The Haunted Marshes

Our first stop after taking our leave from Bran was Grum’s brewery in the hopes of meeting him there. And indeed, upon hearing from our arrival he stepped out from the building, visibly tired, yet smiling. His apron was covered in all kinds of liquids and he said, he had an epiphany the night before which demanded immediate attention, hence his early departure. But he was willing to join us in pursuing the accepted quests.
Kyla rightfully mentioned that the sick girl, might need our immediate attention if she was indeed close to death. As she had learned, the father who had put forth the request for aid was a lumberjack who lived south of the Neverwinter walls. On our way there, we encountered numerous groups of people, most of them heavily burdened by their possessions, some even with small carts and wagons who were all trying to leave the rat-plagued city and seek peace in the south, in Leilon or even as far as Waterdeep. To our relief, any clusters of rodents seemed to shoo away from us as they apparently realised, we would put up a fight. When we left the city, a somewhat flattened stretch of grass was all that remained of the carnival. The alien but friendly folk who were running it had left a trail along the south eastern wall of Neverwinter, likely with the intention of traveling around and further north, now that paying customers were stuck in the safety of their homes. As someone often relying on the good mood of others enjoying whatever arts I may provide, it is very understandable why they chose to leave. Plus, there soon would be talk of conspiracies that the strangers had brought the plague, as correlation and causation are mixed up far too frequently. Still, it was a shame to see them gone. Not only for traditions sake, also it would have been a fine thing to have them around for celebration and a change of mind once all this will be over.
 
After a good hour of walking, we reached the small grove, the father we were seeking was tending to. A simple wooden house stood at the outskirts, before it a shed and a woodcutting block. Upon knocking at the door, a middle-aged human man opened, as tall and almost as broad as Nysqwen, his hair unkempt and a thick beard covering his face. Yet most noticeable were his eyes, bloodshot and filled with the painful look of a man almost broken, at the brink of giving up. A brief glimmer of faint hope crossed his face as Kyla told him we were here to look after his daughter but passed as quickly as it came. He explained, she was unable to find sleep since a week, every time she closed her eyes she soon would awake with a start and scream at the top of her little lungs. And she was getting weaker every day. She was dreaming of a ghostly figure that haunted her through the streets of Neverwinter. Kyla asked him if we might enter and talk to his daughter directly, to which he did not object.
The inside of the small house was dimly lit, cloths were put up at most of the windows. The room was dominated by a large table that looked like it had been carved from a single tree, perhaps by the man himself. Axes and other tools were hung on the walls. The air tasted like sweat and fear. From a bed in the corner emerged a weak breathing sound.
Remembering the last time, an unfamiliar child reacted to my presence I chose to stay in the opposite corner while Kyla went over to the child. She confirmed to her, what her father had already told us and described the ghost as clad in a dark cloak and smoke, glowing red eyes peering under a pulled-up hood as it hovered above the cobblestones. All dreams came to a sudden end when the figure caught up with her in their chase and extended a crooked claw to draw her in. When Kyla turned around to face us, a concerned look had crept on her face. Out of earshot of the girl, she told us and the lumberjack that she was afraid that whatever was haunting the poor girl sounded an awful lot like a shadow demon. These creatures are notorious for wandering through shadows unseen and are often used by occult groups and shady organisations as assassins or for gathering information about rivals. But up to this point, she had never heard of them haunting the dreams of anyone. The only explanation she could muster would be that the girl would have to have been part of or close to some kind of ritual where the demon was supposed to be summoned. And something would have to have gone terribly wrong in the conjuration, for the entity to cling to her subconsciousness.
The expression of the father understandably went even more pale than it had been before, and he began to slightly tremble. He told us that his daughter had been with her mother, Amafrey, the week before. She lived in the southern part of Neverwinter, close to the wall. But he would not know that his ex-wife would dabble in such atrocities. On the contrary, he was firmly convinced that she would share his love for their daughter, the one thing remaining from their engagement. In a hushed voice I told my friends that I knew of numerous rumours of raids by the city watch of presumed occult gatherings, some of them said to be successful. And there were constant stories about small cults for various causes, none of which ever had emerged to be a severe threat in loosening a demon on the city. We had encountered some members of the Cult of the Dragon, loyal to Tiamat, who were known to exist in Neverwinter.
Archie had been fiddling with his goggles for the past minutes. He now confirmed that he saw an aura of conjuration magic surrounding the silently sobbing girl but that there were no further magical traces in this house. Therefore, it seemed unlikely that the father was untruthful and would try to hide some occult magic of his own. Kyla stepped once more to the girl and laid one hand on her forehead. She muttered a brief prayer and the sobbing stopped. The constant creaking of the bed that had been caused by twitches and shivers of the child faded as she found a brief peace in the divine aid that Kyla was able to grant her. With a sad smile she turned to us and said that this was all she could do for today, that the girl would be able to at least sleep for a few hours but that she would need some time and preparations to hopefully find a better answer to her ailment. If it was a curse, that was haunting her, then Kyla might be able to lift that on the following day. For now though, the father thanked her wholeheartedly for at least this brief amount of mercy that could be offered for his beloved daughter. In the meantime, I strode silently to the bed. The girl already was fast asleep, her weak breath more regular than it had been since we entered. I placed the rag doll I had won in the carnival games next to her, taking care that her father would not notice. She reminded me of so many I had seen in the streets and tried to help with Cor. Hopefully, it was not too late for this one.
 
It was midday now, and we had no way of helping any further before the next morning. Similarly, time was running out for this day to accomplish anything with regards to the fiendish problem in Neverwinter, thus we decided to head straight for the marshes to the east of the city in the hopes of finding the herbs we were sent to retrieve and perhaps catch a trail of the missing mushroom forager.
After a cheerful walk of a few hours, we came to the riverbank of the Neverwinter River and followed it further east to the outskirts of the bog. Soon enough, Grum was able to make out a dry stretch of grass, sheltered by a few hills and trees that would serve as a camp site for the night. With what remained of the daylight, Kyla with Grum and Teynos with Archie set out to try and see if they would find some of the plants and secure the area from any unwanted visitors through the night. Nysqwen and I stayed behind to set up camp and build a fire for their return.
While going about the preparations, this gave us the opportunity to talk. I had spent the last hours contemplating how, about what and when I would speak up to my other companions. Still somewhat unsure, I at least wanted to gauge if the trust I was filled with was as justified as I felt. And I was eager to learn more about her past. She told me about her upbringing in Tourakas. While she had early on shown remarkable skills with weapons and in defence of her village, her brother, Urodaar, had been more the scholarly type. I have only heard her utter this name once before, when she was asking the black spider about his whereabouts, and a similar wistful tone crept in her voice now. He had gone to the nearby port of Djerad Kethendi to study at an academy there. One day, he had returned to visit the family, speaking of some secretive research he had been conducting. During this visit, a band that she described as too organised and trained to be just roaming marauders attacked Tourakas. Together with her father, she had rushed to the defence but soon in the fray had received a severe blow to the head that left her unconscious. When she came to, the fight was over. Her father had been slain and her brother vanished, likely taken by these attackers. Since then, she had been searching for him. And the spider’s talk of Imraloth and Maglust and the place known as U’hrid Nasad was the first faint trace she had found since her arrival in Neverwinter. Her always cheerful demeanour had cooled off a bit over her tale. Now the smile returned when she turned back to me and said that none the less, she was glad to have found such friends as with our group. I promised her once more, to accompany her in this search, if she would have what aid I might provide, and her smile grew even warmer and broader. She said, her mother would throw her hands up in shock if she would know half of the adventures her daughter had been through but might be relieved to know her in such company as she had found now. I noddingly agreed that it is probably for the best that mothers don’t always know what their offspring is up to. She laughed and said that Anataea seemed to be a great person though. With only a brief moment of hesitation, I told her that Anataea was indeed the greatest woman I had ever encountered and had taught me much but that she was not my mother. Before I could decide how much more I was willing to say at this point, our friends returned.
They had successfully harvested some of the eye bright and a few other herbs. Grum and Kyla had not seen any tracks of beasts that might become a problem throughout the night. Teynos and Archie had also brought some mushrooms for dinner and indeed had seen scarce tracks from small humanoid feet and a few trunks that looked like someone else had collected fungi. But with darkness approaching, there was no way we would follow any tracks today. Archie therefore prepared a trap near our camp to secure one of the more open areas around us. In the meantime, Teynos prepared a very tasty and filling mushroom soup. A recipe, as he said, that was traditional to the monastery he was brought up in.
 
Nysqwen offered to take first watch, followed by Kyla and Teynos and finally Archie and myself. When our turn came, we were told that all night small lights had been visible throughout the marshes and Kyla had sensed the presence of dozens of small undead presences, giving them away as being will-o’-wisps. They had not come any closer, but especially with the now approaching fog, it would be wise to keep an eye on them. Thus, we began our watch. The night was damp but not too cold. However, the fog and the utter silence, caused by the noise swallowing bog, were enough to send eerie shivers down our spines. The cry of a raven who descended on a branch behind us gave us a startle but remembering Kyla’s patron, we chose to interpret it as maybe a sign of protection. I recited an old poem, dark and beautiful to Archie, as we sat there in the diminishing shine of our fire.
Suddenly, a high, terrified cry cut through the night. Immediately, we woke our friends, as the screaming continued, a female voice, clearly in distress. Without taking the time to don armour, we ran as fast as the treacherous ground would allow towards the voice and into the marsh. Kyla shouted the name of the missing woman, Lyra. Another cry, this time slightly closer to us, then silence. While we were running, I tried to leave marks in the surrounding trees and bushes as best I could so we would not get entirely los. I had heard and told enough horror stories in my life to know that that was the last thing you want to have happen. We stopped in the middle of nowhere, our boots sinking in thick mud the longer we were standing still. Many puddles and larger areas of murky water were spread all around us and a thick webbing coated many of the dry patches. Webbing of a size that we last encountered in a once lost mine… This did not bode well for whomever we were following. Teynos noted a slight ripple on one of the puddles and soon enough saw a toad the size of a human head emerge. As far as we were able to tell, this was as close as we were going to get to the origin of the last cry.
Kyla was the first to hear squishing steps from the direction we had come from, therefore we followed her lead in bolting this direction. Around us, a handful of will-o’-wisps shed dim light in the fog and soon enough, we could make out a woman running through the bog in the same direction as we maybe fifty or sixty feet from us. She was being chased by a swarm of ravens, the birds occasionally darting down to pick on her. What had in the darkness and with only a quick glance looked like a tree trunk suddenly moved. The head of a gigantic crocodile, at least fifteen feet long turned to us as we passed, and his jaws clenched tight around Kyla. A second of these beasts emerged from the darkness, biting down on what was sticking out from the first crocodile’s mouth. Her agonised screams that cut deep in my heart stopped and she went limp in their grasp. In shock, I tried to hypnotise the terrible amphibians but managed to lure only one into a stasis. The other now turned its gaze to the rest of our group who cried out in unison in rage over our mauled friend. Grum turned into his familiar shape of a grey dire wolf, just as Archie sprinted forwards, dashed right between the two crocodiles and rammed a brazen syringe in Kyla’s chest. An audible gasp signalised that his brave advance had succeeded in bringing the half-elf back to live. Nysqwen and Teynos rushed up to the second crocodile and began an onslaught of cuts and punches that even through its thick hide seemed to severely impact the creature.
The strange woman turned around, too far to make out her face and the same voice that we had heard cry through the marshes earlier was cursing the first crocodile, ripping it out of its stupor in the process. With a speed I would not have thought possible, I saw the beast running right at me, sharp teeth dug deep, and bones snapped. Then – darkness.
What followed was like a fever dream where I appeared to be a bystander rather than an active participant. Something pierced through the darkness, tying my mind to this world. And I felt a clash of burning rage and ice-cold hatred well up in my ribcage. There was no way to control it this time. I felt my hand moving without me realising I would have ordered it to, and a voice rang through my ears. A spiteful growl spoke in the horrible infernal tongue as I realised that the words came from my own throat. The beast that still held me in its maw seemed to recoil somewhat. I felt the feeling of despise grew stronger and the voice doomed the crocodile once more. A sharp pain cut through to me as my hand scraped across jagged teeth. I felt my lips curl into a hateful grin as knowledge, rooted in the boiling blood in my veins, caused a spark of hellish flame to burn its way through the entire length of the animal holding me. Its painful cry, I realised horrified, caused a feeling of joy, almost pleasure. As it dropped dead to the ground, I rose, seeing the people around me fighting off some approaching will-o’-wisps as the strange woman was kneeling next to the corpse of the second crocodile hunched over a non-moving Teynos. Kyla’s holy symbol glowed in a bright light, for the first time in this fight properly illuminating the battlefield and caused two of the remaining eerie lights to dash away from her and vanish into the returning darkness. I saw another one attacking my old dwarven friend and with a final surge of burning anger I blasted it with the full force the staff that suddenly appeared in my hand harboured. With its light, so died the hate and anger in me and I felt the notion of control slowly settling in again. I threw an apologetic, pleading look to the knowing eyes of the wolf at my side. Was there a hint of a sad nod? It probably was just my imagination.
Teynos suddenly cried out that the woman had been trying to kill him and threw wild fists towards her, upon which she vanished into thin air. Quick-witted, Archie threw a small silvery bead in the direction she had been at, fine metallic dust covered the bog around but revealed nothing of the woman. I used the brief moment of confusion to correct my appearance as the attention was on Teynos who apparently had been stabbed in the side by what looked like terribly long claws. Only thanks to Kyla’s healing capabilities had he been snatched from the brink of death. She must also have been the reason why I woke up in the clutches of the crocodile earlier. And I still need to thank her for that. But now, all we could do was getting out of the marshes as fast as we could. Following the marks, I had left, we ran back to our camp.
When we came back, we all collapsed where we stood. This encounter, with as many near-death experiences had taken a heavy toll on us. Kyla once more gathered us around her and offered a prayer to the raven queen to thank her for the protection, alleviating us from many of the wounds we had suffered. We all agreed that the woman fit the description we had of Lyra awfully well. Either, the poor girl was dead, possessed or something else was terribly out of the ordinary here. But we all were too tired to think about this more just yet, we needed some rest.
 
Now, everyone has settled back in their tents to regain their strength. None has said anything regarding what they might have seen of me. Is there still a faint hope they had not caught a glimpse? Only time will tell. But it has happened again. I hope, nothing I am unaware of has transpired. I cannot afford something as with Affinity to happen again, least of all to these people. And we still need to find what or whoever this woman in the marshes was.