Marsh Realities

## **Synopsis:**

In Chapter 16: Marsh Realities – Erland cautiously accepted Blom's cryptic invitation to join him on his second-floor patio, which hosted a variety of unusual plants.  He believed Erland suffered from a rare biological condition that threatened to shorten his lifespan, but also had the potential to grant him certain nature-based abilities if he could learn to control it.  The training commenced right then and there in the dark of night, and Blom pulled no punches in his effort to agitate Erland's body into a state of malleability so it could adapt to new organic powers.  With the weight of these revelations and flashes of past memories swirling in his mind, Erland persisted as long as he could until unconsciousness took him.

The morning came and Orba was the first of the party to rise, taking a moment to consult her gods before heading downstairs for breakfast – where Jillian took advantage of a moment of privacy to ask about the wizard's motivations moving forward.  Orba was guarded about any meaningful details, and while Jillian did not press the issue for now – she warned Orba that if they couldn't come to an understanding before they reached Mukmu, the lakeside city would be their last stop as part of the same team.

As the rest of the group descended to the sitting room, we enjoyed a few moments of relative peace before a quiet popping noise coming from outside caught our attention.  Blom brushed it off as an animal that had wandered onto his property and set off one of his explosive runes that he kept in the yard for security purposes – but Safira and Graven weren't taking any chances.  They rushed to the balcony where Graven was able to identify a number of scattered bones and rustling grass that signaled the possibility of additional intruders.

Blom sounded the alarm – arming Jillian with a crossbow and stationing the ranged combatants at a second floor window while Beezaura and Graven held the lines at the front door.  Unseen by the rest of the party, Blom also woke Erland from his unconsciousness with a healing potion, having dragged him to his room the night before following their training session.  Waves of undead enemies hurled themselves at the halfling's home while we bombarded them from the upper levels – but it seemed that every time we felled a skeletal foe, a more powerful adversary came storming through the reeds to resume the assault.

With the threat growing and our injuries mounting, Blom called for us to take the carriage and flee – demanding that Jillian free his brother if she ever made it back to Urin-Chupa where he was locked up.  Blom focused his powers to take control of the earth beneath the house, sweeping portions of his residence across the battlefield to block the invading forces from advancing further.  Beezaura readied the horses and Erland swung Safira up onto the carriage as it pulled away as fast as possible onto the back road.  A pair of wights continued pursuit, but Safira's archery expertise allowed us to dispatch them before they could run us down.

Catching our breath for a moment, Graven tended to the wounded with his healing magic as we came upon an expansive road made of thick wooden planks.  We had been informed that this boardwalk was constructed many years ago as a way to cover up an excavation site that flooded and made the terrain impossible to traverse, but the route held strong and we pressed forward.  Another obstacle presented itself, however, when a napping hill giant woke to find us noisily making our way along – and though Jillian enlisted Beezaura to quickly relocate our horses to avoid spooking the dimwitted creature, its curiosity led it to wander in our direction.

Graven, a native speaker of the Giant language, attempted to turn its attention elsewhere – but Orba's uncooperative tail and a few poorly chosen words drove the hill giant into a frenzy, stomping its feet until the boardwalk gave way and the party went crashing through to the depths below.  Orba managed to quickly cast the featherfall spell, slowing our descent – but there was nothing that Jillian and Beezaura could do to keep us from tumbling down to the abandoned dig site.  Rushing back to the horses, they made plans to circle around and attempt to access the area from a safer vantage point, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves.

## Trivia

* Natural one count: two natural ones were rolled in this Chapter. 1 each by Matt and Riley.