Winnifred has already fallen to the latest intruder

As though keeping your cool would somehow lead to an unravished castle, you strolled through your Ghost companion's portal with all the swagger of someone completely confident that your castle was well protected while you were gone. Even though the Cult of Strong Bonds may have come back or you could have been hit by someone pre-emptively taking up Noah's event to destroy the monsters, there was no need to worry about that. Your castle was sure to be fine. Completely fine! Completely-

Fucked.

Well, actually, the castle had been in pretty poor repair even when you'd left. You hoped that once Bathory came, she'd be able to help you spruce the place up with her massive reserve of fame. Now that you thought about it, you hoped her reserves of fame also included reserves of materials... you didn't have much in the way of those either. You may have to consider breaking down some old portraits and dining tables for wood.

But right, back to the fucked part. Moving through the entrance hall, you noticed two things: the first was that the door had been broken down and covered in claw marks. It lay on its flat in the doorway, illuminated by the moonlight over-head. You found yourself wishing you'd made some lanterns already, but with nothing like that, you struggled to make out the second detail of the ominous entryway. One of your girls had probably been posted to watch over the front door, right? That made the figure, collapsed near the doorway inside with their face in the dirt, especially foreboding. The closer you got, the more you realized that whoever it was, they weren't just "wearing a pumpkin bikini" naked. They'd been stripped nude and left there. Their own pale moon was shining in the, er, pale moon.

Pike was tan and freckled.

Evilward was tan and swarthy.

Only one of them was this, well, White. This must be Winnifred the White. With her bare ass sticking into the air and her head facing towards the road outward, you hadn't been able to tell at first, but now it was obvious. She was pretty wide back there, at least more so than Pike.

Why in the world had she been the one left to guard the front gates? You started to wonder if anyone was actually guarding anything at all; it seemed a lot more likely that she'd been knocked out and left here. Actually, in hindsight, the fact that Winnifred had been out here was probably a total coincidence. It was hard to imagine that even someone as masochistic as her had come running at the sound of some unknown creature bashing the door down. The problem-- and the reason you'd used the word "fucked"-- was that she had quite clearly been taken doggy-style and then left on the ground. There was no other way to interpret that pose, and once you got closer, you could see tell-tale redness on her bottom and goo dripping from her slit.

If this was either of the other two, you'd be worried. But, as you suspected, when you circled around to the front, Winnifred wore a sex-happy face with a stupid grin on her face and her forehead buried in the dirt. That made you a little less concerned about the attacker... they seemed to have shown her a good time and then kept moving. If he encountered the others, though... he could be in for a tougher time.

You wrapped a few of your tentacles around the blond girl's shoulders to prop her back up onto her bottom, so she could sit upright. At the same time, you snagged a couple of the novice adventurer clothes left behind like litter from the earlier conflict with Dick, then handed them over to her. She seemed to be stuck in some kind of trance; unable to snap your fingers-- for they were vines-- you boomed in your pumpkin voice. Your ghost joined along with you, seeming to enjoy wailing when the situation called for it. "Winnifred!"

"What, who? I'm not into furry stuff! What?" she questioned, snapping herself awake and wiping drool from her chin. "Eek! L-Lord Ickibod! How shameful that you'd see me this way, displaced in defeat..."

In hindsight, you were pretty sure she'd been waiting for you to come along and see her this way all along. She must have a pretty erotic story cooked up to explain this. You sighed, then asked her what happened.

The woman modestly clutched the bundle of clothing you'd handed her in front of her large, milky-white breasts, while crossing her legs to cover her sex. You knew damn well she could just equip the clothing, but she kept going that way anyways, for the sake of embarrassing herself. "A most vile intruder barged in through the front door! I fought to my very last-- literally, my last scrap of clothing-- but as you can see, it was all taken from me. After that... I am ashamed to say it. The creature took... he took..." she sobbed with watering eyes, clutching the unequipped garments tightly.

You couldn't resist, so you finished it for her: your virginity, right?

"So cruel! You say it so easily, you friend!" She bit back her bitter, made-up tears and buried her face in the shirt, which she still hadn't bothered to put on yet.

You told her that you were about 99% sure that-- even as low level as she was-- Winnifred the White wasn't a virgin.

"I was! I was a vegan up to that point! Except for that one time you used my mouth, I hadn't had time to do an thing sexual!" she protested, looking somehow more offended that you'd doubt her character backstory than that she'd been **** by some kind of intruder. It was enough to make you wonder if she'd led on the attacker until they went along with it. "Aren't you my love interest now? Shouldn't you be counseling me?!"

You gave her a childish pat on the round top of her blond hair, then asked if she could give you more details of this "friendish" attacker that had made a mess of your door.

"A villa, hairy beast, walking on two legs with a wolf's snout and claws! You should have seen those nails of his glimmer in the mooned light, sharpened for the kill! He means to make himself the kind of this palace. He called himself-!"

You finished her sentence, causing her to deflate a bit: Lupus. You'd seen the name of a Halloween Werewolf on the Halloween hit list earlier. Extrapolating a bit further, you remembered that the guy's level seemed to be pretty far from the round number it must have started at. Based on the patterns, he was probably the level 20 Halloween boss that inhabited the forest instead of the castle. He'd grown seven whole levels since reappearing and probably not in the cheating way that you managed to, mostly by draining them from Bathory. That showed he was ambitious and constantly on the move... Crap, he'd been what, level 27 when you read the sheet? Even if Evilward and Pike were working together, they were going to get creamed, perhaps literally. A boss like that typically took several adventurers...

Another stray thought entered your head: if Lupus' boss area was the forest and Bathory's was (supposed to be) the castle, what did that make Exxod's? He seemingly started at level 30, right? He ought to be the boss of something... The caves? That didn't make sense... the map said he was at the forest-

"Uuuh, Ickibod? Aren't you worried about the others? I may be okay with-" Winnifred began, raising one eyebrow. When she realized her mistake, she coughed to correct herself. "My faith in my god may have persevered me even after defeat, but they might not take so well to being... defeated. I may have... given the intruder the wrong expectation on how fights with the women here are supposited to play out."

You definitely weren't stalling, hoping Bathory would show up to take care of the level 27 werewolf for you. You didn't know a lot about werewolves, but anything was bad news at level 27, and werewolves weren't exactly known for being gentle nobles in the same way vampires were. You sort of doubted that you were going to beat this one by challenging him to some sort of sexual contest. At the very least, your new silver pumpkin ought to be pretty hard for him to fit down his gullet. Plus, he probably didn't know any magic. Your ghost ought to be safe, though your trickster would still poof at the slightest touch. That made him an unusually valuable ally for this occasion. You asked him if he was ready.

"Uoooowoooooh!"

Good enough!

Your future castle was, unfortunately, pretty darn big. The werewolf hadn't been kind enough to leave huge claw-marks everywhere he went, apart from the door where he broke in, and Winnifred following behind you nor the poorly spoken ghost had any valuable hints for you. You thought you could puzzle it out, though. If you were an annoyingly ambitious werewolf, presumably on the hunt to take over a castle, where would you go? Assuming the guy didn't have a dumb wolf brain, he probably wouldn't go to the baths, the wine cellar, or the armory (more properly thought of as the leather emporium at the moment). More likely, he'd go upstairs, where that grand banquet hall and portrait had been earlier.

Thing were still pretty dang dark, but the candles in your eyes helped you see through the castle better than you'd realized, once you adjusted to the blackness. With that, your party had no need for a torch. Even without the torch, there was no way you were going to sneak up on this guy... For starters, he was a freaking werewolf with wolf-like senses, presumably, and beyond that, you had your lit eyes, your ghost's wailing, and Winnifred's stumbling around with that pumpkin-headed staff. You were happy that, at least, the werewolf hadn't destroyed that staff like he did her clothing.

You asked the others what sort of things would defeat a werewolf. As the ghost droned and Winnifred gave a long "uuuum," you really wished that Pike was with you instead.

"Well," the cleric coughed into one fist, "I did read up on them a little buy while I was trying to learn whether they can impregnate an adventurer. It turns out, they can't! But all I learned past that is that usually, people use silver weapons or expendables they've stocked up. It is also known that the werewolf only spawns at night... which leads many to think he's uncapable of fighting during the day time."

The time of day was exactly wrong for that last detail to matter. The night had just fallen. That meant that the only hope you had was... silver...

Maybe this was going to be an easy confrontation after all. It was time to put your low-level strength to use and give this guy the headbutt of a life-time! At least, you'd keep headbutting him until he agreed to help you. You were really looking forward to having a level 27 subordinate! If he could be convinced to take the same pledge as Evilward, that would be even better... as much so you'd have another hot companion as so he'd have incentive not to repeat his defeat of Winnifred upon your other cultists.

If not, maybe you'd just get him neutered.

"Fucking God, finally," Evilward greeted you, dashing from one side of the room as a black blur swooped through the dining hall after her. You could tell she was liquored up with a cocktail of temporary speed potion, but even so, her health was low and her outfit was in tatters. She'd ended up with only a few shreds of her cape left about her shoulders, such that she was even more naked than her usual outfit, but she was moving so quickly you could barely perceive the details. "The leatherwork is not holding up! Wait, what happened to your head?!"

Thankfully, the creature continued to jump after Evilward as she darted around the large room. This gave you a little bit of time to analyze the situation.

...

Holy hell! How were you going to fight this guy? You couldn't even see him to start analyzing him! He'd basically have to stand still or you'd have to learn a slow motion spell, if you wanted any hope of headbutting him into submission. Further, there was no way to repeat your cursed gear strategy; he wasn't going to just sit still and let you put anything on him.

"Ah, I get it! An unexpectedly fine strategy. You've brought that odd head as a source of silver, haven't you? That's some quick thinking!" your subordinate applauded you, as she briefly stopped atop a table-top. You took a moment to appreciate her long legs and nude ass, all crouched in a leaping stance, before she jumped off and allowed the werewolf to crash down into it.

Yep... Quick thinking. Not complete coincidence. You told her you didn't think it was going to help a heck of a lot; you had no idea how to nail this guy with a headbutt.

"Don't be a dumbass. Get somebody to distract the werewolf for a moment and I'll handle the rest."

You looked between your humble group. There was you, the ghost, Winnifred, and your Trickster, who showed up at some point and was now nervously hiding behind Winnifred, not seeming to realize that the two together would just make a doubly tasty snack for him. Would the werewolf go for seconds on Winnifred if you sent her out? Unlikely... he seemed pretty intent on getting his hands upon the caramel-colored, jiggling buttocks of your Justiciar. You racked your brain, trying to think of an appropriate answer with your limited tools on-hand...