Spoiler: Chapter Eleven: The Glowing Marsh
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September 1114
The mercenaries, sans Kim, are gathered by Valentine, who has managed to acquire a contract from Conrad Heart, the owner of a local burlesque. The group meets with the middle-aged halfling in a parlor above his club, where the short paunchy man graciously provides them with tea and muffins as he explains their task.
Long ago, he was a treasure-hunter and adventure seeker, not altogether different from the mercenaries he sees before him. Treasure hunting was lucrative in those days; with the Cataclysm in the recent past, competition was low and the best ruins were still unexplored. Still, it was dangerous work, and once he started to slow down, he was glad to use his found fortune to buy his club and settle down.
He kept in touch with his old companions, those who survived, including a druid named Emilian. She used to stop by every few months to say hello and help him out with things like making sure none of his girls caught pregnant, but he hasn’t seen her in over a year.
Conrad offers a bag of gold if they can find Emilian and verify her whereabouts. If she is in danger, he will provide hazard pay should they bring her back safe and sound, and if she has passed on, he would like to give her a proper burial.
She was a human woman, short and slender, with long blonde hair going white with age. She is, of course, a potent primalist. She was last seen studying the strange ecology in the fungal swamps that have bloomed in the wake of the Cataclysm at the place where the Amber Flow enters the Wasteland.
They do not tarry long. Leaving Harijan behind to handle their affairs, they pile into Zara’s juggernaut and begin a slow trundle south. Quincy regretfully leaves his horse behind; it is too cramped for livestock in the vehicle, and though Esper can outrun the conveyance, the noble steed cannot match its endless endurance.
The group heads south along the river. They travel further than they ever have before, far enough south to see the fog-shrouded spires of Livonia’s fortress at Avarus on the far side of the river. They pass the walled cathedral city of Gollanthor, fortified in the Canyon Lands guarding the source of the Amber Flow as well as the last vestiges of the Imperial priesthood that survived the Cataclysm.
They decide not to enter, Krystal likely wouldn’t be welcome, and instead, cross the river at night and follow its southern fork down into the desert.
There they travel along the ruins of Imperial highways, raised concrete that still stands in the arid climate. In Price Town, the southernmost train station in the region, they meet up with Kim, fresh from her trip to the Scoria in the west.
Some days later, the reunited companions approach the marsh itself. A massive fen, a hundred leagues across, with an ecology unlike any found elsewhere in Pangea. Few plants grow here, but algae and fungus dominate, and gigantic mushrooms, many larger than trees, fill the skyline and shade the region. The animals are primarily insects, jellyfish, and things that have no names, and clouds of luminous creatures that might be fireflies dance in the misty haze.
With no better course of action, the group plunges in. They leave Zara with the juggernaut, for it will sink in the sodden ground, and the former dwarf is not eager to feed the hordes of mosquitos that must live within.
As they cast about, Anani is entranced by light dancing deep within one of the ponds that lie along the path of the Amber Flow. It is likely caused by some sort of luminous bacteria within, but as she studies it, something also studies her.
Quincy notices the smell, one of the most pungent he has ever known, like ripe fruit left to molder all summer long. He looks up, drawing his rifle with almost superhuman quickness as he does, the barrel an extension of his eyes. He fires without thinking.
A creature has been stalking Anani, a great scaled beast like a giant hairless lion, with long mutant claws. It vaguely reminds him of the Mishipeshu water panthers of his homeland, but it is not one of them. It pounces the same instant that he fires, and though his aim is true, it is not deterred by the hole in its chest.
The monster sinks its teeth into the back of Anani’s neck and begins to shake furiously. She feels the pressure but not the pain.
Kim reacts next, bashing the beast about the head with her meteor hammer, and it is dazed, dropping its treat and backing towards the indistinct shoreline. Krystal takes a shortcut though the hellscape to cut it off, and though she could have dealt the finishing blow, she hesitates, unsure about coming in to flank the creature once she sees the wicked bony claws hooking from the back of the cat’s elbows. It disappears into the water and is gone.
Anani isn’t hurt too badly, although she isn’t able to properly treat her wounds due to the location of the injuries.
Not long after they get moving, Quincy finds signs of humanoids having passed this was, and they follow the trail.
That night they camp in the gloom and the damp. It is too wet to get a fire going, and there is little to burn. They sleep in the muck, although Krystal instead spends the night on the cap of a giant mushroom some distance away.
She is too far away to notice the ultra-stealthy intruders who invade their camp in the dark of the night. They quietly disarm the travelers, who are woken by the clanking sound of someone trying to spool Kim’s endless chain.
Disarmed and disoriented, they are led back to their kidnapper’s domicile. Several buildings standing on chalk pillars, the walls and floors made from dried chitin.
Once Krystal notices, she follows along at a distance, never fully uncloaking herself, and preparing to fight to free her friends.
Once within, the attackers remove their ceremonial spirit masks and reveal the faces of humanoid marsupials which Quincy immediately recognizes as hengeyokai. They likewise see the trophies hanging from his belt in the dim light, and immediately recognize him as a hunter.
The two go back and forth, each accusing the other of being a raider and an interloper, before an older wise man calms them down.
To break the ice, Kim asks about their spirit masks and their religion. The marsupial folk tell her that they worship their ancestors as well as their totems; Publedina, spirit of marsupials; Menoetius, spirit of the fey; and Prometheus, spirit of all humanoids.
Kim corrects them, saying Prometheus is only the spirit of men, and his brother Epimetheus is the spirit of other mortal races, but the hengeyokai shake their heads and say they don’t know a spirit by that name. Anani adds that she has also never heard of such a god, and Valentine scoffs and says that is because there isn’t one, leaving Kim shamed and perplexed.
They are fed oven-dried algae cakes, bland but topped with flavorful seeds, and told that it is a good thing they didn’t try lighting a fire, for the swamp is home to drifts of black mold that are drawn to flame and will steal a person’s warmth in their sleep.
Kim asks if that is why they build their homes on chalk pillars, and is told no, that is to protect from the slime waves. When they have a breeding bloom, the swamp slimes coat and consume all organic matter in short order, then quickly die, releasing deadly heat as they decay, creating a situation not unlike a forest fire.
Valentine explains that they are here to rescue the druid Emilian, and asks if the marsupial folk know who she is. The elder says he knows of her, but will require a test of valor before he will tell them.
In the swamp, there lurks a monster named the Tiddalik, and if they can slay it, he will guide them on their journey.
The group is unhappy with the proposition, but is in no position to argue. They ask what the Tiddalik is, and are told that it is unlike any animal they are familiar with, and he does not want to give them a false impression. The closest analogy he can give is a blood clot in the river; something that exists in both the physical and spiritual world.
The next morning, the travelers are led by the tribe’s hunters into the rotting fen where the Tiddalik lives. They are given back their weapons, but as Quincy’s rifle is handed to him, the young brave pulls him close and whispers into his ear that they better not think of double-crossing them; the seeds they ate were poisoned and only the marsupial-folk know the antidote.
They then depart into the mist.
The monster soon comes snuffling towards heroes. It is massive, as big as a mammoth, and it looks to have at one point been some sort of huge primeval amphibian with a crocodile’s shape. But now it is covered with glowing slime, and growing in the slime are hundreds of blinking eyes. The monster's mouth reveals a dozen long hooked tentacles that may once have been tongues, and hungrily move to grapple those who dare approach.
Quincy fires several shots into the monster’s gelatinous hide, and it sinks down into the mud to protect its sensitive flesh. When it does so, Krystal, Kim, and Feur flank the monster and tear into it.
Though it is able to get in a few good kicks with its flabby legs, the Tiddalik dies in relatively short order and without much fanfare.
A voice whispers to Anani that she should take its blood to the alchemist at Morton’s Watch, and she does her best to collect the cloudy fluid in a vial.
Valentine severs one of the monster's tongues to return as proof, but even severed it continues to twitch and scream for the rest of the day.
Upon their triumphant return, Feur tells the hengeyokai tribesman that the Tiddalik has finally croaked.
The old shaman thanks them for their service, and explains that such monsters will become more and more common as the Wasteland grows, until the entire swamp and all of its inhabitants have become strange to themselves and spill out to devour the world.
Kim mentions that she heard the Omukade says something similar, and the elder hengeyokai nods and says he is familiar with the centipede monsters, for they have begun intermarrying with a clan of leech folk who live deep in the swamp.
Quincy, who has worked out a plan of attack with Krystal, asks for the antidote. The old marsupial is shocked, and then snarls at the youngster, telling him to go out and fetch fuel in the swamp while his punishment is decided. The wise old creature apologizes deeply to Quincy, and says that was just a lie made up by a hot-headed youth eager to fight.
In truth, the Tiddalik was less of a test than was implied, for they feared that the Druid might have called it to aid her if their meeting turned hostile; and they were best having it out of the way so that it might not come up behind them while they already had their hands full.
When asked why Emilian would summon a monstrosity to eat them, the old shaman says he doesn’t know, but her actions have been strange of late, and her grove dangerous; they dare not approach.
Still, they wish their guests well, and give them directions to the druid, as well as a small scrying crystal which Anani can use to navigate.
That evening, they come upon the druid’s grove. It is unique in that not only are there mushrooms here, but also trees, although they are leafless and dying, likely holdovers from a bygone era. They see no sign of the druid, but several hulking creatures meander about the grove; they have a roughly humanoid shape, but with flesh composed entirely of rotting vegetation.
Valentine calls out to them and says they are here for the druid, and in a croaking voice the creatures respond that she is here, but they cannot take her. She is dead, but she is also alive.
The group moves forward, and sees a pool of pinkish slime in the center of the grove. Floating within is a human skeleton which matches the description they were given of Emilian.
Feur casts a quick spell to see the past. His vision shows Emilian sick and dying, and falling to the ground here, and he confirms that these are her remains.
Valentine reaches out to take them, when the pink slime lashes out at her, and then rises from the pool, its tendrils carrying the skeleton about like a puppet’s strings.
Valentine stumbles back into a large mushroom, which immediately releases a cloud of spores that burn her lungs. She coughs and shouts out a warning to her companions.
At the same time, the creatures who wander the grove, Dweomerlings, call out for the intruders to stop, and not to take her remains. They descend upon Valentine, and in a flash Krystal is there, cutting them to pieces. However, she notices that those who survive the Black Flame Blade are somehow invigorated by its magic, their movements quickening.
Quincy fires his rifle at the skeleton, punching a huge hole into the slimy mass and apparently wounding it. It responds by firing a beam of concentrated moonlight at him, and Anani realizes that it has somehow retained use of the druid’s magic.
Kim takes to smashing the toadstools while Feur speeds her and Krystal to allow them to rain blows at a furious rate, and soon the grove is empty, but the druid’s bones perform another incantation, and the skeletal trees move to surround them, hedging them in. Anani works to counter the magic, but one of the trees picks her up in its branches, grabbing her ankles and attempting to tear her in two like a wishbone.
Quincy fires several times, doing enough damage to free her, and then the rest of the group proceeds to smash the trees to splinters using a combination of bullets, blades, and Kim’s enchanted flail.
When the grove is destroyed, they look around and realize that the trees were not alive, merely moved by the druid’s magic, and that they have taken them for foes in a panic. There is silence for a moment, and then the entire group, even Krystal, begins to laugh heartily at the situation.
Unfortunately, their mirth is short-lived, for the squirming parasite has magically healed its wound and climbed atop a nearby clump of giant mushrooms, from whence it begins to summon a swarm of stinging insects, many of them venomous.
Quincy again fires at it, but the creature is ready for him, and commands a towering wall of brambles to grow around him. Quincy is quick on his feet and fires while running, but when it comes to reloading on the move, his hands fail him and he jams his gun. He stops and curses as he works to clear it.
Kim responds by summoning a powerful tremor in the earth, bringing the parasitic blob crashing down into the muck.
Krystal immediately moves to stab it, but it wraps a tendril around her throat and pulls tight. There is a sickening crack, and Krystal is no more.
Feur, though distracted by the insect swarm, quickly looks through the branching timelines and finds one where her injuries were not quite so bad, and knits the two realities together, restoring her to life, if not health.
He drags her body away, though he is lashed several times in the attempt, to where Anani is treating Valentine’s wounds.
Kim again stuns the ooze long enough for Quincy to approach, and several blasts of the sawed-off scattergun he keeps as a holdout weapon put an end to the horror, whatever it was.
They carefully clean Emilian’s bones of the stinging pink jelly and return to Zara. It is slow going, for Krystal must forsake the hellscape and is instead dragged on a travoy.
Several nights later they speed through the desert on their way back to civilization, the druid’s bones in tow. As they drive along the old Imperial Highway, Zara stops abruptly, noticing that the road ahead has collapsed despite being intact on the way down. As she puzzles out how to turn around on the narrow road, a bullet pierces through the juggernaut's thick walls and leaves a clean hole through the pilot’s bicep. Quincy, who had been riding shotgun, shouts for her to get down and then barrels out the vehicle’s doors, rifle in hand.
Valentine and Anani are close behind, though Kim and Feur will take some time to awaken, and Krystal is still not in fighting shape.
Quincy soon spies a band of six soldiers perched on an old overpass above them, hoping to use the gloom and the elevation to their advantage. He takes cover behind the vehicle and returns fire, but soon they lob hand grenades down on him and force him and his companions out into the open.
Valentine is their first target, for she glows like a beacon, and they are using hollow-point bullets that have been blessed by Moloch, the demon god of pain. She is cut down in an instant, bleeding to death on the pavement.
Anani conjures a winged shade from the Abyss to steal her attacker's life force, and one brave young man chooses to ignite a flash bomb in his own face, banishing the specter but also temporarily
blinding him and his companions.
While they are stunned, Kim has finally awakened and appraised the situation, and conjures a localized earthquake, shaking and crumbling the overpass upon which their ambushers stand. Two of them tumble over the edge; one is killed on impact, and the other is shot out of the sky by Quincy and doesn’t even live to hit the ground.
Once her enemies have recovered their footing and assessed the situation, their leader aims his heavy rifle at Kim and fires once, cleanly puncturing her heavy armor and piercing her heart. With the last of her will before blacking out, Kim uses the staff of Noboru to grant Anani complete invulnerability to bullets.
With her newfound protection, the shadow witch climbs atop the juggernaut and using her own powers augmented by the Bloodstone Pendant rips the life forces out of each the attackers' bodies and transfers them into the wounded forms of her companions, ending the threat with a stark finality.
A moment later the companions stand surveying the scene, and Quincy notices the glint of a spyglass on the horizon. He takes aim and prepares to shoot their observer, when Feur stops him and offers to take care of it, summoning one of the Hounds of Tindalos to track down its source and freeze him in time.
Following the hound, the group finds a young man in the armor of the Black Scar Mercenary Corps, festooned with explosives, and stuck in stasis. Kim wants to tie him up, Quincy wants to shoot him,
Krystal wants to sever his hands and feet, and Anani wants to send him into the Abyss, where every moment of sensory deprivation feels like an eternity, and then drag him back unable to tell the difference between pleasure and pain.
In the end, Valentine decides to try talking to him, and learns that they were hired by Trade Prince Valen and given a dossier about his opponents and their routes. He says that they were hard to track down, playing the trick of sending Kim out to Base Water and then immediately heading back for Price Town, but Valen spent a lot of money on informants. Not that it mattered.
He introduces himself as Jeremy Butler, an expert demolitionist, and explains that they won’t see him again, and if they take him back to the Sonata offices in Golgotha, they will be paid a fair ransom. Though he will probably get his walking papers after bungling such a straightforward ambush.
Valentine asks what he will do next, and he shrugs and says find work in some other warband. Sensing an opportunity, Valentine produces a contract and asks him to sign on to their team.
Among the fallen mercenaries’ belongings is a bandolier of bullets which radiate magical energy which Anani can sense. She sees that they are inscribed with magical runes that allow them to pierce any armor, which explains how they were able to so easily harm Zara and Kim. She tosses them to Quincy for later use.
Before they return to Golgotha, Krystal and Feur both experience an odd sickness, numbness in their torsos with shooting nerve pains down their extremities, and the group decides to stop in Gollanthor after all.
Anani finds a squirming mass growing on their brainstems, and is forced to remove it surgically. She exposes a small cnidarian parasite growing there, and it fights her when she goes to remove it, but in the end, she manages to excise it without incident, placing them in sealed jars for future study. She theorizes that this is the larval form of the same pink slime that infected Emilian before killing her and marionetting her corpse.
While in the cathedral city, Kim searches the old archives of the Imperial Archeological Society and finds that there has apparently never been a god called Epimetheus despite her memories to the contrary. She wonders if this is a strange side effect of jumping timelines in the Wasteland, but is unsure what could cause such cosmic metamorphosis.
While her patients convalesce, Anani takes a trip to the nearby town of Morton’s Watch, finding the alchemist who lives there and delivering the jar of phosphorescent goo. He is suspicious of the unasked-for gift, and the priestesses’ elusive manner does nothing to dissuade him, but he still accepts the mysterious ichor.
Upon returning to Golgotha, the weary warriors are paid for their troubles by Conrad, who is saddened by the loss but not exactly surprised. They are invited to the wake which is held in his club, and allowed to drink away their troubles while they anticipate their next mission.
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