The day before the full moon was scheduled to appear, Kyarako went out of her own volition and hunted three deer and a boar. Ryuji wasn’t sure what to make of that but he couldn’t deny that the idea of being a werewolf was a lot less scary if he was going to be well-fed the whole time. He might still be irrationally angry but at least he wouldn’t be ravenously violent.

Kya stored all of the meat in a chest that was enchanted to keep meat preserved. The chest was sitting in the warehouse unused for the same reason as the cages were. It was a little amazing to Ryuji that so many useful and, in many cases, very expensive items were just thrown into a warehouse. It began to remind him of how government spending supposedly worked back in America on Earth. Use the whole budget and store the excess where it won’t be seen by the public.

They had plated the bars with as much silver as they could get to go on them. They even heated the bars of the cage so the applied silver would partially melt to the steel bars. The pad that Ryuji brought, he affixed to the bottom bars with a glue made from some kind of monster drool so that even if he became violent, he was less likely to end up standing on the silver. He didn’t know what would happen if he were to touch the silver but he was hoping it wouldn’t be death. He decided he would have some harsh words for the youma if he did go insane and touch the silver, then die.

Ryuji had been telling Karen about all the advances he had made around town and his various plans for other things he wanted to do. He told her about his enchantment practice and the machine for testing people for magic. One subject he avoided was what he had been doing in the evenings. With everything he was doing, it almost seemed that he wasn’t skipping any time but Karen still felt like he was holding something back. She decided to let it go and just trust him to tell her everything he could.

She assumed that there was some kind of political backfire that he was hiding from her and he was trying to keep her out of it. That’s why she was prepared when he told her that he needed to talk to her. He was trying to look casual about it but it only made the tension stand out more. “Karen, do you have a min… um… moment?”

She looked to Teresa and she just shooed them off. “Hey, listen, I have to go back to The shop. Tonight and all through tomorrow I won’t be able to come back to the inn. I have to help Dorn with the enchanting of the Meter and we have to do it in the dark so we can see if the enchantment is working.”

Karen reached up and pulled him down to her so she could kiss him. when she let him go she smiled up at him and tried to act like everything was fine. Somehow she just had this terrible feeling that he was going to spend the night with another woman. She couldn’t let it show, no matter what! She was not close to his station and if he was toying with her heart she would have no choice in it anyway. Better not to know, right? Why did it feel so much like there was something he was hiding from her? Was he really the type to keep secrets and go running around with other women?

As Karen went back into the kitchen, Ryuji could feel that something was wrong and he knew what it was. He should have told her the truth. He had already been found out so what would it matter if he told Karen? Could he just come out and tell her, oh, by the way, I’ve been hiding this secret from you this whole time?

He had to put it out of his mind and just went upstairs to grab a few things he wanted from his room. When he got done, he came downstairs to find Karen standing there with a linen wrapped around something. She smiled and told him it was for him and Dorn. He unwrapped it and found it was some of the leftover nut bread, some cured ham, some berries he didn’t recognize and a small cask that he assumed would have ale. He thanked her with a long kiss that got a lot of jeers and left.

At the end of the street, he turned left and went to see Dorn. The old Dwarf was so wrapped up in the experiment that he hadn’t noticed Ryuji was there till he was looking for a set of tongs and Ryuji handed them to him. He just about jumped out of his skin when he did. Ryuji left him some of the supper, courtesy of Karen, and the whole cask of ale. Dorn didn’t wait and just popped the end off of it before downing half of it all at once. Ryuji then excused himself and headed to the guild warehouse.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

When he reached the building, he knocked on the door three taps three times. They had set up a code for entry and the door was opened quickly and closed just as quickly to avoid suspicion from any passer-by. Ryuji was only too keen on not being followed and or interrupted during the next day of likely unpleasantness. They had a few feet of stone to buffer the likely snarls or whatnot but he was afraid he was going to howl and blow his cover.

Ryuji turned to the women one after the other. “Have you both eaten? *At their nods he continued* Okay, Miyako, you said that somebody from your village turned into a werewolf. When did he first start to change into his full form?”

Miyako looked to the side uncomfortably. “I don’t know. It was a long time ago… well, not really that long. But it seems like it was a really long time because I was just ten when that all happened.”

He grimaced and looked to Kyarako. “I guess you better go ahead and open the cage. I was hoping to find out when I would start the change but I guess that wasn’t my fate. I will spend all the time from now until I change back in the cage just to be safe. You brought the chamber pot? Good! It would really be tough to go for two days without being able to, well… go.”

Kya chuckled at the bit of humor but turned back with a worried look. She walked over and put the key into the cage that was looking decidedly fancier than the one next to it and opened the door of the cage. Ryuji ducked inside and sat on the pad of bedding glued to the bottom of the cage before looking back at them. “Miyako, don’t blame yourself for something you didn’t know. Ignorance is not the same as stupidity! Ignorance just means you don’t know and is something you can fix. In fact, between the two of you, you’ll have more firsthand experience with a werewolf than most people in the world. Enough that you two could write a book yourselves!”

Miyako looked decidedly better about the whole situation than before. Kyarako was still standing by the cage door hesitating. “Kyarako, go ahead and close the cage. It won’t do any good for me to be in here if the door is left open. It’s okay, I’m prepared for this. I may have to spend a considerable amount of time in this cage, or one like it.”

Kya closed and locked the cage with a look of resignation on her face, her ears flattened, and tail drooping. Ryuji looked almost cheerful but both women looked dour. “Don’t worry so much. I’ll be fine tonight. It’s tomorrow during the day that I’m worried about.”

Ryuji pulled out his supper that was so thoughtfully prepared by Karen and for the first time got a sad and worried look on his face. He replaced it with his cheerful one on purpose as he looked up nibbling on some ham. “Now, as we discussed, I want one of you awake and keeping watch all night. I brought the extra sleeping roll and chair. I figured that you could change out in the middle of the night? I’ve never been in a party where we would need to keep watch but I kind of think it’s important for this.”

It was decided that Kya would take the first watch and Mia and Ryuji went to sleep. Nothing had happened for several candlespans and Kya had to stand up and walk around to stay awake. She investigated some small sounds and managed to sniff out a hidden rat’s nest but the rest of the time was very boring. She had sat down on the chair and just as she had feared, began to doze off. She was in this state for an indeterminate amount of time, fighting to stay awake and losing.

There was a forest full of the smells of deer, hogs, and rabbits but there was some other smell here. Kya looked around the trees and through the bushes trying to find the source of that smell. Suddenly, there was a growl and she turned around and there was a huge wolf standing only a few paces away from her. She screamed and fell backwards… out of the chair and her dream.

As Kya fought to regain her bearing, something else came to her attention. In the cage, Ryuji had taken on his second form. He was there on the bedding twitching and turning and every few moments he would let out a low growl. She recognized the smell of the pheromones he was pumping out like a river and could feel her tail bristling and hair on the back of her neck and back standing on end. That was a scent of rage and bloodlust. It wasn’t the same scent that he had when he found her in the alley the other day and bought meat from her, this was different, this was terrifying!

Kya walked over and shook the dark-elf woman by the shoulder and had to backpedal as a dagger came at her. Fortunately, Mia realized where she was and came fully awake and rather quickly put the dagger away. “Sorry about that. It’s a habit I picked up in the first party I was in and I haven’t been able to break it since. Is it my turn on watch?”

A low and menacing growl grabbed the attention of both women.