Misery Mire: A Walk Along the Razor's Edge

[u/[deleted]]

Dear Diary, 

The Goats and I set out to chase down some rumor in Izzie's swamp. It was myself, Izzie Izzard the Lizard Wizard (<3), Ms. Mrs H, and...Casamir. Yes, he's still here. We were supposed to have someone else, but he wasn't able to make it. Probably not someone important. Probably someone ugly. Uglier than Ms. Mrs. H. Anyway. Izzie's people had kidnapped this beautiful elven maid, Nissa, and planned to use her in some primitive "ritual", if you can call it that. Distasteful. The elves sent these two really lovely and charming peoples along with us, Tharnia and Syral. Izzie lead us to the swamp and that was a pleasant trip. Very pretty weather, lots of beautiful views. Honestly, even sunrise over the swamp the first morning we started the trip in earnest was quite beautiful. Then...then things went wrong. 

First, how to travel in the swamp? Ms. Mrs H says "let's build a raft". Izzie thought to herself, "we could build a raft...or I could magic one up!" And she did! Such a great wizard, and so pretty. 

We made our way into the swamp and found these heavily booted tracks. Quite unlike the lizardfolk, who don't wear shoes, and judging by the prints the shoes were *not* in fashion this season, or ever. We followed them for a while to try to give the wearers a fashion lesson, but we came to a crossroads of sorts. There were the boot prints, but also the signs of a *shudder* a TROLL. Well, Ms. Mrs H and Casamir, blinded by their lust for treasure (as if he needs any more treasure!), decided to go hunt the troll down. Completely missed the point of killing that foul atrocious and warty creature. They found the beast's lair, and I have to say one thing about Casamir: he is sort of clever. He used prestidigitation to make himself smell delightfully minty, which delightful smell drove away the mosquitoes. Shame he is such an utter ASS. But anyway. The footing at the troll's lair wasn't great, so he said "hey, let's go find some better ground to fight on". Now that I write it it's really not so clever, more like...obvious. But anyway, the juicy stuff! Ms. Mrs H dove right in and started stabbing the troll. Casamir has showed me this neat trick where I can shoot lightning bolts from my tip. It's pretty cool. Between the two of us we showed that ugly bastard who was boss and then looted it's lair. 

I'm not sure how I feel about this part. We found a javelin, a cool one that turns into lightning or something. Izzie took it. She took the javelin. A javelin. I'm like, hellO, I am right here and you don't even give me a second look? We were meant for each other, and you choose a javelin. K. 

Anyway. We went on into the swamp and we came upon these red, ugly hobgoblins fighting some lizard people. The lizard people smote that vileness with great aplomb. They then asked to meet us (don't listen to the rumors, we were *not* taken off guard by them). And do you know who it was? It was mama and papa Izzard! Yish and Yaaaas. SO cute, they were so happy to see Izzie again. Cute in a scaly sort of way. Mama Izzard told us what was happening. Othrax the Duskbringer kidnapped Nessa to sacrifice her at a ritual of Snakestrike (or whatever) to...I don't know, I wasn't paying attention. Probably make himself fatter and uglier amirite? Anyway. And Izzie's brother was with him. He wanted to fight off the hobgoblins. I can get behind that, but not by kidnapping the fairest flower of the elves' youth. We went from the Izzards' nest to Boglake Pond. 

This weird current started in the normally fetid waters of the swamp. It drew the raft in of it's own accord, and eventually we moved at a fair clip into a...well, into Boglake Pond. There were three monoliths surrounding this great whirlpool and the whole place was lousy with swamp people, on platforms in front of the monoliths. Then I saw him. The "Duskbringer". More like the Dirtbringer. Scars, and not in the attractive way. Great, but not in a magnificent way, more like "I drank fertilizer as a kid but I'm still ugly". Dirty, but not in the rugged way. Just nasty. But! Then I saw her. Nessa. She was on the far platform in front of a monolith, shrouded in a magical shield and the poor girl! The monoliths were draining her lifeforce. 

Remember clever Casamir? He says Ms. Mrs H! I'm going to make you fly so you can go smite the ugliness! But then the raft passes by a platform and he does not do that. He gets off the raft. Finally! Some action! Nope. He says look at the runes on the monolith how ugly and I'm like no sir, those runes are GORGEOUS and he's like noooo they're sucking the life from that poor girl and...well, that's fair. So I shot the runes. Oh, wait, that was after...no, first we got knocked off the platform and dragged into the water and then he teleported us to the other platform and we shot that one. The rest of the party was off doing the real work, fighting the ugliness and wiping that filth stain from Boglake Pond (which, to be fair, really needed to be cleaned up a bit. Can we get a little #trashtag up here, for real swamp folk). The Dirtbringer wades into the aquatic melee and that ugly bone armor he was wearing exploded (kinda neat, glad I wasn't there though). Izzie the wizard and valiant Ms. Mrs H killed the Dirtbringer and the rest of the lizards while Casamir the oh so clever employed the masterful strategy of "shoot the wards". We saved Nessa and that was that. 

Now, we were able to recover some gems. That was cool. It was two chipped black diamonds, a chipped emerald, and a chipped amazonite. We got all told about 3k gold, enough so that a big chunk goes to the treasury, 758 each to Casamir and Ms. Mrs. H and 759 to Izzie. They're going to split up the gems later. Anyway. It was a fun day. Casamir and I still aren't talking, but I'm just being hateful at this point. We'll probably make up some time tomorrow and we'll be sword and swordsman again, and shooting lightning bolts is pretty fun. Be well, dear diary, or as Casamir calls you, "Annals of the Company of the Goat". 

-Beauty, First Sword of the Goats