Home > Campaigns > Book 6, Chapter 2 - Secrets of the Swamp
Secrets of the Swamp
Swamps are unpleasant places. This particular one was cold and creepy, not to mention disorienting. We still wandered, looking for the researchers' castle. At one point, we were wading through a pool because there was quicksand on both sides. Mical jumped, exclaiming that something had bitten him. He lifted his leg from the water to find a huge fish hanging from his knee. As his blood dripped into the water, many more fins appeared. Lyra cast 'faerie fire' so that we could see the piranha beneath the murky water. They converged on Mical, attracted by the scent of blood. The fish bit him repeatedly, but we were able to slay them before serious harm was done.
We slept fitfully that night, and early in the morning, Spartan informed me that something large was moving near us. As we waited in silence, something splashed and began croaking. We suspected more frogs. Our suspicions were confirmed when we sighted a big green and purple frog. We promptly went the opposite direction, avoiding any confrontation.
We camped yet another night in the bog. Mical was on watch, carving a doodad, when he felt that something was staring at him. Eleven bloated, pale humanoids stood a short distance away. Their skin was peeling off, their tongues protruded from their mouths, and the eyesockets were empty. Each wielded a weapon, such as a club or hook. Mical woke us and immediately we smelled them, the scent of foul water. I felt nauseated.
He tried to turn them, suspecting that they were undead, but had no effect. Two of them waved their hands, and all of us glowed pink! I never heard of zombie spellcasters before, and I still haven't found what these foul creatures were. Mical then cast 'prayer' while Lagasse attacked, I cast 'magic missile,' and Lyra cast 'entangle' on six of them. A hook scratched her, and Lagasse began to get uncomfortably warm in his armor. I again cast 'magic missile' on one of the spellcasters, but then one of the others cast 'cause light wounds' on Lyra. What a mess.
One of the nasty things made the mistake of hitting Mical, who sliced it in half. He then decapitated another before hitting himself with his small axe. I cast my last 'magic missile,' then threw holy water at one of them. Its flesh bubbled, but still it flailed at Lyra. Lagasse's armor was beginning to glow with heat, but he can take a lot of punishment. He killed one, then another. Lyra got one, then we both started shooting at the entangled ones. That part was easy. After making sure they were all dead, we went back to sleep. Being lost makes one very tired.
The next day, we tried walking southwest again. Midday, my hawk let me know that the mist seemed thinner to our right. There was a strange sight. Various types of large, dead trees surrounded the ruins of a fort. It was overgrown with vegetation and protected by a moat. Green grass surrounded the area, except for 20-50 feet around each tree. Small animal skeletons lay in the dead grass areas. We worried about what that portended.
The structure was about 200 feet wide. We could tell that there had once been towers at each of the four corners. The moat was twenty feet across, and was green, stagnant, and slimy looking. We approached the moat, avoiding both the trees and the dead spots. The drawbridge was broken. Lyra glanced back and noticed that four of the trees had moved from where they were, leaving their circles of dead grass behind. We didn't actually see them move, though.
Lagasse tested the moat's deepness by dropping in a grappling hook, finding that it was about four or five feet deep. Suddenly, bright balls of light flew at us from different directions. The magic missiles hit Mical and me. I had never been on the receiving end of that spell before. It sucks.
We spotted two humanoid heads peering through some reeds. They popped under the water quickly, and we saw that the trees were closer. One of them was actually using its roots as legs. The heads popped back up, so we retreated back to the misty area away from the trees. As we fled, we heard voices shouting, "Go away, leave us alone!"
Lagasse called back, "We mean you no harm!" One of the voices hissed back, "It is our land. Why are you here?" He replied, "We are looking for something to defeat the Cult of the Dragon." It announced, "This is our land! Go away!" We looked at each other and shrugged. Lagasse tried again. "We need your help! " The voice responded, "We don't care. Leave!"
One of the trees took a swipe at us, so we ran further and pondered our situation. We thought that perhaps those in the water were some sort of mutated elves, so we didn't want to harm them. Still, we needed to get into that fortress, and would have to defend ourselves. We were no longer lost, at least.
