Dream-Maker Part 3: Honor Among Beasts

With myself trapped inside the lodge, recovering, the rest of the Heroes set out to find answers. Answers to this horrible crime that took price in a place of fun and happiness that was last nights market. I could only imagine the mind-numbing puzzles and riddles the Dream-Maker and his newfound friends would have to go through to gain even a snipet of information on our enemy, the Black Fang. As I lay here alone in bed, I let my mind wander, seeking my own answers, answers lost in a shattered memory, drowned in a dream long forgotten. To my surprise, the voice is silent, perhaps satisfied with the carnage that the attack on these innocent people caused... for now, at least. I have come to understand that the voice is never truly sated; simply distracted by a good meal for a short while. What I managed to recollect is a story for another time, however, as more important matters soon came to light. Bellamy burst inside the lodge, his grip around the long, hard shaft of his polearm tight with righteouss anger, his voice full of resentment for the horrible villains that respond to the call of the Black Fang. "Monsters in the guise of men! Demons! The worst kind of soul bringing about the worst kind of curses!" Yelled the Dream-Maker, things he would know very well as he is accompanied by a vile creature such as I. When the earth stopped shaking in fear of the great hero, Bellamy took a moment to rest his anger, composing himself swiftly and explainin the situation. Not only have the Black Fang created what we come to call "Arcanite Bombs" inside their servants, they may have put them in others, people they have abducted. Working with a local officer of the law named Inara, my heroic friends were about to witness the study of a dead Black Fang's corpse by a certified mortician, as the room went bright with an accursed light of arcane make, the now familiar to us explosion engulfing the mortician and critically wounding him. With unmatched stoicism, the Son Of Rock, Teremun, settled his gaze upon the mortician's apprentices, immediately bringing them back from the brink of maddening despair, his long, almost rectangularly shaped face revealing to them that he is a hero most powerful. Wasting no time, the Dream-Maker himself kicked off the remains of the body of the Black Fang and replaced it with the wounded mortician. Alas, powerful he may be, but the Dream-Maker is incapable of medicine, sometimes confusing medical alcohol with ale, inciting totally unjust rumors of him being a drunkard. To his luck, Pari The Owl and Great-Best Inventor Vurak were there to take command of the situation, using secret techniques that I am to never reveal, combining science with magic, to bring back the mortician from the brink of the Stranger's grasp. I was scared to ask of what else occured, thus I blanked the rest of the discussion from my memory. Suddenly, a knock on the door of the lodge alerted us to the presence of not one, but two visitors. One was a snake most vile, poisoned words dripping from it's mouth under the vile cover of a supposed visitor of Wyr, our poor magical ally. Despite my many attempts to reveal the true identity of the serpent to my allies, none are as despicable as I, thus none could sniff out its corruption. The other visitor was a young girl, a learned one, an academic named Aira, studying under the famous Professor Swllvayn. She came to invite us to speak with him so that we may begin our foray into the jungle soon, putting our backs into a dangerous task we so quickly signed up for. It was not long before we armed ourselves with weapons and armor, steeled ourselves with Heroic Resolve* (everyone aside myself) and met up with the learned Swllvayn.
 
To our surprise, he was in possession of a strange artifact, an object that shed light whenever a certain extremity of its was flicked from left to right and right to left. The beam of light shines forward wherever its "head" faces! What an invention! To learn there were more of such creations hidden inside the jungles of the Shar! With joy did our group march forward, passing by the quiet village of Baila, a quiet stroll of ours, to make sure the resting men and women were not alerted of our foreign presence. Nothing important whatsoever happened in Baila and we definitely did nothing there, nor did we stay long, simply moving on and into the jungle. In this humid place devoured by nature, my senses felt numb, my boredom true, with words of the learned making me weary of this place already. It was however, all the plan of a creature even viler than I, Noct, who lurked in the darkness. Behind a bush, Pari observed the creature with curiosity. As it reared it's head to attack, as all snakes do when their prey is confused and weakened by their vile words, I sprung into action, laying down the law through the weight of my flail's head. Crushed and utterly annihilated, not even the soul of the snake was left behind, the memory of it even being there erased from the very memory of my allies. Perhaps... for the better. It was because their resolve was spared the wrath of evil that we managed to reach a water producing tree. On it, a beast of colossal proportions, a feline creature with black fur and hooked claws, fiery breath and a menacing glare loomed, its aura alone leaving behind the dark essence of this land to form the letters of the word itself in the air briefly, as it made an entrance. Speaking the language of beasts, The Owl conversed for hours with the beast, eventually convincing it to allow us, what the beast called "tresspassers" to rest here... if we were able of defeating her brood. Before a word left The Owl's lips, what can only be described as an ocean of darkness descended upon us, the brood of the beast numbered in the hundreds. The Dream-Maker smirked, his powerful facial muscles bending the steel of his faceplate to their command, a smirk for everyone to see. "Only a few hundred! Why, it would take a few thousand at least to make us buckle!" Said the Dream-Maker, with the massive frame of the Son Of Rock emerging behind him. Towering over the beasts, Teremun joined Bellamy in their fight against the feline beasts, dispatching the faster than my frail mind could count. With Bellamy's polearm displaying the power of the Bashira-Blam-Bam, a secret technique only used when the Dream-Maker has to fight many enemies at once, victory was assured. Add Teremun's mastery of the Thousand Forms, expertly applying the "Thousand-Lined Triangulations of Circular Displacement" to the mix, and the fight was a breeze! Overtly impressed by the might of these two great heroes, the giant beast before Pari conceded these grounds to us... For the moment. As she may bring thousands more of her brood in less than an hour, we knew this was a deal not to dishonor; Even heroes need rest and we had found our safe-haven.