It was a crisp winter day when Lyla went in search for a solution. The skies clear and the sun giving much needed warmth to the residence of Briarwurm, a grand city in the middle of a dark and tangled forest which only the most brave dare travel. Lyla was a newly married woman and this was the source of her problem. She did not marry for love; instead she was given to a young hunter. His family was very poor and it was the only dowry her father could afford, one sheep and three bags of grains. She was a beautiful in normal way. Most of this was because coming from a poor farmers house she could not afford the form fitting cloths and the luxury beauty powders of the aristocratic. Her frame was petite, with her long brown hair that glistened in the sunlight. Her eyes were a deep blue and when you looked in to them it felt as if you were getting lost in a universe only made up of sapphires. Ever sense she was a young girl she wished that a rich man’s son would wander in to her little corner of the city and take her away but this never happened. She was now trapped with a weak and terrible hunter for the rest of her life but she hoped that was going to change soon.

As she rounded the corner to the only apothecary shop she heard someone cry her name.

“Miss Lyla, Miss Lyla!” a young urchin boy yelled. Lyla turned around to see what more resembled a golem from the amount of mud caked on to the small frame of the child. “I have a message for you,” he handed her a small piece of rolled parchment with seal of two crossed bones. She looked up to thank the boy but he had already run off. She cracked the seal on the scroll and began to read.

I have what you seek but it is not for the eyes of the public. Go to the butchers shop in the darkest part of the farm district. Then walk to the back of the shop and knock on the cellar door three times. Your wish shall be granted.

She had hoped to not have to go that far but if the writer knew what she needed then she would do anything to get her way. As she walked on the hard winter ground in to a part of town she had only heard about she was beginning to have second thoughts. How did this person know what she needed? Was it some trap laid by her husband to figure out why she was in such a hurry this morning? As she pondered this she continued to walk; knowing that she could turn back at anytime. As she walked through what seemed the poorest area of the district she couldn’t help but stare that oddities in the shop stalls. Medalions made of animal bone, jars and vials containing things that looked like beast and human hybrids. The smells of rottening flesh and strange herbs came from the fire pits behind some of the vendors. It was close to making her vomit up the very small bit of break-fast she had been able to eat this morning.

As she turned down the last street to see the butcher shop on the horizon she gripped her coin purse tight in her hand. She had heard about this alley. She knew the kind of people that had been said to solicite on this street. Murderers, women of the night and thieves were the ones that she feared the most. She had never had any run ins with those sorts before and was not planning on today being the day that she conversed with those types.

She reached the small butchers shop, the only full building on the entire street but not by much. It had flies crawling out of the wooden boards that looked as if they could fall apart at anytime. The wood itself looked to be in even worse condition as she walked closer to it, mold and mildew covered every inch of the building and if not for the note she would never buy any meat or even come near this place. The window, if you could call it that was no more that a crudely sawed out area to the left of the door. The only thing in it was a severed goats head to show what kind of meat was being served today. The dirt under the shop was soaked with blood which seemed to bubble as it was drying. She was terrified. She knew the fringes of her dress soaked up the blood from the ground because the flies where swarming her feet just as they had swarmed the goats head in the window. This caused her much disgust and her face had lost all of this rosey cheeked coloring as she walked past the shop and around to the back.

The cellar door was in the same condition as the rest of the shop, decrepit and desolate. It was locked with a cast iron slide lock which was rusted over and sticky with the blood from the butchers shop. She knocked once and felt as if the wood bent with her hand as it hit. She repeated this twice more and the lock clicked back by itself as if it were alive and inviting her in to the door. She reached down and opened the door, the shrill sound that came from the hinges sounded as if a new born infant was in unimaginable pain. As she descended in to the oil lamp lit room at the bottom of the stairs the door swung close with the same distinct cry as before. A loud clang followed from what she could only assume was the old lock on the door. She began to become more terrified, she had the uneasy feeling that she may die down here and that this little quest was a cruel trick by the patrons of the street.

“Don’t worry deary, the door with let you leave after we have talked. Can’t have the thieves getting down here and taking any of my items, that could end the city as we know it.” A feeble voice said from the bottom of the dark staircase. Lyla could hear the rustling of papers on a counter top. As she stepped down from the last stair she saw the source of the voice. An old woman with a frog shaped face no more than a couple of fingers shorter than Lyla herself. Her hair was the color of the white smoke from a cleanly burning fire and it had leaves and twigs randomly but what seemed like purposely woven in to her hair. “I know what you seek Lyla. I know you don’t want to die in the same filth you were born in, to have a husband that is not weak. I also have what you seek to make your dreams come true.” As she said this she pulled out a large human skin bound book from under the counter. “Now, which one will make you husband the greatest hunter in the land?” She begins to flip through the large dust covered book looking for the perfect page.

“What is in that book? I don’t want to do anything to upset the Gods.” Lyla said as she slowly suffled towards the woman at the counter.

“Which Gods would that be my dear?”

“Any of them; I’ve heard of these dark arts before in fairy tales but did not know that they truly existed. Magic and such things are condemned by all the Gods.”

“While that is true for all new Gods, this book is simply a recipe book from the old days, secrets of ways to build you up with strength or to take it away from other people. Not magic, cooking.” She reassured Lyla.

“What do you mean the new Gods?” Lyla asked. She had never heard of old gods. Only the ones she grew up with.

“Some gods are older than this city themselves and ruled over the people of the forest for many years. These gods were forgotten when man began to build this city. Only few people know of them and even fewer still believe.”

Lyla thought of this and it scared her to the core of her heart. These must be the dark gods that she had heard whispers about from her grandmother when she was a small girl. They were said to be dead but on certain nights why could grant people great powers at a high cost. “How do I know you aren’t lying to me about all of this and it is witchcraft?”

“You don’t but you want what you want and I know that you will do anything to get it. AH! Here it is.” She ripped the page out of the book and started writing on the bottom. “This series of meals will give your husband the strength he needs to become the greatest hunter in the land. I have written down the shops you can buy the ingredients at on the bottom of the paper. They are all on the way back to your home. Follow the instructions to the letter and within a month your husband will have changed into a strong and cunning hunter.”

Lyla took the paper from the little old lady and looked at it. She hadn’t heard of many of the ingredients and noticed some of them as poison. “Some of these will kill him. There are at least three different poisonous herbs on here.”

“If you follow the directions no harm will come to your lovely husband. I promise. Now you better get a move on if you are to get back in time to begin preperations. Also I have given you the name of a man on the back of the parchment that will help you collect the last piece for the seventh meal. It also has directions on how to find him. These things are costly but if you mention this shop they will give you everything for free. The type of people you will talking to owe me a great deal and I do not ask of much from them.” The woman then got off of her stool and walked in to the back of the shop. “Out with you! You must hurry. If you do not start tonight you will have to wait another month.”

Lyla left the shop the same way she came in. The lock had unbolted itself just has the decrepit old lady said it would. She looked at the list again and read it over:

3lbs of Wolf meat

One large jar of blood from a male wolf

One medium jar of the woman in heat(you will need this for the seventh meal, it MUST come from you)

6 leaves of wolvesbane

3 cloves of nightshade

Honeymeed

One small vial of red starfruit seed extract

One heart of a poisoned man (source on the back)

She knew that this was dark magic from deep in the forest but she didn’t care. If the lady from the cellar was truthful about the result she didn’t mind. She was very wary of the ingredients though but decided it did not matter. She would be married to a man she would be proud of and not the laughing stock of the district. She gathered all of the ingredients from the various shops and continued home.

Reaching the little cottage about an hour before dusk, when her husband would be home, just enough time to prepare dinner for him. She begins to kindle the fire as she starts to read the instructions from the parchment. Night One: Cut one sixth of the wolf meat off and cook it just enough that the outside has browned. Crush up one clove of nightshade and place in a cup. Do the same with two petals of wolfvesbane. Then pour one third of the cup full of wolfs blood and the rest with honeymeed. Repeat on night four. Only cook meat on nights two, three, five and six. She prepared the drink which smelled like a sweeter version of the already sweet honeymeed. Only it had a deep ruby color. As she sat the plate and cup down on the table her husband walked in the door.

“Hello Lyla, that smells amazing! I was hoping it was coming from here.” Marcus said.

“I went in to the market and got fresh food for the week. I hope you like it. We have a lot of the meat and meed.” Lyla said to her husband. He said down with this slender frame. A solemn face below a shaved head; he knew he was weak and very ashamed of it. He could barely shoot a bow, so he relied on traps to catch small game. Mostly rabbits and foxes is what he ate but he could tell the smell of wolf from a mile away. It reminded him of his father who was a great hunter of his time but only gave birth to him. A weak and useless hunter is what he used to call Marcus before he died.

Lyla followed the instructions for the meals for the next five days. On the sixth day she remembered about the special seventh day items. She looked at the back of the paper to find the name:

Atticus

Can be found at the Boar’s Head Tavern, wears a deep green hooded robe with a dark brown fringe design.

She set off for the Boar’s Head Tavern. Knowing where it was because her husband often drank there after selling pelts at the market. She did not know how the conversation was going to go talking to what she could only think was an assassin or thief. She had never met his kind and did not know what to expect. She did know that most of the patrons of the tavern where mostly nice folks; many of whom are friends to Marcus but of course that is the late crowd of hunters coming in after sun down. She did not know what kind of vagrants drank in a tavern in the middle of the day.

She arrived at the tavern right before noon. The distinct smell of the piss from the night before inflamed her nostrils. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stand around to long before people started to take notice so she ducked in to the small tavern to find the mysterious Atticus. As she opened the door and the smell of urine left her senses she found herself in a small one room tavern not to much larger than her small cottage. A crudely build bar was on wall with different type of beverages on a shelf behind it. The walls where nothing more than wood but much more well kept that the butcher shop she had previously visited. It was a welcome sight versus what her mind was conjuring up. A couple of tables with various sized chairs were scattered in the remaining area. It was rather empty to her relief. She didn’t want anyone that had been to her house to visit to see her in this place. Marcus may get suspicious if they tell him she was in the tavern meeting a rogue like gentleman. She walked up to the pot bellied bartender to ask about Atticus because she saw no deep green robe. The bartender looked like an overly fed man, with a stringy beard and frame too small to account for his weight. He had the look of a dull lived life in the center of his dim green eyes; a man who has worked too hard for where he ended up.

“Do you know a man named Atticus? I’ve heard he drinks here; he is usually in a deep green hooded robe with dark brown edges.” Lyla asked rather mousey.

“Who?” he asked.

“Atticus, I have heard he can find things that are rather hard to locate.”

“Oh, the night blade; how sent you?” the bartender inquired.

“The lady from the butcher shop.” Lyla answered. His face drained of color as the words spilled from her lips.

“Oh, I-I-I’ll get him right away. We have been expecting you. She sent an urchin just yesterday.” He managed to stammer out as he rushed behind the bar and down some stairs rather swiftly. A few minutes later a hooded man came from up the stairs and walked over to Lyla. She couldn’t see his face but she probably wouldn’t have looked at it even she could have. She was to enamored by his cloak. The greens and browns seemed to weave together when the light hit them and mirrors the jumping that light would do on a moist stone wall. She was mesmerized by it.

“The old hag told me you would be here. I’ve been waiting,” he said in a gravelly voice that sounded as if it had been strained by some sort of device.

“Yes, I need the-“ she leans in to whisper, “the heart of a poisoned man.”

“Is that all? I’ll have it for you tomorrow. Leave a bucket outside your cottage and it will be there in at noon precisely.” Atticus said in a surprised voice. “I must be off on the quest. Remember, noon.” With that he rushed out the door with no other words. Lyla was perplexed. She figured he would be shocked with the request. She was more than shocked when she read it on the paper. Not wanting to question this she slid off of the bar stool and wandered back home.

The next day at noon she checked the bucket she had sat out that morning and not to her surprise was a human heart with the veins turned black from what she could assume was poison. She took it in to the house and began to cut it in small pieces. For the last item on the list she had been regrettably collecting it over the last couple days by a rather unwomanly means. Collecting her own blood almost made her puke the first time. It was a shamed upon thing for a woman to even hint at the crimson moon cycle, let alone collect and fed it to her husband. She would have been hung of the spot but for her end goal it had to be done. So it was.

She poured her blood in to the stew pot with water and the heart of the poisoned man. She added other spices to cover the taste. Then she prepared the last serving of the ruby red honeymead. The color of the stew became a light orange color just as the recipe said it would. She let it cook all day adding in more water and blood as needed. After a couple of hours Marcus came in and she was pleased to see that the meals had been working so far, his auburn hair had started growing very fast. Even to the point of him almost having starting to have a full beard, she liked this new look. It was more in line with the man she knew he could be and not the man he was. His eyes had become a bright green, much different from the dim green from a week ago. They looked like emeralds when they used to look like tree moss. He inhaled deeply and said, “That smells better than anything you’ve cooked all week. I can not wait to taste it my beautiful Lyla.”

“I went and picked up the meat from the market. The butcher said it was miss delivered and that it was top grade beef from one of the private farms from the other side of the city.” Lyla told him, knowing that if he knew the truth he would not be pleased. She grabbed him a bowl and filled it with stew. She walked over and sat it on the table. “Come and eat. The season starts tomorrow and you will need all of your strength for the hunt.”

He ate three bowls of the stew, praising her cooking the entire way through the meal. “That was better than anything I have ever had. I mean the meat was so tender and juicy. The broth was succulent and thick. I don’t what to even know what was in it because the mystery just makes it better. I have to be the luckiest man; A wife with beauty and smarts.” He got up from the table and kissed her. She had never been kissed like this before, the raw animalistic instinct of it swept her off of her feet, literally. She fell right on to the bed where they gave in to the primal side of human nature and after were lulled to sleep by the howling of the wolves in the forest.

Over the next month the spells effects began to grow. His muscles developed in to that of a veteran hunter even though he was but twenty years old. His hair became fuller and his beard came in strong. Is instincts heightened and became extremely proficient with a bow. In a little over three weeks He was bedding her after every big score. They had even started to use the money to expand their small cottage. They had built on an extra room so that they did not have to sleep in the same room as they ate. Lyla was starting to become increasingly happy day by day with her new life. Her husband was on his way to become exactly what the old lady said, the greatest hunter the district had ever seen.

On the last hunt of the winter Marcus had managed to kill two bears. An unheard of feat for one hunter, one bear usually takes two men. The stories that flooded the streets were that of great strength. It seems he only shot two arrows at each bear and each one straight through the eyes. Impossible some said before Marcus walked in to the Boars Head Tavern with the decapitated head of both bears; completed with the arrows sticking out of the eyes on each of them. The patrons cheered for young Marcus and began to drink. The bartenders left the heads of the bears on the counter for everyone to look at in wonder. Some gave credit to the full moons, a superstitious believe that its origin in the old towns of the forest. As Marcus drank more mead throughout the night he had the overwhelming his bladder and needed to relieve himself. He staggered outside, bumping in to patrons who gave him strong pats on the back.

He was alone in the cold, he could see his breath in front of his face. He undid his trousers and started to piss. He looked up in the sky to see the duel moons, both shinning silver and full in the sky. He finished and started to walk back in when his legs began to shake uncontrollably, he fell to the ground. He continued to shake as pains started to burn in his bones, he then heard a series of loud snaps and his arms and legs bent in inhumanly ways. He was terrified; the only thing that was running through his mind was that he was going to die right there. He tried to call out for help but all that came out was a whimper. The pain was becoming blinding; clinching his jaw he silently prayed to the Gods to save him. His face started to distort, the nose and jaw line began to protrude. Splitting the skin and ripping the muscle. He could feel something inside of him changing. The skin, falling away gave way to a wolf like snout. He opened his eyes and looked down at the rest of his body, terrified by what he saw. His skin was ripping like an over boiled potato and in each of the creases thick fur was sprouting. His arms had extended about a foot and all of his finger nails had fallen out and given way to large claw. The skin of his hands slid off to become larger and more beast like. Not the paws of a wolf but a mix between the two, humanoid hands with boney fingers which had claws upon the top. His legs began to do the same, ripping the pants from his body. His muscles began to expand, and the pain began to subside in those regions. Then his spin began to crack and elongate, his back becoming broader and the cheap fabric of his shirt could not hold the growing frame of the beast. It ripped and his skin went with it, he started to scream again and once again no sound was coming from his mouth. He began to stand and look over himself. He was grotesque, thick fur all around his body. He stood much taller now, his legs longer and transformed. He had bright yellow eyes and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. His snout was shorter than that of a worf and his ears had moved to farther up his head. Most of the hair that erupted from the skin was short and thick, but on his back and head it was arranged more like the mane of a lion; long and thick dark hair which mirrored that of his natural color. He could feel the animal begin to take over his mind; a hunger for human flesh burning deep inside. On all fours he began to eat the left over skin from his previous form. The taste was unlike anything that had graced his mouth before. It was warm and sweet. He was so pleased with taste that he began to scream in delight but all that came out was a haunting howl with the volume of a pack of wolves. He was taken aback by this sound, scared even for he knew that all the hunters on this side of town where in the bar right beside of him.

His hearing had improved drastically and he could hear the silence in the bar, followed by the bustle of weapons and rushed instinct of humans to investigate the source of the noise. He tried walking but moved too slowly to try and get away. He fell back down to his four legs and kicked off with his back paws on the ground. He was gaining speed like he had never felt before and right as the hunters turned the corner he was already running through the quite streets of the farm district. He felt free for the first time in his life. The power that was coursing through is veins was intoxicating and he loved it. This is the strength he had been waiting for all of his life but there was one problem. He was still hungry and needed to eat more. Then he smelled it, sweat blood. He followed the smell to an empty alley way and stared at its source, a beautiful young lady. The look on her face was one of confusion and fear. She was lost in a part of town that she did not know and had ventured to far away to be able to get back to the brothel that she had just gained employment. Marcus could sense the fear and knew it was a prey that would not put up much of fight. He waited for her to come closer and as she began to walk towards his ally he felt the muscles in his legs tighten; the pressure building for a leap while he licked his sharp teeth. He could taste her already. He needed it; the sweat and tender flesh. Without a second thought he sprang, she never saw him coming. Her throat ripped within seconds. Her eyes went dead only capturing the fear that she was lost and to never make it home.