Hiya,
The Captain was nowhere to be seen and the Baronet, Cyroosta and others kept to the manor while Miguel and Boamund rushed first to Maugis's hut, checking on him and Mikaela and receiving a Haste blessing to speed them on their way.
With some difficulty, the two trackers hunted the beast down and confronted it: a humanoid lion still wearing the shreds of Danilo's clothing, and showing a visible scar and limp on its right leg where he'd been wounded (somehow– Miguel thought the Rokari were involved) in the past. It fought savagely and furiously, but Boamund blinded it with his Glow spell and dodged its fierce claws as he tripped it with his spear, and once blinded it lost heart and fled into the night. You found that none of your weaponry could harm it- its hide seemed impenetrable and it did not even feel your strongest blows. But two skilled warriors were still too much for it, thanks to their magic in particular.
Luckily the peasant child Rinda was left behind and clinging to life, and Miguel heroically saved her with some fast-thinking bandaging. They took the girl back to the farmers who rejoiced, and then the group (including some enraged farmers baying for werelion-blood) went to Maugis's hut to discuss their next moves. Maugis's magic helped continue the healing of Rinda, whose recovery would take much time. Maugis also spent much more time speaking to Mikaela and a bond was clearly growing there between the two, thanks to the girl's interest in magic and religion and Maugis's patience, quiet approach.
The Giranois showed up soon: elder Vowka and her odd son(?) Verker, attracted by the commotion and roaring. Vowka said that the werelion was an ancient foe of the Giranois; called a Penjang; and that “none can harm it; the ways have been lost.” However, she said that an exiled Giranois named “Elder Useless” could cure the curse of this evil spirit-possession. He could be found on the Fanged Shore, which was a beach on the Bay of Teeth on the north side of Giraine, facing the Fosnoir (some of you, especially the Captain, knew well of the bay but no one knew that beach). But you'd have to bring the Penjang (Danilo) to him to be cured, so you discussed how to capture it alive.
Maugis recognized an old Seshnelan legend of Penzharn, similar to the Penjang, which only the purest of heart could harm, and which hated the kings of Seshnela. These were vengeful spirits of 1st Age Pendali hsunchen (beast-men) of the lands. Malevolent, cursed spirits or demonic souls that forced men's bodies to do evil. Miguel recognized old stories of the Penzharn beasts: lost magics that the Seshnelan kings learned to defeat them, but otherwise mostly forgotten 1st age enemies of Froalar and subsequent kings of Seshnela, of heathen (animist) origins. So now you knew your enemy, and that Danilo probably was its hapless victim, although how much was he aware of his fate? Cyroosta had heard of Penzharns but knew nothing to add about them; they were not a spirit she'd paid much attention to before, as they were supposedly no longer found in Pithdaros– but in Miguel's homeland in Tanisor, Seshnela they were still very much an issue.
You checked Miguel & Danilo's home but the man never returned. After some rest, the next day you set up a plan. Boamund bought Miguel's goat and Cyroosta prepared herbs (the same she'd given Danilo to help Mikaela sleep better– hmmm, was he helping her sleep so he could slip out at night?) to feed to the goat and drug the lion. Miguel was sad to be losing the goat but no one else was. Miguel also planned a Mraloti-style snare as a second plan to trap the wiley werelion. The Captain rejoined you and wanted to partake in the hunt; he'd been watching Miguel's house and had seen no one visit. Miguel expressed some regret about not watching the well during all this.
The next night came and you tried to retrace the Penjang-Danilo's old tracks from the night before, but mists and rain and time, plus the beast's assiduous attempts to make itself hard to track, meant that soon you'd given up hope. But, as hope slipped away, you came across the Giranois camp where Vowka and Verker had stayed of late, and you found the camp oddly silent. Creeping in, you discovered two dead Giranois herders in a tent-house, ripped asunder by the enraged beast. The rest of the settlement turned up later as you tracked the beast into the swamps- they had fled in terror and disarray. Vowka and Verker had safely been elsewhere. With a fresher trail found, you tracked the beast down closer and closer, set up your snare and goat-lure, and waited…
The Penjang did not shy away from this date, but it sidestepped the trap Miguel had sent and it only took a bite or two from the goat after killing it, then it noticed a Mark spell being cast by Miguel onto the goat and it ran– right past the Captain, who tripped it with a thrown harpoon (finding that even his spear could not harm it), then Boamund blinded it with his Glow magic again and it blundered about trying to flee. Meanwhile, Boamund rushed forward and leapt top the beast's back, forcing it to the ground pinned, and the Captain in turn leaped onto its front, avoiding its snapping jaws and soon getting a chokehold on the great leonine head! Miguel rushed up, grabbed the goat, failed to force-feed it to the lion, but then took a rope and began hog-tying the lycanthrope. Meanwhile Boamund kept it on the ground and the Captain strangled it unconscious– the Penjang was soon your helpless captive!
You rigged up a travois and prepared to return home triumphant, with all three of you beaming at your success despite your best laid plans (snare and drugged bait) not working as you'd hoped. Boamund could long boast of wrestling down a giant were-lion, the Captain could tell his tale of strangling one bare-handed, and Miguel could tell of how he trussed his own werebeast-father!
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