Swamp Struggles

### Day Eighteen - Autumn Year 720 - Southern Lands

First thing in the morning after breakfast, the heroes headed to see the Baron. He was a rotund gentleman, in the middle of enjoying his breakfast. He was a city Baron that moved out to the countryside for some fresh air. Baron Von Burg established the village of Kadburg. He had a poster that Boris had given him, it was one of the defiled ones and the group were not recognisable. The party left the Baron and set off northwards.

Kargrimm asked Edward the guard for directions, he offered vague ideas, the group were told to take a second left at a rock. They set off in what they thought was the correct way. The group came me upon a clearing in dense forest, there was a cabin in the woods. Outside the cabin was a woodsman chopping logs, he seemed grumpy but he pointed Valrith in the right direction.

Further north the trees became smaller and more rotted, the forest gave way to swamp. The group came upon a camp that had been destroyed by claws of an unknown creature. The ground was a mess of panicked footprints, they could not discern what happened. In the water it seemed that a building had sunk into the swamp.

Nephrus attempted to sense the magic of the dead plants, he felt a faint sense of the arcane. Valrith said a prayer to Silvanus and attempted to heal the weed, it worked. The group thought they needed to find the centre of the rot and corruption, Valrith sent forth the camel into the swamp, the fey beast waded out into the water and sunk.

They decided to walk around the swamp edge to the west, Nephrus set off by himself and was pulled under the water. Kargrimm rushed to his aid but first tied a rope around himself and give the other end to Valrith. Valrith tied the rope to a tree, Erevan readied his hand crossbow.

The heroes fought the rotting bear, Kargrimm tried to get Nephrus out of the water and the creature's mouth, both adventurers were pulled under the water.

Valrith and Erevan attacked with competence, Kargrimm struggled to get above the water. He pulled myself and Nephrus out of the water, the warlock cast a ray of enfeeblement on the bear. The other two heroes continued to attack the beast. Nephrus got the killing blow with a double blast of eldritch energy.

Further west the hroup came upon what seemed to once be a village, there was no sign of life, no plants or animals. When they stealthily opened doors they found shambling skeletons. Some more ornately dressed than others, some skeletons were carrying goods.

After some sneaking, Erevan and Kargrimm found the party of adventurers that saw them earlier on the road. They were hiding and scared, they were afraid of the amount of undead in the village and further north. Meanwhile Valrith and Nephrus were finding more skeletons and being less sneaky than they thought.

Valrith summoned light from the moon to damage the skeletons, they had trapped the skeletons in an alleyway. Kargrimm and Erevan heard the commotion of skeleton fighting outside, and rushed to their aid, starting out with crossbows, an erant shot from the Drow struck Nephrus in the back. Then as Nephrus retreated, changed to melee weapons. Smashing the undead with axe and sword.

Valrith heroically killed the large armoured skeleton warrior almost solo.

To the north around the corner came a large, strangely fluid skeleton, not shambling like the others. It observed the heroes as they braced for combat.

> “Bring them to me”
>
>

The ground shook, and the earth trembled. A monstrous hand emerged from the earth, a construct of bone arose, it stumbled towards the heroes.