Sarenith 22, 4712 (Brinestump Marsh, Night)

I

am not sure what I have gotten myself into here. Besides the obvious, that is, which of course is a swamp. Certainly this is not how I envisioned that the day would end, even after we made the decision to come here. I don’t know why—maybe it was Qatana’s confidence—but I just assumed we would be done before nightfall. In retrospect that was pretty naive of me.

Am I in over my head? Possibly, but I feel like this is a tipping point in my life. I could spend years scribing scrolls in the guild and researching and copying dusty tomes in some library in Magnimar, basically growing old and dull. Or, I could be like mom and dad, and take a chance on something more than safe. And, honestly, how much safer would that “safe” life be? The worst thing that ever happened to me was just a stone’s throw from my friends. There are no guarantees anywhere, not in Magnimar, and certainly not in Sandpoint.

I almost didn’t even come to Sandpoint at all. When the letter from Ameiko arrived, suggesting I come back for a few days to visit, I was more than a little apprehensive. For one, our friendship had been fading even before we moved away, and I had long since come to terms with it. I didn’t know what it meant that she wanted to see me. And for two, this town had been hard on me growing up. Most of that was already solidly in the past, too, but it still brings back some unpleasant memories, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to see some of those faces again, even in passing.

But in the end, I said yes, and here we are. I guess curiosity and a glimmer of hope won out. I am not exactly sure what I was expecting from Ameiko, but if she reached out, that meant she wanted to try and reconnect in some fashion, right? Maybe she’d be less distant, and maybe time had helped her—deal with? heal from? come to terms with?—whatever it was that happened out there, and that the walls would come down a bit.

They did a little. It wasn’t the same as when we were kids, but maybe that is too much to ask of anyone. It doesn’t matter. It was good to see my friend.

After Ameiko took over that inn years ago it became the de facto gathering point for travelers, thrill-seekers, explorers and their ilk, and it’s also one of the few places where you can go in Sandpoint if you and your friends want to meet your friends’ friends, and their friends in turn. It was the latter that had me there for breakfast (though I was visiting Ameiko, I chose not to pressure both of us by also staying there) and some time in the common room. It had been years since I had seen Anavaru—that running gag about her “horse” never seems to get old—and though Qatana and I have been in touch off and on in Magnimar, it seemed wrong not to get together while we were both in town.

Speaking of Qatana, I am actually growing concerned about her. At times she does not seem to be connected to what’s around her. She seems uninterested in taking care of her appearance. I am almost certain she hears voices, and there are moments when I think I see her talking back to them. But mostly I am concerned because I don’t know what this means.

It was Qatana that first spoke up when she heard a bounty had been placed on goblins from the Licktoad Tribe (I don’t know for sure how goblins choose their tribe names, but I think it is safe to assume that they are not ones for metaphor). We all knew about the attacks on travelers and caravans, which were mostly nuisance affairs, but lately they had taken to scaring horses with, of all things, fireworks. And where did they get fireworks? Best guess is they came from an old shipwreck along the marshes east of town. The same marshes the goblin tribe calls home.

Qatana was ready to go right then and there, simply declaring “I need money,” as if that were the only explanation necessary. It’s the sort of awkward thing Qatana does.

She started asking “us” if we’d join her, and so the interview process began. And who, exactly, was “us”? The aforementioned friends of friends. A few people I’d seen around before we’d moved away, a few I’d heard of but didn’t know, plus some faces that were entirely new. The interview process was mercifully short, with Qatana’s qualifying criteria being one of either “carries a large stick” or “casts spells”. (She can be refreshingly simple.)

When she asked me, I didn’t answer at first. I was thinking about some kids who had gone out there a few days ago to collect on the bounty and died for their trouble. That was a reminder that you don’t just go kill a few goblins as a means of minting coins: they may be the butt of jokes around this part of Varisia, but that does not mean they aren’t dangerous, especially in numbers. In a way, it sounded both cliche and naive to declare that we could just walk into the swamp and “take care of it”, especially since many of us had met one another for the first time not just that morning, but that hour. But as I said earlier, I felt like I needed something big to upset my life so that I could find a new course.

Ameiko watched this all with interest, and because she’s not in the habit of seeing people get hurt, she offered some practical advice from her own experiences. That advice boiled down to: get to know everyone’s skills before you set out and put your lives in each other’s hands. Fair enough, and so we did. Note to Ameiko: the next time you give that speech, specifically add “and what languages you have in common” to the list.

We set out a couple of hours later for the Brinestump Marsh (who comes up with these names?), taking a fishing trail along the river delta to the shore. Ameiko told us of a halfling man who had set up a little home out there and established himself as the self-proclaimed “Warden of the Swamp”. If we wanted to get some information on the goblins, then perhaps that would be a good place to start.

It’s from his home, in fact, where I am writing this currently, and he has been gracious enough to offer us food and lodging for the night. But I am getting ahead of myself.

When we first arrived at the house, Qatana, Anavaru, and Ivan approached the door (gods, Ivan is just a kid…what is he doing out here?) and, surprisingly, the Warden answered when Anavaru knocked. I couldn’t hear what was said, but I could see him and he did not look good: very ill, very tired, and seemingly wounded. There was a brief exchange that ended with Ivan pushing his way forward to give some unsolicited healing. And then it got weird.

Qatana…she just barged in. Literally. She just pushed her way in the door, without asking to come in, and without being invited. She walked right in his home and started poking around.

Everyone was in shock, especially the poor Warden. Except there was something about him that didn’t seem to fit. He was injured, and grateful for the healing, but he was also evasive and alarmed. Not because of Qatana or us, but because of something else. I like to think that this is what Qatana sensed and the reason why she did what she did, but I don’t know. Whatever her motivation, though, it set the right events in motion, and it made me suspicious and the Warden increasingly uneasy.

I cast a spell to search for magic, outside where I was out of earshot so as not to raise suspicion, and what I saw gave me a bad feeling. There was no magic anywhere in the house except for the Warden himself. Not on him, but him specifically.

He was going on about being bitten by snakes, and having been poisoned (all of which clearly appeared to be true), and being afraid of snakes, and yet he lived in a house that was a habitat for snakes, and he kept feeder mice and birds. For snakes. And it did not add up. So we pretended to help by searching the house for more snakes while we kept the Warden under watch and stalled for time.

I called up to Qatana, who was searching the upstairs (“for snakes”). In Elven, I said, “Qatana, I need you down here. I am detecting an unusual aura on the halfling.”

And I was taken aback when our halfling friend replied, also in Elven. “I am sure it was just the lingering effect of your friend’s healing spell”.

I felt a chill running through me. Any one thing on its own would be perfectly innocent, but all of this together created a picture that was just wrong. I could also feel the Warden’s unease, and it seemed we had reached an uneasy standoff, with us knowing that something was up, and the Warden knowing that we knew, and we knowing that he knew that we knew, and so on. But neither side was ready to make the first move.

Etayne became severely spooked by something she saw and stepped out to call Olmas in. He found an excuse to keep the Warden seated, but eventually our host’s patience wore thin. He went from agitated to angry to hostile to violent, and within seconds, a lethal fight had broken out in the upstairs hallway.

We were not, in fact, talking to a halfling. We found the real Warden of the Swamp, one Walthus Proudstump, in a secret room on the second floor of his home after the fight was over. What we were facing was something called a “stalker”: a being capable of assuming the form of others, and both speaking and understanding any language.

The stalker had attacked Walthus and taken his form, while the real Walthus escaped into a secret room upstairs. The snakes, it turns out, could tell the difference between Walthus and his impostor. They normally kept the creatures away, and explained both the stalker’s numerous bites and his sudden fear of them. 

And that is how it came to be that I am spending the night in a small house in the Brinestump Marsh along the Soggy River. Walthus was grateful enough for our timely intervention to serve us dinner and give us the use of his home for the night. Given how this day started, I suppose I shouldn’t complain about where it ended.

Sarenith 23, 4712 (Brinestump Marsh, Morning)

L

ast night was uneventful. The others divided up the watch. I had trouble sleeping and spent a couple of hours writing. Nihali was uneasy as well: I watched her fidget and stretch her wings nervously. There was nothing specific bothering me, so I guess I was just anxious about everything.

I suppose lying awake gave me plenty of time to think about the people I’d come out here with.

I don’t know Sparna well, though he is a frequent visitor to Sandpoint. He’s worked as a caravan guard for as long as I have known him, which is a job that’s mostly about appearances and deterrence (something Ameiko taught me, and which I put to good use in Magnimar to keep the riff-raff at bay). I suspect this outing is a welcome change for him, and a chance to actually use what he carries instead of putting on a show.

Radella is one of the new faces, a half-elf whose skills tend towards getting into places she shouldn’t and thinking on her feet. Note: I am being diplomatic here. I have nothing against her, but I suspect neither mom nor dad would be likely to invite her to dinner.

I’ve always liked Anavaru, and she was never unkind to me. It’s terrible what happened to her and her family. First her mom, and then her dad. Niska practically adopted her, and then Ana lost her, too.

Shalelu seems to know everyone in Varisia, and the half-elf Olmas is another one of her strays. He seriously considered bringing a horse into a marshland. We actually had to talk him out of it. Where does she find these people?

Ivan, as I have said, is just a kid, too young to be properly concerned for his own safety. Another new face to me, but apparently close to Koya.

I remember Etayne from when I was younger. She’s a half-sister to Shalelu, but I don’t know the circumstances (and it is not my business, anyway). She was not comfortable in town then, and she seems to be even less so now. I can understand that. Witchcraft just isn’t trusted, especially in Varisia, where superstitions flow like water.

This morning, we are going back out to the Lost Coast Road because Walthus advised us against a more direct route through the marshlands. Apparently, the “monster in the swamp” is real, and not someone’s imagination made legend through oral tradition. We saw a footprint yesterday—three toes in an alien arrangement—and Walthus said it belongs to it. “It has claws for hands and feet, and its legs bend the wrong direction for a man,” he explained. “Its jaws also open wrong.”

I guess I have something specific to be anxious about after all.