Branan Williams, a blood witch and cleric of Barbas, god of fear, is visited by his patron deity in a dream. In this dream, Barbas asks the witch to solve a problem that the god had created with good intentions: He has requested that Branan slay a shapeshifting beast born of pure fear. During his and his friends' descent into the beast's lair, caves and tunnels beneath the town it had been set upon, the blood witch is preoccupied with contemplating the words of his patron deity while attempting to make a strategy for dealing with the beast. His friends, on the other hand, become focused on their fears and anxieties, threatening them with becoming the beast's next prey...
