"Baron Tshalen spoke of his 'master' with absolute devotion," Bellamie points out, having returned eventually. "He retained his mind, his skill and personality, but was given over wholly to the beast; what he had been told to do, he embraced, even justified as his own desires. This was a man of towering pride and stubborn independence, of fire and anger and mighty will - and he did not even feel shame at what he had become. He gloried in it." His gaze is cast down, his eyes seeing something else altogether. "It may be possible to free those less strongly taken, or to appeal to the goals and loyalties they once held. But those Manethander has taken fully have nothing left to reach out to, nothing that does not willingly serve him with every fiber of their being."
He looks to the Patriarch. "As to discovering the souls so afflicted, I can add little to Master Kaleiman's words. Baron Tshalen used the Shadow World as his passage throughout my keep, dismissing walls and bars from his notice. As he strode through it, dark bonds could be seen sunk into his flesh; I believe them to have been the power that made him a ghoul, revealed there by the nature of that place, but I cannot say how else they might be discovered. And as Master Kaleiman says, those taken less fully may show no signs at all."
"Master Kaleiman has told us of what the creatures we face may be. Have we knowledge of their numbers or their lairs as well? If we are to make plans, we must at least know to where we must march.
