Session #3 – “Into the Bog” (Part 1 of 3)
Tavius led them to a broad muddy field behind the village to the west. The muck was deep, and they could see rough edge of the bog’s willows and thorny shrubs a few hundred yards ahead of them in the light of the waning moon.
“Ra smite it!” Telémahkos cursed. He had veered way off the general path Tavius led them on and his horse got one hoof stuck deep in the mud. (1) He yanked at the reins awkwardly and kicked futilely with his legs as the horse whinnied nervously.
“You didn’t need to go that far out,” Victoria said. She dismounted and walked over to help free the horse, instructing Telémahkos what to do. “No! No! You are fighting me! To the left!”
When the horse was finally freed, Timotheus had turned back, followed by Markos. Laarus of Ra rode up ahead to stop along side Bleys and talked with him in quiet tones. Ahead, Tavius and Valerius the squire waited for them.
“Telémahkos! This is ridiculous! You know if you pulled something like this when we are in a dangerous area you could get yourself killed! Or any of us!” Timotheus scolded his cousin.
“He was just stuck for a moment. He is free now,” Victoria said, taken aback by Timotheus’ outburst.
“This is just the kind of stupid thing that could get him killed,” Tim said. “I won’t have him killed on my watch!”
“And that is why it is foolish for us to go into the bog at night,” Markos said. “It increases the chances of one or more of us dying by an unacceptable margin…”
“And what do you suggest?” Victoria asked.
“That we wait until daylight…”Markos began.
“I thought we went over this? Sir Quintus will likely die if we tarry too long,” Victoria replied. “Time is of the essence.”
“I do not agree,” Markos said. “Either they have eaten him already in which case, our hurrying and blundering into bog is only a danger, or they still hold him alive, in which case we lose nothing by waiting until first light. Lizardfolk can see well in the dark. We cannot.”
“Is this not what we discussed and voted upon? Need we go over it again?” Timotheus asked, exasperated.
“Yes, we voted on it, and I said then what I am saying now, but there seemed to be some renewed doubt, so I was reiterating my point,” Markos replied.
“Well… I could stay behind with the horses…” Telémahkos started.
“No! Let’s go and stay close to me!” Timotheus did not hide his emotions. He spurred his horse and headed back towards the guide and the others. Bleys and Laarus were just starting to turn around to see what was keeping the others when everyone fell in line again. This time, Telémahkos was close behind his cousin, and Markos rode along side, continuing to argue his point.
Tavius reached the edge of the bog. He looked back at the group from the entrance to a gravel track winding into the darkness, to make sure no one was straggling too far behind. He raised his lantern high as he straightened his tall lanky form on his mud-cover pony. A sudden breeze carried a fetid smell down their line.
Markos held up his horse to fall back into his spot on the line, as suddenly Telémahkos started having trouble with his horse again. It whinnied and then its rear dropped towards the mud and it half-stumbled back forcing Telie to grab about it neck to stay on. The ends of his blue-white toga dipped in the mud, and he sighed as he pulled at his chain shirt, and then looked at the reins in his hands as if they were foreign to him.
“That’s it! I change my vote!” Timotheus announced, turning around at the entrance to the bog. “This is too risky!”
“So, you are suggesting we leave a noble to his fate…” Laarus said in an even tone that somehow still suggested disappointment. His sharp features, with a prominent hawk-nose and his close-cut red hair and thin eyebrows helped to reinforce the authority of his holy symbol and bejeweled and gold-threaded finery.
“I could go back…” Telémahkos began again. He slipped his old fashioned
Lethean helmet off his head, careful not to catch the knot of blond hair that stuck through a round slot at the top of the helmet.
“No, we should all go for help,” Timotheus said. “We should go to Gullmoor and see if we can raise some men-at-arms from Sir Quintus’ father’s keep, instead of going into the swamp looking for trouble…”
“Who is looking for trouble?” Laarus frowned.
“We are going into the swamp to save a knight from lizardfolk who abducted him. Do you think we will be able to just ask nicely and they will give him back?” Timotheus.
“Yes,” said Laarus. “If they fall under the jurisdiction if the
Thrician Racial Covenant, then perhaps they simply need to be reminded of their responsibilities to it as well.”
“Unless of course, they see our arrival are an invasion of the territory, in which case we may be liable to their sovereign laws, according to that same covenant,” Bleys explained in his typical emotionless tone.
“Be that as it may, diplomacy shall have to be our first and most aggressively pursued option,” Laarus said.
“I still think this is foolish,” Markos said. The small man looked uncomfortable on horseback. He rubbed the back of his suntanned neck after slapping at a midnight mosquito. “We should seek out the knight’s keep and seek his kin to aid us in his return.
“Your opinion is known to all, cousin Markos,” Laarus replied.
“And sirs… If I can be so bold to interrupt,” Valerius had leapt of his horse to help lead Telémahkos’ steed to surer footing. “Gullmoor is nearly two hours away at best, and is past the deep part of the bog…”
“The kid’s right,” Tavius said. He was covering his mouth intermittently to arrest his laughter at the party’s bickering. “Unless you have a boat and good route mapped out, we’re talking six hours to get out there and then back out to where he said they took him from…”
“If we are to continue on then let us do it more slowly and carefully,” Telémahkos said.
“Yes, I agree,” Timotheus said, sighing. “And… If I call a retreat, I want everyone to retreat, okay? Do you all agree? I don’t want anyone lagging behind to play martyr…” He looked around and there were a few nods, but Victoria’s face looked stern in the lantern light.
“Victoria? Do you agree?” Timotheus asked again.
“If you choose to retreat and want to lead the others to safety, then that is your business,” Victoria replied. The militant’s dark eyes were shadowed by lantern light against her open-faced helmet; her dark hair curled out beneath the edges of it. “I shall do as Anhur would have me do. It is up to you if you should choose to shame the gods by fleeing…”
Timotheus’ jaw dropped, and Markos winced at the woman’s cutting disdain.
“Fine,” Tim decided to ignore her tone. “Then we all agree; if I call a retreat, Victoria shall be the rearguard.”
Tavius of Bog End warned them to be quieter. Timotheus followed him with Telémahkos close behind, and then came Bleys the Aubergine, Valeris the Squire, Laarus of Ra, Markos Ackers and finally Victoria. Markos tried to hand the militant a lantern.
“No thank you,” Victoria said. “If we should need more light I can call to Anhur to provide.”
“By the time we realize we need light it may be too late,” Markos said. “This will help spot anyone approaching from a distance…”
“I do not need to carry it…” Victoria said.
“We need light and whoever holds the light is a target, thus… I need
you to carry it,” Markos said with a weak smile.
“Heh,” Victoria spurred her horse and snatched the lantern from the diminutive man. “If we are attacked I will be handing it back to you…”
“Of course,” Markos replied.
Bleys lit a
gnomish torch, and the green-hued spitting flame of the strange light source hovered around him.
The track through the varying dripping growth of the bog was made of piles of gravel smoothed out further and further into the wetland. In most places, it was two or three feet above the surface of the fetid water around, but in others the track was flooded over, and cracked by thick vines that had pushed their way violently through the piled stone. Every now and again, they had to dismount at Tavius’ direction to lead their horses over wooden planks laid across sudden deep narrow gullies, or slick and uneven muddy streams. Other times it was simply the thickness of the growth above that forced the riders off their mounts.
Isis’ light flittered fitfully from the waning moon, hovering somewhere between half and a quarter, casting muted webs of shadows on the companions as they marched deeper into the bog for over an hour on edge with every nearby croak, screech of bats overhead, or random gurgle of the water all around them. But suddenly there was another sound: A muted neigh followed by some splashing.
Ahead the track veered to the right, and on the left of it was a deep pool of black muck. The sound came from within the pool. Timotheus readied his shield and drew his sword. Telémahkos dismounted and began to load his heavy crossbow.
Laarus of Ra leaned over to Bleys with a smile. “If this is the reaction to a horse, I fear for our future endeavors.”
“Can we be so sure it is a horse?” Bleys asked, ever-serious.
Tavius spurred his pony forward and raised his lantern as everyone, but Victoria, dismounted. Those at the front could see the upper portion of a warhorse in the thick muck at the center of the pool. It was kicking and leaping to free itself, but was only succeeding in wedging itself deeper and deeper.
Bleys muttered an arcane word and smeared a bit of phosphorescent moss on the bridge of his nose and suddenly the light of Tavius’ lantern shed light twice as far for him. (2) The watch-mage could see large rounded rocks creating a craggy wall beyond the pool.
“You heard that?!” Laarus asked. There was an animalistic clicking coming from beyond the pool. There was an answering triple-click and a hiss. Bleys noted glowing eyes low between twq rocks where the sound had come from, but when he turned to get a good look they were gone.
The horse struggled some more. The muck in the pool churned, gurgled and splashed.
“How do you suggest the free the horse?” Timotheus asked Tavius. The local guide shrugged his shoulders.
“It is a waste of time to try to get it out,” Telémahkos said
“My cousin may be right,” Timotheus said. “It will take a great deal of effort and we still may not succeed in anything but being delayed.”
“I have a spell that could help in freeing the horse,” Markos suggested, moving forward amid the horses. He had to squeeze by Vaerius who was struggling to keep three horses in line, as the nearby horse in danger was making them skittish. “But it will take me fifteen minutes to prepare the spell in question…” (3)
“We are here to rescue the knight, not his horse…” Telémahkos said.
“Is there a difference?” Laarus asked. “I mean, might we not need his horse if we rescue him and need a quick escape?”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Bleys said with a grunt. He was loading his heavy crossbow.
“I will prepare the spell.” Markos moved to the back of the line again, and spreading out his cloak, sat down on the track to prepare his spell.
The clicking and hissing came again.
“Tavius, what sort of creature do you think is making that sound?” Timotheus asked the guide.
“Oh that? That’s them there, muckies… ‘Muckdwellers’ they call them. We call them lizard rats,” Tavius said. “They generally too afraid to mess with humans, but they are clever.”
”So they are animals?”
“Well, smarter than a dog,” Tavius said. “But not as smart as a human or a greenback…”
There was an excited hiss and the stuck horse let out a stomach-turning scream as a small reptilian creature, vaguely bipedal, with a crest on its head and back, and a stubby tail about half the length of its foot-long body leapt onto its haunch. It was brown and green, and latched itself onto the side of the horses neck and began to tear small strips of flesh from it.”
“Lizard rat!” cried Tavius.
Bleys the Aubergine’s dark purple robes rippled like shadow in the lantern light as he spun to fire his heavy crossbow at the creature. The bolt flew high, as he was trying to avoid hitting the horse.
“Let them have the horse!” Markos called to the others, slamming his book shut and giving up on his study. “Why bring them down on us?”
“What a tiny lil thing!” Telémahkos cried. “It’s almost cute.” He fired his heavy crossbow as well, and also missed. He turned to his cousin. “Maybe we’d be better off aiming at the horse and putting it out of its misery…”
“Tavius, you have the light, you keep an eye out!” Timotheus ordered, dropping his shield and sword in the mucky gravel and drawing his longbow from his horse.
The horse screamed again and leapt futilely as a second of the creatures leapt upon its flank. The horse’s agony echoed across the bog, as did the voices of the signers of the Charter of Schiereiland.
“Telémahkos! Timotheus! Beware!” From her vantage point still atop her horse, the woman warrior had noticed the wake of two small forms approaching the edge of the pool. Two the tiny reptilian creatures splashed out of the mire about ten feet in front of the line. With a flick of their little heads, they spat globules of swamp water at the two cousins, but both were able to turn their heads and avoid whatever effect was meant from the attack.
“Ahhh!” Telémahkos’ womanly cry echoed as he panicked and hurled his heavy crossbow at one of the creatures. As usual,
Bes’ luck was with him. The weapon slammed into the creature and then the bowstring caught about its neck and spun around knocking it twice more before dragging it the muckdweller into the muck it emerged from. (4)
As Laarus moved up, shield strapped to his arm, and drawing his flail, Timotheus sent one of the attacking muckdwellers yelping into the muck as an arrow buried itself in its side. “Laarus! Don’t get to far too far ahead. We don’t want to be separated.”
“We are being watched from behind!” came Victoria’s warning from the rear of the line. She had noted the silhouette of humanoid creature at the edge of the shadowy illumination of Markos’ lantern.
“Move the horses up,” Markos called to Valerius. “We need to keep the group together, feeling the gap between the rear and the front groups had gotten too wide. The horse screamed again, and this time it managed to make a great, almost impossible leap. It floundered on its side for a half moment, and then sunk again, having only moved perhaps six or seven feet. In that same moment, two more of the muckdwellers popped up and spat, and this time Timotheus cried out as the burning swamp water blinded him. He quickly pulled his bow over his shoulder and wiped with one arm, while reaching for his waterskin with the other.
Bleys moved along side Tim and took a shot with his crossbow, missing again. “I am on your right,” (5) he said to the blinded warrior. Laarus managed to get near one and crushed its skull with one heavy blow from his flail.
“Mighty Anhur! Our enemies seek to surround us in the darkness! Give me light to foil their plans!” Victoria prayed and suddenly the tip of her long spear shone like a bright torch. She raised it up to cast light widely, but the silhouetted figure she had seen was gone.
A third muckdweller was now tearing off chunks of the dying horse, while another popped up and spat at Laarus, blinding him as well. Tim had given up trying to wash it out and was fumbling on the ground for his sword and shield.
“Tim! Do you see my crossbow over there? Can you get it before it sinks?” Telémahkos was on the other side of his horse from the battle, retrieving a dagger and his rapier at a careful pace. Tavius held both the reins of his pony, and of Tim’s horse, keeping them calm in the chaos of the fight. He looked over at Telémahkos with astonishment, disgust and amusement.
“That is my master’s horse!” Vaerius cried when he was finally close enough to see into the center of the pool by the lantern light. He was struggling back and forth to keep the horses calm and move them up the track two at a time at Markos’ direction, but did not seem to be doing it fast enough for the sun-tanned son of House Raymer. He turned to see if Victoria was following him, but was shocked to see her going back down the track away from the rest of the group.
“Stupid bitch,” he muttered.
“Forget your crossbow! Find my waterskin!” Timotheus yelled back to his cousin as his vision returned. He scooped up his shield and weapon. “Let’s keep moving forward and drive these things back. Keep shooting!” He charged up and cleaved a skull in twain, and spun to block the spitting attacks of three others with his shield, as he heard them leap up out of the pool at the top of the track.
“How can I shoot without a crossbow?” Telémahkos asked dejectedly. He stepped out carefully from behind his horse and threw a dagger at one of the muckdwellers menacing Laarus, missing.
There was a twang as Bleys let loose with another crossbow bolt as he guided Laarus back away from the melee. However, half a moment later, the priest’s vision returned, as streams of greenish tears poured down his face. He let loose with a sling stone at one of the muckdwellers on the horse and missed. Noticing the ones at the top of the track he crammed his sling in his belt and drew his flail once again.
Bleys dropped his crossbow and drawing his saber charged into the muckdwellers attacking Timotheus. Laarus of Ra was on his heels. Tim, however, was not having much trouble. He killed one easily, and another flinched from a swing that missed and then fled. Bleys startled another, and before it could flee, Laarus killed it with a crunch.
“There is not enough room!” Valerius complained. Markos was still trying to move everyone’s abandoned horses up the narrow track by slapping them on the hindquarters, while Valerius with frazzled nerves tried to keep them calm and move them with more care. Most of the horses, including the packhorse, were not trained to remain calm in battle situations, and the scent nearby dying horse did not help.
”Whoever it was, is gone,” said Victoria riding up to re-join the others. The remaining muckdwellers fled into the rocks beyond the pool, laden with huge strips of raw horseflesh.
Telémahkos stepped into the edge of the pool to retrieve his crossbow from the muck, having to reach his arms up to his shoulders to get it. It would have to be cleaned well before it could be used again.
Victoria described what she saw behind the group, and everyone was fairly certain it was one of the lizardfolk.
“Well, they know we are coming…” Timotheus said.
“We could have guessed that already,” Markos replied.
“Could they have sent those creatures after us?” Victoria asked.
“Doubtful,” Markos said. “Most likely they were just drawn by the defenseless horse and thought we would take their dinner from them.”
Hardly more than twenty-five minutes later the gravel track led to rocky island covered in mud and roots, and lined with many small willows. The moon was setting, but they could see the blue-black outline of great hill before them against the night sky. They had noticed the hill once or twice before on their journey, looming.
“This where it happened!” Valerius announced. “My master dismounted over here, and then the lizardfolk emerged from the left and right.” The squire dismounted and walked over to each spot he was pointing out.
“Lizardfolk of the bog!” Bleys called out into the darkness. “We have come seeking Sir Quintus Gosprey! We wish to parley!” The watch-mage’s words echoed across the swamp.
to be continued…
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Notes:
(1) Telémahkos was actually using a combination of handle animal and bluff to delay the group further by pretending to be inept at riding it in the muck. All the other times during the journey into the swamp where he has horse trouble are similar attempts.
(2) This spell is
low-light vision
(3) The spell he was thinking of is called,
float. In Aquerra, wizards may overwrite prepared spells by spending 15 minutes per caster level to do so. However, the spell to be written over is immediately spoiled when the process of preparation is started. Thus, if the preparation is interrupted, the wizard merely has an unusable slot until he has an opportunity to begin preparation again.
(4) On his turn, Telémahkos threw his heavy crossbow taking the –4 penalty for an improvised or non-standard weapon, but hit anyway, and doing enough damage (on 1d3) to take out the 2 hp muckdweller.
(5) All tactics talk during combat in our games has to be done in character and characters can only speak on their own turn. This includes aiding/guiding characters that have some form of sensory deprivation, such as being blind.