Chronicle: Session 15

With the dwarf Stonefist at the tiller, Team Jailbird take to the waterways once more.

On the long morning’s journey, Tsalta entertains herself with animal-watching, enjoying the wildlife of the highlands - shaggy auburn cows grazing on the hillside, the sheep all dozing sedately in the summer heat. She even catches sight of a group of young bucks, their antlers a dramatic crimson from the beginning of their year's molt.

Fergus, too, is passing the time with the help of the local fauna, but in his case it’s the fish in the river below. Leaning over the side of the boat, he amuses himself by catching and releasing them with his bare hands. In fact, the trout-tickling proves too easy to be a worthwhile distraction - soon he's practically juggling fish, scooping them from the water and helping them catch some air before they plop back into the river. (Some of them must be having as much fun as Fergus, because they swim back for a couple more throws!) Tsalta watches the performance with abject delight.

Nothing pores over the map, staring at that glowing X and wondering how best to steer her companions towards it without it seeming strange. And in that way that thoughts occur to you just a little too late, she remembers that she could have bought the components to summon a familiar. Hearing her patron again reminded her, but now they're out of town - damn it. Oh well. She can do that next stop, maybe.

Faeleth reads, and ponders her future novel. She mulls on the books she's read, and you know what? She could've done those better, she reckons - under her penmanship there'd be none of those plot holes, she'd change that cliché twist, that oh-so-vanilla scene from Paladin would be a hundred times steamier. With each mental edit, she gains perfect new material for her own title, and she's feeling pretty great about how it's shaping up.

The afternoon goes on, the boat chugs ever forward. The party snack, and read, and make idle chat to while the time away. The bank of the river begins to give way to soupy marshland, a mist hanging in the air and bringing with it a chill that at first might feel pleasant after the noonday sun. But as the journey goes on and that mist transitions into an unseasonable fog that begins to curl in around the boat, all aboard slowly begin to realise something is amiss - When was the last time anyone heard birdcalls? When was the last time anyone heard anything but the hum of the arcane engine or the lapping of the water at the sides of the boat?

The fog grows denser, and the light dims despite it surely not being evening yet. It’s giving everyone the heebie-jeebies. The silence is oppressive.

"Is it usually like this here?" Nothing asks Stonefist, as she fidgets with her wand. Stonefist confesses that he doesn't usually travel this way. Our driver is as disconcerted as any of the rest of the party, and asks - can we keep watch? She nods. "'Course. Don't you worry, if anything's out there, we can deal with it."

The dwarf does not seem greatly reassured, huddling up at his place by the tiller with his shoulders visibly tense.

Fergus peers out into the depths of the fog, wary that something might be lurking. The shifting grey moves in strange patterns and shapes, playing tricks on the eyes - strange, impossible shadows loom and warp, vanishing just as soon as he focuses on them. For a moment, he could be sure he saw a face swirl into being, but in a blink it’s gone. Even the sparse, scrubby plants of the marshland look like they're moving by themselves. This place is deeply discomfiting.

Tsalta borrows Stonefist's mooring-stick, testing the depth of the water below - it's deep enough that nobody but herself or Faeleth would be able to walk it. "Nothing," she says, "maybe keep to the middle of the boat. Don't go...leaning over the sides, or anything."

"Wasn't planning on it."

No matter how hard everyone peers out into the fog, none catch sight of anything other than the ever ever-swirling, shifting grey. What faint twilight there was begins to fade to darkness, and the lack of visibility forces Stonefist to direct the boat at a painfully slow rate. Stonefist sighs. "A'right, you guys, I'm sorry - we're going to have to stop for the night. I cannae see."

It’s time to moor up and bunk down, whether we like it or not. In the dark and the fog, it’s no longer safe to press on. A tree growing from the marshy waters makes a serviceable mooring-point - anchored by a trio of ropes, the boat is held still with reassuring security.

Stonefist pulls out his bedroll and is asleep in no time at all, but the rest of the party are far less eager to turn in. They stay up for a little longer, peering into the dark and murmuring their disconcertion to one another, until Tsalta sighs and points out very sensibly that everyone will need their energy if something is to happen. We should take shifts, and at least try to get some rest.

It’s not an easy night’s sleep, out in the clinging, silent damp. Stonefist’s grating snores don’t help much, either. Faeleth volunteers first watch, and Fergus second. They forego tying anyone to Tsalta tonight - she points out that it would be bad news were she to drag anyone into the water with her. It's probably more safe, for all involved, not to tie her to anyone.

Though Faeleth’s watch passes without dramatic event, try as she might to continue her mental drafting she finds no success. Her trains of thought are scattered by the creeping anxiety that something might be out there, waiting in the murk.

Time passes, and she figures it's time to nudge Fergus awake. He chooses to spend his watch attempting to decipher Albert's book, but despite the intensity with which he studies it it's still all gibberish. At the feeling of a breeze stirring in the still air, he looks up from the pages...but doesn't see anything there. Just the bushes on the bank, leaves swaying in the breeze.

Still, something feels off. He stares out into the rolling mists, scanning for...something. One particularly dense cloud drifts by, and as it clears and Fergus' eyes adjust he's sure some of those shrubs aren't where they were before. He gets to his feet, moving to the edge of the boat, and as he squints into the dark the boat lurches under him, forcing him to catch himself on the side.

The ropes that hold the boat all fall slack. The boat begins to drift.

"GUYS," Fergus calls, raising his quarterstaff and hammering it down repeatedly against the boat's floor, startling Faeleth and Nothing to consciousness immediately, "Wake up! We're drifting away!" Nuth pats herself down for her wand, looking all around as the vessel continues to drift out - "What!? Why?"

"I dunnae know, I saw shrubs movin'-"

The tiefling's wand is pointed immediately out into the gloom, this way then that, jittery and ready to set fire to anything that moves. "Where? Where are they?"

"-I dunno, they were movin', then the boat moved an' we started driftin'!"

Nothing, realising that Tsalta's still not bloody woken despite all the racket, darts across the boat to shake her arm with a panicky "getupgetupgetup!" - she's the only one who knows half a thing about boats! Finally Tsalta jolts awake, and seeing the look on Nothing's face and hearing the urgency in her voice immediately reaches for her bow. "Fucking what. What is it, where?"

Nothing points out at the ropes, trailing in the water - "We've come unmoored!" - and Tsalta pulls them up to discover them all intact, to her surprise. We've been not cut loose, but untied. She tells Nothing to go wake Stonefist, but when Nuth scrambles to the back of the boat to do what should frankly have been an obvious first port of call...

...he's not there.

Stonefist, and his bedroll, are nowhere to be seen. There's no sign of him. Nuth turns around, and in the universal tone of 'not to alarm you all, but ', says, "Guys...he's not there." Well, that's not great!

Grabbing the mooring-stick, Tsalta takes matters into her own hands and manages to shunt the boat towards an area of solid bank hard enough that it runs aground with a sloshing of swamp water. Now the urgency of their drifting is resolved, it’s time for Fergus to share what he saw in more detail.

"It was those little shrubs," says Fergus, "They were over here, then-" he points, "-they were over here, and then," he shifts direction, "over here."

The rest of the party immediately scour the swamp with their eyes for suspicious shrubbery. But thanks to the relocation of the boat, Fergus can't determine with any accuracy the position of the offending plantlife, and thanks to being asleep at the time nor can Faeleth or Tsalta.

Nothing, though, definitely saw that bush move - that one right there right up next to the edge of the boat behind where Tsalta's sitting, that bush is fucking walking. She seizes her chance and pounces it - full on rugby tackles the thing - GOTCHA, FUCKER! HA! NOW WHAT!

Tsalta looks down to see a teenage tiefling skirmishing furiously with her hair. "Mother of a god, what're you doing?"

"I'VE GOT ONE!" she declares, triumphant.

Baffled, Tsalta reaches down and carefully extricates Nothing from her locks. "That's me head, wee lass. That's me hair." She frowns, before asking with a hint of genuine concern, "It does'nae look like a bush, does it?"

Nuth's cheeks darken, and she mutters that well it's all grey, innit. Tsalta is horrified - she's gone grey? Gods, no! She reaches for her braids to check, and for a terrible second sees that her hair is grey...and so are her hands, and so is everything, because it's dark. Oh, yeah.

Anyway, that embarrassment over... Tsalta looks down at Nothing - did she say that Stonefist is gone? She doesn't even have to answer; a cry rings out in the dark and there's no question that the shout was Stonefist. He doesn't sound far, but his voice is fearful and pained.

Nothing all but leaps from the boat, but not before Tsalta snatches the collar of her cloak and yanks her back. "Nothing, no, we don't know how deep it is - get up on my shoulders." She does what she's told and scrambles up to ride piggy-back, one hand clutching her wand, the other holding tight to Tsalta's hair as everyone disembarks, their feet sinking into several inches of watery mud.

Tsalta makes sure to tie the boat to a nearby tree, just in case, and then wades on out with mooring-stick in hand. Every so often, she'll swipe out into the mist with it, Nothing holding on for dear life as the motion lurches her forward.

They chase Stonefist's voice, but it sounds as though he's getting further and further away - soon, he's barely audible. But they must have left a trail, in ground as soft as this...

The tracks that Tsalta manages to seek out are truly bizarre, so much so that it's lucky she even spots them. They're not footprints - or at least, not those of any thing with feet she's ever seen before! It's like someone's gone around and poked clusters of holes into the mud with sticks - but if you were to connect the dots...

If you connected the dots, you'd get the prints of something large and four-legged.

She’s not seen a thing like them before, but the regularity of their pattern speaks to them being some creature’s trail - and by the sound of it, whatever it is has taken Stonefist with it.

The trail breaks, and in the grey of the dark Tsalta has no success in finding where it resumes. With no other recourse, she follows the dwarf’s distant cries out into the night. He never sounds any closer, despite how long they follow - is he still being dragged away?

Deeper and deeper into the marsh they go, through the featureless bog. The fog grows so dense, it's a struggle to see even one another. Nothing reaches into her bag - "Hey, do you guys want something to keep track of eachother with?" That suggestion is taken as a good idea all around, and so Nuth spools down a length of rope. The first few feet of it is barely out of Nothing's hands before Faeleth hastily grabs hold - then she catches herself, feigning nonchalance as more is handed out for her to pass to Fergus.

Her vision obscured, without landmarks to steer herself by, Tsalta realises she no longer knows where she is relative to the boat. For the first time in years, she is awake and lost.

Well, best not to panic. She can still follow her ears.

Soft blue lights begin to glow in the fog, floating orbs bobbing sedately all around like little cyan fireflies. Another scream rings out, sharply to Tsalta's right, and she turns to follow, her companions holding the rope trailing behind. Then there's another, a plaintive cry of "Help me!"

The thing is, that scream comes from away to her left. Everyone stops, and everyone listens - it's his voice, it sounds like him, but his muffled shouts are coming from multiple directions. There's no way of knowing which way to go.

(Tsalta takes a step towards one of the little glowing blue flames. It winks out, and with a soft puff of air reappears a little further away.)

"This isn't working," Tsalta says, "Following the voice isn't working. He could be anywhere," and here her voice gets even smaller, "and I don't know where the boat is, now."

Nothing lets out a shaky, panicky laugh. "Oh, shit."

Well, now what? We're lost, well and truly. It seems like the only course of action is to pick a direction, walk, and hope to find the tracks again. Nothing offers a torch and tinderbox down to Tsalta to make the search easier, and the moment the flame springs into life all those little bobbing blue lights vanish, one after the other with a series of quiet pops. The fog pulls back as if shying away from the firelight, which is strange but also oddly reassuring.

The fog doesn't like fire, then? Tsalta attempts to improvise a fire arrow, taking one of her hair-ribbons and knotting it about the arrow's shaft before lighting it and letting it fly into the mist. Unfortunately, ribbon doesn't burn well, and the arrow is lost to the dark.

It's time to walk, then.

The screams have gone silent, and the party make their way blind through the swamp until they happen across the first piece of truly solid ground they've seen all afternoon - a little raised outcropping of soil and stone that looks to be an abandoned campsite, judging by the long-extinguished remains of a fire. Eager for a break from wading, everyone forges towards it.

“Hold on, I just wanna do a thing real quick.” Nothing motions for Tsalta to let her down, and she crouches by the campfire to stow away a few chunks of charcoal. They’re gross and damp and leave gritty black residue on her fingertips, but eh. They’ll dry.

Fergus is still bamboozled by that damnable wizard book. He flicks through the pages as though another read will reveal their secrets to him, but of course they do not. He sighs, and passes the book to Nothing - can she give this another look? "Uh, sure." She throws it in her bag without so much as a glance.

Meanwhile, Tsalta is still listening intently for even the faintest sound of Stonefist's voice, stood still and quiet, focussing. She doesn't hear him, but that's not to say she catches no sound - out there somewhere in the fog, her ears catch a soft shuffling and scraping. Careful to keep her voice low and soft, she warns the others - there's something out there. Nothing takes the opportunity to clamber back onto Tsalta's shoulders, and the two of them look out into the mist, ears pricked for the slightest sound.

And there it is again: a shuffling, the sucking sound of mud. And through a momentary parting of the fog, Nothing spots one - for real, this time - a plant picking its way through the bog, its lifting roots the source of the muddy sound, its leaves rustling. She leans down to Tsalta's ear and whispers what she sees.

"Point me..." Tsalta murmurs back, and Nothing extends her wand arm to pinpoint where she saw it. Tsalta lowers her bow, her arrow nocked and trained in the precise direction she's pointing.

She looses it, and there's the distinct muted thunk of an arrowhead lodging itself in wood. Just as Tsalta's going to stalk towards it and see if she hit, Nothing sits bolt upright on her shoulders - "Ey, hold on!" Nuth's just had an idea. "You wanted fire arrows? Lemme just-" She throws her wand arm forward, sending a mote of flame streaking away into the mist. As it flies over, the mist retreats, giving a perfect view of...a shrub, with an arrow sticking out of it, completely unmoving. "Yeah," she says, "That definitely weren't there before."

Tsalta, voice still low, motions to the others, "Everyone, weapons out, just in case please..." and walks out to examine the bush more closely. It's still not moving - just a little dark clump of twisted bark and leaves. She pulls her arrow from it, and experimentally lowers her torch to the leaves, which smoke and smolder.

"Nah, it were definitely moving." Nothing eyes it suspiciously, no matter how benign it seems. As Tsalta turns away, out of the corner of her eye she sees a bush shift across the way. She freezes, points.

"Nothing, can you send another one of your fire bolts there, please."

WHOOSH. The bush is now aflame. Still not moving...

As everyone stares out at the little shrub as its leaves shrivel and the fire licks up its branches, there's a creaking of bark and the sickly slurp of something huge pulling itself up from the mud. The party turn as monstrous creature comprised of twisted vines wrests its tentacle-like limbs from the swamp, rearing up with a screech like howling winds through reeds.

It lunges, its arm unravelling into a mass of clutching plant matter, tendrils reaching out towards Fergus. Rope still wrapped around one hand, Fergus fends off the grasping vines, ducking and weaving, snaring vines with the rope itself to hold them at bay. For that first few seconds it looks like he's got the upper hand, but he fails to spot a limb that curls around his waist and hauls him backwards into the thing's ever-shifting mass. Vines surround him, covering his eyes, his mouth, crushing in from every angle.

Tsalta nocks her bow, the arrow's impact causing some of the vines on its face to snap, but it barely pays her heed. (Her torch, thrown aside into the water with a hiss of steam, extinguishes. The fog begins to creep back in.)

Streaks of blazing flame roar towards the thing from Nothing's wand, two of them catching it in the what-might-be-legs, but it doesn't set ablaze like the tiny shrub. The fire bursts against its form with a hiss of steam and Nothing realises to her dismay that this creature, with its sap-filled vines saturated in bog water, probably has too high a liquid content to be flammable.

A huge limb of intertwined stalks comes rushing down towards Faeleth, hitting the surface of the bog with a forcible thwack as she deftly ducks aside.

(A calm washes over Faeleth as she slips almost gratefully into that cool, methodical state she knows so well. It's all the more soothing for the rare lack of moral complexity. For once, it's simple - the creature before her needs to die.)

She brings her scimitar up to slash into its flank in retaliation, thick dark sap oozing in the wake of her blade. And as it rears up to turn on her again, it's as though it's rearranging itself to compensate for the lost vines - the mass of its chest becomes momentarily sparser. Inside, in that moment, she sees Fergus, trapped and struggling...the end of the rope still wound tight about his fist.

In that split-second, Faeleth has to decide whether she cares about Fergus enough to risk trying to pull him out.

(At the table, Wyrm takes a moment to consider how Faeleth would act in this situation. She then grabs a d20. Evens, she's not risking herself for him. Odds, she'll take pity and try to haul him out.)

(She rolls a 5.)

He's unlikely to free himself without aid, the rope is right there and if he dies in there it would be an avoidable death on her hands. She would prefer not to be responsible for that outcome. Faeleth snatches the trailing rope and heaves, and thanks to the plant-beast's moment of weakness, Fergus is wrenched free of his bonds and falls on hands and knees into the muck, gasping for breath.

(For a split-second, Faeleth considers whether Fergus' plight is the kind of thing people write saucy novels about. Her whole brain does a kind of mental retching - you know what, nope, awful, she wishes she'd never even thought it. Plant vore is not Faeleth's kink.)

Fergus scrambles to his feet, steadies himself, and brings his staff around into the monster's side. It rears back, then in a single swoop the huge, shambling swamp creature engulfs Fergus once again - gods damn it! Fergus! And this time, there's no rope in his hand to rescue him with.

The beast turns and begins to lumber away into the mist - but not before Faeleth can get another swipe at it. She gives chase and leaps at it, scimitar in hand, hoping to gain purchase so as to climb onto its shoulders. She lands just short, but the blade rakes down through the taut vines of its back, severing them with a series of thick snapping sounds.

Tsalta nocks an arrow and draws....

snap. She drew too far - the arrow is lost to the swampwater, and the bowstring dangles in two pieces, useless. But it's fine, it's fine, Nothing's got it! She wades forward as fast as she can, wand arm outstretched as a fizzing, crackling stream of greenish light races towards the monster's retreating back. Take that, swamp thing!

The bolt scatters across the vines and it doesn't even flinch as it continues to gallop into the ever-encroaching fog. (Nothing used Witch Bolt! ...But nothing happened. :

Inside, running swiftly out of air, Fergus' struggles grow weaker. Crushed and constricted from every possible angle, it feels like the vines are trying to wring the very breath from his lungs, and fight as he may to extricate himself every movement renders him only more entangled. But all at once he's jettisoned violently out into the cold night air - the pursuing Faeleth's next attack didn't agree with the creature one bit.

He has the misfortune to connect with one rare patch of truly solid ground, and is knocked out cold on impact.

The fog rolls in, thicker than ever, the swirling dark swallowing the shadow of the shambling mound as it makes its escape.