2023/04/15, V43: Inside the Swamp Keep!

General Summary

Start:

Fast Day Waning, 2nd Week Shine Waning, 597th Year of the Scale

Return:

Trails Day, The Celebration of the Harvest, 597th Year of the Scale
Wardens: Taur, Goldbroad, Calla Skýjadóttir

Retainers: Rawl the Maul

Venture Plan: Use a boat that Goldbroad had hidden near the swamp to reach the walls of the Twin Towered Keep, and walk upon the grounds of its inner bailey yard.

Calla's Venture Report:

(~transcribed by Sobarrite Jeska, ommiting Calla's proclivity for profanity, both in the Úlfahala and Common tongues~)

Day One
Before setting out, the Wardens decided to recuit Rawl the Maul to help bolster the adventuring group. With honeyed words, Goldbroad made a convincing argument that inticed Rawl the Maul to put away his playthings (a female gnome and a male halfling) and join the Wardens on their venture out to the The Twins Swamp. Her words may be sweet but Rawl also may have appreciated the cut of Goldbroad's jib. Whatever the case, Rawl was signed up to the cause.

The group decided that pruchasing a barrel was also money well spent. They would use it to store portable water, which turned out to be a wise decision which Calla will come to appreciate on Day 5 of their journey.

Led by Calla, the Wardens made good time and traveled far the first day, and only came upon game to hunt. Calla collected several red-tail hawk feathers. When the group set up camp for the night, a small group went hunting and foraging for their dinner: Calla and Rawl brought back a small boar and Taur found the ubiquitous purple tubers that have become famed far and wide in the Far View Valley (if Fort Far View and Fort Chimera is considered "far and wide"). Goldbroad remained back at the camp site and built a shelter for the mounts. When it was time to settle in for the night, Goldbroad cast Tiny Hut and the group spent a peaceful night in its pleasant confines.

Day Two
Travel during the day was uneventful and the group never lost the trail even though they continued to hunt and forage during their travels. The Wardens spent another uneventful night within Goldbroad's Tiny Hut.

Day Three
The peaceful journey finally met with some danger in the late afternnon as the group set up against one side of a combe. Prowling along the ridge above the camp were two big wild cats looking to jump the group!

But they were spotted by Calla and the group prepared to ambush the ambushers! Then Calla spotted some movement on the opposite rudge and another big cat, this one much bigger than the other two, was trying to flank the Wardens. The cats pounced but the group were ready for them, and the battle was brief. Goldbroad played on her pipes and sang out the battle hymn "The Glory of My Nature", Taur used his illusionary spells to keep the cats off-balance, and these actions helped Rawl and Calla to fell the beasts with their hammers and swords. The parent cat did manage to rake Calla across her back but the magics of the bards closed these wounds. The rest of the night was spent in the Tiny Hut's comfort.

Day Four
Uneventful; travel uninterruped by any sightings of danger.

Day Five
Daylight travel was again uneventful and the group came upon the swamp's edge. They spent many hours seearching for Goldbroad's hidden boat before the found it among a strand of trees. However, danger reared its ugly, murderous face filled with multitudinous eyes and dripping,

sharp fangs while Rawl and Calla searched for clean water to refill their water barrel. GIANT SPIDER! Calla and Rawl both made a bungle of disposing of the giant spider, were webbed and done for! That was, until Rawl broke free and gave Calla the time to rip herself out of the spider's webs. Rawl then made short work of the thing.

Calla and Rawl could not find any clean water nearby...the river was a day's travel to the northwest. However, Calla thought it wise to test the swamp's water. She was wrong...as soon as she gulped down a bit of the muddy water, her stomach rebelled painfully and she retched up what she had drunk.

(NOTE: I have ommited the bodily travails suffered by Calla while poisoned by the swamp water. Her account is as lurid as it is bodily obscene. She suffered much, that is all one needs to know. ~Sobarrite Jeska)

Day Six
With Calla rendered inert and bedridden, the group decided to spend a full day reinforcing the boat under Goldbroad's supervision. Her boat now sports 4 foot tall wooden side-walls that protects people on the starboard and port sides of the boat from arrow shot and the like.

Day Seven
Calla fully recovers from her stomach ailment when daylight breaks. The group set out in the reinforced boat and quickly paddled out to the middle of the swamp lake where the waters run clear. They wisely refilled their water barrel, which had run dry just as they broke camp.

The group made some observations: the northern shore lacked the dense fog that had, to this point, been ever-present and which had obscured a forest of massively tall trees. In serveral of the tree tops, there is evidence of recent habitation by purple silk worms that Asha had once been looking for. Calla also suspects that the waterfall behind the Twinned Tower Keep leads to the Malot Village.

Reaching the keep was arduous and hair-raising. The current of the lake increases greatly nearer the waterfall and the group barely managed to rope a crenellation on the keep's outer wall. But the boat was made secure to the wall which they all scaled without incident. On top of the thick wall, the group saw that the inner bailey was flooded; two submerged mechanisms were draining the water in great whirlpools...from where the water was entering the bailey was anyone's guess.

It was noted that each tower-top was broken and that they must have been connected at one time. Each tower appears to be 80 feet wide, 120 feet long, and hexagon in shape. Both towers lack any windows.

The group decided to enter the southern tower of the keep—as it was nearer to the secured boat—and discovered that the tower had no outer door, only a 10 ft by 10 ft opening that led into a room that had the same length and width of the tower, but with a set of stairs leading upwards. It was dark inside, so while Calla (the human) stood guard at the enterance, Taur, Goldbroad, and Rawl went inside. There was nothing but empty shelving the length of the enoromous room.

Suddenly, the three were surrounded by living shadows that sprung out of the darkness and even the ground upon which they stood! To make matters more murderous, an inky cloud of pure darkness (more dark even that the lightless surroundings, if that be possible!) engulfed the shadows and the Wardens (and Rawl).

They were about to be brutally put down when Goldbroad sang an old children's tune Whether, Hither, and Tither and teleported herself outside. Taur and Rawl managed to break free and Taur turned himself invisible out of desperation. Rawl, with no magic at his disposal, saw the end of his life approaching swiftly in the form of an undead shadow that reached out and grabbed him up in its icy grip. Fortunately an enraged Calla lept into the fray and wrestled Rawl free of the shadow's inhumanly strong grip, and she pulled the big half-orc into the safety of the sunlight.

Not willing to take further risks, Goldbroad used her magic to create a hole in the keep's outer wall above her boat. Everyone made haste, jumped through the hole and onto the boat. They cut themself free of the line that secured the boat to the wall and, with great effort by all involved for they had to fight against the current, managed to put the boat onto the southern shore.

The night they spent in camp was thankfully—and blessedly—quiet.

Day Eight
The group broke camp in the early morning hours after hiding the boat once more. The next seven days spent travelling home were peaceful, provided that no one dwelt too long on horrowing events in the southern tower.

Report Date

06 May 2023

Primary Location

The Twins Swamp

Related Characters

• Calla
• Goldbroad
• Rawl the Maul
• Taur

Goldbroad

Calla

Taur

Raul the Maul