It's 2pm on the 3rd Wilday of Charder, 150AV. We've just finished the fight. We're on the grassy mound in the L-shaped ruin, with a mere to the south. Stone sits down; he doesn't look so good - he's pretty swollen from the hornet stings. Goldpetal also doesn't look good - he starts sweating copiously and seems disoriented; he has some sort of fever. He says he thinks he has swamp fever, and Miriel recognizes it and agrees. It's swelteringly hot and horribly humid and sticky. Chuck goes to pick up his weapons and search the bodies. Telryn assists in searching the bodies. Paks searches the mauler. Miriel ministers to Goldpetal, then goes to check out the ruins to see if she can tell who built them, but they are very old and weathered and moss-covered, and she can't tell much. Stone gets up to make sure all the bodies are dead.
Telryn asks if we're planning an all-out assault on the town. Miriel says that's the plan. Telryn says he's worn out, and couldn't face an attack on the town right now. Paks suggests resting here and recovering. Miriel agrees, saying the town is still understaffed since we've killed all the rat men from the army. Paks points out that the shaman got away and can warn them, but Miriel says that waiting shouldn't be that much of a problem anyway, since he'll get there way before us anyway; he knows the swamp and is a rat man. Everyone agrees to stay and rest.
On the bodies we find 400 silver pieces. They seem to be coins from all over, including some we can't recognize, which we think is quite odd. We divide them, giving 66 to each member of the party. The mauler had a big silver arm band, carved in the rat man style. Chuck slides it off his arm and asks Miriel to detect magic it, but she doesn't detect anything. Miriel heals Paks twice and Chuck once. Chuck and Paks drag the bodies about fifty yards away and roll the rotting bodies into the swamp while Stone, Miriel, and Telryn rest. Paks says that we should stay here and rest until everyone's back up to full strength. Miriel has a bad feeling about staying here. Paks argues that it's still the best place for us to stay - out of the water, solid ground, away from the wildlife, with a wall to our backs. She convinces the rest of us.
As we're discussing what to do, Goldpetal, who has been slumping over and looking very ill, suddenly wakes up and says "Thief, stop!" We see a goblin running away, having stolen one of Goldpetal's vials of antitoxin. The goblin runs off in the direction the shaman went, into the grass. Stone throws a dagger at him, but misses. Paks grabs her bow and shoots at him, but misses. This provokes an attack of opportunity, so Stone reflexively punches her in the arm. Chuck also pulls out his bow and shoots, but misses. Telryn sends the owl to track it, and the owl reports back that it sees a flock of goblins to the north. Stone and Chuck run after the goblins. Miriel stays with Goldpetal. Telryn follows the fighters. Stone and Chuck quickly see the goblins, who are standing behind some bushes, waving their arms and taunting them (mostly in Goblin) - "Blah blah blah. Stupid! Blah blah blah." It's hard to see through the bushes, but there are four to six goblins. Chuck stops and tests the ground with his ten foot pole. The goblins start slinging stones at Chuck and Stone. They hit Stone - "Ow!"
The goblins throw more stones at Telryn, Chuck, and Stone. One of them hits Telryn, another hits Chuck, another hits Stone again - "Ow!" The goblins taunt the fighters again - "Ha Ha!". Stone runs fast around to the side of the bushes, nearly reaching the goblins. Miriel runs over to Telryn, who's looking dizzy from the rock hitting his head. She kneels down beside him. Paks runs up beside Chuck with her bow drawn and shoots at the goblins, but misses. Chuck draws his bow and shoots at the goblins, but misses. They taunt again - "Gobble gobble. Loser! Gobble gobble." Telryn shoots a magic missile at the goblins and knocks one out, then moves back as quickly as he can.
The goblins run away from us, really fast, "Aaah aaah!" Telryn yells out a rude comment (in Goblin) about their mothers as they run away. Stone runs up to the unconscious goblin to see if it has the potion, which it does. "Got it!" He picks up the goblin and carries it back, leaving its club. We all go back to the camp area. Miriel heals Telryn. Stone puts the potion back in Goldpetal's bag. The goblin bleeds to death. Stone asks if he can eat it, but everyone says no, so he dumps it in the swamp. We move us all into the corner to rest, then set a watch. Paks, Stone, and Chuck rotate the watch while Miriel and Telryn rest. The owl is perched on the wall, looking outward. Goldpetal is still sick. After dark, Stone lights a fire to cook some food.
After three hours, the sun is setting. It's still really hot, and there are lots of flies around. The people on watch are dozing slightly from the heat. Suddenly, a bunch of bat-like mosquito creatures (stirges) fly over the wall and land on Telyrn and Miriel. The owl sees them coming and squawks.
Four try to bite Miriel and two attach and start sucking her blood. Two attack Telryn and they gets him. Telryn tries to pull one off, but fails. Chuck pulls out his two swords, steps over to Miriel, and swings at the two stirges attached to her. He hits one of them. Paks runs over to Miriel and swings at the same one Chuck hit. She hits it, killing it. Miriel pulls out her dagger and stabs at the other one, hitting it. Stone steps over to Telryn and does a flurry of blows at the ones attached to him, but misses.
The stirges suck on Telryn and Miriel, making them weaker. The other two flying around Miriel both attack and attach to her. Telryn calms himself and fires off a magic missile at one of the two on him, hitting it. Chuck swings at the injured stirge on Miriel and hits it, killing it. It bursts with blood all over Miriel. Paks swings at another of the ones attacking Miriel and hits it, killing it. Miriel stabs at the last one, hitting it but not killing it. Stone smashes one of the two on Telryn and it pops like a balloon.
The second stirge on Telryn detaches and starts to fly away, but he Magic Missiles it and kills it, then collapses to the ground. Chuck swings at the last one on Miriel and hits it, killing it.
Miriel heals Telryn, but he's still looking weak from the stirge bites. We make a makeshift tent from the four square yards of canvas that Stone is carrying, attaching it to the walls and the ten foot pole. We plan to spend the night so everyone can recover.
Around 10pm, Paks notices some flickering lights off to the southwest. She watches them closely for a little while, but nothing happens, so she avoids looking at them. At 11pm she wakes Miriel for her watch and mentions the lights to her, but warns her not to look at them; they're glowing in weird and interesting patterns. Miriel finds it takes an act of will not to look at the lights, but she manages to avoid them.
At 4am, Miriel and Chuck are on watch when they hear some splashing from where the bodies were dumped. Miriel looks in that direction to see if she can see anything. They both hear some squeaking. Miriel sees a small swarm of large rats (about 3 feet long each) feasting on the bodies. She wakes everyone up and tells them about the rats. Stone rummages through his bag for some curry powder, then pulls out his crossbow. They're making an awful noise now.
Stone: "Those rats are feasting on blood; in a minute they're going to go into a frenzy."
Stone goes over to the fire and stokes it up.
Chuck: "No, giant rats usually don't attack people who are aware of them and have fire. However, if we were sleeping they might come over and start eating us."
Telryn goes back to sleep, as does Paks. Miriel and Chuck and Stone keep watch. As the fire flares up, the rats look over, but then go back to their feast.
At 6am we wake up, feeling much refreshed, except that Goldpetal is still quite ill and Telryn looks like he might be getting a fever. We discuss continuing to go after the rat man town. Paks, Miriel, and Telryn want to go on. Stone thinks we should go back home, but we convince him to go on. We go back up the branch, but as we have walked, Telryn has gotten worse; he has a high fever and feels very disoriented. With two party members down with swamp fever, we consider going back. We finally decide that we must head back to the freehold, because Telryn just doesn't feel that he can go on, and we can't carry two sick people. We head back towards the freehold. We get out of the swamp safely. It's another really hot day. We reach the campground near the edge of the swamp and rest in a shady area. With the aid of the violet gems we found (in place of a pearl) and some wine that Miriel had brought along from the freehold for cooking, Telryn tries to cast Identify on the "shield" ring that Miriel is carrying. He finally succeeds, after using up all the wine and trying both gems - it is a ring of force shield. When you say the magic word inside the ring, a large ring of force appears around the ring and it acts as a +2 shield. Miriel gives it to Telyrn temporarily, though we plan to give it to Paks later, so she can use it instead of her other shield and wield the bastard sword.
We rest until the next morning, which is the 3rd Charday of Charder. The day continues very hot, but there's at least a little breeze here under the trees. Miriel cooks a nice dinner. Miriel watches over Telryn and Goldpetal all day, and when Telryn wakes up the next morning, his fever has broken and he's doing much better. He's willing to go on now.
We head back into the swamp.
Telryn: "God, I hate the swamp."
As we're walking through the swamp, around 11am, we start seeing a bunch of small lizards darting around, apparently getting out of our way. Chuck thinks this is very odd. We suddenly see a stump in front of us with a foot-long blue-green lizard sitting on it. It has big horns that sweep back, like spiky ears. It has a long spiky tail. It hisses at us. As we look at it, trying to figure out what it is, we notice that it's sparking and swathed in electricity.
Telryn fires his crossbow at it, but misses. Paks fires her bow and misses. Chuck steps back, pulls out his longbow, and takes a point blank shot at it, but misses. Miriel steps up next to Stone and casts Cause Fear on the lizard. It looks very frightened, and darts off in the other direction; we think it jumps into a lake. As it runs away, another lizard, it's mate, jumps out from behind the stump and moves up to Chuck. It shoots a bolt of electricity at Chuck, but he dodges it and only gets a slight shock. Stone loads his crossbow and shoots at the lizard, hitting it hard.
Telryn shoots off a magic missile at the lizard and hits it, but it's still alive. Paks shoots it with her bow and scratches it, but it's still alive. Chuck takes another point blank shot and hits it, killing it. One dead shocker lizard. Chuck doesn't think the lizard is poisonous, so Miriel carves some meat off of the dead lizard and brings it along. Chuck tells Miriel that he's really glad she scared the one lizard off, because they can cooperate to create some major electrical bolts.
We continue moving into the swamp; alternately crossing muddy and dry land. At around 3pm, Chuck notices a pond covered in lily pads off to our right. The lily pads appear to have brilliant blue jewels on them; he's never seen or heard of anything like this. We watch them closely as we move by. We see a little lizard bending down to drink near one of the lily pads, which suddenly grabs it and pulls it into the water. We move on, staying well clear of the pond. Around 5:30, it gets very marshy and wet. The tracks we've been following seem to lead through a larger pond, almost a lake, although it doesn't look that deep. It's very long and narrow; the tracks go across the narrow part and we could probably cross it. Chuck tests the depth with his pole and it's about three feet deep. Stone takes the pole, ties the end of Chuck's rope around his waist, and gives Chuck his pack. He walks into the lake, testing the depth as he goes. We chain ourselves together with the rope looped around our waists. Miriel detects magic on the lake and doesn't find anything, so she steps in.
We wade through the scummy lake, which is increasingly covered in red algae. When we're about halfway through, Miriel starts to feel tendrils grabbing at her, and she shouts that something is grabbing her. We all start moving faster, Stone dragging us from the front. As we charge through the algae, we realize that it's the algae itself that has tendrils grabbing at us. Stone sweeps the bottom with his pole as we go, trying to avoid falling in. The algae injures Miriel, Telryn, and Stone with acid. Telryn is knocked unconscious. Paks grabs him and keeps moving. Chuck drops some pepper on the surface, which does not seem to have any effect. We keep moving and get out of the pond, but we're still covered in acid. Stone rolls around on the ground to rub it off. We all clean ourselves off; Miriel cleans Telryn and then heals him. Chuck grabs a couple of vials (left over from healing potions), lures some algae over, and squeezes acid out of it into the vials. Our boots and clothes are quite damaged (as if they weren't already from the mud), and they'll need to be replaced. We keep moving, looking for a dry spot to rest.
Chuck finally finds a dry spot off to the side of the path. It's slightly higher ground with a few trees. He looks around for dangerous animals, but doesn't see anything (though he's pretty tired, so we're not sure he would have anyway). We set up camp, using the canvas again as a cover. We don't light a fire. Chuck gives a flask of acid to Telryn. Those who can see in the dark, including the owl, pair with the humans to keep watch.
At 9pm, Stone and Chuck are standing watch when they suddenly start getting eaten up by mosquitos. They hear horrible buzzing and find themselves covered in a swarm of mosquitos. Telryn searches his pack for a flint and steel and torch. Paks pulls her blankets completely over her. Chuck runs over to the edge of the swamp and covers his exposed skin in mud. Stone makes a pile of wood and opens up the covered, lit lantern to set it on fire. Miriel covers her head with her cloak's hood, since she's already wrapped in her cloak.
Paks stays put. Chuck finishes covering himself in mud. Stone swings a flaming log around through the mosquitos, dispersing them. An hour later, Chuck and Telryn don't look so good; they've got swamp fever again. Miriel stays up with them tending them and they get over it. Chuck goes and searches the immediate area for hag's tongue, which will work against the fever. We go back to sleep, continuing the watch schedule.
Just after 2am, Miriel suddenly sees a huge thing in the shadows towering above her. Two giant arms sweep at her, hitting her. She is knocked unconscious, bleeding on the ground. Everyone else is woken by Miriel's screams. We see an eight foot tall mound of rotting vegetation attacking us. It's about 8 ft wide at the base, tapering to about 2ft wide at the "head", and it has two long viny arms. Chuck throws a vial of acid at it and hits it; the acid starts eating at it. It seems angry.
Telryn yells: "Is this thing intelligent?"
Chuck: "No!"
Telryn shoots a magic missile at it and damages it. Stone charges it and punches it, creating a huge dent. It swings at him and hits him. Paks flanks it and swings and cuts through it, but doesn't appear to injure it. It swings at Stone and hits him again, knocking him to the ground. He's dead. Chuck picks up a flaming log from the fire Stone made earlier and throws it at the shambling mound, hitting it and setting it on fire. Telryn grabs another log and throws at it, but misses. Paks starts to run back around it. She pulls out her lantern (unlit) and throws it at the mass, but misses; it flies over the mound and shatters on the ground. The shambling mound, still on fire, retreats quickly towards the water.
Chuck performs first aid on Miriel and stabilizes her. Telryn goes to stabilize Stone. Paks rummages through Miriel's pack for Madriel's Tear. She prays over Stone with it and the gold inside the crystal glows; Stone starts breathing again. She uses her healing skill on him, and he looks better, but he's still unconscious.
At 9am the next day, Stone and Miriel wake up. She heals Stone and then herself. Everyone rests while we discuss what to do.