Following the combat with the armored constructs, Captain Barnaby Harrier urged the party to flee toward the foothills as more metallic screeching echoed from the hole the beasts had emerged from.

• Scouting the Compound: Nebish scouted from an altitude of three hundred feet and spotted a steady gray trail of smoke inside a band of green trees roughly two miles away. He discovered a man-made palisade compound built on a raised stone pedestal featuring primitive Mongol-style huts.

• Mickle’s Inventions: While waiting for Nebish to return, Mickle Cobblelob used his tinkerer's tools to forge an iron codpiece that doubled as an ear-horn listening device. He also successfully identified Grundel's new magical items as the Gloves of the Bear, which allow the wearer to pass a failed Strength saving throw once per day.

• First Contact: The party entered the village, which was identified as Lobo Village. They were met by a hesitant older man and a sixteen-year-old youth named Embry, who bore a striking, deep-crevice scar running down his jawbone.

The village was in a state of mourning following the brutal death of a resident named Raze, who had been killed that morning.

• The Crime Scene: Nebish and the party inspected the body inside a hut that functioned as a shop. Raze’s arm had been practically ripped clean off, and he suffered a monstrous gash from his neck to his chest. The wound appeared fresh, and a piece of his shoulder had been bitten out by a beast.

• Clues Recovered: Nebish used his tracking skills (rolling a natural twenty) to find four-toed claw marks in the dirt floor. However, there were no landing or takeoff prints outside the hut, suggesting the attacker had leapt a great distance or flown. An older man named Ozzy produced a tuft of wiry hair found in the victim’s wounds that smelled distinctly like a dog.

• The Lobo Connection: Grundel recognized the village name Lobo as the Wolf Clan, an ancient rival to his own Bear Clan. He realized the village likely had a lycan problem, as the locals admitted the name was inspired by the howls they heard at night.

As evening fell, the party tracked the creature into a thick brush clearing half a mile from the village.

• The Howl and the Hunt: A loud, close-range howl signaled an attack, and a dire wolf wearing a crude leather collar lunged into the clearing. As the fight progressed, two more wolves emerged to support their injured pack-mate, utilizing pack tactics.

• Combat Highlights:
  • Nebish deflected a lunge with his silver saber and later investigated the collars, finding them to be crude iron-buckle straps with no markings.
  • Mickle unleashed a Witch Bolt, connecting a sustained arc of lightning to one wolf, and later used a fire-based Chromatic Orb to ignite the hair of another.
  • Bludarious attempted to discipline a wolf with an empty leather pouch before shooting it in the neck with a silver bullet, nearly incapacitating it.
  • Khalid (who gave the villagers the name Khalid al-Mazouz Ibn Fazira) attempted to speak with the animals. In an act of compassion, he used Healing Word to close the wounds of a dying wolf, hoping to make a friend.

Despite Khalid's attempts at domestication, the wolves remained hostile. They appeared to recognize the word Master but refused to comply. Khalid eventually ended the suffering of the most wounded wolf with a musket ball to the head.

The session ended with an ominous howl from deep in the distance. The party heard a voice, understood through magic, respond to the death of the wolf with the words: “Come to me, my son.” This suggested that a leader—perhaps an ascendant entity of some kind or the father of the pack—was aware of the party’s actions.