Tango and Ssatschia finish an unrelated fishing trip, scheduled as PTO before Alpha caught the Wardenwood werewolf mission, and meets up with Rodolf who sends them through the Hall of Doors to hopefully reunite with Alpha Company already in progress.
Tango and Ssatschia step out of the Hall of Doors into the dark, howling, forest smelling forest. Ssatschia lights his arm and they pick up the trail of rope that Scram left from the Hall of Doors toward Wardenwood via Drusilla’s cabin where the rest of Alpha have just retreated with the liberated children. A couple of wolves come around for an easy meal or some scritching. Tango and Ssatschia put them down.
The woods fill with darkness and the sounds of howling. Nala and Moth shepherd most of the children back into the cellar. Scram scoops up one of the rescued catatonic girls and drops her into the basement just in time to save her from the huge werewolf that bursts through the rotting cabin’s west wall, scoops up three less fortunate catatonic girls, and flees deep into the woods with them. Moments later the werewolf bursts through the north wall at the cellar door, makes an inquiry about its other children before noticing them through the gappy floorboards. The werewolf leaves emptyhanded this time but for a smack from Moth.
Moonlight filters through the trees and into the cellar of children who begin to affect a more wolf-like behavior. Snory feels vindicated yet imminently endangered as Alpha realizes they have fought so hard to liberate a dozen juvenile werewolves. Nala drags the cabin’s bed onto the cellar door. Moth adds his density to the barrier. Snory, Scram, and Nala hasten out the front door. The commotion attracts the approaching attention of Ssatschia and Tango. Ssatschia risks contact: Hail and well met, Alpha Company, anybody out there? Scram gives the only countersign he can: Hail and well met, Alpha Company, anybody out there?
Reunited outside the cabin, Snory catches Ssatschia and Tango up on the most relevant details: there are a few loose werewolves. Any of them that look like children are actually children and maybe should not be slain right away, at least according to Nala. Nala bonks a werepup out with the flat of her greatsword by way of demonstration. Bed-sitting Moth pulls another werepup, wereHanna in fact, with his dart and then punches it unconscious. Just when it seems like knocking little werepups out will be an easy task, the huge progenitor werewolf, Victoria, steps out of the forest ready to Tango. Tango announces, This ain’t no kid! Tango is ready to Victoria. Unable to land anything on monkey arming Tango, discouraged Victoria leaps away back into the forest leaving a werepup to fight her fight. Nala knocks the werepup unconscious.
Snory probes northeast and defensively points at lurking Victoria. Tango charges in with his prodigious offhand kukri. Victoria ripostes with her legendary claw attack. Again, Tango monkey arms Victoria’s onslaught and she leaps away, this time barking for help. Ssatschia offers a healing word for Tango. Scram fires up his mizzium apparatus for a little werewolf sleep action but instead evokes a chaos bolt that impacts a cold spot on Victoria. Nala charges Victoria critically and action surges her greatsword in exchange for some legendary claw action. Tango slips around and sneaks a fatal kukri, slaying Victoria.
Moth wedges the bed with some of the busted cabin lumber and steps out of the cabin to survey the damage. More werepups, summoned by recently defeated Victoria, arrive to avenge her. Moth, Nala, and Tango knock out the pups. Tango experimentally feeds one of his curse removal potions into an unconscious werepup and it encouragingly reforms back into a child. Curse removal is administered to all the unconscious tikes and they are collected into the cabin for the rest of the night.
As weariness and moonlight fight with the sunrise, Nala and Moth find trusting, endearing children in the cellar rather than rowdy, ravenous werepups. They convince the children to take their curse removal medicine. Tango hunts a bag full of breakfast birds. Scram and Snory make a discrete examination of Victoria’s remains and drag her off the path to prevent any trauma with the children.
The party and its sixteen rescued children proceed northeast to the quaint town of Wardenwood where the shacks sag as much as the villagers. Lead villager Matilda observes the loose children with some concern. Why would they be taken from Drusilla the friendly fey hag? What happened to dear Drusilla? Scram answers with an unnervingly accurate recreation of Drusilla’s death screams. Tango reaches for the diplomatic reset button.
Tango explains to the villagers that they have been saved by the noble heroes of Quastarte, their children liberated simultaneously from a nasty werewolf, a cruel fey hag, and a lycanthropic curse. Undiplomatic Snory hastens to add that it was Lydia and Remy who brought them there anyway and it is they who should be blamed if the townies do not like the results. But the villagers DO like the results and therefore bestow Alpha Company with the Saviors of Wardenwood achievement. Some administrative sorting of children ensues. Pinky Zigz rewards Nala personally with his favorite toy, a bag of painted lima beans [bag of beans]. Just don’t drop them.