First Quest

The sun was barely up when Lee and I set off on our venture. I had mixed up some more gunpowder the night before and now my stocks were almost up to the previous amount before the incident at the river. I also checked on the condition of my short sword and knife; each was as sharp as ever, though in need of a cleaning. I’ll probably need to purchase some oil and a whetstone sometime in the future, else I might end up with nothing more than two pieces of useless metal.

Lee was his usual chipper self. He met me outside my room with a sly grin and said he looked forward to the job.

I lead him towards the city gates where we were to meet the third member of our group, Marienne the magician. I had told Lee about her last night, and he seemed happy enough to have another member join the expedition. I was slightly worried that Lee wouldn’t be too keen on having a third person along, but I guess I needn’t have bothered; nothing seemed to phase the man and he met every situation with a stalwart smile.

That changed as soon as they met each other. Lee paused as soon as he saw her, a surprised look wiping the usual smile off of his face. Marienne acted similarly, her lone eye widening in shock upon seeing Lee.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “You two know each other?”

“Why no, nothing’s the matter,” Marienne stated. “I’ve never met this gentleman before.”

“Me neither,” Lee said with a smile back on his face. “I woulda remembered meeting such a gorgeous girl before if I had.”

I narrowed my eyes at their obvious lies. Those were looks of shock and recognition on their faces earlier, so they obviously knew each other. They weren’t trying to kill each other, so I doubt they were enemies. Could they be former lovers? Ex-partners?

Whatever. There was a story here, but I wasn’t very interested in finding out what it was. We were burning daylight as it was, and we had to get to the ruins in the swamp before night fell. The two could keep their secrets, just so far as it didn’t interfere with the job.

“Fine then,” I told them. “Let’s go.”

We began our trek, first heading east to a set of docks near the town. There we could pay a ferryman two silver to take us deeper into the swamps. The old man who we hired was wiry and tough, his skin tanned dark as leather due to years of working in the Wetlands’ heat and sun. All of us hopped onto his small boat and he began to ferry us upriver. Here the swamp’s vegetation grew denser, with the usual skeletal trees and thick grasses making way for large mangroves trees and bulky ferns. There were even odd, gigantic mushrooms sprouting out from the water here and there, each the size of a small tree.

After two and a half hours traveling up the river, the ferryman stopped his boat on the banks and said that this was as far as he was willing to go.

“The rest o’ the way’s too dangerous,” the old man said. “Fish as big as horses in the river, and they’s can easily bite open the boat.”

I nodded, then gave the man another two silver. “Can you meet us here in a few daysh time? There’ll be more where that came from if you do.”

The man looked at the shiny coins in his hands, then nodded. “I’ll come back in three days. Iffen you ain’t here, then I’m leaving.”

I agreed, and soon he shoved off, leaving the three of us out in the middle of seemingly nowhere. Thankfully, Marienne seemed to know exactly where the ruins were, so we followed her deeper into the swamp.

It took us six long hours of trudging through the thick vegetation and suffering through the heat before we reached our destination. I was using my sword to cut through vines and leaves that were in our way, following Marienne’s directions all the while.

The ruins themselves weren’t much to write home about. They were just numerous stone structures jutting out of the mud, probably the remains of some large building or town. Marienne explained that much of the ruins was underground in deep, craggy vaults.

Why are all the ruins I visit always underground? And wouldn’t the vaults be flooded with water if it were? We were in a god damn swamp, for pity’s sake. When I made my thoughts vocal, Marienne merely shrugged, theorizing that the builders used magic to keep everything dry.

Magic, huh? Seemed like a mighty convenient excuse that folk around here used to explain away any sort of unexplainable mystery. Then again, I had to remember that this place was Hell, not the living world. Things didn’t always behave rationally like back home.

It was late afternoon, so I called a halt in order to set camp.

“Sure that’s wise?” Lee asked. “Won’t those trogs be wandering about this close to the ruins?”

“It should be alright,” Marienne said. “Troglodytes don’t usually leave their underground lairs, except to hunt for food. They rarely attack encampments, unless they’re really hungry.”

That really didn’t make me feel any better at our chosen campsite. Just to be safe, we backtracked half a mile and settled down next to a large tree, which was relatively dry and free of mud. Hopefully, we were far enough away to avoid any trogs that were wandering about.

Darkness soon descended upon the swamp, and we settled ourselves to sleep. Lee, of course, took the first watch. I took the second half. Marienne wanted to stand watch as well, but I refused her offer politely.

“No need,” I told her. “Just enjoy your sleep.”

“My, such a gentleman,” she replied with a smile.

Humph, right. I just didn’t want to put our safety into a woman's hands. Regardless of how powerful her magic was, females were unreliable when it came to these sorts of things.

Morning came, and with it the insects. Lee and I kept swatting away at the annoying bugs, who seemed intent on having us for breakfast. Marienne seemed immune though, as none of the insects bothered her. Must be more of her bullshit magic at work.

After eating some of our meager rations, we set off for the ruins site. Sad to say, the bugs followed us all the way there. The ruins were as we left it, several stone formations jutting out of the mud in between trees and bushes. Some of the structures were pretty tall, with one towering over all the trees in the area.

Marienne led us to the center of the formations, where she said the entrance to the underground area was. As we got nearer to the center, the muddy ground we had been trudging through soon gave way to stone paving, which I realized was the floor to a very large complex. The roof was gone, lost to time, and the various stone formations had to have been supports for the missing ceiling. This must have been a grand structure in its heyday, rivaling any of the giant cathedrals from Europe.

“Let’s keep an eye out for those instrumentsh,” I told Lee. Now that we were at the ruins, we had to focus on finding those archeological instruments that had been left behind.

“Gotcha,” Lee said with a grin.

The three of us soon reached the center of the structure, which was a large, circular area paved with stone. The walls were gone, of course, allowing the swamp to crawl in. Trees and shrubbery grew around the circle, almost walling us in with vegetation.

At the center of the circle was a hole, from which a set of stairs led downwards into pitch blackness.

“We’re gonna need torches,” I said.

“No need,” Marienne smirked as she held out her hand. “Lih.”

An orb of white light suddenly appeared in her hand. She tossed it up, causing it to float some inches above her head.

“Handy,” Lee said.

She was about to step onto the stairway and lead us downwards when suddenly an arrow embedded itself into my left arm. I let out a shout, more surprise than pain, and looked behind me.

From the foliage stepped out several men armed with bows and arrows. Leading them was a man in full plate armor. Although he wore a helmet I recognized him instantly by the scarlet shade of his armor. He was the same man I saw at the saloon yesterday.

“Take the lizard alive! Kill the rest!” the armored man shouted.

Great. More of Garret’s goons. I thought I’d be rid of them as soon as I traveled north out of their territory. I guess that reward must be something if these assholes came all the way out here just to get me.

I counted eight archers, all of whom began to pelt us with arrows. We had zero cover from the missiles, but each of us made do. I saw Lee cut an arrow that was heading for him straight out of the air with his dagger. Marienne cast a spell that wove a bright blue barrier around herself, the energy deflecting two arrows that had been aimed at her.

I had to make do with dropping to one knee and making myself as small a target as possible, which was very hard to do with a body that was almost seven feet tall and mostly tail. I grunted as an arrow bounced off one of the harder scales on my head, knocking my hat off. Although I was fine, it still hurt like the dickens. I saw the bastard who shot me taking another arrow out of his quiver and getting ready to nock it. Before he could, I drew my gun and fired. The fifty caliber bullet slammed into his gut in an explosion of blood, the force causing him to fly back into the trees.

The other archers paused in shock upon hearing the loud retort of my gun, which allowed me to take aim and shoot another one of their number. This time I hit him in the neck, blowing the man’s head clean off.

“Keep shooting, you idiots!” shouted the armored man. I wanted nothing more than to shut him up with my revolver, but right now the archers were the main threat.

Arrows once more began flying as the archers took aim and fired. I did the same, returning wood and iron with burning slugs of lead. My next two shots missed, as the archers had gone into taking cover behind bushes and trees.

Marienne dropped her barrier long enough for her to cast a spell, one which shot forth a ball of fire into the treeline. The ball hit a tree which caused it to explode into a fiery conflagration. Bits of burning wood and ash fell from the sky like rain.

“Get to the stairsh!” I shouted

I grabbed my hat off the ground, then the three of us began dodging arrows as we ran for the entrance to the underground ruins. Marienne descended the stairwell first, followed quickly by Lee. I almost made it to the stairs when I suddenly noticed that the constant rain of arrows had stopped. Looking back at the treeline, I saw that our enemies had other things to contend with. They were being swarmed by short, squat creatures with long tails and brown scales. The little monsters attacked the archers and the man in red viciously, using stone tools and weapons. These were probably the troglodytes that we had been warned about, and there were dozens of them. Certainly more than enough to finish off Garret’s goons.

My sight found the man in red armor, watching him bat away at the constant flood of troglodytes attacking him with a large black mace. I considered sending a bullet his way but decided not to waste the ammo. Let the trogs have him.

With a grunt, I yanked out the arrow that was stuck in my arm, tossing the wooden shaft onto the ground. A small trickle of blood leaked from the wound, and I was thankful that nothing vital had been hit.

I swiftly descended the stairs into the darkness of the ruins to join the other two members of my party. We needed to hurry up and get this job done with, lest that army of troglodytes turns their attention towards us.