Gathering Supplies

After a quick detour to her quarters, one of the first places Venus headed was the chapel, every hunter worth their salt knew that blessed water was anathema to demons and the mere touch of it scorched and burnt demon flesh the way harsh acid did to a human’s.

The chapel was in fact a high roofed octagonal room; removing from her beltpouch the flasks she had taken from her room Venus quickly dipped the four delicate glass bottles into the water one after another. Sealing the bottles, Venus handed two of them to Rondo and stuffed the others back into her belt pouch.

After leaving the chapel Venus headed for the armoury, Rondo needed a weapon other than his transformation and there were ...other reasons as well. Gesturing for Rondo to follow her, Venus moved deeper into the armoury; the young huntress ignored the racks full of sparkling weapons and the gleaming suits of armour as she walked by. She was heading for what was half jokingly called the Sacred Section of the armoury; it was in that antechamber that all of the holy objects in the fortress were kept, if anything in the armoury would aid them against a demon, it would be in here in this room.

The hinges of the thick, iron studded door squealed loudly in protest as Venus **** it open; torchlight spilled into the room as the huntress and the werewolf stepped inside. Tall bookshelves crowded the walls of the long, low ceilinged room; every shelf was jammed full of thick, leather bound tomes, tightly rolled vellum scrolls and even a full shelf of rune marked stone tablets. In the centre of the room, safely sealed inside a trio of long, low, glass topped display cabinets; a wide variety of amulets, rings and torcs glittered in the light of the torches, each one with a hand written label beside it.

Venus stared downwards at the glass topped case, murmuring quietly to herself as she studied the labels within “A golden torc that repels faeries...no; what? Why would anyone want an amulet that glows if you’re within a dozen steps of a dwarf?” the shadow hunters had gathered quite a lot of stuff over the years and as Venus continued to search she could feel her earlier confidence fading as the list of ridiculous gewgaws and useless junk continued to grow.

It was in the third case that, at last, Venus came across something that caught her eye. There on the crushed velvet before her lay a trio of identical silver amulets; each one was like a tiny piece of art. Though barely twice the size of Venus’s thumbnail each amulet was marked with an astonishingly intricate carving of an oak tree, as the light of her torch danced across them the silver leaves seemed to stir in an unseen wind.

“Ah, this looks promising; a trio of amulets that have been blessed by the druid cult of Kengrove forest, they are said to be a repellent to the lesser forces of demon kind” Venus looked up at her lover “What do you think?”

Rondo shrugged, smiling slightly “Well, it’s not a magic spell that kills every demon within a thousand miles but it’s better than nothing”

Closing the heavy door behind them they returned to the more mundane sections of the vast armoury; the two slowly perused the many racks of weapons. Rondo knew surprisingly little of fighting with an actual weapon, as a peasant such things had not been part of his life and once he had changed, he, like most werewolves had tended to rely more on his size, ferocity and claws rather than on swords. The two eventually settled on a long hunting knife and a morningstar, with this weapon the heavy weight of the mace was combined with a plethora of sharp spikes rendering it quite deadly and requiring far less training than the sword.

Entering yet another of the armouries antechambers; Venus quickly gathered all the usual supplies she would take one a hunting expedition; a week’s worth of travel rations, a tent and bedroll, torches, a length of light rope, a hatchet and some a flask of lamp oil. After a long, thoughtful look at Rondo, Venus doubled the amount of rations; she had already seen the sheer amount of food the werewolf could eat.

“I’m not sure that morningstar is necessary after all” Venus told her lover back in her quarters, a teasing smile appearing on her face as she ran her hands down his muscled chest “you already have an impressive weapon, don’t you?”

Rondo smirked “Perhaps some kind of weapons demonstration is in order?”

“Perhaps it is” Venus said, grinning.