It was a lousy night to be out. Rain fell in sheets, turning the roads to mush and drowning out any hope of conversation with it's endless drone. Occasionally the sky would roar with thunder and flash purple with lightning, illuminating the forest just off the side of the road and turning the trees into threatening silhouettes.

It was a lousy night to be out.

All the same, Arwin Wagner stomped his way off the water-slogged road and into the water-slogged tall grass on the western side. The sheer volume of rain coming down had ensured that even with his oil-skin cloak on, he was thoroughly soaked. He was half-bent, grunting and straining as he soldiered on through the sucking mud, towards the foreboding tree-line ahead. "Fuck!" he swore, as his right foot stuck fast in the mud, and he fell onto his front, muddy water splashing into his face. Growling with rage, Arwin tore his foot free and then fought the elements till he was back to his knees, and then, with another guttural, animalistic sound, back to his feet. "Not today, Mother Nature" he whispered, face turned to the sky. Almost as if in answer, the sky lit up with lightning "Not today".


Arwin continued on towards the forest ahead, more concerned with how the sucking mud threatened to take him off his feet again than whatever the forest might have hidden. Part of that was his mulish nature, but at least part of it was that he wasn't expecting any surprises from the forest. Arwin knew EXACTLY what was waiting for him in the forest ahead. "Can't complain about the weather if you take the job as a test" Arwin muttered to himself as he reached the first of the trees. He leaned against the tree, taking a moment to survey the ground he stood on and catch his breath. Though he couldn't be sure due to the darkness, from what he felt and what the flashes of lightning were revealing to him, Arwin guessed that the forest overhead had kept enough of the rain to maintain the forest floor for the most part. "Probably going to be patches where there's not enough cover from the rain." Arwin half warned himself as he began walking "Might be able to make use of some slippery ground or slopes"


As he made his way through the forest, Arwin reached under his oilskin and under his coat for the salted meat he'd brought with him from the wagon he'd ridden this far out in the Forsaken Region. Finding an auspicious clearing, Arwin set to work setting up the bait he'd prepared. It hadn't been easy to steal the meat, what with his travel companions lamenting their hunger and trying to ration their supplies out so they could reach Sosshi without having to dip into the cargo. But with a healthy bit of dieting and a display of his silver tongue, Arwin had managed to hold onto a handle of meat so that he could complete this mission. Climbing a nearby tree, Arwin dug his hands into the wet bark, more hugging and humping his way up the tree than anything else. Much to his chagrin, the rain made doing the task with any sort of finesse an impossibility. Finding a spot where two branches intersected, Arwin settled with his back to the trunk and his eyes on the pile of meat he'd laid out, thoughts firmly on the danger he was determined to walk head long into tonight.


"Good thing I grew up around Aries Garse or else I might just find myself in over my head" Arwin thought as he adjusted his oilskin to better cover him from the rain leaking through the overhead branches. "Always had to worry about the wolves when you made your way out of town and you went off-road". "Damn things always travel in packs and the bigger fuckers are tough enough to take down most men without too much trouble. Going to have to figure out a way to separate them if I can. Might even have to try rushing the biggest one and seeing if I can't take it out immediately" Arwin didn't want to speak, just in case he scared any of the wolves he was hoping to hunt tonight, but he did gesticulate, as he would have if he was speaking to someone else. He hadn't even noticed he was doing it until he caught sight of his own hand gauging distance from where he was sitting to the meat. He frowned and lowered his hand, oddly embarrassed to have caught himself doing that "Gotta get my head in the game...especially since it looks like I'm about to make contact". The wolves had arrived, two or three of them at first, their eyes almost glowing in the gloom of the forest as they crept out from the far side of the clearing.


Watching the wolves seeming to melt out from the shadows sent a thrill of fear up Arwin's spine, any hairs that weren't up due to the cold were definitely up now. "Fuck. That's more than I anticipated '' there were more wolves coming from seemingly all over the clearing, at least six in total were now stalking towards the meat Arwin had left out. "Well, I was hoping the little surprise I mixed in was going to thin out the numbers, but now I just hope it's enough to drop that fucker outright" Arwin's eyes widened in true terror as what was undoubtedly his target made its appearance. It was huge. The other wolves were at least 100 pounds of muscle and sodden fur, but not the alpha. Where the others had that lean, hungry look Arwin was all too familiar with, the Alpha had to be at least 140 pounds of fluidly moving muscle. It gave a low warning growl that seemed to shake the air even up where Arwin could be found, so it made sense when it's pack mates chose to stand beside the meat Arwin had left out rather than digging in, leaving room for the Alpha to take the first bites. "It's fangs are huge...by the King's quivering hands, this better work or I'm a dead man".


As the wolves ate Arwin drew the knife he'd been lent for this particular mission and inspected it before tucking it into the sheath along the inside of his calf. When it seemed that most of them had taken their share, Arwin took a deep breath and hung from the branches he'd been sitting on before dropping to the forest floor. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten his earlier thought about how slippery the forest floor might be and his legs went out from under him, and he found himself falling in a heap with a yelp. "Fuck, that hurt" he whispered as he struggled back to his feet, he froze as soon as he had his feet under him. The pack was staring at him, at least, the five he could see. Two of the smaller wolves had disappeared and he THOUGHT he could see movement at the far edges of the clearing, but his instincts were telling him one thing.

Arwin turned his back on the wolves, grinding his teeth hard enough to eke out a faint screech from them as he started running. The mana flowed to his feet swiftly, some of it forming floating, rotating bits of teeth and the rest enhancing his every footfall so he sprinted all that much faster. The next few seconds were a terrifying blur. He knew he was being chased, but he just couldn't seem to orient his senses enough to be sure where the wolves might be. The wind howled and his heart pounded in his ears, but sporadically, Arwin could hear the barks or the growls of the wolves or the roar of thunder overhead. He could barely see for the darkness of the forest by night, lightning flashed just bright and long enough to give him an idea of when he was about to brain himself on the trunk of a tree. So when he stepped on the wet root of a tree he narrowly avoided and it's outer layer of bark gave way, Arwin took the fall roughly. It was not unlike the fall he'd taken on his way into the forest, though given the speed he'd been moving at, he kept moving forwards.

Arwin skid along the ground in a scrambling tangle of cold-numbed limbs, oilskin cloak and now filthy coat. Stumbling to his feet, his oilskin now partially flipped inside-out and blocking his peripheral vision on the right side, Arwin tried to keep moving, desperately trying to build up speed again as he fought to keep his footing. Arwin heard the growling of the wolf and his hand found his mouth, mana condensing into another spell as he ducked his head behind the crook of his raised arm. The shield he summoned sprang into being just barely in time to protect him from the pounce of the wolf. It stopped the creature's fangs and most of it's body from touching him, but the force of it's leap took Arwin clean off his feet and he tumbled to the ground once more. Then things became a flurry of growls and terror and gnashing teeth and furious kicks and shoves with his tooth-shield.

Arwin screamed in pain when one of the wolves clamped it's jaw around his shin, but that swiftly turned to a growl of rage as he used his other leg to lash out at it, dazing it as he drove his boot down onto it. He didn't see where the blow landed, however, as he was fighting to keep his shield oriented to protect him from the other members of its pack, who were attempting to swarm his torso. His shoulders and arms burned with the effort before he saw his moment and lashed out with his shield, clubbing one of the wolves along the face. As the wolf yelped and slunk away, obviously no longer interested in a fight, Arwin grunted in agony as another of the wolves made a move for the hand that had been left shieldless and it found it's mark. In a move of animalistic desperation, Arwin head-butt the slavering beast in the face and it's jaws went slack and it stumbled away on wobbly legs. Reacting to the flash of teeth, Arwin managed to whip his shield-less arm up just in time to block his throat from being torn out by one of the wolves that wasn't being harried away by his waving magic shield. Grunting, Arwin managed to barely muscle the straining wolf away from him and scrambled to his feet, just barely avoiding the lunges of the remaining wolves.

Lashing out with a low kick, Arwin managed to catch one of the wolves at the bend of one of it's front legs, which bent the wrong way and left the creature shrilly crying as it limped away. A strange calm descended on the struggle after that, Arwin was gasping for breath, covered in mud and the detritus of the forest floor, and at least half the wolf pack was nursing injuries that seemed to be giving the remaining wolves pause. "Starting to feel it, huh boys?" he asked breathily "Wolfsbane doesn't grow in these parts of the Forsaken Region, but I bet it's just as effective as it is when we use it over in Aries Garse". Arwin was counter-circling the wolves, some of whom were now shaking their heads, obviously disturbed by something. "You really shouldn't take gifts from strangers''. It hadn't been much wolfsbane, or, at least not enough to kill any of the wolves, but definitely enough to make a chase and a struggle with a mage draining and difficult. The only problem was that the Alpha didn't seem to be having as much trouble as Arwin would've liked. It was shaking it's head as well, obviously the most affected due to it having taken the lion share of the meat but it was also much larger and it had been the last to arrive and hadn't had a chance to get in on the swarming of Arwin.

So the two squared off. The smaller wolves were reeling from the poisoned meat and only Arwin and the Alpha seemed to have much fight in them. Arwin made the first move, wincing as he began sprinting away, trusting in his sense of direction to keep him alive. He could hear the wolf growling and huffing as it gave chase. The ground slowly became sloped and Arwin stopped running, opting instead to slide down the muddy hill on his thigh and side, shield-less arm extended above him to give him at least the illusion of control. Suddenly he screamed as the wolf bit down on his wrist. The world was illuminated for a moment by lightning and Arwin saw his chance at the bottom of the hill. Half allowing the Alpha to reposition it's jaws so it was biting further up his forearm and half luring it in, Arwin managed to wedge his shield behind forearm and between the wolf and the rest of his body. It hurt like hell, but he managed to hug the thing so that it's back was to the shield. It fought for freedom, but it's struggles became downright riotous when the two plunged into the mud-pit-turned muddy-lake that had collected at the bottom of the hill they'd been sliding down. Nevertheless, Arwin held on, he fought the Alpha every step of the way, leveraging his shield to keep it's constantly craning head and neck away from his throat and torso and used his shield to force it into the clinging mud. He dug his knees into the creature's side, wincing at the scratches it's scrambling hind legs left all down the front of his lower body.

Arwin wasn't sure how long he wrestled with the beast, but eventually, he found himself lying down on the limp body of his target, shivering with exhaustion, pain and cold. He rolled off the body and sighed

"Well, better get to peeling this fucking thing"













Bone Magic: Goliath's Incisor 

Teeth Magic: First Bite








I wasn't sure how to make the wolves, so I just went with what Alberta wolves might weigh and worked from there. Also, I took some liberties with how mana-skin and the sheer physicality that getting attacked by wolves might interact.

WORD COUNT: 2373



TOTAL WC: 2373



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