A brief rest at the inn, and we head back to the Lair of the Wolf.
First we head to the south of where we left off, entering another big round room. Two passages are off to the left and right respectively, and ahead of us is the second biggest wolf head I've ever seen. Its mouth is another passage, albeit one that is sealed off.
Of more concern are the werewolves and swordsmen who want our heads. We make them much less of a concern. And by that, I mean dead.
We head to the left first, running into another round room, full of slime. We magic them down with hot Fireball action.
...what?
From there we head north into an elongated chamber, filled with more oozy enemies. They die just as well, with Ice Bolts picking off any Fireball survivors.
Next, we got back to the big round room. Wait a second, this is almost like...<checks map>
...yep, the layout of these caves is in the shape of a giant wolf's paw. Really?
We head to the right side (or west side, if you prefer cardinal directions) and come face to face with an army of swordsmen. Pull a few back, shoot some arrows, throw a few Fireballs, and then we melee them off. Rinse and repeat.
The long chamber beyond this one has no living occupants. That initially sounds like a relief, until we come across its one undead occupant.
Introducing himself as the ghost of Balthasar, he states that he was chased down here by werewolves after a raid on a local lord's manor, who then trapped and killed this Balthasar (the werewolves, not the local lord).
He wants us to do two things. First, recover the Pearl of Purity, use it to destroy the cursed altar that causes the werewolf outbreaks in Blackshire, and then take it to Wilbur Humphrey. Second, kill the werewolf leader (Shouldn't that be werewolf alpha?), and recover the cursed Pearl of Putrescence and give it to him.
Given that we were sent here by Humphrey to search for the shield of a certain missing lord, and the fact that this ghost apparently knows Humphrey first-hand...I'd say we didn't just find Lord Kilburn's shield. We've now found Lord Kilburn himself.
Anyway, he hid the pearl in the opposite side of the caverns, so we get to backtrack all the way over there. It's easy enough to find though. (Hint: Walking around in the back of the room causes it to appear in your grasp.)
So now we take it to the altar in front of the wolf head. The altar's white glow fades, and the passage in the wolf's head opens. We head down it to investigate.
It leads to a small room, with two passages. We take the left one, which leads to a staircase going up and around. We turn a corner, and more swordsmen are before us. Before we can react, we hear the growls as more werewolves appear behind us.
A trap. Lovely.
We run around the werewolves, and back to the small room...only to find more werewolves and swordsmen have assembled there. With low spell points and not super high health, it's time to beat feet...for now. We run past them, and all the way out of this lair.
When we return though, we're going to make wolfskin cloaks. A lot of them.
