Hello, Everyone!
Last time, our heroes woke up in the small stone outcropping they used as shelter for the night, and prepared for their first day in the swamp. Mary made sure they'd be able to breathe under water, and Bruno (Ord bless him!) cast a Waterwalking ritual so that noone would be able to sink into the swamp.
Then, Mary sent her familiars to check the path ahead, and we found out that there was something enormous, making its way through the swamp, felling trees in its stride. We couldn't see it to know what it was, but it seemed quite dangerous.
They kept walking. The swamp was deeper now. Little bubbles of gas broke the surface and indicated the areas with the most natural decay. (Or, Mary thought, the places where horrible swamp monsters breathed underneath. Those were both equally valid possibilities.) A few times, they lowered a pole under the water and measured the depth to about two feet. Without Bruno’s spell it would have been a nightmare to traverse that!
“All right, this is weird,” Agatha said and stopped, pointing ahead.
There was a patch of clear water there, a few feet in front of the group. With the rest of the swamp full of mud and plant life just waiting to tangle around the feet of any careless travellers, this place looked suspiciously empty and clean.
“Let’s check it out,” Bruno said. “But don’t step too close.”
They came almost to the edge of the pool and stood there, trying to peer into its depth. It wasn’t hard. The water here was crystal clear, and every inch of the bottom was as visible as if it was right in front of their noses. It was deeper than the rest of the swamp. At the very bottom, something shiny glimmered in the daylight.
“Is that treasure?” Aurum said.
“Looks like a pebble of some kind,” Tesaya said. “And there are different pieces of metal around it.”
“Don’t step in the pool,” Bruno repeated. “It might not be safe.”
Mary agreed. It was too alluring not to be a trap. She remembered the water elemental in the depths of the Misty Sea and the chest it guarded. Back then, they tried taking its treasure, and it retaliated fearsomely. This case was obviously not the same – the elemental had been inky and swirling, and this water was clear and very still. But, nonetheless, it screamed “trap!”
She saw Aurum make the gesture for his Mage Hand and then frown.
“It didn’t even reach the bottom,” he said. “Disappeared midway through.”
He cast Light on a nearby pebble and dropped it in the water. It sank but… somehow too slowly to be natural. A couple of feet down, its glow dimmed and disappeared. Mary blinked into her Eldritch Sight, expecting to see some magic or magical effects working on the pool of water. There was none.
But this was interesting. It felt like a puzzle. The ‘get the treasure without setting off the trap’ kind of puzzle. Mary thought hard about it and a plan started forming in her head.
“Do we actually need to get whatever is down there?” Agatha asked.
“No but it’s fun to try,” Aurum said.
He had taken a goblet from his belongings and--using his Mage Hand again--was trying to scoop up some water from the pool. It seemed difficult to break the surface, like there was some force pushing back, or like the pressure of the water prevented the goblet from sinking. After he pushed a little harder, the goblet suddenly sank in and went down towards the bottom.
"Damn it!" Aurum said. "I really liked this cup!"
Mary was ready to execute her plan now. She was going to Misty Step to the bottom, grab all the shiny stuff and then wait for the Waterwalking spell to propel her upwards. She wouldn’t have trouble breathing because of the ritual she’d cast beforehand, and it’d be really quick, so that any swamp monster hiding in the bottom wouldn’t have time to react.
“This doesn’t even look like water,” Agatha protested. “It’s too dense. Could it be jelly?”
Mary's heart jumped in her throat.
What if it WAS a jelly?! Like the cube she and Aurum encountered in Sylvanas’ laboratory? Those things were able to dissolve human flesh! And she was going to Misty Step to the bottom?! What was she thinking?!
"Yeah, well, I'd say we go around," Bruno said. "It's not really part of our mission to get random treasure or study weird pools of water."
Nobody objected. They made a wide berth around the mysterious pool and continued on their way.
Every hour, for about ten minutes, they had to stop and wait for Bruno to renew his Waterwalking ritual. They usually spent that time looking around for any lurking trouble, but it got boring quite quickly. The fifth or sixth time they stopped this day, they were already far from vigilant. They spent the break chatting and laughing about the weird movements Bruno's ritual included.
"Look at him go," Aurum said. "Such a devotion to his god! What was his name, again? Ord? Orm? Ork?"
"All of the above." Mary chuckled. "The God Of Many Names."
"Can you imagine that we’ve been travelling with our dwarf friend for months and we still can’t remember the Big Guy's name?"
“Speak for yourself,” Agatha said. “I’m almost sure it’s Orf!”
"You are laughing now," Bruno said, having just finished his ritual, "but you should thank Ord for having dry socks!"
"Oh, thank you, great Ord, for your benevolence!" they said and laughed.
One of the best things about Bruno was that he rolled with the punches. Yes, he honoured Ord, but he wasn't fanatical about it. Maybe his God had a sense of humour, too.
The jovial atmosphere continued for a while. The five of them made a few more jabs at one another. They cheered. They laughed.
They made quite a lot of noise.
That's why, when they heard the whimpering, it was already VERY close.
This was a fun chapter to write, and a fun D&D session to live through. I'm really glad that our DM had so many interesting and diverse encounters for us, and that he let us have fun without pushing us onward.
See you next time when we get to see what that whimpering is all about, and we get an awesome reference to one of my favourite TV shows!
Take care and be well!
(Also, here's a link to the Chapter Guide, the Glossary and the Map for the series. You're welcome!)
An important disclaimer: Mary Windfiddle's story is my notes from a D&D game turned into a narrative. All the worldbuilding and NPC encounters belong to our DM, and all the actions of the other main characters (Aurum, Bruno and Agatha) belong to my co-players. My contribution to the story is only everything Mary-related (actions, reactions, inner thoughts), as well as the writing itself.
I can see "Quest for the non-magical-but-favourite goblet" being the theme of a side quest at some point....
Aurum would certainly do that if Bruno wasn't there to stop him 🤣
I had a lot of fun reading your story, I always like it when stories have that spark that makes you smile out of nowhere. A very good narrative accompanies the plot.
Thanks for sharing your story.
Happy day.
Well, there we go! Did @marydm reveal what that "pool" actually was? (just being my curious self... 😊)
After all the mess of the last part, it seems that one was much brighter on our beloved heroes and the got back to some better mood after all. Was it still raining? :D
So then... on to the next part! But so far, thanks for sharing this one. It was lots of fun to read as always!
Take care!