mother and finish her errand, or paying for a room at the inn of his choice and waiting for the light of dawn.


Corwin >

Corwin will be heading home, once outside of town he'll cast detect magic and check out the lewt

Finishing his invocation and looking over his findings, Corwin's covetous gaze fell to disappointment. No auras were perceived; his new belongings were not anything besides ordinary. Resigned, he tucked his unholy symbol back under his tunic and began his walk home through the rain, rolling and kicking the cart wheel ahead of him.

Leaving the wheel outside at the stoop, no sooner had Corwin opened the front door than he caught another verbal blast from his mother. "So...you had a merry day of shopping and carousing about, did you? You took your precious time in getting home. I'm beginning to think that you don't love me."

Corwin looked up from wiping his boots at the threshold and saw that his mother was not alone. She continued in a tone which was only slightly gentler.

"But you're good for sending customers to your mother, if nothing else. This is Bran O'Craddock, Corwin. I believe you had told one of his farm hands how Farmer Loraton paid me to destroy his crops, and now Farmer O'Craddock has come to exact his revenge against Farmer Loraton...with my help, of course."

The old man's wiry musculature belied his great age as he rose from his stool to speak. "Years upon years, I been meanin' to pay Wender back in kind for razin' my crops and ruinin' me. I and my sons had to go beggin' for food that winter, an' my pride never recovered from the blow. So Wender wants to ruin me with witchcraft, huh? Let's see how he fares when I turn the Witch of Ainsley Wood against him. Let's see if he feels the same way I felt seein' that awful cloud descend on my fields all those years ago."

Gwenlyn nodded sagely. "Only you did not wish to pay for the cloud of poison, correct?"

"Not at all. I figure it was his livestock what caused our feud in the first place. So let his livestock be the end of it. What can you do for me, witch?"

Gwenlyn returned to her great cauldron, pulling sprigs of bloodwort and foxbane down from the wall behind her. "A potion of madness, I believe, should work very well. Simply pour the potion into the watering hole between your land and his. But ensure that none of your animals and none of your family drink of that water on that day, for any creatures that do so will be stricken dangerously mad and leap into a destructive rampage! Watch from beyond the safety of your own fence as Wender Loraton's pigs and cattle kill each other and strike havok to his barn and his home, then watch further as the chaos subsides and the animals, pushed beyond their limits by their derangement, collapse and perish from exhaustion! Farmer Loraton's herds will be no more, and revenge will be yours at last."

"...and his cattle're far more costly than barley seed, ayuh. Very well, witch. This potion of madness'll do nicely. How much do I pay?"

"Three-hundred gilders, and this: bring to me both eyes of the next beast you slay, be it swine, wolf or any other. Do we have a deal, Bran O'Craddock?"

The farmer wadded the belly of his tunic, pondering a moment before his answer came. "Aye, we do. That coin'll be most of my lifetime's earning, but it'll be worth the cost to see Wender subsistin' on dust and dung. I'll return with the coin tomorrow mornin'."

"And I shall have the potion for you by the time you arrive. Until then, be well."

The farmer returned his broad black hat to his head, tipping it politely to Gwenlyn then to Corwin as he left.

"Usually, Corwin, you would be punished for mentioning my affairs in public," his mother admonished. "But you've done well this time. Loraton will not suffer O'Craddock's revenge gladly, and he will come back to me to take further vengeance against O'Craddock. And so it will continue, with each one giving me his money to eradicate the other's holdings, until those two fools inevitably bring about each other's deaths. We stand to profit very well from their shared hatred, do we not?"

She dipped her gnarled black staff into the cauldron's seething contents and began to stir. "Put the bay leaves and the blue onion skin on the table, then go outside and entertain yourself until dinnertime. And whatever you do, you are not to go near this cauldron tonight. We stand to earn three-hundred gilders from this potion, and I'll not have you spoiling it. Be off with you now."




Sleep did not come easily for Corwin.

The damp, odorous straw offered dismal comfort, but such was commonplace. The true restlessness played out across the dreamscape in Corwin's mind. Breathing. Chaotic. Intangible. Burdening.

"Prey and predators," the giant shark leered from somewhere below. "All the world is prey and predators, Corwin. And I hunger. Will you be my prey?"

The shark rolled in the bloody water, which became bloodstained earth beneath it. And from the white shark's belly grew four legs, and fur from its prickly scales, and glowing yellow irises from pits of opal blackness. The shark became a great white wolf, which circled Corwin as a dark forest grew around them.

"Oh, but you hunger as well, do you not? Hunger for escape from your misery. Hunger for power. Hunger for revenge."

The wolf faded from sight. The forest circled around Corwin, bringing the cold, demeaning eyes of his mother before him. The wretched hovel--his home and hers--sprung from the earth behind her as she bared her wicked teeth and spoke.

"So why should you not be a predator as well? Inexperience? Fear? The comforts of the familiar? These are reasons for the weak, Corwin. Cast aside your weakness, your comfort, your fear. Destroy me and be made whole!"

The trees of the forest moved, sliding and drifting towards Corwin, and past him, wood and bark molding into the shapes of threatening pirates and ruffians milling about him. Mother warped and amassed into the imposing stature of a rogue sea captain, and the earth beneath Corwin's boots was swept away by a mighty, sudden wind to reveal the water-steeped planks of a foredeck beneath, the foredeck of a black ship bobbing and waggling through a dark, restless, storm-forged sea.

"Lead us, Corwin," the captain snarled as thunder rolled through the heavy skies and an army of sharks leaped snapping from the bleak ebon waters. "Come to Windwater! Join hands with our prey and lead us to more!"

Frightfully Corwin drew back as absolute darkness fell and the pirates swarmed about him in a tempest of flesh and bone, their eyes sinking and their faces rotting and falling from their skulls. Not long did Corwin endure the skeletal hands pulling him under the throng before the shock of the nightmare drove him back to the waking world.





The cold perspiration trickled from his skin's every inch as his writhing form straightened with a sudden alertness. Staring at the stark rafters of the ceiling as he recovered his breath, Corwin heard his mother's shallow snoring from the house above, that and the crackling of a fire burning low. All else was quiet and still; even the crickets in the forest kept silence, as if in fear of a colossal enemy wandering near them.


Corwin >

"Turnip stew... may I go raving if I ever have to eat that swill again. Meats what I need..." Corwins thoughts shifted back to the dream. Predator and Prey. For today at least a predator would be the prey.

(spells for today will be lv 1 Command, cure light wounds, lvl 0 purify food and drink, detect magic, create water, guidance, domain spell inflict light wounds

corwin is taking guidance from his dream, and is going to go looking for a wolf.
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