Chapter 2: Those that Followed

Chapter 2: Those that Followed

It didn’t start out as a plan. The swamp couldn’t plan because it no longer understood anything but now. It knew what more meant though, and it always hungered for more.

It was those sentiments that filled the murderer’s dreams. If there were more men like you to dig, then you would find it. If you hadn’t killed your partner the two of you could look in twice as many places and you’d already be rich by now. They were the regrets of a damaged mind infected by a hunger that could no longer be sated by a single victim. They were echoes of a person that no longer existed, but every night it found a thousand subtle ways to make the victim long for more hands to help him dig up the swamp. All he needed were a few slaves or even a small gang to help him tear the fen apart and find his ill-gotten gains.

The murderer didn’t notice how sick he was getting, or how the island he’d built his hovel on had started to grow with the waste earth he brought back daily. All he could think about was his worn-out shovels and the strong backs he needed to dig more of this accursed soil. So, one day he left, and the swamp didn’t even try to stop him. It knew that he would be back - no matter how long it took.

The wraith followed him to the edge of its domain, surprised that it could see a small village from there, just across the lagoon. It had known it was out there somewhere, because sometimes they ate its fish or brought down its fowl, but the place was an afterthought. Looking at it now, all the shade could make of it, was that it only had a few dozen souls at best. The swamp would have loved to devour them, but they were just out of reach and under the protection of a vague curtain of light that had to be the work of the divine. It could feel the sanctified land of her temple, even from this distance, so for now the wraith would have to let it be, unless a fisherman was foolish enough to cast his nets too deep into its mire.

The days blurred in the absence of a human mind to toy with, and so it drifted among the fog. For a time, all that the wraith cared about was that its treasure continued to slowly sink downwards. It had started out five feet under where the hovel now stood but was closer to twenty feet now. It had left the layers of mud and slime behind and was now buried firmly in the thick band of red clay that hid beneath the swamp for at least a league in every direction. No one would ever find its treasure now - the swamp was certain of that. After drinking deeply of intoxicating emotions like fear and madness though, the swamp had developed a taste for humans, and desperately wanted more.

Then one day, there was a boat. No - there were several boats, paddling from the river that marked the edge of the swamp towards the lands of mist and darkness that the wraith alone held sway over. The murderer had returned, and with him came a large group of strangers. Many of them looked even less savory than the murderer that brought them here.

He’d certainly seen better days. He’d left a frail and starving hermit looking for help to find the treasure he’d sought alone for almost two years. He returned bound hand and foot - the victim of someone stronger who’d smelled opportunity. The big man wasted no time and began barking orders before they’d even arrived. Once they made landfall on the murderer’s island, a handful of henchmen quickly stirred the slaves from their oars to start unloading everything they’d brought with them.The original appearance of this chapter can be found at Ñøv€lß1n.

Within minutes there was more activity in the heart of the fen than there had the entire rest of the time the wraith had been aware combined. Boards. Tools. Food. Sandbags. It didn’t know the words, but as the men communicated with each other it learned them. None of them had eaten or drank of the swamp yet - so they were mostly beyond its vaporous reach.

That was fine. The wraith merely watched as they turned its very heart from a small and empty island with only a hovel, into a true campsite. That was when they strung up the murderer from a strong tree, lashing him to make sure that he hadn’t forgotten anything before they were done with the lunatic. The swamp watched, and it feasted, enjoying the pain and despair as the light behind the eyes of the man that had murdered it so long ago finally went out. After he’d hung there for a few hours someone finally cut him down, letting him splash into the water where the swamp could finally taste his flesh.

“What you need is to take a trip into Aiden. I’ll row you myself. They’ve got a real healer, and gods know you need one,” his second in command argued.

“Bah,” said the taskmaster, weakly. “We both know that if I leave half of the superstitious mutts we have here will run for the hills. I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.”

“That might be true,” his second agreed, “But isn’t that reason enough to think about packing all this in. Maybe that lunatic had no idea what he was talking about.”

“We’re close Mick. I can feel it in my bones we're close,” the leader answered, before ending the conversation.

They were close of course - practically on top of it. The swamp knew that, but it also sent dreams telling him that almost every night lately. That they were so close. That any day now they’d find the object of his desires. He was certain they’d find the gold before the fever broke, but while he lay in bed, other disasters abounded. Without careful inspections, rats had gotten to two casks of food and spoiled them completely, and a crew returning with firewood had capsized on the way back to camp after hitting a snag that hadn’t been there the day before. A good man lost his leg to a gator, and two slaves drowned in a panic to escape, in water they should have been able to stand in.

While the wraith drank deep of all this human suffering with one hand, it had used tremendous amounts of its energy to cause them, and so it was a net loss. It was getting impatient though. It knew that this group lacked the monomaniacal dedication to seeking the treasure that the murderer had unless they found something, and it was loathe to give up a single coin - even to keep them here forever. A few days later the taskmaster was well enough to leave his sick bed, and he started to issue orders - they were leaving.

That’s when the real madness started. One of their pole boats sank, three slaves escaped, and several more fell sick with a bad case of goblin guts. If things had been going bad before they decided to leave, then they got much worse once they were making preparations.

Four months earlier they had arrived with 23 living souls including the murderer toward the end of spring rains, and now that summer heat was finally dying off 14 people were making plans to leave in the next day or two. They’d been humbled by nature and feasted on by powers they couldn’t see, let alone understand.

Then the mage came.