[Mkguild] Keeper Wolf

[tjlord at bellsouth.net]

Second Metamor Keep story!
woo!


Keeper Wolf

A Metamor Keep Story
by Fenrs Wolf




I awoke early in the morning.

It was a fairly empty room... A window, the bed I was resting in, some various medical things near the door. I got up. I was still wearing my same clothes. I did a quick inventory of my belongings. "My robe, my white wolf fur cloak... but.. ah, hell. my spectacles were gone... I must have lost them when I was running... No use going to look for them, shiny things tend to get taken by forest critters. It'll take me awhile to make a new ones though." I stepped out the door and made my way down the hallway. I figured I aught to find out where exactly I was. A woman stepped out of an adjacent room, and seemed a bit startled.

"Umm... can I help you?"

"Yes... where am I, and how long have I been in that bed?"

'Well, you're in Metamor Keep now, and... lets see.." She looked down at some papers she was holding and flipped through them. Her face lit up when he got to one that I assume had my information on it.

"Oh, you're the one who collapsed outside the gates on Monday! You're very lucky, you know!"

"Hmm. Lucky, eh? How so?" I didn't quite like the sound of this. being lucky is all fine and good in my opinion, but people don't usually mention it unless you avoided something nasty, or unless something very good happened to you. I figured if I'm unconscious, the first was more likely. I hoped to get out of here soon. I don't like being cooped up in unfamiliar places. Besides, I wanted to see the town I heard so much about.

"You see, it's been three days since you got here, today is Thursday. That means you have time to leave before you get cursed."

"Hmm. I don't know about leaving town. I never could get the hang of Thursdays... Thank you for your time."

I got a bit of information though. Turns out I was being taken care of by a doctor named Johnathan. I'd have to thank him sometime...

I left at that. I really didn't want to talk about what happened before I got there. I didn't even like thinking about it. Though, the window exit from the third floor of a building probably isn't considered an acceptable exit. It was the closest thing, and I didn't really feel like running into people. Last time I checked rooftops didn't have to many people on them. I needed to take my mind off what happened. I wandered around the area, and found some odd jobs I could do. I had some money for a room at a nearby inn. I don't recall the name... I've seen so many inns the names just start melding together. It was a nice wooden building, and the smell of home-cooked food filled it. They made good meals, I remember that.

I decided to stay awhile, peculiar though the place may be. I had no issue with the people changed into half animals, the ones changed into the opposite gender, or the people turned into children. Though that last group  had me looking down more than I was used to.  I spent my free time when I wasn't doing jobs hanging around one of the gates. Supposedly it was the one that Nasoj guy hit with the animal morph spell. I liked to watch people passing through, and there were a fair number of people. Merchants, guards, people going out on patrol, and lots of interesting folk. Some of the more interesting people I saw were a young boy with the oddest green hat heading out of town, a pair of jugglers good enough to keep the objects they juggled between them as they walked and chatted, and a man carrying more swords than was really appropriate, or even possibly wieldable. He probably broke them a lot. Those jugglers probably made a killing off their act, though! They juggled all sorts of things of all sorts of colors, and it was quite amusing. One of the best performances I've ever seen, and I've been all over the place. Though not the very best performance I've ever seen... That goes to four bards who were rumored to live in a sort of yellow ship that can go underwater without the people on board needing to breathe underwater themselves. It's amazing what magic can do when people with a fair bit of imagination get to using it.

Sometimes I wandered about in the library of the Keep, reading books that caught my eye and seemed interesting. Nobody bothered me, and I spent hours pouring over the books in there. There was so much to read! I knew it would take ages to read all the books, even with a large team of scholars, each working on a project to have all the books in the library read.

When I woke one day, I began to see areas on my body growing gray fur. My senses grew slowly in strength. The smell of all the people living here filled my nose, and I could hear the shouts of merchants in the streets trying to sell their wares, though I was nowhere near them.  While not finished yet, I knew my transformation would be one I would like more than the alternatives. I began wondering what I would be. But then it was obvious after a few more days. A wolf, without a doubt. I didn't need to visit the library to find out what kind of animal I was exactly, as I heard was custom to those who received the animal morph curse, because I have known many a wolf in my life, and nearly all types of them were known to me. I suppose I was a bit of an accidental expert. But, I got hit with the curse of the place, that's for sure... I'd just have to get used to it.

Eventually, I couldn't tell the difference between how I looked one day from the next, and assumed the spell was done changing me. I used my pocket mirror to get a look at my new face. I saw the face a wolf-man combination. My fur was a gray that truly showed the passiveness of a person traveling from one place to another. My once brown hair had changed color accordingly. A bit ironic. Fate must have been playing games with me again. My eyes were the same, however. An odd greenish gray. I was pretty comfortable under my fur, and it felt good.I noticed that I still had thumbs, which was nice, and that my feet had become degitigrade. That was okay, just would take some getting used to. For the time being, though, I had a bit of trouble balancing. Okay, a little more than just a bit. I had to hang onto the sides of things early on... I had decided ahead of time to fix a hole in my pants for my tail, since it would just be uncomfortably bunched up in my pants otherwise. My tailoring skills weren't amazing, but they sufficed for my needs. The brown robe I wore was loose, and the fur wasn't a problem with it. It ended a little before my wrists and ankles and was light, so it was comfortable even with the new fur. I was indeed different from before, but only physically. I was basically the same person, which, unfortunately, can't be said for some others. I looked out upon the keep and knew exactly what this meant for me as a traveler. I finally found what I had been looking for.

My travels were over. They were a success.

I had a home.
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