<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> Sorry for the delay, let us continue! -LurkingWolf ___ <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> The wave of dizziness struck Lucy with the suddenness of a flash of lightning. She gasped and stumbled back, realizing as she did that her clothing was suddenly very large on her. After nine years under Metamor’s Curse, Lucy was quick to identify the telltale signs of her apparent age rapidly melting away. She had no idea why it was happening, but she immediately began to fight the change with all of her willpower. She refused to be reduced to a babe ever again!<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> And then it was gone. As quickly as the wave of magic overcame her it disappeared, allowing her to immediately regain her customary stature, even if that was only the apparent size of a ten-year-old girl. She glanced over towards her companions, who returned her worried glance in kind.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “You both felt that?” she asked, her voice barely restrained after the shock of the change.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Alex nodded as Julian looked on wild-eyed.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “The Curse?” he gasped. While Lucy and Alex had been present for the original casting, Julian had changed afterwards, and the frightening sense of being forced into a foreign shape had never struck him with such force as this before.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Lucy nodded. “Something connected to the Curse. Ever heard of a fetish stone? It turns the countercurse back somehow, forces the Curse to completion. This seems to have been a failure of some kind, but a disturbing attempt nonetheless.” She stopped to catch her breath. “And if someone knew to attempt such a casting, that means that they know that we’re here. Where’s Lois?”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> The three turned back to the camp. In the brief moments that the three of them had been distracted by the sudden resurgence of their Curse, the situation within the camp had dramatically changed. First, despite the darkness of the sky behind them, trails of black smoke were rising from the direction of the shaman’s tent, striking a contrast to the colorless wisps of smoke that rose from the carefully chosen wood of the campfires. The guards from the camp had noticed as well, and were showing a remarkable lack of discipline, abandoning their posts almost to a lutin to see what was going on.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “What did he do?” Alex hissed. “He was supposed to collect information, not burn the bloody camp down!”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “More to the point, where is he?” Lucy asked.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Before she had finished speaking, Julian spoke over her. “There!”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> He was pointing a bit further around the perimeter of the camp. It took a few moments for Alex and Lucy to notice what the moondog was indicating, but they knew he was right as soon as they saw it. A pile of cloth lay a few paces from the tree line, one of Lois’ daggers visible lying beside it. Despite the presence of his clothing and his weapons, however, the man himself was nowhere to be seen.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “Where did he go?” Alex asked. He had a sinking feeling that he knew the answer.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “Maybe the spell was targeting him directly,” Lucy replied. Even as she was speaking, the mound of cloth on the ground began to shift. Out from under the hood came an ermine. There was nothing to its form that suggested that it had ever been a man, but the situation made the truth obvious. It stood on its hind legs and began to sniff the air.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Lucy cursed, but Alex didn’t waste time on such trivialities. He quickly began to circle around the perimeter of the clearing, trying to get as close to the fallen Keeper as possible. His two companions followed him without question, keeping eyes on the ermine as they did.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> It did not take long at all for the animal to drop back to four paws and make for the trees, and Alex picked up the pace immediately, dropping stealth entirely for the chance of catching the assassin before he disappeared into the trees. In doing so, however, he alerted the creature to his presence, and the feral ermine quickly dashed away from him, disappearing into the undergrowth.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “No!” Alex took a few more steps, but he completely lost sight of Lois. He pulled up, unsure where to go, or even what to do. Thankfully, Lucy was still clearheaded enough to make suggestions.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “Alex, get Lois’ equipment. Julian, do you think you could scent him out in these woods?”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> The moondog hesitated. He understood what she was asking, but it was not something he had ever previously considered. Still, after some thought, he nodded.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “I believe I could. I will prepare while Alex retrieves Lois’ supplies.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Alex didn’t argue, instead immediately following Lucy’s instructions. The watchmen about the camp had thankfully left their posts unmanned, and it allowed him to have a few moments to collect the assassin’s fallen equipment. He threw most of it into his own pack before heading back to his patrol. By the time he arrived, Julian had dropped to all fours and now looked like nothing more than a natural hound, the lack of the aura of fear making it difficult to tell that he was a moondog at all. In contrast to Lois’ mental change, however, the mage’s eyes still held a definite glint of intelligence.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “Here.” Alex drew out a piece of cloth that had belonged to Lois and presented it to Julian, who sniffed at it a few times, taking time to appreciate the nuances of the scent before he turned his head and began to sniff through the undergrowth. He looked back at the others and nodded towards the trees, moving quietly and quickly after the retreating ermine.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> The hunt was thankfully brief, and led them far enough away from the lutin camp to make them a bit safer. Julian tracked the scent to a small hole in the earth, just visible through the snow, and indicated silently that the feral Keeper had gone to ground within its depths. Alex sighed and looked to his companions.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “Now what?”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Lucy dropped her pack on the ground and began to sort through the supplies within. She threw a pair of breeches to the moondog first, then dug a little deeper into her supplies and pulled out an odd contraption from within.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “Lucky for you, I happen to be a trapper’s daughter,” she commented. She began to carefully set it at the end of the tunnel, taking pains to be certain that everything was in order. “There,” she said finally. “Now hopefully, there are no other exits to this tunnel. If not, then he will have to come out sometime, and this should catch him easily when he does.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “In good health?” the lynx inquired.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “Of course,” Lucy said as though feeling insulted.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “Let’s hope it’s soon enough.” Julian said, stepped back out from behind a tree. Lucy tossed him his coat from within her pack, and he gladly slipped it over his shoulders. “If the lutins suspect a threat, they may try to sweep through the woods looking for us. We must be cautious.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Alex nodded. “Very well.” He looked up into the canopy for a moment and then back at his fellows. “Let’s get off the ground for now. If someone does come, they may be a little less likely to find us if they have to look up.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> The three Keepers were soon in the branches above the burrow, unable to do anything but wait for the ermine to show himself. The thought of being forced in mind and body into the form of an animal haunted them, and they hoped against hope that they would be able to rescue Lois somehow.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> * * *<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> An older man sat in a dark room, writing strange symbols with a steady hand, one by one on the surface of the parchment before him. His surroundings were nearly silent, an eerie lack of sound contrasting the usual bustle that such fortresses so often contained. The man’s breaths could be heard between every methodical scratch of quill on parchment, those two sounds breaking the heavy silence in turn.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Suddenly, the heavy silence that choked the derelict structure was broken by a series of desperate cries, a man’s voice echoing up and down the empty halls. The steady quill jumped across the page, eliciting a subdued series of curses from the man. He sighed and stood from his ruined project, pulling the hood of his dark robe up over his head and exiting the small cell of a room, out into the halls.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> He was met halfway by a younger man who had come running. The young man sketched a messy bow to his senior before locking stride with him and beginning to talk.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “It’s Lois,” he said in a hushed, hoarse tone.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “What? What do you mean, what happened?”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “We’re trying to determine that right now. All we know is that his Balance is the one that just lost contact.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> The two men walked in silence, the older man’s face set in a worried expression. Soon they had arrived at a small cell, and the guard who stood at the door let them in through a heavy, banded door of wood and metal. Inside, the man who had been screaming sat, hands hanging limp at his sides, weeping silently and looking about the room in confusion.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “What’s wrong?” the older man asked.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “What is it? What happened? I was—Vincent was…”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “Calm yourself!” the man demanded. He raised his hand before him and silently cast a spell on the sobbing man. His breathing calmed quickly until finally he had been overtaken by an almost unnatural calm.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “I succeeded. The chieftain and her shaman were both killed, and I was escaping. Then…” He began to grasp at the air with both hands, as though doing so would allow him to understand what had happened. “Nothing! Then I was here. How am I here? Where have I been for so long? Who is Vincent Lois? Who am I?”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> The older man tried to calm him again, but whatever conflict was driving him to such desperation would not give him enough peace for him to remain calm. With no other option remaining, the older man switched the spell he was using, and a moment later the desperate man fell into a sudden stupor.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “Keep him under sleeping spells,” the older mage instructed the younger man. “He is of no use to us until we determine what has happened.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “What has happened, sir?” the other inquired, following his senior out from the room.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “Hopefully, Lois has died. Such a loss would neither be so unforeseen nor so irreparable as to cripple us, and we could easily replace him.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “What if he has not died? What else could have severed the Balance?”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> The older man stopped where he was standing outside of the cell, sighing softly. “Braving the curse of Metamor was always a risk,” he muttered. "The Three Gates caused us to lose two valuable members, and we made more of a mess cleaning up that mess than we have ever left anywhere before. If the Curse is at fault here, then we need to be careful.” He turned and looked at the young man seriously. “Keep all lines of communication open, and tell them to find out what has happened to Lois immediately. This is of utmost importance.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <span style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">“Of course.” The young man bowed and was gone before another word could be spoken. The older man stared at the thick door before him. Lois had been a valuable resource for many years, but now he could very well be the end of them. They would have to be extremely careful to keep their interests secure. </body> </html>