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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pedestrian" data-source="post: 3677968" data-attributes="member: 40208">Session 6: Into the BlackfensSol had decided. He wasn’t fond of boats, didn’t like swamps and downright hated bugs. The first night after getting the little fisher boat, they’d pulled up to the banks of the river, and near immediately been ambushed by goblins. Goblins and worgs. They’d beaten most of them up – Kayan had scared one of with some witchery – but then Xerxes had decided, and Kayan agreed, that it would be best to press up the river for a bit, to make sure that they weren’t stabbed in the night when that one who’d run off came back.Of course, it had to be he, Sol, who pulled the boat back into the river, and he who did most of the rowing. Oh sure, the other two chipped in, but their arms were like match-sticks, and just not up to rowing the little boat for more than an hour at a time.It was also he who had to drag in the boat every night when it was time to rest. Sol had thought they could just tie the boat down somehow and sleep in it. Much simpler. But nope. Kayan and Xerxes both needed their rest so they could do their magic. It didn’t help things that every morning, Xerxes’d wake up like a bear with a sore head, stagger off into the woods and only come back after Sol was sure he’d been stabbed by a goblin. Or ate by a dragon, which seemed common in these parts.About the sixth day on, while still on the river, was when the bugs came. The first of them anyway. Sol had seen bugs before, remembered peeking at swarms of them as a runt in the tribe during summers up in the Wazlad before he was sold. But these bugs were big. Big as his hand! Kayan and Xerxes had done some sorcerery, and the bugs couldn’t get at them. But poor Sol? He ended up crawling with the little blood-suckers. “Stirgees” Xerxes said. Sol didn’t think they looked like fish, but then, he was no book learner.He couldn’t very well chop at them with his axe, even his hammer was too big for the job. He’d had to resort to grabbing them and squishing them, even throwing one of the Stirgees at another. That had been funny, though maybe only because he had been light headed after the little beasts had done their work. And who had had to row the boat, even with feeling so sick he just wanted to curl up and sleep for a month?That’s right, Sol.A few days later, they’d come onto a big lake. Lake Rhestilor. Sol though that was the city they were going to, but he wasn’t sure. As he’d been rowing the boat along, humming a little tune to himself, he’d looked into the water. It was dark, and seemed pretty deep, but every now and again he was sure that he could see stone buildings down in the murk. When he said so to Xerxes, his friend had nodded and stroked his beard. Sol wasn’t sure what to make of that, so he just kept rowing.At least by that point, Kayan had done some magic to make him feel better from the Stigees. And just in time too! More bugs! Even bigger. Sol hadn’t needed the other two to tell him that these were wasps, but he hadn’t known they could grow to the size of a horse! That had been a hard fight, and he’d been stung a few times, which made him feel pretty rough, but they’d won. No sooner had the last bug been dropped into the water, than he’d had to sit himself right back down and start rowing again.That was yesterday. About lunchtime, they’d managed to hit land. Well, sort of land. More mud. But they could walk on it. Xerxes and Kayan hadn’t wanted to leave the boat behind, and Sol figured that it was better not to waste it.So now he was dragging a boat along through a swamp. The other two helped every now and then, but they just didn’t have the arms for it.</blockquote>

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