Thursday Evening October 2nd, 2240. Mapleflake Village-City Outskirts…..
Claude slept. For an hour or two. He experienced another Romulean Dream— as Arne put it.
He wasn't a beastial fox under a full moon fighting Lupine monsters.
He wasn't a massive brown furred Islandian tiger either.
He wasn't any animal.
On two legs he stood— humanoid, dense, powerful. Thick wiry dark fur covered the backside of his arms and a pair of tusks pushed up against his upper lip like facial ram-horns.
He was an Orc.
He knew that long before he was charged by a massive black-furred bear and saw his own reflection in its dark-red eyes.
What looked back at him wasn't entirely foreign. He still had his long black hair and green eyes. His nose was still long and beakish— if only a bit exaggerated by bovine transformation.
He was there.
Claude was an Orc. Hidden beneath layers of dense muscle, boar fur and fang-tusks.
And he was fighting for his life. For more than his life he realized as he heard the young squeals of his kin and offspring.
The sounds-- the smells of fear lit a fire in his gut that burned power into his limbs and rage into his higher mind.
With the careless hunger of an omnivore, the bear lunged and bit a chunk out of Claude's massive shoulder.
He roared and shook his head. His fang-tusks tore up the bear's muzzle and ripped out one of it's eyes.
With a panicked screech, the bear stood up on two legs. Claude took the chance to rise and charged the beast's midsection, dropping to one knee and slide around to its backside. With his massive arms wrapped around it's waist, Claude lifted the bear and suplexed it into the earth so hard the ground cracked.
He rolled out of the body slam and got to his feet, charging the bear from the side to kick it in the ribs so hard he could feel them shatter against his bare shin even beneath the dense layers of fur.
It didn't matter. The bear still moved with a wild freshness. An insidious hunger that pulled the brute off the ground and charging into him once again.
He caught it by the shoulders, hear the crackle of air as it snapped it's jaws at his chest and stomach.
Claude brought his knee up into the bear's throat. Windpipe crushed.
The bear continued.
Claude's feet slid across the dirt. Behind him, his kin huddled together in terror. It all felt so real. The pebbles digging into his feet. The blood leaking from his shoulder with every adrenalized pulse. He could gag from exhaustion.
He didn't. He dug deep-- instinctually attuned to manipulating the energies spinning in his gut. Power derived from diet. From hunger. Fuel in the physical and arcane sense.
As he was pushed closer to his kin-- as the bear neared. He changed. His dense nails lengthened into claws. The fur spread across his chest as his muscles grew. His eyes went slitted--mimicking those of the mountain-lion he'd eaten before the bear came.
With his new abilities and form, he roared into the bear's face so loud it stunned the beast.
From there-- with a feline explosiveness, he pounced onto the bear and wrapped his hands around its neck, digging his curled claws deep before ripping it's throat out and cutting through the spinal bone within.
The bear fell. He stood over.
He blinked. Dark night winds filled his nose. Cave walls met his eyes. Frosty slept with his head rested on Claude's stomach.
Hesitantly, he raised a hand to his eyes. Human skin-- no feline claws.
Until he focused-- until he strained. The skin darkened. Fur spread. Black claws extended from the base of what was once white dirtied nails.
"What's the difference?" He asked.
"[Welcome back. Any dreams?]"
"Yea. I was an Orc.... an Orc Werelion?"
"[Did you happen to eat a handful of psychedelic shrooms at some point?]" Arne asked as Frosty got up and sniffed Claude before licking his forehead.
"No."
"[....well... it's not completely implausible. There was a tribe of Hound-Orcs I once fought in Arthuria. They ate warhounds to maintain their abilities--]"
"Arne, it was a Romulean Dream."
"[But you weren't.....ahhh... I guess that makes sense.]"
"What makes sense?" Claude asked.
"[Nothing. Not now at least. What were the details of the dream?]"
Claude sat up, "I was trying to stop a bear from eating me.... and my kids.]"
"[Lets see if I'd make a good diviner of dreams. The premise seems simple. Orc's are often associated with hunger.....rage... battle and community. Aim these concepts at the focus of your dream. Protection. And the werelion aspect. Something fierce-- spiritual and graceful. I think you have a fierce hunger to reclaim the innocence of heroism. Considering the talk we just had, I think my sword strikes as true as my claws cut deep.]"
"What does the bear mean?" Claude asked.
"[There are parts of you that wish to consume that very thing. And like the bear, It's instinctive. It's not predatory. There's no killing urge. Only the urge to satiate something else.]"
Claude shook off a shudder at the idea.
"[Claude. You won. Carry that with you and you'll win tonight as well. You have a precarious battle under way. You've already done the impossible twice.]" Arne said.
"What impossible?" Claude asked.
"[Claude, you won your Romulean Dream. No one has ever survived it-- not when genuine beasts appear beyond a hunt. You've done it three times now. Another impossibility. Three dreams. You Potential's are bizarre.]"
Claude took the quest paper out of his pocket from Embra.
"Not as bizzare as wendigo's."
"[Ahhh I wouldn't speak so soon.]"