Curse of the Shieldfall: The Lord of the Swamp By Green
Ariella Shieldfall walked down the hallway to her bedroom, a guest room in the unexpectedly spacious (and unusually mobile) tower of the wizard Thaniel, a slightly eccentric, though overly endearing young man who was helping her track down something of vital significance to her family. It had been a long day of investigating leads in her hometown of New Parsonus, and while it had been nice to visit the sprawling city, and it helped to ease her homesickness, it had been very tiring indeed. Sighing, Ari un-slung her spear and let it rest against the wall before stretching and rubbing the shoulder that had supported it. "I am going to take a long, hot bath..." she muttered, and slipped off the travelling cloak and tunic that covered her upper body. It was while she was taking a moment to rub out an ache in her arm that the human heiress felt it. A sharp twinge in her stomach. She groaned softly and put a hand over the smooth, pale flesh, frowning to herself and trying to remember, unsuccessfully, what she'd had for lunch, assuming it was disagreeing with her. Perhaps Thaniel would have some kind of spell or runestone that could help with indigestion... But before she could even think about that, the feeling returned, a hundred times worse, and Ari let out a strangled cry and doubled over. "S-seven... Gods!" she managed to gasp, her entire body shaking, pain spreading throughout her torso. What was this?! Had she been poisoned? Had some rival of Thaniel's quietly cursed her without her noticing? Questions raced through her mind, but they all vanished as soon as she looked down at her arms, her thoughts obliterated as she caught sight of a patch of black flesh on the back of her right forearm. It felt cold, incredibly cold, and it was growing before her eyes. "No!" she cried, "It c-can't be! I'm only - I can't - it's t-too soon!" The thoughts that had vanished into silence were quickly replaced with the equivalent of a silent, terrified scream as the shivering young woman watched the horrible black patch grow across her entire arm. As it reached her hand, Ariella sobbed and shook her head violently, tears being flung from her cheeks, as if she could deny what she was seeing strongly enough to make it disappear. Her fingers grew longer and thicker, and her carefully manicured, perfectly trimmed nails thickened and grew outwards, curling into vicious talons as the blackness began to spread backwards across her skin, faster now, her body growing dark and twisted before her eyes as a thin black fog began emanating from her distorted pores. She shouted the wizard's name and forced herself to her feet. Maybe he could stop this, maybe she could be saved! But no answer came, and as the darkness grew up her body, threatening to consume her, Ari happened to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror across the room, just as her mouth was twisted into a hideous, fanged nightmare, and her terrified eyes began to glow with a sickly yellow light. She grabbed at her head with her malformed claws, shaking in horror as she felt the darkness surrounding her mind, no longer content with consuming what Ari Shieldfall was, and now seeking to take who she was as well. She let out a cry that started out as an extended 'No', transitioned into a wordless scream of primal terror, and finished as an inhuman roar of fury as all that was left of the mind in that malformed head directed the monster to burst forth from the room, on the hunt for the blood of prey.
* * *
Ariella screamed, throwing her arms in front of her face and clenching her eyes tightly shut as she tried to ignore the horrific things she was seeing. "No! No! Noooooo!" She heard the sound of a wooden door slamming hard against a stone wall. "Ari! Ari, I'm here!" came the voice of the wizard Thaniel, "What's wrong?!" Opening her eyes, almost afraid of what she'd see, Ari took in the sight of... her bedroom - again - except that she was sitting upright in her bed, the sunlight was coming in through the window at a sharp, morning angle, and of course, there was a wizard standing in the doorway, panting slightly, a stressed expression upon his face and a rather large fireball suspended just between his outstretched hands. "Oh!" she said, "Oh..." Raising a hand to the bridge of her nose, already blushing, Ari groaned. "Oh, I'm s-so sorry, Thaniel, it was... it was just a bad dream," she said, "I didn't know I'd woken up... I didn't mean to frighten you." Seemingly caught off-guard, Thaniel shrugged awkwardly. "Ah... Well, that's good," he muttered, "And it's okay, I just..." he avoided her eyes as he finished, saying "I just didn't want anything to happen to you." He cleared his throat and looked down at the fireball in his hands. "Uhhh, this might have been a bit overkill," he muttered, "Can't dispel one this big, I'm gonna need to do something with this..." He muttered a few words in a dead language Ari had heard him speak before, a large basin filled with water popped into existence just next to him, and he sheepishly dunked the ball of flames into the water, instantly causing a cloud of steam to begin to rise as the spell was extinguished. At this moment, a rather large black raven flew into the room, trailing behind his master, and settled on top of a clothes dresser. "She's a spearwoman, Thaniel," said the bird, who sounded (as he most often did) about as impressed as most birds look, "She can take care of herself."
Thaniel blushed and shot the bird a dirty look. "I know she's a spearwoman, Crow!" the wizard snapped, pointing an accusing, dripping, finger at the bird, "That's why I was alarmed, I thought if anything could make her scream like that, she was actually in danger!" The raven was Thaniel's familiar, Siaro, whom the wizard had dubbed 'Mister Crow' as part of their magical contract. Thaniel was fully aware of the difference between a crow and a raven, of course, Thaniel had just picked that name to annoy the bird, who he allowed to get away with a surprising amount of slightly cynical sarcasm. "Oh yes," Crow said, illustrating this point nicely, "Because there are no other obvious reasons you'd come charging to Ari's rescue..." Ari found the bizarre interplay between the spellcaster and his partner amusing, as she often did, and smiled as she stretched out her back, more than ready to get out of bed. "It's always nice to have back-up!" she said, as the sheets fell away from her. Thaniel grinned as he turned back towards her, only for his eyes to widen and his smile to fall away. "Sentinels!" he gasped, turning away as his cheeks burned, "Oh dear." Ari frowned, then looked down at herself, a lingering fear in the back of her mind afraid she'd find the curse playing out all over again, but she didn't see what the problem was, everything was in order - until she realized that her nightclothes were completely soaked with fear sweat, and the thin, now semi-transparent material of her nightgown was clinging to her chest in such a way as to rather vividly outline her breasts. Now blushing even harder than the wizard, Ari yelped with embarrassment and raised her arms in front of her, hiding her shame. It didn't help that contrary to what she'd been lead to believe about wizards, Thaniel looked barely older than she was, and he was actually quite handsome. Frowning more than before, Crow looked from his embarrassed master, who was intensely studying the woodwork on the door as he tried to think of something to say, to the heiress, who still hadn't gotten over the shock. The bird let out a single sharp laugh as he observed the awkwardness between the Humans. "Oh for..." he muttered, shaking his pointy little head and grinning as best he could with a beak, "Enough of this, just kiss her already!" Without looking away from the door, Thaniel raised a hand and snapped his fingers, and with a puff of cinnamon-scented smoke, Crow found himself the bearer of bright pink plumage, with what can only be described as a 'feather afro' growing out the top of his head. He squawked in dismay at his festive new look as Ari burst out laughing, even as she tugged the blankets back in front of herself. Slowly peeking, and then turning around, relieved, Thaniel grinned self-consciously. "Sorry about that... Ah, if you do need us, we'll be in the laboratory," he said, before glancing at his familiar, "And you, don't even think about spilling anything for revenge, or I'll make you stay that way all month!" Crow narrowed his already-beady eyes and puffed up his rosy feathers indignantly. "Yes, Master Thaniel..." he mumbled, and then took flight, flapping out of the room without a second glance. Thaniel snapped away the steaming water basin and then reached up to magically un-break one of the hinges on the door, apparently having struck it with a great deal of force in his haste to enter. That done, he nodded to his guest with a smile and closed the door as he left. "Good morning, Ari." "Good morning, Thaniel!" she called after him, and sighed upon finding herself alone. She may not have been turning into a monster, but every time she closed her eyes, she could see her own face in that mirror... One thing the dream had right, she could really use a hot bath right about now...
Ariella Taligre Shieldfall was a member of one of the noble families of New Parsonus, owners of a relatively humble shipping company and a not-so-humble portion of the textile industry in the city. But unlike most nobles, the Shieldfalls lived in relative isolation, for fear of others discovering their family secret, which was terrible even by the standards of noble families: Many, many years ago, Xander Shieldfall, a wandering adventurer and Ariella's great-great-grandfather, retrieved an artifact from a dungeon (a long-abandoned underground temple, to be precise), as men of his profession are wont to do. But when he removed the Midnight Hand, a sinister gauntlet made from darksteel, from its pedestal, Xander's entire bloodline was tainted by a horrific curse that doomed the members of the Shieldfall family to one day in their middle age be consumed by darkness, to transform into twisted, unliving creatures called revenants, mindless monsters that revelled in the act of murder. Rather than accept her own fate or wait for her father to suffer the same fate as his older brother, her beloved Uncle Roderick, Ari had set forth on an impromptu adventure of her own, taking with her Xander's enchanted spear, 'Zahk'Tuum the Unyielding', and sought out Thaniel's magical aid. Now the two of them were trying to track the Midnight Hand to wherever it had ended up, so they could break the curse of the Shieldfall family once and for all. Though admittedly, that was taking a lot longer than Ari had been hoping...
Once she had finished taking a nice hot bath, which had done a lot to soothe away the memory of that nightmare, Ari got dressed, taking the time today to brush and braid her long red hair. Maybe it would stay cleaner if it were more tightly contained. Then again, if they kept going into places like dusty, dirty mines, it probably wouldn't make that much difference. But the real reason she took her time with her hair was that she still hadn't quite regained her equilibrium, the balanced composure that her mother had drilled into her as being the most important trait of a noblewoman like herself and Ari. The dream had been bad enough, but then, she'd been having bad dreams since she was a child, like anyone else, and after stumbling across Uncle Roderick in his final moments of humanity seven months earlier, they'd been happening fairly frequently. No, the dream she could deal with, but she wasn't sure which had been more embarrassing; that she'd screamed loud enough upon waking that her friends had charged into the room as if she were a damsel in distress... or that Thaniel had gotten a glimpse of her bosom through her damp nightgown. As she tried to dispel the embarrassment, banish it from her mind, she heard the flapping of wings from the direction of her door, and shortly thereafter, a tray covered in a warm, inviting breakfast appeared on her bedside table. Ari smiled; Thaniel must have sent Mister Crow to peek into the room and see if she was finished bathing. That, she didn't mind so much. Crow had made it explicitly clear to Ariella that thanks to the vast differences between the anatomy of their species, he didn't find her body any more interesting than that of Roland, Ari's trustworthy horse, who was 'stabled' in a room in the tower for the time being. Ari frowned slightly as she took the food from her table. She supposed that if Thaniel looked the way wizards and mages always did in her childhood storybooks - wizened old men with long grey beards and hundreds of years under their belts - she wouldn't be so embarrassed, but to Ari's consternation, the longer she worked with the eccentric spellcaster, the more the noblewoman caught herself thinking that he was cute when he was embarrassed, or that his goatee looked very good on him, or that for such a goof, he was surprisingly good at reassuring her in her moments of self-doubt on the quest. As she started eating, Ari sighed. She wasn't seriously attracted to Thaniel, was she? Ridiculous! She was a daughter of a noble house! He was a wizard who lived in a tower that moved around with a talking bird! It could never work out... could it? Pouting slightly, she pushed that line of thinking out of her head entirely and focused on her food.
Soon enough, the heiress left her quarters and started climbing the tower. The layout of the tower seemed to change subtly from time to time, but so far, her guest quarters had always remained in exactly the same place; just off the central spire, about three-fourths of the way up the spiral staircase that lead to the very top chamber, Thaniel's laboratory. All the rooms and hallways were quite impressive, really, given that the building appeared to be a perfectly cylindrical, flat-topped tower from the outside. As Ari stepped into the lab, where, as usual, all manner of odd and curious bits of equipment were laid out, glowing, steaming, and otherwise appearing vaguely mystical, and Thaniel was poring over them, studying them closely. "Hello, gentlemen," Ari said, "How does - ack!" The ceiling of the laboratory was home to a large cluster of what the wizard called wisps, little glowing balls of light that floated around silently, interacting somehow with the invisible magical energies in the air around them and tweaking the various experiments and tests Thaniel was constantly performing. And now, as one, the entire cloud of them had descended and flowed over Ari, bright enough to be seen through her closed eyelids and leaving a vague tingling on the surface of her skin. "Oh no!" Thaniel cried, "That wasn't supposed to happen!" He uttered a single syllable rather loudly, and the wisps all floated away, just as silently as they came. "I'm sorry, Ari," the wizard said, "I was using my scrying equipment to track the trace energies left behind by the gauntlet. When you walked in, the wisps must have detected the curse imprint on you, and your stronger energy pulled them in like a lightning rod." "Well, it could have been something else," the bright pink raven perched on a stand said rather loudly, "Ari, you haven't had a contraceptive spell cast on you recently for some reason, have you?" Thaniel turned around and pointed at the bird. "Crow, I swear on the Seven Gods, I will turn you into a duck if you keep that up," he said, uncharacteristically irritated at his familiar. "Surely your cruelty knows no bounds, master!" the bird replied sullenly, and then he tucked his head under a wing, as if he were sleeping. "Just as well," Ari said, trying to ease the mood, "He'd make an ugly duckling." Thaniel snickered, Crow pointedly ignored that, and Ariella walked across the floor towards the table where Thaniel had been working. "How is that tracking coming along, anyway?" she asked, "It's been weeks, and we're still stuck here. We could have at least moved the tower to New Parsonus if this was going to take so long, I could have visited my family." She turned around and forced a smile. "Ah, not that I'm complaining, or anything," she quickly added, "it's just that I'd really like this curse broken..."
Thaniel nodded and sighed. "It's alright, I understand your frustration," he said, quietly, as he walked over to join Ari, "It's just... I still understand so little about this thing, and after what it did to your family, to the Red Hooks, I'm almost afraid to probe any deeper." As he spoke, he gestured to an object just next to the table, a pedestal topped with metal arms surrounding a glowing containment orb. Within the orb floated a small, unimpressive piece of black metal, a tiny section of ring mail armour that was important to the heiress only in that it was a fragment of the Midnight Hand itself, the very gauntlet that had cursed her family - and that may be the only hope of curing them. The wizard turned to the table, which had a map of the entire region laid out on it. "As it happens, though, you're just in time," Thaniel said, "The traces are faint, but I've finally worked out an angle." "An angle?" Ari asked, "What kind of angle?" "A literal one," Thaniel replied, matter-of-factly, "That bandit who put the gauntlet on - What was his name, George? Garvin? - he wasn't exactly in a right state of mind when he left the mine to find the gauntlet's brothers, whatever that means." He pointed at the map, where the mine, just outside the city of North Nolan, was clearly marked. "Since he was being magically manipulated and compelled, I've been looking into the idea that instead of taking roads and paths to get to wherever he was going, like a rational person, he was just walking in a straight line, a direct path to wherever it was he was heading." "Geoffrey," Ariella murmured, "He signed his journal 'Geoffrey the Gentleman'. What have you found?" Producing a pen and a sort of compass from a voluminous pocket in the cloak he was wearing, Thaniel bent over the map and furrowed his brow. "Well, let's see... we finally found a path to the traces, leading... carry the zeta... in this direction." Using the compass to mark his angle, and what appeared to be an ordinary wooden ruler to keep it straight, Thaniel drew a line leading out from the mine, through the forests outside North Nolan, and into the wildlands surrounding the town, leading in almost the exact opposite direction from the trade routes. He kept drawing and drawing until he reached something on the map, and then stopped. "Assuming he wasn't heading for, ah, some kind of secret, buried tomb hidden in a random spot of earth along the ground here," the wizard murmured, gesturing to the line between the two points, "Geoffrey's first brush with, well, anything, would have come here, at Milgram's Marsh." Ari peered down at the map somewhat dubiously. The marshlands were fairly sizeable, covering an impressive amount of space, but they were almost featureless as far as the cartographer was concerned. "I don't know, Thaniel..." she said, rubbing her chin, "You really think he'd go looking for the gauntlet's 'brothers' in a giant swamp?"
Thaniel shrugged as he looked down at the map, as if expecting it to reveal hidden details about the region. To be fair, Ari wasn't entirely sure it couldn't. "We still don't know exactly what he's looking for, or why the gauntlet referred to its 'brothers' in the plural," he said, "I liked your idea that it might have been made by the Naga, incidentally." He turned to Ari and crossed his arms matter-of-factly. "There is an awful lot of land in that swamp, and almost everyone who goes there sticks to the dry paths and doesn't wander, so for all we know, there could be some ancient temple or vault hidden under the muck." Ari imagined the frenzied wearer of the gauntlet holding out his hand and magically dragging an immense stone structure up out of the morass, and then decided that even if Thaniel was right on the money, the sight probably wasn't as impressive as that. "Then again, it's possible that he wasn't heading here at all, but somewhere beyond the swamp," the wizard admitted, gesturing to the other side of the map, "But if we go there, we'll at least be able to try and detect traces of the gauntlet's magic, see if we're on the right track." "I suppose anything would feel like productivity at this point," Ari murmured, "Alright, let's check out the area. I suggest we start from the middle." She tapped a finger right in the centre of the blob on the map that represented the swamp. Thaniel frowned and started stroking his beard. "I'm afraid that's a terrible idea," he sighed, "We're talking about marshlands, after all. The soil in the area will be too muddy and soft to support the tower; we'd tip over or sink into water in a matter of minutes." Ever since he'd teleported his home to a patch of sandy soil just outside a forest and it had almost toppled over, followed immediately by accidentally moving it to the bottom of a lake where it had almost completely flooded (the entire time Ari had known him, in other words), Thaniel had been very particular about where he moved his home to. "I'm afraid we've got no real choice but to put the tower outside the swamp itself and..." he paused briefly to sigh, "...Explore the area on foot." Ari's face fell, and she briefly considered snapping back that by 'we', Thaniel meant 'her', since the agoraphobic wizard almost never set foot outside his tower. But Ari knew that Thaniel viewed his irrational fear as a deep personal failing, something he was ashamed of, and poking at it would be terribly underhanded of her, below a woman of her station. Not that it wouldn't be satisfying in the moment, of course, but once her frustration boiled off, she would just feel awful about it. She let out a sigh of her own and tapped her foot on the ground. "It'll take us forever to get around in there," she complained, "We'd probably need a boat for the deeper spots. There's simply far too much ground for us to cover by ourselves, just wandering around, even if we are tracking the gauntlet's energy. We need to find someone who's been there before and see if they've noticed anything strange. Are there any locals we could ask?" Despite herself, Ariella pictured an uneven cluster of ramshackle houses fronted by ugly simpletons with bad teeth, drinking homebrewed liquor and singing poorly to each other. What civilized person would want to live in a swamp, after all?
The wizard looked closely at the map again and pointed to a small circle with some simple drawings of houses on it, just outside the rim of the swamp. "It looks like there's a town on the edge of the marsh named Dellor's Rest," he observed, "That would probably be the best place to start, but I've never been to this area myself, couldn't tell you a thing about it." Ari clapped her hands together - the fact that Crow did not react to the loud sound told her that the sulking pink raven was just ignoring them, not really sleeping - and smiled. "Alright! We have a plan!" she said, and then shrugged, adding "Well, we have an idea, anyway. Almost as good. Let me get my cloak and spear, maybe some food for the road." Thaniel grinned sheepishly and scratched at his neck self-consciously. "Well, first I need to figure out where I can put the tower that's within easy walking distance of the town, isn't so close as to alarm the villagers, and has a solid enough foundation to support the tower for the foreseeable future," he said, "So, uh... no rush on getting your things, okay?"
* * *
It took a while, but Thaniel finally managed to plot out a location that he was comfortably sure wouldn't spell doom for his home, while also not being a day's walk or more away from the curiously-placed town of Dellor's Rest. It gave Ari time to get her supplies together, time to make sure her spear was still in tip-top condition - which wasn't a very difficult task, admittedly, since the same enchantment that made it unbreakable kept the head as sharp as it was back in Xander's day - before returning to the laboratory, where Thaniel was running his hands over the large yellow gemstone that controlled the movement spell. She didn't know what kind of gem the crystal was, but given that it was almost the size of her head, and that Thaniel left it sitting out on a shelf when he wasn't using it, she suspected it wasn't terribly valuable in and of itself. Ari still hadn't quite gotten used to the way the entire tower would glow when he activated the spell, though she'd been relieved to discover that the blinding brightness of the first few times she'd seen the spell cast was a side effect of Thaniel not waiting until the gemstone was fully recharged before re-casting the spell, and that under normal usage, it wasn't nearly as uncomfortable on the eyes. With a bright, though gentle glow, and a subdued vibration, the tower vanished into thin air and promptly reappeared on top of a small hill just down the road from Dellor's Rest. The amateur adventurers set things up the same way they had the last time they came to a town: Ariella wore a well-made, but not ostentatious travelling cloak so she'd be just another body in the crowd, and kept Zahk'Tuum slung over her shoulder and wrapped in a blanket, so as to avoid drawing the wrong kind of attention. This time, she also wore a pair of special boots that Thaniel had enchanted for her, to help resist the sucking mud and clinging grime of the swamp. Since the wizard was unable to leave the tower, she would be accompanied by Mister Crow, who had been bribed with the return of his natural plumage colour and a blueberry muffin. Crow wore a 'remote focus' charm around his neck like a necklace; with the aid of a viewing crystal not unlike the ones used by fortune tellers, Thaniel could see anything the focus could see, and even cast magical spells through the focus in order to help Ari and Crow on their journey. He could keep in touch with Ari through a pair of magical earrings she wore that transmitted his voice to her across vast distances, and of course the wizard had a telepathic link to his familiar that allowed them to communicate wordlessly without any charm required. Ari wasn't sure how difficult this task would be, but at the very least, she was confident in their equipment. After Crow settled on her shoulder and Thaniel wished them both good luck, Ari took a deep breath and walked out of the tower into Milgram's Marsh.
After a few minutes of uneventful walking, during which a somewhat dismayed Ari took in the sight of just how bleak and dreary the local landscape was, the heiress and the talking bird ended up at the front gate to the town. "This is Dellor's Rest?" Ari said, "I don't know how I'd describe this place, but 'restful' wouldn't be it..." As it turned out, the tiny circle on the map didn't do the place justice, as Dellor's Rest turned out to be a bustling village with a large and successful-looking market welcoming people to town, and quite a number of solid, if somewhat bland looking civilian homes along the outer edges, rather a far cry from the dozen or so people living in half-rotted shacks that Ari had pictured. As they walked in the front gate, which was wide open, inviting visitors, Ari noted that though there were shops and stands lining the main street, there was still a wide, clear path leading to a rather distinctively large building that appeared to sit in the exact centre of town. Ari stopped by the side of that road, just taking in the sights. "Hey, I've found an atlas in one of my pockets," Thaniel said in Ari's ear, referring to the strange, extra-dimensional spaces where he kept all kinds of things when he wasn't using them, not to the flaps on his clothes, "There's an entry on the town, and I've had the chance to read up on it since you left. It seems that 'Dellor's Rest' was originally one building, a rest stop founded by a Dwarf named Tagram Dellor. He wanted to provide a place on the edge of the swamp for travellers and merchants to build up their strength before heading into the swamp, or to rest and recover after coming out of it... for a price. As it happens, the marshlands happen to sit on a convergence of several major trade routes, and this was the only rest stop anywhere in the region. Business was so good that Dellor renovated into a full inn, and then other businesses started making deals with him to set up shop around his inn to serve his customers, and it grew organically from there. By the time he died, Dellor was considered the mayor of a small town, not an innkeeper, but since they hadn't set out to build a town, they just called the village Dellor's Rest too." "Thank you, Thaniel, that's very interesting," Ari said, "Who's in charge now?" "Well, this book is a bit out of date, so you'd have to ask for a name," he said, "but eventually they grew big enough to start electing a real mayor to keep things running smoothly." Mister Crow indicated the large central building with a bob of his beak. "I would assume that's the inn there," he said, quietly enough to not be overheard by others (not that he had to worry about that, thanks to the two gentlemen across the street arguing loudly over the price of citrus fruit), "Unless they just wanted to make sure we hadn't forgotten the name." Ari noticed that indeed, there was a sign over the door of the central building that simply read 'Dellor's Rest'. Crow sighed and shook his head. "Why wouldn't they change it to something else after they founded the town?" he muttered, "That's just confusing." Ari smiled as she started walking towards it. "Never underestimate the power of tradition, Siaro," she whispered back, "They've probably kept the name because it reminds them of their history. Nothing wrong with that." "I will never understand the humanoid fascination with old structures and things dead people built," Crow muttered, "Look at us! Birds can't build things, and we do just fine!"
"There are a lot more people here than I was expecting," Thaniel murmured, accompanied by a scratchy sound Ari had learned to recognize as the wizard thoughtfully rubbing his bearded chin, "On the one hand, that means they won't be suspicious of outsiders, but on the other... I have no idea where to suggest you start asking around for people who know the region. Do you see a stall or a store for hiring guides?" Ari looked around, but most of the merchants she saw were hawking food or travel supplies, owing to the nature of the town as a trading crossroads. "...No," she finally admitted, "I guess I'll start at the inn. I mean, it's quite literallythe heart of the city, so it's as good a place to start as any..." She started walking again, but she hadn't taken more than five steps forward before someone bumped into her from the side, hard enough to make her stumble, hard enough to make Crow squawk in protest and flap his wings to keep from falling off, hard enough for the hood of Ari's cloak to fall back, revealing her distinctive red hair. Instinctively, she turned to the man who she'd collided with, a slightly short otter-kin Ani-man, which was to say he was about Ari's height, given that his species tended towards very tall, very lithe bodies. "Oof! Oh, sorry, miss, I wasn't paying attention," he said, brushing himself off, "I should have - Ari? Is that you?" Taken by surprise, the noblewoman narrowed her eyes and studied the man more closely, and found that she did actually recognize him. "Ben?" she asked, a smile growing across her face, "Ben Calhoun?" Ari and Thaniel had previously met the otter while investigating a lead on the gauntlet that brought them to the Calastori Museum of History and the Arts, where with the help of Ben, who worked at the museum, they'd uncovered a decades-old murder and picked up the trail of the Midnight Hand once again. Ari had actually found it kind of fun, aside from the part where the temperamental populace of the city had been waging a riot in the streets, which thankfully hadn't broken its way into the museum. As Ari shook hands with the otter, she couldn't help but furrow her brow just a little. "It's good to see you, Ben," she said, "but what brings you all the way from Calastor? Unless they changed the name of the city again, of course..." The otter winked at her, his whiskers twitching with amusement. "Nah, they thought they'd save money on changing all the signs this time," he replied, grinning, and then laughed. "Ari, as I live and breathe. You're the last person I expected to run into, way out here. I'm on a research expedition for the museum, ah, old relics have a way of showing up in these trading hubs, especially in relatively unexplored areas like the marsh." He looked around at the busy people going about their lives around them. "These small frontier towns always have such fascinating histories," he murmured, "But of course, I'm perfectly happy right at home. I already miss the wife and kids, to be honest, I'm not used to going on expeditions like this, so it's nice to see a familiar face." He smirked at Ari and crossed her arms. "Guess you and, uh, Thaniel, wasn't it? You two never actually properly introduced yourselves... I guess the two of you got me interested in adventure, heh heh." Blinking, the otter looked around, his brow furrowing as he realized that the eccentric spell-caster wasn't with Ari. "Say, where is the mage, anyway?" he asked, innocently, "I'm surprised you'd let him wander around unsupervised, he didn't seem the most 'worldly' type, just between us."
Crow made a noise that sounded to Ari like a suppressed snicker as Thaniel fumed in her ear. "What does he mean by that?" he asked, sounding pouty, "And I'm a wizard, not a mage, for crying out loud! Why is that so hard for people to grasp?!" Ari smiled and briefly looked back towards the town gates. "Thaniel is, ah, he's back in his tower, performing some important, what's it called, scrying rituals," she said, grabbing a random term she remembered out of the wizard's jargon-heavy talk earlier that day, "But, uh... I'm afraid he can hear every word we say." As the otter looked embarrassed, Ari pointed up at her charm earrings and then indicated the bird on her shoulder. "This is Crow, Thaniel's familiar," she said, changing the subject for Ben's sake, "Crow, this is Ben Calhoun, he helped us in Calastor." "So I gathered," the bird said, dryly. "Uh, pleased to meet you," Ben said, nodding to the raven. "Mmmm," came Crow's reply, just as enthusiastic as ever. "And since we apparently never properly introduced ourselves - I'm sorry about that, by the way, we must have been distracted by the riot - Thaniel doesn't seem to have a last name, but I'm Ariella Shieldfall." The otter's eyes twinkled cleverly. "Shieldfall? So that's why you knew so much about that battle in the carving!" he said, "Family history!" Ari smiled and nodded, and Ben reached forward to shake her hand. "Well, Ariella Shieldfall, it's delightful to make your acquaintance," he said, in an exaggeratedly posh accent, and then winked and added "...Again." As their hands fell away from each other, Ben's whiskers began twitching in curiosity. "So... I'm here on business, but I'm guessing you lot are still on the trail of that cursed gauntlet?" he asked, quietly, "You think it's out here?" "We know it was out here," she said, nodding, "But we don't know if it was lost or hidden somewhere in the swamp, or if it just passed through here on its way to somewhere else. We're hoping to figure out which, but the marsh is huge, so we need to hire a guide who knows his way around." At this, the Ani-man's face lit up. "Oh! I can help you with that!" he said, "I've been here a while already, and I can help you find a good guide, someone who really knows his stuff, so you don't get swindled by an amateur!" Ari beamed from ear to ear. "Oh, would you? Thank you, Ben, you're a lifesaver!" The otter returned her smile and winked again. "Hey, I work in a museum, and you showed me that even that can be exciting!" he said, "Far as I'm concerned, I owe you one!" He nodded down the street towards the inn and started ambling in that direction. "C'mon, the best place to start is the inn," he said, "It's not the only place in town anymore, but it's still the best place in town, so you can find plenty of locals there, not just traders and travellers." Ari hurried to catch up with him, which wasn't difficult; owing to the otter's long, thin torso, his legs were much shorter than hers. "We were heading there anyway," she replied, "but it's nice to know we were on the right track."
As they walked through the front door of the inn, Ari was struck by how well soundproofed the walls must be, as the air was filled with the sound of someone joyously playing a fiddle, which had been completely undetectable outside. "Wow, look how much character that place has!" Thaniel said, approvingly, "Crow, tilt the focus around so I can see better, would you?" For once, the bird didn't sigh as he carried out a simple task, and just leaned his chest from side to side, panning the Wizard's view back and forth. Even at this hour, there were a fair number of people around the common room, eating food or nursing drinks. Ari meant to look around for potential guides, but she was rather taken aback as they walked near the bar and she caught sight of the man behind it. "Oh!" she said, raising a hand to her chest in surprise. The bartender smiled politely at her, which she found unnerving, given how incredibly sharp his teeth looked. "Not used to seeing my kind around, I take it?" he asked, politely, in strongly-accented but perfectly coherent Rilodian, the language also known as 'Common' due to its ubiquity among humanoid species. That was a bit of an understatement, really; the man was a Naga, a reptilian species who were gifted with four arms, perhaps to make up for the lack of limbs elsewhere, as their entire lower bodies were made up of thick, sinuous tails like those of the snakes they resembled. They were infamously xenophobic, to the point where Ari's pulse had jumped upon seeing him, briefly thinking the village was being attacked. "I'm sorry, it's just... I thought your people didn't even like mammals..." she said. The bartender picked up a mug and started cleaning it with a rag, while simultaneously wiping down the counter with another cloth, and still having a hand free to gesture to her as he spoke. "Not all of us share that view," he replied, and shrugged, which looked somewhat odd with so many arms. "Eh... I guess you're okay..." It took Ariella a moment to realize that was a joke, and then she snickered in surprise. The snake-man grinned at her. "You can call me Rassamo." Thaniel spoke up in Ari's ear, sounding confused, and she repeated his point. "Rassamo? You mean like the species of, er, snake-snake?" she asked, "Like the ones you'd find out in the swamp?" The bartender shrugged again. "I said you can call me that, I didn't say it was my name," he clarified, "I'm afraid I've yet to find a warmblood whose tongue is nimble enough to pronounce my name, so the people here gave me a nickname." He followed this up by leaning forward slightly and releasing a long, sibilant sound that seemed to Ari to consist entirely of consonants, mostly 'S'es. "...Oh," she replied, feeling embarrassed, "That's, ah, that's quite a lovely name. I guess I'll stick with Rassamo, though." Nodding politely, the Naga swapped out the clean mug for another. "As you desire, miss," he said, and to his credit, he didn't make it sound condescending, "I take no offence. You know, I actually find it quite... agreeable here. The people are quite nice, the weather is warm all year, and the marsh reminds me of home. Can I get you anything to drink?" Ari smiled politely and shook her head. "Ah, no thank you, sir, I'm not one for drinking this early in the day," she said, "I've come here hoping to find someone who knows the marshlands very well." Rassamo nodded, putting the mug under the counter and leaning against it with two of his arms. "Suit yourself. I'll be here all day." Ari was about to ask, out of morbid curiosity, if it was true that the Naga killed anyone entering their homeland, but she was distracted when she looked down at his hands. She had theorized that when the Midnight Hand had told Geoffrey the Gentleman to seek its 'brothers', it had used the plural because the gauntlets were actually made by the four-armed Naga, so there was more than one other gauntlet in the set. But Rassamo had three long, slender fingers and a thumb on each hand, and there was no sign that this was because of injuries, which meant that unless it was a bizarrely symmetrical birth defect, the gauntlet couldn't have been made by the Naga, since it had too many fingers, and they weren't long enough!
Before Ari could spend any time at all thinking about what the gauntlet could have meant by its brothers (assuming, of course that that part wasn't just the mad ravings of a criminal whose mind had been consumed by evil magic), an old man off to her right raised his voice. "Lookin' for someone who knows these parts, eh?" he asked, leaning forward from his seat against the wall, next to the fireplace, "Well, you came to the right place, missy, 'cause there ain't no one who knows this here swamp better than old Udo!" Leaving the bar behind and walking over to the man, Ari smiled. "You know the swamps around here?" she asked, hopefully. She hadn't quite thought it would be this easy. The old-timer nodded, his long white beard rustling as he did so. From the thickness of his arms and hands and the length of his beard, Ari could almost swear this man was a Half-Dwarf, but he was fairly tall if that was the case. "I sure do!" he said, "I can tell you pretty much everything 'sever happened in Milgram's Marsh! Ohhh, I've got some great tales about Tagram Dellor, he and my grandpappy were practically brothers, they was so close! Tagram was a bit of a scoundrel, y'see, even after he became mayor, so he was always up for having a bit of fun! This one time -" "Udokas!" called Rassamo, leaning over the bar and sending an unblinking stare the old man's way, "You're not talking another traveller's ear off with your ridiculous tales, are you? Drunken panty raids by the town founder, glowing spirits in the bog, men getting so lost they go back in time... don't believe a word this man says, miss!" The snake-man was smirking playfully as he said this (at least Ari thought he was, it was kind of hard to judge 'playfully' on a face whose eyes are always wide open and whose mouth is nothing but fangs and incisors), but Udo blushed slightly and harrumphed. "E'ery one of my 'ree-dikolus tales' is absolutely true, I swear it on the Laughing Goddess' perfect bust!" the old main insisted, glaring at the bartender, and then looked back to Ariella, speaking with a stage whisper, so Rassamo could still hear him. "Some people just don't have the 'magination to believe anything they ain't seen with their own eyes!" The Naga said nothing, just shook his head and started checking his stocks of various liquors under the counter, but Ben stepped forward and touched Ari's arm, speaking up for the first time in several minutes. "Come on, Ari, ah, whether this gentleman's tales are true or not..." he started, diplomatically, "He's not a guide, he's a storyteller. He'll talk your ear off for hours if you buy him drinks to keep him going, and his yarns are pretty entertaining, but he can't help us. We need to look elsewhere." Udo sniffed, placated by the note that his stories were of high quality, but his hairy wrinkled brow furled nonetheless. "Didjoo just say 'guide', laddie?" the elderly tale-weaver asked, as if he found the very word suspicious. Before Ben could respond, Ari turned back to Udo and smiled politely. "Yes," she confirmed, "We're looking for someone to take us into the marsh, someone who knows..." The heiress trailed off as a look of what appeared to be horrified shock spread across the old man's features. "Are you mad?!" he asked, leaning slightly away from her, "Nobody leaves the paths in Milgram's Marsh! Nobody ever tries to explore the swamp!" Across the room, the music stopped and the conversation lapsed into silence. Ari wasn't sure if it was because Udo had raised his voice... or because of what he said. "Guys, I think you got their attention..." muttered Thaniel, who even in his tower was moved to lower his voice.
Ari couldn't just walk away, not with a question like that staring her in the face. "Why?" she asked, "Why doesn't anyone explore the swamp?" Ari jumped slightly as Rassamo answered that question, but from just beside them, as if keeping an eye on his clientele now that they were all so interested in the conversation. "Because people who go into the marshlands never come out of the marshlands," he said, grimly, "Sure, some people get lucky, but some people don't." He simultaneously crossed his arms over his chest and put his hands on his hips, and Ari idly thought that Naga body language must be extraordinarily expressive. "You can't go into the bog because you never know when he'll be around, waitin', ready to punish people who trespass on his land," Udo said, and then added, without being prompted, "The Lord o' the Swamp." Ben frowned, his whiskers twitching with agitation. "Is this another story, old man?" he asked, dubiously, "Like the man whose wife turned out to be the Princess of the Harpies?" "Say what ye will about my stories, boy," Udo fumed, "But there ain't nothing made-up about him!" The bartender sighed. "It's... it's true," he said, almost reluctantly, and most of the other patrons of the inn muttered their agreement and nodded. "Nobody knows where he came from, nobody knows why he's here, doin' the things he does," Udo said, "They just know that he never comes close to town, and he don't seem to bother the traders on the roads. But if you wander off the paths, if you go into the wild marsh, and he finds you on his land? You're as good as dead." "Uhh, there's nothing in the atlas about a murderer in the swamp..." Thaniel said, sounding more than a little concerned. "So who is he?" the otter asked, glancing around, "I've been here all week, and nobody mentioned some loon killing people in the swamp!" Udo scoffed. "He ain't no person, my boy, he's a monster." The old man sighed heavily and shook his head. "People just started disappearin' one day, townsfolk didn't know what was happenin', and then a man stumbled into town. A guard from a trade convoy that tried to take a shortcut across a dry patch o' land, but all 'a sudden, one of the bloody trees along the side of their path pulls himself up and starts grabbin' people in his branches!" "A moving tree?" Ari asked, "What, like one of those treants from Woodshire?" Thaniel spoke up again, sounding both confused and agitated. "A treant might go after you if you tried to cut down a tree or mine a hill or build a house on his territory, but he'd always find you and give you a fair warning, tell you to leave first, he'd never just start attacking traders just for wandering onto his land... Something must be seriously wrong here." "Not quite like that," Rassamo said, "It's not a tree-man, it's just a tree. It's got wooden hands on the ends of some of its branches, but it's not shaped like a person, so no one ever sees it coming, it just looks like any other tree before it starts attacking. We call it the Lord of the Swamp, or the Tree King, or the Duke of the Bog, names like that, because people have seen him all over the marshlands, like the whole place is his property. All the wood you see in town was made from imported lumber, because the people here are too afraid to try to cut down a tree, in case it turns out to be the monster, or worse, if it makes him so angry that he comes to attack the town."
"If it's so terrible, why don't you just find it and destroy it?" asked Ben. "And how, pray tell, d'you think we should do that?" Udo countered, "It don't matter if you have weapons when he finds you, it's a tree. You can't kill a tree by stabbing it in the heart or cutting its head off, because it don't have none! And the big bastard can move - not common enough for people to see him wanderin' around, and not fast enough for him to chase you down, but both enough that we can't just bring an army back to where he was after he's seen, and hack him to pieces!" He sighed and closed his eyes. "We've lost good men and women to that beastie," he murmured, "Never pops up 'til you're right on top o' him, 'til it's too late. When he attacked the convoy, the only reason that guard survived is that he were a coward, and just ran away right quick! No, if you go into that swamp, you take your life in your own hands, missy. People survive by seeing him from a distance, from leaving him be. Only one man in town's ever come face-to-face with the Lord o' the Swamp and lived to tell the tale..." With that, Udo opened his eyes again, looking off to the side, and Ari turned as she heard the creaking of chairs behind her. The entire room had turned as Udo said that, to look at a man sitting alone in a booth in the far corner, by the smiling portrait of Tagram Dellor.
The man in that booth, a tall, skinny rat-kin Ani-man, looked up from his beer at the attention, clearly none too happy about it. The laws of drama indicated that he would address the group and tell his story, but instead he turned away, staring at the aged surface of his table with the kind of intensely focused interest that immediately flags itself as insincere, the kind that only appears when you're just trying not to look at something else. Ariella turned back to Udo and smiled pleasantly. "Tell me something, Udokas -" "Udo, please," he interrupted. "Tell me something, Udo," she replied, without missing a beat, "How long has the Lord of the Swamp been out there, exactly?" The old man sniffed. "Well, like I toldja, he didn't roll up into town and announce his arrival with a parade or nothin'," he said, "So it's hard t'say, exactly, but assumin' all the folk who disappeared in the months before that caravan guard saw him and lived... He's been stalkin' those woods for about fifty years now." He sighed heavily and rubbed the top of his head, oblivious to the way Ari's eyes widened ever-so-slightly. "It's really not so bad livin' here," Udo said, "It's not like the swamp is a happy, magical place full of magic 'n treasure, eh? Just a big ugly bog full of bugs and foul smells. I say let him have it. S'long as we leave him alone, he leaves us alone." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Winter's nice, no one's ever seen him in winter," he admitted, "I figger he must be one of them trees that sleeps through the cold season. Not that anyone's stupid enough to test their luck and go explorin' then, either!" Ari smiled again and nodded to the storyteller. "Thank you, Udo," she said, "I believe we'll take it up with that man in the corner." She turned to go, but the old man grabbed her by the wrist, an expression of genuine dismay (and maybe a little fear) in his eyes. "Aww, please, miss!" he said, "I'm not tellin' you these tales as a bored old man tryin' to scare a traveller passin' through! I've got other stories for that! The Lord o' the Swamp is real, and he's spilled the blood o' too many good people who didn't take him seriousy enough!" Looking down at his hand, as if surprised by his own rashness, he sighed and let go of her. "Eh, suit yourself, missy, but don't come cryin' to old Udo when the Lord o' the Swamp crushes the life out a' you... Rassamo! Get me a bottle!"
Leaving Udo in peace, Ari and Ben made their way across the room. Ari felt nervous, like the entire room was watching her whenever she wasn't looking, but no one said a word as they crossed the floor. She'd expected to go straight to the booth in the back corner, but Ben gently pulled her aside and sat them down in another booth on a side wall, so they had a perfect view of the rodent man in the back. "After 'Story time with Udo', I figure it's a good idea to take some time to let the room cool down a bit before we walk over there and start chatting up the guy," the otter explained, and then sighed, running a hand through the fur atop his head. "I'm sorry, Ari," Ben muttered, "I've just been asking about, you know, relics and antiquities, mostly dealing with foreign traders who'd brought their goods here, I hadn't even gotten to the part where I was going to head out into the swamp and look for things myself, I'd just been asking general questions, getting a feeling for who knew the area well." The otter made a face. "I hadn't heard anything about a fuckin' murder-tree out in the swamp... Assuming the entire town isn't seeing things, that could be a real problem for someone trying to find something as small as that damned glove out there in all that marsh..." Ari turned to her companion thoughtfully. "Well, we've been..." Just as quickly as she'd started, the Human trailed off, suddenly unwilling to finish that thought, to say 'working on a way to track the Midnight Hand'. Glancing between the tables full of strangers deep in murmured conversation and meals or drinks, Ari was suddenly overcome with paranoia that there might be someone around she didn't want hearing about the gauntlet. They'd learned that a death cult called the Seekers of the Forsaken had been trying to get their hands on the gauntlet when it was lost, but even though that was fifty long years ago, and she didn't know if the cult even still existed, that didn't mean there weren't other people out there trying to find it for less magnanimous reasons than her, people who might be drawn to the same small town by the swamp as they tracked it here. She tried to shake off the feeling as best she could. If there really was a tree monster in the marsh, then it wouldn't do her any good to be fretting about theoretical threats at the same time. Nodding to the corner booth, Ben frowned. "Ari, far be it from me to judge your, uh, judgement, but shouldn't we be looking for a guide who knows how to avoid the murder-tree?" he asked. Ari glanced over at the rat-man, who was doing his level best to ignore the rest of the room, and then back at Ben. "Fair point, but I have a theory," she said, "The, uh, the object we're looking for is known to cause things to happen around it. Bad things, as if it corrupts everything it touches, everywhere it goes. So I'm thinking, if the Tree King started appearing right after the 'object' came to this region, maybe the two things are related somehow, like, I don't know, maybe the man we were tracing who was wearing the blasted thing comes into the marsh and leans against a tree on his way through." "That kind of brief contact probably wouldn't be enough to cause corruption on the scale they're talking about," Thaniel piped in, embarrassing Ari, who had practically forgotten he was even listening, "But I like your line of thinking, Ari, I was pondering something similar. Maybe this 'Lord of the Swamp' is defending the marsh because it's protecting the hiding place of the Midnight Hand." In short order, Ariella nodded, realized Ben was looking at her strangely, blushed, and grinned sheepishly. "Thaniel agrees with me..." she whispered, and the otter snorted in amusement. "Must be nice, having a wizard in your head," he observed. On Ari's shoulder, Crow shook his head slowly and let out an incredibly heavy sigh, but remained silent. A rather busty serving girl, a mouse-kin Ani-woman, walked over to ask them if they wanted anything to eat, and Ari was somewhat surprised when Ben took her up on the offer. "It's been a long day," he shrugged, "Give me whatever's hot." It had been a while since Ari had eaten, and she supposed it would look more natural than just sitting around twiddling their thumbs. "Well, in that case, I'll have, uhh..." The noblewoman struggled for an answer, having no idea what a common inn would serve its customers. "The chicken is good today," the serving girl suggested helpfully. Ari grinned gratefully and nodded. "Alright, I'll have the chicken, then," she replied, "Oh, and, ah, some bread for the bird, please." Ari looked pointedly at the surface of the table as Crow turned his head towards her sharply. She didn't dare check to see if his expression was grateful or irritated. More than anything else, even the stupid nickname, the familiar hated being treated like a pet, and she wasn't sure how he would take that. As the serving girl bowed politely (showing off her ample cleavage as she did so) and walked back out to the kitchen, the wizard spoke up in Ari's ear. "W-wait a minute, you guys," Thaniel said, almost anxiously, "You're having dinner? What am I going to eat?" Hopping down onto the table with a flutter of his wings, Crow smirked. "Sorry, Thaniel, you're just going to have to be satisfied with summoned muffins," the bird muttered, and Ari couldn't help but giggle as the wizard let out a sigh that was surprisingly reminiscent of his familiar.
* * *
As it turned out, the chicken was pretty good, though the vegetables were just a little overcooked. Even Crow found he liked the local bread, and somewhat self-consciously found himself eating most of the portion they'd offered him. Tasty or not, he was still a bird, and his stomach could only hold so much - though he still poked at their chicken scraps afterwards, as it had been a while since he'd had meat. After they were done, and the serving girl brought their plates away (along with their compliments to the chef), Ben turned to Ari and smiled slightly. "Look, everyone in the room saw you and Udo talking about the Lord of the Swamp," he said, "You don't want to create a stir talking to the guy who saw him. Meanwhile, I've been talking to practically everybody in town about, uh, artifacts and local records and such, so they barely even see me anymore. Why don't you go touch bases with the wizard, or go look through the local shops, just kill some time, and I'll have a chat with our rodent friend, hmmm?" The human woman frowned, and rubbed her chin. "Well, I'd really rather sit in on it..." she started, "But if you really think it's for the best..." Ben leaned forward, put on his most endearing smile, and gently patted the back of her hand. "I do, friend," he said, "Trust me on this." Nodding, and thanking him for his assistance, Ari stood up, Mister Crow flapping up to settle onto her shoulder again. "I'll see you again soon," he said, "I'll be out in front of the inn. I'm staying here anyway, so I'm in no hurry to go anywhere." With that, Ari and the familiar turned and left the inn, and Ben sat there, relaxed, watching them go. As soon as the door closed behind them, he sighed, the expression disappearing from his face, and he rubbed the top of his muzzle, his whiskers dancing in mild irritation. He was good at putting on a face, but playing a role for an extended period was tiresome. When he looked up again, there was a different expression on his face, a slightly smaller, slyer smile, the sort worn by a man who knows something you don't, and a sharper aspect to the eyes, like he was taking in every detail around him for future reference.
After taking a few minutes to let his food settle, Ben stood up and walked up to the bar, where he put on the smile he used around Ari and Crow. "Hey bartender," he said, nodding towards the dining area, "You've got a rodent problem." After glancing over at the mouse serving girl and the rat trying to disappear into the corner booth, Rassamo focused his attention on Ben, looking as unamused as can be (which for a reptilian, is very). "She works here, and he's a paying customer," he said, flatly, "You're an odd one to have a problem with rodents." Ben waved a hand dismissively. "Never mind, bad joke," he said, "I love rodents, pay me no attention. I'd like a mug of mead, please." Without a word, the Naga produced a tall glass tankard full of frothy drink. Taking it graciously and dropping his money on the counter, Ben turned around and made a beeline for the back corner, where he sat down across from the rat-kin man without asking. Looking up, the man frowned, his ears flattening against his head in stress. "You don't think I saw you earlier, with that Human tart asking questions about the Lord of the Swamp?" the man asked, by way of greeting, "Leave me be, otter, I have nothing to say to you, and nothing to help your bitch with her suicide mission." Ben sniffed indifferently and looked around the room, his face the very picture of neutral calm. "She's not my bitch, brother," Ben said, flatly, "Human girls aren't my style, all that bare skin makes them look extra naked... and then the little bits of hair they do have just look too... focused, somehow, almost obscene. Naaah, give me a girl with a fat tail and a face full of whiskers any day of the week." The rat snorted at his fellow Ani-man, his lip curling up over his pointy teeth with a sneer. "Well, I'm glad you have good taste in women," he said, "But I'm no brother of yours, and I still have nothing to say about that fucking tree!" Ben gave the man the sort of look that says give me strength, but after a moment he just shrugged. "Well, when I first arrived in this quaint little town, a Dwarf called me a 'water-rat'," Ben said, "so it seems people are under the impression your kind and mine are brothers, whatever you say." A silence followed that would have been awkward if not for the fact that Ben clearly didn't look the least bit bothered by it, staring across the room at the impressively-sized nose of another of the inn's patrons, who was oblivious to the attention. Finally, the otter sighed and regarded the other man with a frown of his own. "Look, mate, I'm not leaving here without at least getting your story out of you, or that woman and her friends will never let me hear the end of it," he said, "So why don't you just tell me what happened with the monster?" At last, the other man relented, sighing and nodding. Ben beckoned over the same serving girl who had brought him and Ari their dinner. "Bring my new friend here a nice big mug of mead just like this one, will you darling?" he asked, slipping her some coins, "Thanks." As he glanced towards his boothmate, one of Ben's eyebrows raised ever-so-slightly at the look on the rat's face as he watched the serving girl doing her job, not to mention the look of familiarity on her face as she glanced at the rat, but the otter said nothing, merely made note of these things for future use.
Once the mead had been brought out, the rat-man smiled shyly at the serving girl as she accepted a tip from Ben and then walked away... which meant he wasn't paying attention as the otter dropped a pinch of dust from a hidden pouch into the frothy mug in front of him. The dust near-instantly absorbed into the rat's mead, leaving no visual trace. Ben smiled magnanimously. He was no cretin, even men in his profession had to have standards, but if this was how easy it was to drug women, he could almost understand why so many lowlifes were drawn to the practice. This particular powder wouldn't knock the rat out, though, just... loosen his tongue a little more than the alcohol already would. After the rodent took a drink, he sighed again and finally met Ben's gaze. "Alright, look, my name is Elan, Elan Larka, and it's not a very complicated story," he said, "We'd heard the warnings, we knew what the Lord of the Swamp does, but my friend Lucas got his hands on a map, I think he inherited it from his grandfather or something." "A map?" Ben asked. Elan nodded, looking somewhat sheepish. "A... a treasure map," he said, "Seems a bandit lord picked a spot in the swamp and buried an incredible haul there so the authorities couldn't take it away from him. Of course, that was sixty, maybe seventy years ago, when there wasn't a giant, murderous tree-thing wandering the marsh, so people could come and go as they pleased." Ben nodded, stroking his chin. "So you and your friends risked it to go treasure hunting," he replied, "Can't say I blame you - if the map was legit." The rat put on a lopsided smirk. "Oh, it's legit, alright. Roo - uh, that's Rupert's nickname - got some blackmail material on a relic expert who comes to trade sometimes, like you, I guess," Elan said, "But it turns out he's a queer, even though he's married to a lady, and with whatever it was Roo had on him, we were able to, you know, 'bypass' his usual fee to examine the map." He blinked a few times and frowned. Ben took a drink to hide his amusement at the rat's candidness. It seemed the powder was working. Elan glanced at his drink, whiskers twitching. "What's in this mead, anyway?" he asked. Ben exaggeratedly smacked his tongue inside his mouth, like his perception of a wine taster. "Some Tiluvian spices, I think," he replied, innocently.
Elan sighed yet again and stared into his mead as if divining the secrets of the universe. Frankly, Ben was beginning to find all the sighing tiresome. "So we go out into the swamp, Lucas, Roo, Peter, Talford, and me, and we start following landmarks... It was all going pretty well, except that it was starting to rain," Elan said, quietly, "We'd been going out of our way to give trees a lot of space, but he was right behind this enormous fuck-off boulder and we didn't see him until he was popping up, right next to Peter and Lucas, that poor bastard..." The rat man closed his eyes and flinched, no doubt seeing it all over again. "You can figure out what happened next..." "How did you escape?" Ben asked, "What, was he just too 'full' after - sorry. Bad joke. Force of habit." The apology was fully genuine, as was the discomfort on the otter's face. Like he'd thought earlier, standards. "The monster grabbed the others in those fuckin' branches before we could react, and he started coming closer, cause I was the furthest one out," Elan said, "But he reached out for me, too. I'd be just as dead as they were, except - except that right then, a fuckin' bolt of lightning comes down from the sky and blasts that one branch clean off, like the tree pissed off the Red God of Rage! Acted just like a regular animal would if its arm got blown off, he - what's the word - recoiled away from me, shaking from top to bottom, vines twitching... He never makes a sound, ever, he's a tree after all, but I swear, whatever he is, the Lord of the Swamp was hurting bad that day. Before I can even think this through, he pulls himself up, and he moves on his roots, sort of like one of those, uh, really strange fish with all the arms, I forget the name... Walks out into the muck and just disappears straight down. Bastard's got to be thirty feet tall, at least, and he vanishes into four feet of muddy water, like the damned circus trick where all the clowns pile into the tiny house." "When did the circus come way out here?" Ben blurted, without thinking of how unimportant that question was. Elan shrugged. "I moved here when I was a teenager," he mumbled, "Saw the show with my parents in the city when I was a kid." Opening his eyes, Elan looked to Ben with an expression of mild desperation and extremely strong despair. "I don't know what kind of magic he used to get away like that, but he took the others with him, there was n-nothing I could do!" the rat-man insisted, tears starting to form in the corners of his eyes, "So I - I just ran! I got up, I ran back to town, and now everyone looks at me like I'm special somehow, 'cause after fifty years, I'm the first one that got away since that damned caravan guard."
Ben let the man sit in silence for a while, taking a long drink from his mug. To his surprise, the mead really was quite good, especially for the local brew from a middle-of-nowhere inn like this. "Now, when you say 'special'..." he said, gently. Elan looked up miserably. "I mean they look at me like I'm a freak," he replied, "Like even the Lord of the Swamp wouldn't touch me because I'm cursed or rotten or something... Or like I was in league with the fuckin' thing, like I lead those poor bastards to their deaths. It wasn't even my idea!" He sent a sideways glance into the room, watching the mouse waitress talking to some drunks across the way. "It's been three weeks, and Caroline has barely spoken to me," he muttered, bitterly, "I can see it in her eyes, in everyone's eyes... they don't believe my story, they think I'm just a c-coward who left his friends to die." He looked back to Ben and, wait for it, sighed heavily. "You know, my share was gonna go towards impressing her, proving I was worthy?" he murmured, just as candid as ever, "But Peter was her cousin, and she thinks he threw his life away for nothing, hates me for encouraging him. Now I'll never have a chance to tell her how I feel, and all because of Lucas and his stupid fucking map..." Ben leaned forward onto his elbows. This was the tricky part. This particular powder may have loosened Elan's tongue, but it didn't do anything about making him more suggestible. For obvious reasons, that kind of substance was much harder to come by. "Elan, I'm gonna be frank with you. The Human woman I was here with is looking for something, and from what she's been saying, I'd bet good money that whatever it is is tied to your swamp lord," he said, carefully dancing around discussing the Night's Right Hand, "And if she finds it, I reckon she'll take it with her. Presto! No more swamp lord!" He cleared his throat and tried to look sympathetic. "The thing is, she's definitely going to want you to show her where you saw the murder-tree, lead her into the swamp, so..." "No!" Elan gasped, leaning as far back in his seat as he could, "No way! I'm moving as far away from this shithole as I can as soon as I scrape together enough coin, I never want to see that fucking swamp again, much less go back to where all my friends were murdered!" The rat-man looked terrified, and Ben's instincts told him that no promise of payment could get him to face his fears. Slowly, the otter looked out into the room. Absolutely no one else was paying them any mind. Just as slowly, he looked back at Elan, and reached into his coat, into a hidden pocket sewn into the lining. "You know, Elan, if you go back into the marsh, if you help Ariella destroy the monster, you won't just prove you're not a coward, you'll be a hero," he said, his tone neutral but his voice taut with irritation. Before Elan could voice his protests, the otter nodded in the direction of Caroline, the serving mouse. "I see you've got a sweet eye for that girl," Ben said, "That's good. Do it for her. Do it for yourself. Do it for your town. Do it for the friends who didn't make it home." Leaning forward, Ben placed a stone on the table, a stone he'd been tightly gripping under his palm; as soon as the surface was exposed to light, an eldritch symbol burned itself into the rock's smooth upper surface and began to glow an unhealthy yellow. Elan's eyes were already as wide as could be, but his jaw dropping open managed to convey that suddenly he was even more afraid than before. He wouldn't know what the symbol meant, of course, but the only people who used burning runes to identify themselves were bad news. "Do it," said Ben, his voice suddenly dropped into a mirthless growl, "so that the people I work for don't burn the two of you, and everyone else you've ever known, alive."
* * *
The next day, Ariella woke up early and made use of Thaniel's portal room to quietly slip directly into a back alley near the inn, to save time. The wizard seemed almost as nervous as he had when Ari and Crow had gone off to look into a mineshaft that was infested with revenants. "I'll be listening in on the earpieces," he had said, unnecessarily, "And if anything goes wrong, I'll, uh... I don't know, I'll drop the tower on top of that thing if that's what it takes to help!" Ari smiled at that and touched her hand to Thaniel's shoulder. "Thank you, dear Thaniel," she'd replied, completely earnestly, "It brings me peace of mind to have you in our corner." As she walked away, she could almost hear Mister Crow rolling his eyes. Once they'd arrived, Ben met them in front of the building that gave Dellor's Rest its name, and together they went to a squat, unremarkable house to the side of the village and knocked on the door. After two more tries, it unlocked from the inside, and a rather bedraggled rat-man in his underwear opened it, looking more confused than annoyed. "Huh-whaa?" he mumbled, staring at the odd crew through squinty, bleary eyes. Ari smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, Mister... Larka, wasn't it?" she said, her tone prim and proper and diplomatic, ignoring his state of undress, "We didn't expect to wake you. Was there some kind of misunderstanding regarding the time we meant to start?" The rodent looked back and forth between Ari and Ben, then back to Ari, and then for a brief, hopelessly confused moment he looked at Crow, and then he shook his head. "What the hell are you talking about?" he finally replied. Ari looked to Ben and frowned, and he shrugged. "Elan, my friend! Don't you remember?" Ben prodded, "You said you would help us get back to where you and your boys were digging up that treasure you were gonna impress... what's-her-name with." "Wait, Caroline?" Elan said, rubbing the side of his head in utter bewilderment, and then his eyes widened. "Hang on, I would never go back -" "That's what you said last night!" interrupted Ben, stepping forward and putting a hand on Elan's shoulder, "But I talked about how you'd be sticking one to the murder tree on behalf of Roo and, uh, Peter, and all the others, how you'd be a hero for helping us figure out how to kill that thing, and you agreed to be our guide. We might even find that treasure of yours while we're out there." The museum researcher grinned boyishly, his thick tail floating back and forth behind him, and he winked at Ari before looking back to Elan. "And if I've got my math right," he added, "you're not splitting it five ways anymore..." Elan shook his head again, his ears flattening down. "I - it's so hard to remember..." he said, "Everything is blurry..." Ben beckoned Ariella in close as Elan groaned and rubbed his forehead. "I'm not sure what he was drinking last night," the otter whispered, conspiratorially, "There's all kinds of spices and herbs and powders out there that people mix into their drinks that impair the memory the next day..."
"I... I remember I didn't want to talk to you..." the rat said, "But I... Caroline... maybe I did agree to help you..." The other Ani-man clapped his hands together, whiskers dancing with happiness. "There! You see?" Ben said, "Let's just -" This time, Elan interrupted him. "But I was scared!" he protested, "I remember that! When I agreed, I was scared half to death! I just... can't..." He squinted his eyes again as he stared off into the distance, trying to remember the details. Ben stepped forward and patted the man on the back. "It's alright to be afraid, my friend," he said, "We are talking about a monster, after all... Hell, I'm afraid of facing that thing. But facing your fears is a strength, and we're in good hands." Ari nodded. "We're in contact with a wizard who can send out his spells from afar to protect us, Mr. Larka," she interjected, "This is his familiar, Crow." "Salutations," said the bird, dryly. Elan blinked, but didn't respond to that directly. "I also remember... a stone, burning with yellow fire?" he murmured, scratching his chin, "But what in the world could that be..." Ben laughed cheerily. "Goodness, you did have too much to drink, friend," he said, "It's alright. I'm feeling a bit of last night myself. Just get yourself dressed for travel, and we'll get you some food before we head out, alright?" After a long moment of silence, Elan nodded, mumbled an agreement, and headed back inside his home, closing the door behind him. Once he was gone, the raven turned on Ari's shoulder to peer at the otter-kin. "Are you quite sure this is the man to guide us?" Crow said, "He's barely coherent, much less impressive." Ben crossed his arms and gave Mister Crow a Look. "I take it you've never had to work off the effects of a night of drink?" Ben asked, rhetorically, "Cut the man some slack, give him a chance to get in his right mind again." Crow sighed and shook his head as he hopped back into his forward-facing position. "Alright, but if that tree lord, or whatever it's called, murders you, I am going to peck your eyes out," he replied, much to the displeasure of both humanoids with him.
Once the coherent but shaking Elan was dressed and had eaten, the group headed off into the marsh. No one was around to see them go, which was of course the biggest reason why Ben had suggested they leave so early in the day. The people of Dellor's Rest obviously had strong emotions on the subject of the Lord of the Swamp, and the otter had been worried that if people saw outsiders wandering into the bog (with one of their own, no less), it could go bad in any numberof ways, ranging from merely shouting mockery at their suicidal behaviour to openly attacking them, lest they tempt the Tree King into tracing their steps and uncharacteristically bringing his wrath upon the town itself. Ari could see how afraid Elan was; before they'd even lost sight of the village, his ears were flat against his head, and he was looking around nervously, tensing up and leaning away from any trees by the side of the path, as if the Lord of the Swamp would be waiting for him, hoping to finish what he'd started. In truth, Ari herself had to admit to more than a little trepidation, since from the sounds of things, the Lord could be lying in wait anywhere... At the precise moment she thought that, a bird (to be clear, not somebody's familiar, just a regular old bird) suddenly took wing from the branches of a tree and flapped off into the sky, cawing loudly, and Ari gasped. Crow turned towards her face, and she pouted. "Don't say it," she grumbled, blushing. The raven shook his head. "No, it's alright..." he said, quietly, "This place... there's something tainted about this place. I can just fly away if the tree lord makes an appearance, and even I'm put off by this swamp." This uncharacteristic admission from Crow made Ari feel better, strangely, at least for a while. Despite being their guide, Elan clearly didn't want to be here, so Ben put himself at the front of the group, with Elan between him and Ariella, who took up the rear at least partially so that Thaniel could see the whole group through Crow's talisman. But the Human had to admit it bothered her a little. "Ben, are you sure you want to take the front?" she asked, "I mean, besides Crow being here, at least I've got a magic spear to defend myself with..." Ben smiled thinly back at her, and reached under his shoulders. His outfit, like the one he'd been wearing when she met him, had a sort of half-cape running over the top of his back, and now the otter reached under it and - much to Ari and the distant Thaniel's mutual surprise - casually drew a pair of daggers from sheaths hidden near his armpits. The blades looked wickedly sharp, not something she would expect from a museum employee. "Do you know how to use those?" Crow asked, suspiciously, "You really shouldn't play with blades without training, you could cut your own wrists, or put an eye out." Winking at the bird, as if acknowledging that last comment, Ben began to spin the knives around his hands with deft motions of his fingers, seemingly effortlessly. "Funny thing to say, coming from a guy with no hands to speak of," Ben commented, "But don't worry about me, I'm great with these." He glanced at Ari, catching the look on her face, and laughed gently as he re-sheathed the daggers. "You do know how often the people riot in Calastor, right?" he asked, "Only an idiot has a job in the heart of the city without knowing how to defend himself." Remembering the riot that had been raging in the streets on the very night she'd been there, Ari had to admit that made sense.
After a while, Ari sighed. The tension remained, and being forced to walk right past a tree because of the shape of the land never got any easier, but the fear began to subside in the face of the sheer monotony of walking through a hot, humid swamp. As the group was forced to trudge across a patch of mud in order to continue along the path Elan and his friends had taken, the heiress looked around and shook her head. "Blue Goddess, this land is enormous," she muttered, "Even if the Lord of the Swamp means that the gauntlet is here, it's probably buried under five feet of muck..." Thaniel spoke up in her ear, as he often did when Ari began to doubt her mission. "Even if it is buried in mud, we'll be able to find its exact location if we can get a nice strong reading of its magical trace," he said, confidently, "All we'd need to do is dig. Besides... it looks like this thing corrupts everything around it, so you'd probably be able to tell where it was buried just by seeing the area." "Is the wizard saying something?" Ben called out, "'Cause, ah, that was a really good point, Ari!" Ariella apologized for having one-sided conversations and explained what Thaniel had said. As silence fell, the wizard spoke up again. "Ari, would you ask Ben if he'd like one of these listening charms?" he asked, politely. The spearwoman blinked. "You'd be willing to do that?" she asked, "I didn't even know you could make more of these. Wait, why didn't you offer one to Jerroth? We went into a den of revenants together, wouldn't it have been safer if we could all hear you?" There came a creak as Thaniel leaned back in whatever chair he'd set before the magical mirror he used to observe the view through the medallion around Crow's neck. "Weeeell, there's a few reasons for that," he said, slightly reluctantly, "For one, Jerroth is a paladin, and wielders of holy magic aren't always big fans of more arcane magic. For two, let's face it, if I'm perfectly honest, I think Jerroth had a better handle on things than I did." "And for three?" Ari pressed, smirking already. "...The guy's kind of intimidating, okay?" Thaniel admitted, and Ari could practically hear him blushing, "He's not the easiest person to talk to."
If it weren't for the tension in the air and the fear underlining every moment, Ari would have giggled out loud. She'd had a surprisingly candid conversation with Jerroth about his past, and she supposed once she knew why he served the 'Light of Unity' with such fervor, his zeal wasn't quite so intimidating. She still wouldn't invite the man to come with her and her friends for drinks, or even casual conversation, mind, but she'd stopped being afraid he would suddenly try to kill them all for some perceived sin. Calling out to Ben and telling him to hold up a moment, Ari explained Thaniel's offer, and the researcher grinned and nodded. "Sure," he said, pointing to a shiny gem glinting on his right ear, "I've only got the one piercing to work with, though." "That'll be fine," Thaniel told Ari, "but he's only going to hear my voice coming from that side, like I'm standing to his right." "I'd rather that than have to explain a new piercing to the wife," Ben quipped, once the heiress had passed that along, "Hell, if you tried to do it out here, my ear would probably go green and rot off!" The group took a break as Thaniel worked back in his tower, and a few minutes later, Ari asked Ben to cup his hands and hold them just in front of Crow's chest. The gemstone on the medallion around the bird's neck flashed white for a moment, and with a crackle of light, an earring similar to Ari's in design - though less decorative, to line up with the fashions for men's jewellery - popped into existence and dropped into the otter's fuzzy palms. Carefully pocketing his jewel stud, Ben replaced it with the listening charm, and he put on a mostly false roguish grin. "How do I look?" he asked, fanning out his fingers next to his ear as if posing stylishly. Ari smiled but said nothing. "This is a test," Thaniel said, "Hello? Can you hear me, Ben?" "That I can!" the otter said, happily, "Nice to hear from you again, wizard, are you ever going to be done with your business and make an appearance in the flesh?" "Ah... I..." Thaniel stammered, clearly embarrassed. Ari felt the sudden need to intervene. "It's, er, somewhat difficult to explain," she interjected, "Thaniel is... on another plane of existence at the moment, harvesting reagents for - for the ritual to deal with the gauntlet once we've gotten our hands on it. So to speak." That seemed to satisfy Ben, and the group started moving again. After a few moments, Crow leaned over until his beak was practically touching Ari's ear, and then he murmured quietly. "Master Thaniel wishes to privately thank you for covering for his... condition," the bird said, uncharacteristically seriously. "That brought him a great deal of relief, and a great deal of gratitude." Ari smiled and nodded silently, and the group continued further into the swamp.
After an interminable amount of time, during which Ariella idly wondered if they'd accidentally wandered into purgatory somehow, Elan finally caught their attention. "Stop!" he said, as loudly and as forcefully as a voice can go while still being considered 'lowered'. The rat-kin man was obviously terrified, visibly shaking, so it was no wonder he wouldn't raise his voice above a loud whisper. "There! R-right there!" he said, pointing a trembling arm, "That's the rock the Lord of the S-Swamp was hiding b-behind!" Ari felt a tingle run down her spine as she looked, but while it was indeed very, very large, there wasn't anything especially sinister about the boulder he was pointing at. Without a word, she slowly, carefully unslung Zahk'Tuum from her back, gripping its shaft tightly, feeling strangely reassured by it. She wasn't sure what good it would do against the Lord of the Swamp, but it was better than nothing... "Are you sure that's the one, bud?" Ben asked solemnly, "I mean, it's big, but you said the murder tree was thirty feet tall." Elan closed his eyes and shook his head almost violently, as if trying to jostle his memories loose so he could forget. "It was like it was c-crouching, waiting for us..." he whimpered, "Lucas walked over to the rock, a-and it just sprang up out of n-nowhere, he didn't even have t-time to..." He brought his hands to his face and groaned incoherently, while Thaniel let out a hmmm. "If the Lord burrows in the ground as Elan describes, that could explain why it's so good at catching people by surprise," he said, thoughtfully, "it wouldn't even need to surface completely before it moves to attack." "Ohhhhh, Blue Goddess, why d-did I come b-back here?" Elan moaned, oblivious to the wizard's ponderings. Ari reached over and touched his shoulder. "It's alright, Mr. Larka," she said, softly, "You don't have to go any closer than this, and you have the word of a wizard that no harm will come to you, remember?" Elan made a nervous sound, but spoke no actual words. After a moment where everyone just stood around anxiously, Ari realized that Ben and Elan were waiting to see what she'd do. "Oh..." she said, swallowing nervously, "Ah, S-Siaro? Would you...?" she said, trailing off as she worried how the familiar would respond to being asked to put himself directly in danger. "Fly over that rock to see if there's a tree waiting to ambush you?" he finished, "I suppose I might as well, none of you can fly." He paused a moment and then frowned (a little more than usual). "...'See if there's a tree waiting to ambush you'," he repeated, under his breath, "There's a sentence I never thought I'd say..." With a shrug of his wings, Mister Crow accepted the strangeness of the situation at face value, something he no doubt had a great deal of experience with thanks to his years as a wizard's familiar, and took flight.
The raven immediately circled high into the air, much higher than necessary to pass over the rock, and Ari belatedly realized that he was taking the most sensible route possible; even if the Lord of the Swamp was right there, waiting to destroy them, it wouldn't be able to reach him if he was fifty feet off the ground... she hoped. She briefly imagined the Tree King's wooden body - trunk - actually being long and snakelike, with only the very end peeking out of the ground as it burrowed throughout the swamp, but she quickly dismissed that image, as the monster had been seen from a distance moving around on the surface, making that impossible. "Do we know if the murder tree will even go aftera bird?" Ben asked. Elan ignored that, continuing to look around fretfully, and Ari shrugged. "I'm not sure," Thaniel admitted, "The townspeople are so afraid of this thing that almost everything they know about it comes from tall tales and gossip, it's not like they've had scholars come in to research it." The wizard sighed frustratedly. "Maybe it attacks anything that moves, maybe it ignores animals, maybe it ignores animals under a certain size but not larger ones, nine hells, maybe it likes birds because they nest in trees," he said, "We just don't know. Come to think of it, if it really is animated by magic, maybe it will make a difference one way or the other that Crow is also enchanted. If it weren't for the fact that it kills indiscriminately, I would almost call this the most fascinating topic I'd seen in years, but as it is, I want to see it destroyed just as much as the town does." The otter glanced over at Ari, who was leaning on her spear like it was a fancy walking staff. "Your boy likes to talk," he observed, flatly. Ari was mildly irritated to find herself blushing. "Wh-what do you mean by 'my boy'?" she asked, indignantly, "We're not -" With picture-perfect timing, Crow went into a dive, halting himself about eight feet off the ground, and with an energetic flapping of wings, he set himself down on Ari's shoulder for a perfect landing. "There aren't any trees within fifty feet of that boulder," the raven announced, "If the swamp monster is here, it's not hiding in the same place."
Ari nodded, resisting the urge to pat Crow on the head as thanks, knowing he'd interpret it as more 'pet' behaviour. "So much the better," Thaniel said, "If this is the place, and the Lord of the Swamp really is animated by the Midnight Hand, I should be able to get a strong reading from the spot where it waited before." "Alright," Ariella said, before taking a deep breath and forcing her recalcitrant legs to carry her towards the boulder. "Er, Thaniel," she started, "I have to ask, why didn't we just, you know, trace the gauntlet's magical signal in the first place?" There came that familiar scratchy beard-rubbing sound as the wizard responded. "I'm afraid I tried that," he replied, "As soon as we arrived, I - oh, never mind, Ben, Ari asked me a question." The Human couldn't help but smirk as she heard a quiet laugh behind her. This distant communication definitely became more interesting as more people got involved. "As I was saying, ah, I tried that when we got here, but I found nothing. Either the gauntlet's signal is being hidden or, I don't know, muffled, like if it was in a cave deep, deep underground -" "Not terribly likely, in this terrain," Ari interjected. "Right. Or, the signal has been... changed somehow. I'm not sure what would cause that, but I have a few theories," the wizard finished. At that moment, Ari passed the boulder, and took a look around. There weren't any tracks that suggested a massive creature had dragged itself through the area, but then the soil here was soft mud, and Elan had said it was raining the night he saw the monster. There was a noticeable divot filled with water right behind the rock, as if the spot where the Lord of the Swamp had emerged hadn't quite filled itself in with mud before it stopped raining.
"I don't see any signs of the Tree King," Ari called out, only to jump slightly as she turned around and found Ben and Elan much closer than she'd been expecting, the two of them apparently having crept forward while she was advancing. "Sorry," Ben said, grinning sheepishly, "It's just spooky as fuck around here, and you're the one with the familiar on your shoulder." Ari was about to make a similar comment to brush off her startled reaction, but Elan stepped forward, gripping Ben's shoulder tight with one hand and pointing with the other, his eyes wide and panicked. "There!" he shouted, "That's the damned branch! It tried to kill me, but that got blown off by lightning!" Ari turned, her grip on her spear tightening and beheld... a wooden branch. She wasn't entirely sure what she was expecting, but she still felt foolish for feeling disappointed. It was about four or five feet long, had a crook in the middle, and it ended in a three-way fork, two larger protrusions and one smaller one, giving the branch the unnerving look of a severed arm with a three-fingered hand. Ari couldn't help but think back to Rassamo at the inn, telling her about the creature's many wooden hands. The opposite end of the branch was burnt black, backing up the claim that it had been blasted off the tree it belonged to. Cautiously, the heiress approached the limb, while the two Ani-men hung back. She kept Zahk'Tuum pointed straight at the branch, as if at any moment it might suddenly brandish a knife or cast a spell, but it just lay there, unmoving, like any other random hunk of wood. When she poked the thing with the tip of her weapon and it just rocked stiffly back and forth, she began to feel downright foolish, and stood up straight, sighing as she stuck the rounded end of her spear against the ground. "Well, perhaps we can get a reading off of this," she suggested, bending over to pick the branch up, "Elan, how long did you say it had -" As she reached out to the branch, Ari was interrupted by the limb suddenly having a great spasm and bending in half, as if it were flesh, not wood, its 'hand' trying to grab at her. The first attempt failed, the 'fingers' clamping shut with a sound like a club hitting a wall, but on the second, it managed to grab hold of Ari's wrist as she adjusted her footing, trying to regain her balance so she could move away.
Feeling the tight grip it had, Ariella screamed in panic, shaking her arm violently to try and dislodge it. "Ari!" Thaniel cried, obviously alarmed, and Ben swore loudly, drawing his daggers from their sheaths with a single smooth motion. For his part, Elan froze in place, looking like he might drop dead from sheer terror, and Crow was busy squawking in surprise and flapping his wings to keep from flopping unceremoniously to the ground, having been knocked free of Ari's shoulder by her unexpected movements. Ari had been overwhelmed by blind panic when the branch latched onto her, but after only a few seconds, the limb released its grip and fell to the muddy ground, where it shuddered once and then lay still. Ari stumbled backwards, still alarmed, grabbing her spear off the ground and holding it at the ready as she panted, hard. "I - I told you..." Elan whimpered, "You lot thought I was c-crazy, but I told you..." Ari didn't take her eyes off the branch. "Thaniel?" she called, "Is it dead, or isn't it?!" "I'm sorry, Ari, there was a magical trace on it, but it was so low I - I thought it would be harmless! It flared up so quickly I didn't have time to warn you. It must have still had a residual trace of the Tree King's power running through it, which is incredible, given that it's been - what was it again?" "Elan?" Ari asked, "H-how long ago was that night? Remind me." The rat didn't even look at her, his eyes still locked on the branch, as if not trusting that it was dead. "Three w-weeks," he muttered. Shivering at the idea of a severed branch retaining even a little life after that long, the Human repeated his words to herself. "Three weeks..." Ariella breathed, her mouth set tight, her eyes narrow and filled with worry. "In my professional opinion," Thaniel said, emphasizing his arcane knowledge as if to reassure her, "I'd say it burned off the last of that energy just now, and it probably couldn't have done anything worse than grab you anyway." "Bloody hells, screw it!" Ari growled, pulling forth every drop of courage she had, and she lunged forward, stabbing the branch with her spear. It moved, but only the way one would expect any branch to move, and when a chip of wood broke off, it didn't bleed, or glow, or anything out of the ordinary... but the wood under the bark was stained and dark. Ari jabbed it a few more times, and then she let out a sigh and relaxed. Somewhat. "'Bloody hells' is right," Ben said, quietly, with the decency not to imitate Ariella's high-class accent, "Elan, buddy, if you survived a tangle with the tree that branch came from, the Sentinels must have big plans for you!" Ari moved forward again gingerly, holding the spear somewhat awkwardly with one arm as she reached out and... poked the branch with one finger. It didn't attack, didn't rear back, didn't react in any way. With another sigh, Ari shook her head and picked up the branch, holding it like a dead animal, not a random piece of wood. Moving the limb up in front of Crow's medallion, the Human glanced at the familiar while addressing his master. "Is there still a trace of the Lord of the Swamp on it?" she asked, "Or are we back to square one?"
A few moments of quiet followed, but a ray of light shone out of the talisman, bathing the side of the branch in a gentle glow. "...Yes, yes!" Thaniel finally said, "There is magic here, and I've got even better news!" "Well? Don't keep us waiting," Ari replied, feeling a bit cheered up by his sheer enthusiasm. "The Lord of the Swamp is charged with dark magic," the wizard continued, "But not just any dark magic, it's the Midnight Hand!" "Well done, lass," Ben said, clapping Ari on the back, "You saw that one coming a mile away!" The Human couldn't help but smile at that, feeling proud of her own deduction. "I couldn't find it before because the magic of the gauntlet had changed, and now I know why," Thaniel said, "The gauntlet isn't just powering the swamp lord, it's on the tree, touching it somehow! I'd wager that Geoffrey the Gentleman walked out into the middle of the swamp, got himself killed somehow, perhaps he drowned or was bitten by a poisonous snake. Then, the gauntlet happened to come into contact with a random tree, maybe it got snagged on a branch or something, and the tree was animated with malevolent will!" Ari smiled a very small smile. She quite enjoyed when Thaniel explained things with such enthusiasm, she could really feel the love he had for magic. Naturally, he wasn't done yet. "However it happened, once it was done, the tree's natural energy was combined with the gauntlet's dark magic to make a magical pattern that was similar, but distinctly different. This means that despite everything, the tree is still alive, unlike those bandits who were corrupted back in North Nolan." Ari chucked the branch to the ground, shuddering in revulsion at the memory of the way it had grabbed her, wondering how in the world they were going to get the Midnight Hand away from the murderous creature. She imagined the gauntlet embedded in a hollow in the tree trunk, tugging on sinuous strings and making the monster dance to its tune. "I just have two questions for you, wizard," Ben said, "First, are you gonna be able to track the thing, and two, are you gonna be able to kill it?" "Yes to the first, absolutely," replied Thaniel, "As for the second, sure, but... give me a bit to, uh, figure out how I'm going to do it."
As they started heading back to town, Ari could hear Thaniel muttering to himself about how best to handle the Lord of the Swamp. It seemed to be getting on the otter's nerves. "Look, mate, it's a tree, it's made of wood," Ben said, after a while, "Why don't you just set it on fire?" Ari, taking the lead this time, looked over her shoulder at him. "It's a swamp," she pointed out, "There's water everywhere." Indeed, this very spot was a recessed plain that had them briefly wading through ankle-deep, grimy water. "Oh... right," the researcher replied, sheepishly. "What about lightning, Thaniel?" Ari suggested, "We know it can be hurt by that. If we could pull off that 'lightning rod' trick like we did on the lasher, we might be able to destroy the whole tree in one go!" "That is clever," Thaniel acknowledged, as Ari stepped over a rather large toad who seemed completely unconcerned by her presence, "And that's actually where I'd been leaning towards, been getting my regular lightning bolt spells ready too." "Ohhh, I hate it when you channel those through the medallion," Crow complained, "Makes my feathers tingle, and not in a fun way!" Ari smiled, glancing at the unruly bird on her shoulder. "Yes, well, you -" But she would never get to deliver her witty remark, as Thaniel suddenly screamed "Stop!" in deepest alarm. Ari froze in place, every muscle in her body tense, and behind her, she could hear Ben swear quietly. "Wh-what's wrong?" Elan whimpered, "Why'd you guys stop? Was it s-something the sorcerer guy s-said?" It immediately made Ari feel even worse that Thaniel didn't so much as mutter the word 'wizard', for Thaniel hated people getting his title wrong just as much as Crow hated being treated like a pet. "Thaniel..." the noblewoman whispered, "What is it?" "Ari, listen very carefully," the wizard said, his voice flat and taut, "the Lord of the Swamp is about thirty-five feet in front of you, just to the right of the path." Ari remained perfectly still, but her eyes dilated and her heart began to pound. Looking forward, she did see a tree there, but... just like the branch, it simply looked like any old tree. There were no leaves on its branches, but the bark wasn't black, the limbs weren't twisted, there wasn't even a convenient cluster of knots on the trunk in the shape of a face (as Ari had been imagining it), it was just a tree. "Are - are you sure?" Ari breathed. "Absolutely positive," Thaniel immediately replied, "When I look through Crow's medallion, I can observe magical auras, and every inch of that tree is saturated with the dark magic I found on that branch." "Destroyer's blood..." Ben muttered, "Elan, when we tell you, turn around and run. Don't look back. Just run, and hide, and wait for the bird to come find you." "Why?!" the rat-man said, much too loudly for Ari's liking, "Is he here? The L-Lord of the Swamp? Oh, Griever's Tears, he's here, isn't he?! He's here, he's here!"
At that, as Elan began to tremble and shout in panic, the tree ahead began to shudder, its branches flexing and moving of their own accord, and as the assembled group looked on in horror, the trunk suddenly lifted itself vertically, tearing itself out of the soil. Whether the Lord of the Swamp had actually understood Elan, and realized that its disguise had been seen through, or if it was merely reacting to the loud sound of his panicked cries, Ari could not say. For all she knew, the monster had just gotten bored waiting for them to come closer. As it pulled itself free of the ground, the tree's branches swung upwards, and Ari realized that they'd been folded back upon themselves, practically in half, to disguise their long, sinuous length. And now, she saw, every single one of them ended in misshapen 'hands' just like the severed branch had, random numbers of 'fingers' flexing and twitching in anticipation as the monster that had kept Dellor's Rest living in terror for five decades finally stood free and tall. More than half of its trunk had been buried in the ground, hiding how massive the tree really was, but now it raised its many 'arms' and began pulling itself forward by its roots, which dropped great masses of mud and soil as it moved. The heiress stared, dumbfounded, as it covered the distance a little faster than she'd like. Somehow, the silence was the worst part. It didn't roar or scream or laugh, it remained as silent as its immobile brethren, and the only noises in the clearing were the squelching of water and mud beneath its roots, the creaking of wood as it moved, and the wordless, incoherent stammering of Elan Larka, now terrified beyond the ability to form rational thoughts. Instincts she'd only earned on this adventure with the wizard kicked in at the last second, and Ari threw herself backwards as those branches reached in for her. She thought she was dead when others rose to take their place, but each branch seemed single-minded in its target; some angled towards Ben, others for Elan, even if Ari was closer. Ben, whose daggers were already in hand, was doing a surprisingly good job of dodging out of range, considering how damned fast those branches moved, but Elan just stood there, staring, like the beast was the Black God, the Enemy of Life himself, freshly risen from the nine hells below. Lunging forward, Ari brought the flat side of Zahk'Tuum's head down on top of a branch that snaked in towards the rat man's face, swatting it down to the ground and holding it there for a second. Turning towards the Ani-man, Ari grimaced at him. "Run!" she screamed, "Get away!" It was as if she'd broken a spell of some kind; Elan blinked, looked at her, closed his mouth, and nodded, and then he turned and booked it back the other way as quickly as his legs could carry him. "Ari!" yelled Ben, pointing behind her, and the Human acted on a hunch, throwing herself forward, feeling the 'fingers' of a branch brushing against her travelling cloak as she did so. Ariella hadn't yet mastered what Thaniel enthusiastically referred to as an 'action roll', a maneuvre apparently favoured by her ancestor Xander, so she just made an unceremonious belly flop into the murky water, scrambling to her feet as fast as she could. Turning towards the trunk of the creature, which continued to advance through the mud towards the watery basin where the two frantic victims stood, Ari drew back her arm, ready to hurl her spear like a javelin. "Get ready to use the lightning rod, Thaniel!" she yelled. Driving her arm forward with a cry of exertion, Ari threw Thak'Tuum straight and true, sailing like an arrow straight towards the centre of the swamp monster's mass... where it impacted the hard, inflexible wood that made up the creature's body, knocked a chip out of the bark, and bounced off without the least bit of penetration. "Oh... right," mumbled Ari, feeling more than a little stupid, "Well, I'm bloody out of ideas..."
As the Lord of the Swamp continued to press forward, Ben kept the branches at bay with speedy flicks of his knives, but the monster's bark was thicker than its flexibility would suggest, and the branches barely hesitated before moving back in. "Thaniel!" Ari cried, backing away from the branches, "Do something!" "Crow!" the wizard said, "Fly up above the tree, get close to those branches if you can!" The bird let out an angry cry as he dove towards the Lord of the Swamp, holding position above the area where the branches joined with the trunk. The tree completely ignored the bird, whether he was too small a target, or just not enticing enough prey. "Tel su'kooz!" Thaniel shouted, and a gout of flame burst forth from the medallion to wash over the top of the monster. Instantly, all the branches ceased their approach, but instead of sweeping up towards Crow, they just shuddered and spasmed, as if they didn't know what to do. Taking advantage of the distraction, Ari ran forward as hard as she could, bending to pick Zahk'Tuum up off the ground without stopping. Turning, she stabbed the tree in the back (or at least, the side facing away from Ben) for good measure, and got similar results to her throw. "I thought you said it wouldn't burn!" Ben shouted. Thaniel scoffed. "It won't! It's still alive, that's green wood!" he replied, "But that doesn't mean it'll enjoy having fire sprayed all over it!" The monster shuddered from top to bottom, and it began pulling its roots up completely out of the muck - and extending them towards Ariella. "Ari, get out of there!" Thaneil shouted, urgently, "Give me a second to think about this!" Clearly, the Lord of the Swamp didn't want to give anyone anything except a painful death, as the tentacle-like branches began to move again, and Ari beat feet away from the trunk, now genuinely afraid. "Okay, I got this, I got this..." Thaniel muttered, "Crow, move back and face directly towards the trunk." The familiar moved into position, and the medallion began to glow, but a branch swept up and swung itself towards the raven. It wasn't in the aggressive, openly murderous manner of the attacks on the humanoid party members, more like an idle swipe at a fly that keeps buzzing too close to one's ears. Crow cried out in surprise and fluttered out of the way, but this adjusted his position - and the aim of the bolt of lightning that came blasting out of the medallion, which just missed the trunk of the tree, singed a couple of branches on its way past, and just barely avoided colliding with Ben, who threw himself aside, pulling off an excellent action roll and coming back up on his feet. Ari was distantly surprised a museum researcher had such good reflexes. The noblewoman watched the lightning bolt go flying off to land in a small, self-contained pond, where it exploded into a gout of steam as miniature arcs of electricity crackled along the surface of the water.
"Hells' bells, wizard, are you trying to kill us?!" Ben screamed, stabbing a dagger into the nearest branch and then wrenching it back and forth to get it back out. Meanwhile, that one persistent branch continued lazily swiping towards Crow, who swore at it angrily as he darted about. "Crow! Stop moving!" Thaniel yelled, "If I use lightning now, I could hit Ari! - Or, or Ben, of course..." At that moment, two branches lunged out for Ari, who raised her spear sideways. The 'hands' clamped on and began struggling to tear the weapon out of her grip. "Oh - oh hell!" she cried, struggling right back, "S-somebody help!" Ben tried moving closer, but more branches moved to place themselves between the two would-be heroes. "I can't get to you!" he shouted, fighting just to stay out of their grip as the Tree King began to advance again. "Damn it, Crow, will you fucking hold still?!" Thaniel suddenly hollered, uncharacteristically moved to profanity. Ari twisted to the side and successfully tore her spear free - or so she thought. Looking down, she saw the shuddering 'hand' of the smaller branch still gripped around the shaft of her spear, so she kicked it a couple times until it let go. Meanwhile, the trunk had stopped moving again, but this thing had such incredible reach that it didn't matter.
"Ariella!" yelled Ben, and the noblewoman turned towards him and saw that one of the branches had him by the leg, and was trying to wrap itself around his waist. "Help me!" Hoping the monster wasn't intelligent enough to deliberately bait her into a trap by creating an opening in its attacks, Ari ran forward and hacked at the wooden limb with her spearhead, like Zahk'Tuum was a very impractically-shaped axe. Suddenly, the branch's unnaturally flexible grip tightened around his waist and the otter was lifted off his feet. "Ben!" she cried. "Noooooooo!!" screamed an unexpected voice. Out of nowhere, Elan Larka popped out of the bushes, leaping into the air and grabbing onto the branch holding onto Ben's waist. With the two men's combined weights, the single branch sank back down to the ground, and before Ari could tell Thaniel to do something, Crow dove down beneath the swatting limbs and held his place just long enough for another gout of flame to burst forth and bathe that specific branch in licking flames. The creature shuddered again, hard enough that Ben was able to wiggle free, and the three humanoids backed away from their opponent, staring up at it warily. "I thought I told you to run," commented Ari. "I - I couldn't j-just leave you t-to die," Elan stammered, obviously still terrified, "Not after wh-what happened t-to my f-friends..." "Hey! Shivers!" Ben called, and when Elan looked, the researcher drew a third knife, slightly larger than the paired blades he carried in his hands, from another scabbard hidden on his upper leg. He tossed it to Elan, who caught it awkwardly and nodded. "How many of those things do you have?" Ari asked, now genuinely weirded out, but Thaniel interrupted before he could answer. "Crow! See if you can hold still down there," he said, "I'm gonna try lightning again, maybe we can blast the trunk open from the front, let the whole tree collapse!" Ari looked forward and sighed as the roots of the beast stepped into the ankle-deep basin. "You can't use lightning anymore, Thaniel!" she cried, thinking of the pond and the lightning arcing over its surface, "It's in the water with us!" "Oh..." he replied, "Well, shit."
As the Lord of the Swamp moved through the water, the mud sloughed off of its roots, the tree going as far as to shake its lower 'limbs' like someone kicking dirt off his shoes. "I don't get it," Ben muttered, "How's it that nobody's ever gotten away? All it's doing is trying to grab us, and we're holding it off just fine!" "That would be me, remember?" Thaniel replied, sounding just as grim, "I warned you it was going to ambush you. Most people don't realize it's there until they're standing right next to it, they don't even have time to get their weapons out." "Elan, do you really know what you're doing with that?" Ari asked, as the rat-man wildly waved the knife Ben had given him at an approaching branch. He managed to bring the blade down onto the errant limb and send it back the way it came, as if chastised. "Nope!" he replied, candidly and strangely calmly. Ari wanted to tell him to run again. She wanted to tell him they had this well in hand, that any moment now, Thaniel would bring down the power of the gods on this horrible beast and rend it asunder. But the truth was, they weren't a team of wandering adventurers, like all the bards loved to tell tales about. She might have her grandfather's spear, but she was no Xander Shieldfall. And for that matter, Thaniel didn't seem to have any more of a clue than they did. During that moment of hesitation, when she was torn between telling him to run and wondering if they truly needed the total amateur's help, one of the Tree King's recently-cleaned roots suddenly shot across the basin, seemingly growing in length, before it snaked its way around Elan's leg and yanked him off his feet. "Gods above, no!" he screamed, as he thrashed around in the shallow water. The root was already dragging him towards the trunk of the tree. "Help! Heeellllp!" the Ani-man screamed, and Ari screamed in turn. "Thaniel! This would be a really good time to drop the tower on it!" she shouted. Thaniel replied... well, she wasn't sure what he replied, actually, the language was so harsh and guttural that she thought he was clearing his throat until Crow's medallion blazed white in the air above them. The raven, apparently wordlessly bidden by his master, made a perfectly-timed dive over the top of the monster, so that just as he was passing over the Lord of the Swamp, the medallion unleashed a torrent of blinding white energy... which instantly solidified into ice as it touched the surface of the tree. The way it writhed and shook under this assault, Ari finally had an answer to something she'd been wondering this whole time. This thing could feel pain, and right now, it was in agony. "Die, die!" Thaniel shouted, and Crow made another run at the beast, blasting it with the wizard's cold energy again. Meanwhile, Ben hurried forward to help Elan, as the root had stopped dead in its tracks, as if the Tree King had forgotten what it was doing when it suddenly took a concentrated blizzard to the 'head'. Once Ari had moved to join Ben, the two would-be heroes used their weapons, as unsuited as they were to the task, to hack the root apart and yank it free, so they could drag a sputtering Elan away from the monster. Ari was beginning to think they really had a chance, and then all hell broke loose.
Suddenly, the Lord of the Swamp hunched forward, and then whipped its trunk backwards, and every single one of its branches lifted up and splayed out, stretching to their maximum extensions, the sight strangely reminding Ari of a woman with long hair letting it dangle over her face and then flicking her head back. With that much angry wood in the air, Crow swore quite loudly and backed the hell off, a third blast of cold energy missing the tree entirely and accomplishing nothing except very briefly making it snow in a three-foot-wide region of the marsh. The tree started moving forward again, except this time, it wasn't trying to grab them. Its many branches stayed up in the air, posed like scorpion tails, and it began to whip them out towards its hapless prey. "Motherfucker!" cried Ben, diving aside as a branch lashed through the air towards him. It just barely missed him - and then smashed a regular, inanimate tree clean in half with the strength of the impact. Another punched straight forward towards Ari, who yelped and raised her spear defensively. The magically invulnerable weapon deflected the blow, but it still pushed her backwards off her feet. She scrambled back up as the Tree King kept advancing on them, the ends of all of its roots rising up again, like snakes readying to strike. "I think we made it mad!" she shouted, her entire face taut. One of the branches reached up into the heart of the cluster, drew something out, and hurled it towards the group. It missed by a wide margin, without anyone even having to dive out of the way, but the fact that it was a desiccated skeleton in the ragged remains of muddy clothes didn't do morale any favours. "Really? What gave you that idea?" called Mister Crow, somewhere above them. "Ohhhh, Blue G-Goddess, is that thing one of m-my friends?" groaned Elan, "Why would it k-keep the body?" Personally, Ari thought the corpse was way older than a couple weeks, but she didn't have time to voice that opinion yet. Another branch punched out, and when this one missed the group, it slammed against a great big rock sitting by the side of the basin - and shattered it to pieces. Ari couldn't believe this thing was so strong! "It's like it wasn't even trying before!" she said, "I'd hate to run into the Human who put the glove on when he was still alive!" Meanwhile, as Elan slashed away at a root that was trying to get his leg again, he wasn't paying attention elsewhere. "Elan!" Ben shouted, but the rat-man looked up just in time to catch the sideways lashing of another branch right to the chest. He let out a yelp as his feet left the ground, and was hurled to the side almost ten full feet, where he slammed into the short bank at the edge of the basin and slumped down, unmoving. "No!" the otter-kin gasped, followed by a single word in Wildtongue. Ari wasn't fluent in the adopted native language of the Ani-men, also known as the Wildkin, but she was fairly certain that particular word was one of the most profane in the entire repertoire. "Thaniel!" she shouted again, "Please!"
"Ari!" the wizard said, sounding panicked, "I - I don't know what to do!" "Concentrate!" the heiress yelled, "You can do this! I know you can! You said it was alive, right? Don't you have any spells that will just kill it?" "I don't know, I tried to stay away from black magic!" he replied, "It always made me uncomfortable, I always preferred - wait, that's it!" "What's it?" Ben growled, "I have about two minutes to live, don't keep me in suspense!" The sound of books and papers and glass vials and other assorted objects shuffling around came through their earring charms clearly as Thaniel frantically sorted through the many, many objects in his laboratory. "I keep a garden in my tower," he said, fortunately choosing to continue that particular explanation, "Because I, uh, don't get the chance to leave very often, it helps me feel in touch with nature, and, uh, stuff. Demon's balls, where is it?!" "Wizard, you get to the point, or I'm haunting your useless ass!" Ben shouted, as he stabbed his knife clean through a branch. It recoiled, clearly feeling that one, and took the knife with it, but Ben just glanced down to the shallow water, took two steps, and retrieved the knife Elan had dropped. He even adjusted his stance, compensating for the way one of the blades was larger and heavier than the other one by holding the smaller one in front. If she hadn't been slapping away roots with her spear, that would have seriously irked Ariella. "Master Thaniel loves to show off!" interrupted Crow, "For his personal garden, he refuses to use tools to trim the plants or cut out weeds, he has to use magic!" "I was getting to that," muttered Thaniel, "Oh! Yes! Here it is! My book of herbomancy!" "You can control the tree?" Ari asked, incredulously. "Well, no, I assume the gauntlet is too powerful," the wizard admitted, "Maybe if I was a druid, or a priest of the Green God of life..." "Thaniel!" Ari yelled, trying to keep him on track. "Sorry! Look, there's a spell in here that can be used for killing weeds, a spell of decay, makes the plant rot away in seconds, no matter how healthy it is. It even shows you exactly how to scale it up, in case you want to clear out a dead garden and start over." "Death and decay? Seriously?" Ben said, sounding so surprised he'd forgotten how angry he was, "Sounds like necromancy to me... Fuck!" He rolled aside as another wooden fist tried to smash his face in, and instead it left a divot in the ground behind him, splashing water everywhere. "I need to look the spell up, I haven't needed it in a while," Thaniel said, "Ari? Once I get this ready... I have a plan, but... you're really not going to like it." Thaniel was, as he was so fond of pointing out, a wizard. He was not a seer, or an oracle, or a prophet, or a shaman. And yet, despite this, when Thaniel said those words, Ariella was absolutely, one hundred percent convinced that they were going to come true.
Above them, Crow squawked again. The way the branches treated him had changed from the idle swatting of an annoying fly to the furious attempt to murder a stinging wasp. Every time he flew in close, at least three branches rose up and flailed themselves at him, shaking hard at him in an attempt to at least smack him out of the air. "I - I can't get close, master! It's too fast!" he cried. "That's okay, get down to Ari, I need you there for this plan," Thaniel replied, "Left!" That seemed like a non-sequitur to Ari, but Crow responded by immediately rolling to the left in mid-air, and deftly dodging a branch lashing up at him from below. The raven made a rather hard landing on Ari's shoulder, panting hard, but he was still a bird, so the impact didn't bother her all that much. "Okay!" Thaniel said, as the sound of pages being turned sounded in Ari's ears, "This is the deal: When I hit the Lord of the Swamp with the rot spell, it will immediately begin to decompose. Something that big and that powerful will probably take a little while to completely die, but I suspect falling apart at the seams will distract it from trying to kill you guys. That's the good news." "What's the bad news?" Ari asked, stabbing her spear through the 'wrist' of a particularly skinny branch and neatly severing the 'hand' on the end, which kept clenching and unclenching as it bobbed in the shallow water for several seconds after it fell away. "The bad news is... the herbomancers who wrote this book weren't stupid, and they didn't want anyone using their magic to lay waste to entire forests or jungles... so they made the spell needlessly complex, so it was harder to modify... and they made it work by touch." "Then what good does it do us with you off in la-la land and the murder tree right in front of us, you stupid git?" growled Ben. Crow surprised the hell out of Ari by letting out a genuinely intimidating cry. "You show Master Thaniel the proper respect, you cur!" the bird shouted. Apparently Crow was okay being snarky and sarcastic to his master's face, but genuine malice was considered something else entirely to the familiar. "Shut up, both of you!" Thaniel's suddenly booming voice interrupted, "Ari, this is the part you aren't going to like. You're going to need to take the medallion off of Crow and, uh... physically touch it to the tree. The only way this works is if you get close enough to hold it in place."
Ari swallowed. That did, indeed, sound like the last thing in the world she wanted to do. Helpfully, Ben twisted the knife. "Black God, that's suicide!" he swore, "Is there no other way?" "It's what I've got right now!" Thaniel replied, "If you want a different plan, you'll have to buy more time so I can -" "I'll do it," Ari interrupted, "Siaro, let me have that necklace before I change my mind." She reached up and lifted it from around the bird's neck, holding it tightly in hand. "Thaniel, you'd better have that spell ready soon..." she said, "We can't keep backing up forever..." "It's okay, I - I've found it," he said, "I just need to..." He began muttering to himself, practicing the syllables of the spell over and over, and after ten agonizingly long seconds of fighting off the branches and roots, Ari was almost relieved when she got the go-ahead for her suicide mission. "I'm ready," Thaniel said, plainly, "Go!" Screaming at the top of her lungs, aiming for 'war cry' but falling somewhere closer to 'madwoman', Ari raised her spear and charged straight forward, her heart pounding in her ears as Crow leapt off her shoulder, leaving her to her task. A branch punched towards her, and she actually pulled off a dive-roll, dropping under it and coming back to her feet without losing momentum. Another tried to catch her off-balance only to be halted midway through by a dagger thrown from behind her. "Nice shot," she distantly heard Crow admit. "Thanks," Ben said, his voice just as taut as the bird's. The heiress swatted a couple of roots away from her with sweeping, broadside swings of her spear, and the Lord of the Swamp's trunk grew closer and closer. At the last second, she stabbed Zahk'Tuum into the ground ahead of her and pushed as hard as she could, leaping forwards in the same moment, vaguely similar to a sport she'd once seen practiced called the 'pole vault'. As she leapt through the air, she raised the hand that still tightly clutched Crow's medallion, reached out, and... got caught at the last second when the tree's largest root lifted up from the water for the first time and stabbed forward, catching her by the throat and pushing her away from the trunk. Ariella gasped, all the wind knocked out of her, her neck aching so bad it took her a second to realize she hadn't been impaled; that root ended in a black metal hand that currently had an iron grip on her pale, slender neck. The root was wearing the Midnight Hand.
When all her momentum had been unexpectedly cancelled, the medallion had slipped out of Ari's hand, and the necklace now dangled from her hand, the chain having caught around her wrist. She raised her free hand and grasped the gauntlet, but it may as well have been a steel statue for all she could do against it. Even the 'hand' inside it was formed from hard wood, not soft flesh. "No!" Ben cried. "Ari!" Thaniel gasped. Ari couldn't speak, could barely breathe, and things didn't get much better when the monster's grip tightened as it lifted her up in the air by the throat, her feet dangling above the ground, unable to gain purchase, only to violently slam her back down again. The heiress despaired as she felt the talisman slip off her hand and fall away entirely, but she had more pressing worries. Being pinned against the ground by a creature this large and this strong would have been bad under any circumstances, but thanks to the basin they were standing in, Ari was being held under water that, while shallow, was juuuuust deep enough to cover her face. Ari struggled for her life, kicking and thrashing, as a thought occurred to her, part of her mind strangely calm in the face of certain death. She'd spent all this time searching desperately for the gauntlet, believing it was the only thing that could save her entire family, and all future generations of Shieldfalls, from Xander's curse. And now that very gauntlet was crushing the air out of her lungs, threatening to replace it with the foul water of the swamp, either on her next breath or after it tore open her throat. As she began to choke, she blindly groped for the medallion along the muddy floor of the basin. To her surprise, perhaps thanks to the magical nature of the charms, and the fact that they were right next to her ears, Ari could make out the agonized voice of Thaniel as he cried "Do something!" If Ben said anything in response, she couldn't hear it, but she could vaguely make out the image of Ben rushing forwards through the murky water. He was bravely closing in on the tree, trying to reach her, only to be forced backwards by a swarm of branches. Thaniel's voice sounded tinny and distant, and the edges of Ari's vision were growing blurry. She'd always thought she'd be afraid when the time came, but more than anything else, she was disappointed. Some adventurer she'd turned out to be. Xander would be ashamed. But... No. Xander wasn't the flawless hero the children's stories and bard tales made him out to be. His choice to take the Midnight Hand from its shrine was the mistake that had cursed his entire family in the first place. Ariella Shieldfall might not be a heroine of legend, but she couldn't just let the Tree King kill her friends, dammit! Closing her eyes, since her vision was going dark anyway, Ari concentrated on touch, clenched her teeth, and continued feeling around in the slime for the medallion, not even stopping as a sharp stick poked into her hand painfully. Then, suddenly, there it was, lying face-up in the murk. Ari carefully turned it over, trying not to rush, lest she slip and push it out of reach, and then took a firm hold of it, gripping it with all the strength her weakened fingers had left. Opening her eyes again and putting on a warlike grimace, Ariella summoned the last of her strength and slapped the talisman against the side of the root wearing the gauntlet, pressing it there like it was all that held back the Black God. Through the charms, Ari could hear Thaniel rattling off a number of syllables in what sounded like Elvish, and the medallion began to glow.
From her vantage point underwater, Ari found it very hard to make out, but above her, a dark grey colour instantly began to spread out from the spot where the necklace touched the wood, stretching across the surface of the root - and digging deeper. As Ari's half-conscious eyes strained to make out details, the rot spread unnaturally quickly, hollowing out the root until it cracked off with the limb's twitching, and suddenly Ari was pinned no more. She sat upright as fast as she could, gasping for air. The gauntlet maintained its grip on her throat, making it difficult - but not impossible - to draw breath, but she could feel the severed limb shuddering, and more importantly, the decay was still spreading! The more it grew, the faster it grew, until the limb fell apart completely, sloughing out of the Midnight Hand in the form of a substance not entirely unlike compost. Without the wooden fist inside it, the gauntlet immediately went limp and slipped off Ari's neck. As she coughed and gasped, greedily sucking in air, the noblewoman looked up, unable to move for her weakness, but, as it turned out, not needing to. The rot had spread backwards along the stump of the root, and she looked up just in time to see it spread into the main trunk. The Lord of the Swamp was flailing its limbs totally at random, completely ignoring both the helpless Human at its 'feet' and the other would-be victims further away. With twigs and bits of bark sloughing off all over its frame, the creature staggered backwards, actually stumbling as its roots began to fall apart, and the rot burned its way through the monster's body until the heavy crown of branches was too much for the weakened trunk to support, and with a squeal of surrendering wood, the Lord of the Swamp literally split apart, falling to pieces all around Ari, who thankfully managed to avoid being crushed by falling branches. She noted, with a strange feeling of amusement, that the cluster that fell right next to her had a single branch that was already much shorter than the others, ending in a burned, amputated stump. "This one's for you, Elan..." she croaked, rubbing her throat, "This one's for Dellor's Rest!" Ariella finally pulled herself to her feet and looked around, noting with no small amount of satisfaction that the splintered pieces of the monster were still in the process of disintegrating; the potent decay spell would keep going until every tiny piece of the tree had rotted away into mulch. Ignoring the dying, twitching branches and roots, Ari stood up straight, trying to look dignified despite being soaking wet and still seeing spots from her brush with drowning. She bent down, fishing around in the murky water again until she found her prize. Turning around, seeing Ben and Crow looking at her with joy and victory in their eyes as they approached, Ariella Shieldfall smiled and held the Midnight Hand over her head triumphantly. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, it felt like every muscle in her body ached, and her throat hurt like hell, but the accomplishment she felt made it easy to pose in celebration. Finally, she thought, the nightmare was going to be over. Pulling her spear out of the muck and resting it on her shoulder nonchalantly, Ari left the twitching, disintegrating carcass of the Lord of the Swamp and started walking over to join her companions.
* * *
Sometime later, people were going about their business in the market square of Dellor's Rest, hawking their wares, making deliveries, repairing tools, arguing over prices, picking pockets, whatever things they got up to on any other normal day, but today, they were also gossiping. There had been quite a collection of loud noises coming from the swamp, and the rumour mill was suggesting everything from the Lord of the Swamp 'reproducing' with a normal tree in order to father a brood, to the creature finally dying of old age, to the Tree King growing enraged over some perceived slight on the part of the townsfolk. Perhaps not coincidentally, the buskers who sold 'guaranteed' magical wards to protect one's home from the monster were doing quite a bit of business. And then, out of nowhere, the normalcy of the day was shattered completely. "Hey, look!" someone called, "There's people comin' out of the swamp!" This caught the attention of the entire crowd, as there were those in the town who were convinced that wandering into the Tree King's marsh not only marked you for death, it angered the monster and ran the risk of it deciding to punish the town for your transgression. The first person to emerge from the rows of tall grass at the edge of town was a woman with striking red hair and a very large spear in one hand. The people thronged forward, with a couple of particularly brave (or particularly grumpy) individuals approaching the stranger to demand an explanation, only for her to offer one of her own volition. "Hear me, people of Dellor's Rest!" she announced, in a slightly aristocratic accent, "I bring you important news! The Lord of the Swamp lies dead! You no longer have to live in fear!" This set the entire crowd to buzzing, confusedly discussing whether she was trying to con them, whether she was mad, whether she was working for the creature, or even, dare they even think it, whether she was telling the truth. "And how did you kill the monster?" one man shouted, indignantly, "By stabbing him with that fancy pig-sticker?" "No!" the woman shouted back, and she raised her spear over her head. Just then, the black bird on her other shoulder spread its wings and let out a magnificent cry, and the strange talisman hanging around its neck flashed like the sun, at which point glowing energy suddenly surged forth to surround the spear in a glowing aura that set the entire crowd to gasping.
"My - partner is a powerful wizard, and the creature was torn asunder by his magic!" the strange woman declared, "I swear to you, on my honour, that the Lord of the Swamp is no more! This marsh is free!" Every man, woman, and child present started talking excitedly. Could she be telling the truth? Whywould a wizard bother taking the time to help theirquiet little town? And what was up with that weird little pause between 'my' and 'partner', anyway? Conversation was interrupted by a second voice, as another person emerged from the bog. "Somebody help me here!" shouted an otter-kin man, struggling under the weight of an unmoving rat-kin man, slung over his shoulders. A woman suddenly shoved her way out of the front of the crowd, elbowing people aside as she forced her way through. It was Caroline, the serving girl from the inn, and this was most uncharacteristic behaviour from the girl, who was usually every bit as soft-spoken and gentle as mice are known for. Gazing upon the scene before her, she cried out in horror. "Elan!" she gasped, "Wh-what happened to him?!" She turned to the people immediately behind her, total strangers, a frantic look on her face. "Please, help them!" she pleaded, and then turned to hurry over to the otter. A couple of burly men, cargo movers from the market, turned to each other, shrugged, and followed her. Together, they helped the much smaller otter let Elan down, much to his own relief, and they slung his arms over their shoulders, effortlessly supporting him together. Caroline ran up to him, ears pinned back, and touched his face. "Oh, he's bruised all over!" she whimpered, and the rat stirred. "Ohhhhh..." he groaned, his eyes fluttering open, "C-Caroline, is that you?" Moving closer, the waitress made an agitated noise, and looked to the otter, who was stretching out his back in relief. "Please, what was he doing with you?" she asked, "He's no adventurer! What happened?"
* * *
Seeing the girl looking pleadingly at them, Ari lowered her spear, since the pretty but harmless aura had faded anyway, and swallowed, feeling a little awkward. "Well, you see..." she started, but Ben stepped forward and interrupted her. "That monster killed Elan's friends, and he still felt so terrible about it that when he heard we were gathering information on it, he sought us out and offered his services," the researcher lied effortlessly, "He led us to where he'd been ambushed by the mur - the Lord of the Swamp, and sure enough we found it lurking around. Ariella here told Elan to run, but he just couldn't turn his back on us, not after what happened to his friends, so he stood with us. It nearly brought its wrath down on all of us, but Elan held its attention long enough for Ari's wizard friend Thaniel to find a way to destroy it!" Ari smirked, averting her gaze, quietly pleased by how much that colourful account of events played up Elan's courage and nobility. Caroline turned to Elan, eyes wide, looking very much like she wanted to hug him but afraid of all the bruising visible on his bare chest. Ben had torn up the man's shirt to make bandages for the small but numerous cuts on his torso, and it was plain that the rat was rather the worse for wear. Tears were coming to the young woman's eyes, and she was quietly chittering in distress nearly constantly. "Oh, Elan, I - I'm so sorry I called you a coward!" she said, caressing the unbruised side of his face, "It's just - it's just that because of Lucas and his stupid treasure map, good men died, my poor cousin Peter died, and when you came back without a scratch on you, I was upset, I was hurting, and I took it all out on you!" She leaned in close enough that the tips of their whiskers mingled, either oblivious or uncaring of the crowd of people around them, including the muscular cargo movers, who looked down at the two rodents with a surprisingly genuine interest, as if their relationship was a drama the two men were following. Caroline reached up and ran her fingers through Elan's tangled, dirty hair as she looked over at his companions. "Is he - is he going to live?" she asked fearfully, biting her lip. Ari nodded slowly, and the girl relaxed visibly. "He was struck by one of the Tree King's branches like it was a whip, and it threw him across the clearing into a small rise," she said, "I'm not sure he would have survived if not for the quick action of Ben here, and a little magical help from Thaniel, who, ah -" Mister Crow's necklace began to glow again, and to Ari's surprise, a semi-transparent image of the wizard's head and shoulders appeared in the air just in front of the familiar. The crowd murmured in surprise at this display, but quieted when the apparition began to speak. "...Who is very glad to lend his services to such a worthy town as yours, and as brave a man as Elan Larka," Thaniel said, diplomatically, "I am afraid he's probably still going to be bedridden for a few weeks, he was very near death after the monster's attack, but thanks to his help, Dellor's Rest will never be troubled by the Lord of the Swamp again!"
A great cheer rose up from the crowd, apparently finally accepting the news when it was delivered by a man appearing through an obviously magical projection, and the townsfolk began to disperse, excitedly sharing this development with the people only now coming outside to see what all the ruckus was about... with the exception of a few ward buskers, who were hurriedly making their way towards the town entrance, yelling 'No refunds! All sales are final!' to the disgruntled customers following them. Meanwhile, Mister Crow snickered, and then, quietly enough that only Ari heard him, he whispered "That was very well said, master, very well said indeed... How many times did you practice that speech in front of a mirror?" The image of Thaniel turned around in mid-air until it was facing Ari. "Ariella. Would you do me a kindness?" Thaniel asked, stroking his goatee, "When you get back to the tower, and we no longer have to give off the impression of being mighty heroes, would you remind me to turn Crow an embarrassing colour?" "Certainly, Thaniel, whatever you say!" she replied, happily. The bird squawked in protest, and the wizard smiled, his image vanishing. "You can't! You wouldn't!" objected Crow, "...P-please!" She grinned coolly at him. "We'll see. Depends on what it's worth to you," she teased. To the side, one of the cargo movers cleared his throat. "Erm, excuse me, miss," he said to Caroline, "Not that we mind helping a guy out after he, y'know, helped save the town and all, and he really don't weigh very much... But we kinda need to get back to work, so... where'd you like us to put 'im?" "Oh!" she said, as if she'd forgotten the burly men were there, "I'm sorry! Ah..." She reached over and cupped Elan's cheek, rubbing it soothingly. "If he's going to take weeks to recover, and all his friends are gone, then I'm going to be there for him every step of the way," the mouse woman declared, "Take him to my home, near the inn, I'll show you which one." Elan coughed and managed a small laugh. "Does this m-mean we're friends again?" he asked. Caroline smiled shyly. "Oh, Elan, of course we're friends again," she said, "And, um... When you're better, if you want to... ask me that question you asked before... I think this time I might have a different answer." Elan looked about as elated as a man as beaten up as him could look, and he was actually humming to himself as the men carrying him started helping him back into town.
"Oh! Wait!" called Ben. Caroline gestured to the men to keep going, told them she'd catch up, and moved to the otter. "So you're Caroline, huh?" he asked, "Well, look at this." He stepped aside, revealing that even as he'd been carrying Ben, he'd been dragging a wooden chest with his thick, muscular tail... which was currently drooping all the way to the ground in exhaustion. "What's this?" Caroline asked, confused. "You remember that treasure map Elan's friends died following?" Ben said, "Well, it turns out the treasure was real, it was hidden inside a dead tree in the swamp. And what do you know, while the Lord of the Swamp was trying to kill us, he managed to smash that very tree wide open with one of his branches!" He knelt down and popped the chest open, revealing a modest-sized but still gorgeous array of gold coins and fancy jewellery. "Seven Sentinels!" the mouse girl breathed, raising both hands to her heart, "Then - then Peter didn't die on a snipe hunt after all!" Reaching in, Ben took a golden ring with a large sapphire set into it from the top of the pile, then closed the chest, turned around, and held it out to the astonished Caroline. "In one of his lucid moments, Elan was pretty adamant," he said, "He wanted you to have this, said the stone matches your eyes." The slender mouse whimpered, trembling visibly as she reached out and took the ring. "Orange's Ch-Chariot..." she whispered, "It's beautiful... Oh, thank you so much! He'd asked me out to drinks before but I - I didn't know he cared so much!" She turned towards the men carrying Elan in the distance, but stopped. "Excuse me, miss," she said to Ari, "But you said the wizard was Thaniel and this brave otter is Ben, and of course we know Elan. But I really must ask your name, for the stories they'll tell!" The heiress happily admitted to a burst of pride deep within herself as she stood up straight and held her spear at attention. "Then I'm happy to introduce myself as Ariella Taligre Shieldfall, noblewoman of New Parsonus," she said, "I'm glad we could help." Ari's pride was tinged with just a hint of self-consciousness as the other woman's eyes widened slightly, and her gaze darted from Ari's red hair to the spear she held so proudly... just as she whispered the word 'Shieldfall'. "...Oh!" Caroline replied, "W-well, Miss Shieldfall, I promise, Dellor's Rest will never forget your name, or what you did for us! Thank you! A thousand times thank you!" With that, the girl actually bowed respectfully, and then ran off after Elan, actually giggling as she held the ring up to the sun.
As the mouse-kin woman disappeared around a corner, Ari re-slung Zahk'Tuum and smiled as she turned to her companion, who had picked the chest up and was carrying it a bit more gracefully - with his arms. "Elan didn't say anything until he heard Caroline's voice," Ari observed with a wry grin, "That was so sweet of you, Ben." The otter shrugged and chuckled. "What can I say? I'm a romantic at heart," he replied, "That's why I told Thaniel to hold back a little with the healing magic, nothing brings two people together like one helping the other recover from being hurt." A moment of warm, happy silence passed, and then Ari looked over, giving a pointed glance to the treasure chest. "You're still giving Elan the rest of it, you know." Ben's face immediately fell, and he glared at the Human. "Hey! After all the points I just scored him with the girly there, I deserve this!" he complained, but Ari just turned straight to him and crossed her arms, giving him a flawless, if unconscious, imitation of her mother's I'm Very Disappointed In You, Young Lady expression. Ben let out a huff and averted his eyes. "Alright, alright, fine, but they'd better remember me when they tell this story, too!" Putting the chest down on the ground and muttering something mostly incoherent about not carrying somebody else's loot, the otter walked off into the town, probably to drown his woes amidst the townsfolk celebrating at the inn. Rassamo was going to have all four of his hands full with the number of people wanting to drink toasts to the Lord of the Swamp's demise. As she slung her spear onto her back and picked up the chest, hoping to find Caroline and Elan before her arms grew too sore, Ari pondered whether Udo was going to be delighted with an excuse to tell a large crowd his tales, or disappointed that there weren't going to be any more new stories about the Tree King. But mostly she just smiled, pleased that delivering the good news had gone so well. Thaniel had done a good job of reassuring her by pointing out that even if the townspeople didn't believe her, they'd eventually figure it out for themselves when nobody ever saw the creature again... though she had to admit, Ari kind of preferred it this way. It was nice to see the gratitude in so many peoples' eyes. Walking down the street with a carefree grin on her face, the heiress chuckled to herself. This was the closest she'd ever felt to her great-great-grandfather.
Later that afternoon, Ari and Ben walked along the simple dirt road, the wizard's tower now visible in the distance. Ari's spear was exposed this time, at least partially to ward off would-be muggers, and Ben wore a backpack Ari hadn't seen before. "You really didn't have to go to any trouble for me, Ben," Ari said, "I'm more than capable of walking back by myself, even without Siaro's charming personality to keep me company." The otter-kin man shrugged. "Well, I was done in Dellor's Rest anyway, so I figured as long as I'm hitting the road, I might as well see you guys off," he replied, "After all, thanks to you guys, a boring trip to the middle of the swamp looking at pottery and statues got turned into a chance to do a lot of people some real good... in between looking at a lot of pots and statuary." Ari smiled, brushing a lock of hair aside. A few minutes passed, and then the Human turned to her companion, studying his cheerful exterior, before she asked a question that had been itching at her all day. "...Ben, I wanted to ask," she said, "back when we were fighting the Lord of the Swamp... I've never seen anyone use a pair of knives like that, not even in my family's personal guard, or the city guardsmen of New Parsonus. That throw you made, hitting a branch moving that fast... I have to ask, how is it that a researcher is so good with a blade?" Ben stopped dead in his tracks, and there was a strange look on his face. Ari stopped as well, and for a long, tense moment, she could swear the Ani-man was considering something, something that he didn't like. It unnerved her to the point where she was about to back away, tell him if he was uncomfortable talking about it he didn't have to, when Ben sighed and relaxed. "...Look, Ari, I like you, I like the wizard, and Sentinels help me, I think I even like the stupid bird," he began, "But this is something I haven't spoken of in a long time, so... Let's just say I wasn't always a paper-pusher, and that relic acquisition is... a very competitive market." Ari nodded carefully at that, and decided not to press. This was clearly a sensitive subject for him. "Ah." Trying to ignore the many ridiculous theories her racing mind suggested about Ben's suddenly mysterious past, Ari concentrated on walking, and made the rest of the journey in silence.
When they arrived at the front door to the tower, Ari lingered outside. "I guess this is goodbye again," Ben said, having regained the smile that had faded from his face at Ari's earlier question, "It's been a hell of a few days, girl, thanks for making my life more interesting." Ari grinned. "Thank you for everything, Ben, I don't know what we would have done without you," she said, meaning every word, "Helping us find Elan was kind enough, but to actually come out to the swamp with us and risk your life?" She chuckled and added "We weren't even getting paid!" The otter laughed, his whiskers dancing. "Hey, don't sound so surprised that money isn't the only thing in my life that motivates me!" he said, pretending to be offended. "But seriously..." Ari said, "Thank you. I'm pretty sure you saved my life back in that marsh, and I hope someday we find a way to repay you properly. So, ah... where are you off to now?" "Me?" Ben replied, "I'll be heading back to Calastor, gotta make a report to the museum, file a few new finds I made." He sighed wistfully, and added "It's going to be so nice to see the kids again... Well, I guess I'd better hit the road. It's gonna take me a while to get where I'm going, after all." At that moment, the door opened, and Thaniel stepped into view, leaning against the side of the frame. The wizard grinned and nodded to Ben. "Or, you could save a whole lot of time on your trip, and still manage to see this thing to the end with us," Thaniel said, "How about it?" Ari's smile grew and she giggled in delight like a schoolgirl, and Ben's eyes widened. "Are you inviting me into that tower of yours?" he asked, pointing needlessly at the door, "Just so we're clear." Stepping back into the tower, Thaniel raised an arm and made a sweeping gesture further into the building. "Come on in," he said, happily, "I think you've more than proven yourself a friend and ally. We just need to make one quick stop, and then we'll have you back home to spend some quality time with your family!"
After a brief moment's hesitation right at the cusp, Ben followed Thaniel into the tower, with Ari bringing up the rear and closing the door behind them. As Thaniel explained the tower's uniquearchitectural properties, Ari took a moment to visit with her horse, Roland. "I'd been hoping you could get out, stretch your legs again," she was heard cooing, amongst other playful babble, "But you wouldn't have liked it anyway, it was muddy and gross..." She came back out just as the explanation was wrapping up, and the three of them started heading up the stairs. "So what's this about one quick stop?" Ben asked, peeking into each room they passed, whether it lead to ordinary corridors or one of Thaniel's various specialized casting chambers. Ariella retrieved a wrapped bundle from beneath her travelling cloak and sighed with relief. "After all this time, it's in my hands," she said, "Take a look, Ben Calhoun; this is the Midnight Hand, the gauntlet that cursed my family." She peeled back the cloth, and there it was, a darksteel gauntlet, and despite having spent fifty years stuck on the root of a tree and dragged through the water and mud of a swamp, it was still almost perfectly intact, right down to the incredibly ornate and mildly unsettling engravings in the metal. Ari could see where the segment of ring mail they'd acquired had been broken off, though. "Fuck me, I can see why those Seeker weirdos called it the Night's Right Hand," the otter muttered, "It looks more like a severed hand than a glove, like the dark was a person, and somebody chopped his damn hand off." Thaniel nodded. "Unpleasant thing, isn't it?" he commented, "And it's not even active right now. Fortunately, as long as no one is stupid enough to put it on, that won't be a problem. I can just imagine Geoffrey the Gentleman, staggering through the marsh, finally slips in the mud, falls down, and the gauntlet gets snagged on a root..." Ari sighed, grimacing at it and wrapping it back up. She could barely stand to look at it. "You know, it would have been a lot easier convincing Dellor's Rest that the Lord of the Swamp was dead if I'd just shown them this," she said, "You know, say something like 'the creature is dead, and this is the artifact that made the tree a monster!' With something this obviously evil to focus on, we wouldn't have needed that whole song-and-dance. Of course, I wasn't exactly about to take the risk that someone might have tried to take it..." Ben cleared his throat. "So about this stop...?" he asked, again. Ari grinned sheepishly. "Sorry, I got carried away," she said. Thaniel smiled at his companions. "Well, it's very simple, really. We're going to take that gauntlet and return to the temple where Xander Shieldfall found it in the first place. Then we're going to put it back on its pedestal and see if that breaks the curse on Ari's family," the wizard explained, "And if that doesn't work? Well, we'll just take the gauntlet back - Uh, I guess you can do that, Ari, since you're already cursed - and I'll study the old books until I find a way to destroy it once and for all. Destroying the Midnight Hand will surely disrupt the curse. Ari, I promised you I would help you break that curse, and I mean to keep my promise!" Ari laughed happily and stopped their ascent by hugging Thaniel tight. "Thank you so much, Thaniel, I can't believe it's finally almost over!" she said, as the wizard blushed, then smiled a goofy smile, and finally hugged her back.
While the two of them were having a moment, Ben glanced into the room just next to them. "Say, what's in here?" he asked. Thaniel glanced over. Ari, perfectly happy where she was, continued hugging the wizard. "Oh, that's my portal room," he said, "I use the big ring on the ground with the runes inscribed on it to create portals, shortcuts to wherever I want to go. It's very useful when I can't get the tower close enough to my destination without ruining the local architecture and I don't feel inclined towards an hour's walk. Funny, the room doesn't usually end up here, I must have adjusted something by mistake..." The two Humans broke off the hug - rather reluctantly, on both sides - and started up the stairs again. "No matter!" said Thaniel brightly, "Come along, my laboratory is at the top, and that's where I keep the crystal to move the tower!" As Ari and Thaniel climbed up the stairs, Ben glanced after them, then quickly slipped a hand into his coat and retrieved a stone, the one he'd used to threaten Elan on that forgotten night at the inn. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the thing into the portal room, and it landed perfectly on one of the segments of the raised stone circle engraved on the raised structure in the middle of the room. As the otter watched with some satisfaction, all the runes on the ring lit up a bright, cool blue... and the stone began to burn from within with that same eerie yellow as before. This time, actual flames began to silently lick out of the sigil-stone, which was consumed by the glow and melted into the ring, absorbing into the hard stone of the platform. When the glow faded, the ring was once again perfectly smooth, showing no sign that the rock had ever been there... except that the eldritch sigil that had once burned upon the stone's surface now glowed ominous and yellow upon the surface of the portal ring itself. It faded quickly, and then so did all the other runes, until it looked like nothing had happened at all. Ben put on a wide smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, and he hurried after his 'friends'. "Sorry about that! Keep getting distracted gawking at stuff," he said, a false cheer to his voice, "Now... tell me about this temple where you're bringing the gauntlet." He grinned at the two Humans with a glimmer in his eye they didn't see as they continued climbing the stairs. "I get the feeling we're going to have some fun together!"
Ariella Shieldfall and the wizard Thaniel return, and this time, their quest for the Midnight Hand brings them to the bustling but seemingly harmless marshland town of Dellor's Rest. The people here are nice and friendly, but they live in fear of a bizarre terror that stalks the bog, and can strike anywhere, anytime, completely without warning. A monster they call... the Lord of the Swamp.
And I return to this squeaky clean series for the end of the year. Just like last year, this chapter happens to be my Christmas present for my mother, who is perplexed why I never let her read my writing anymore. (hehe :B) I'm sharing it with you guys a few days early because fortunately for my ongoing sanity, Mom doesn't have a Fur Affinity account. XD
I know most of you were probably hoping for something sexy after the clean story last month, but hey, it's Christmas, whatcha gonna do? Besides, I'm pretty proud of this instalment of the series, because we're finally building towards the big finish! Here's hoping you enjoy the last tale of 2016. :D
I was so delighted to see that someone was looking forward to the next Shieldfall that much. They don't really get much attention, being clean and all, so thanks for that, and thanks for reading!
![[Commission] On the Beat](https://va.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/1715/1715730_TastesLikeGreen_bronsontwistcomm.jpg "[Commission] On the Beat")
