The world came back with a flash of light, unfortunately I immediately started falling, while doing my best not to panic. My journey though, was happily a short one and hitting the ground was not as bad as it could have been, with a splash I sunk down into swamp water and came up spluttering, trying to get the muddy soup out of my mouth.

The imp was flying above me, laughing.

"Oh, wonderful, wonderful, I am glad to see you are so concerned about getting clean, the smell is a definite improvement." The imp spun in the air giggling as I glared up at it, while wiping muddy water off my face with very limited success.

"Why, exactly, did you trick me into taking this portal to who knows where? Why not try to sneak out?"

The imp shrugged, something it seemed far too fond of.

“I didn’t know it was night, taking the portal was a far better way of getting out. The odds were decent that the portal wouldn’t lead anywhere dangerous.” Having answered to its own apparent satisfaction, the creature held its stomach while letting out more cackling laughter as it took in my mud clad appearance.

I grabbed a handful of mud, intent on throwing it at the creature, but the imp might get hurt and that would not be nice of me, I let the impromptu weapon fall. Zackary was an idiot, pure and simple. Preferring random chance was just stupid, but perhaps it did not know any better, I should not judge the imp too harshly. I massaged my temples, my headache had gotten increasingly worse, not too strange with all that had been going on. I looked down at my soaked body and wondered why I was not cold, I should be.

Taking in a swamp illuminated by soft moonlight, I noted that getting back to Logate would no doubt be a bother.

My thoughts were interrupted as I heard something, I tried to get a sense of what it had been for some time before it came again, a dull thudding in the distance. The imp was still going on and I waved a hand at it, trying to make it be silent. But the creature only got louder at that, Zackary was way too theatrical at times.

"Be quiet!" I whispered at it, meeting unrepentant eyes.

"You would like that, wouldn't you!" The imp shouted back.

"Pay some attention you dimwit!" I snarled, the imp looked very surprised as it lost some altitude and stared closely at me.

A flash of light appeared in the air almost directly above us, and several small objects that sparkled in the moonlight fell into the swamp water with soft splashes.

The thudding I had heard earlier sped up, and was now clearly coming in our direction. The imp and I looked at each other, before I started scrambling in the muddy water to get away, the imp was unimpaired and flew swiftly ahead.

The first of my threadbare shoes tore away from my foot, soon followed by its companion, as the mud refused to relinquish its hold. Having gone barefoot more than once when I had no shoes to wear, my soles where somewhat hardened, but it was still quite a bit more uncomfortable than having shoes on. I felt amused at where my thoughts strayed when fleeing something probably dangerous.

The expanse of muddy water was quite large, and we had to cover some distance before reaching trees to hide behind. I tried to be quiet while getting my breath back, as I looked towards where we had come from. It might have been the clever thing to keep running, but I was unsure what was behind us and we would be easier to spot while moving. Hiding was hopefully the best thing to do, and I was curious. What was coming? Why had a portal been set up to a swamp? What had the sparkling things been? So many questions, but one of them should have an answer in a moment.

My breath caught as moonlight fell on the creature that had been the cause of the noise. It was huge, almost tall enough to reach the treetops. It was skeletal, literally made of bone. I had no idea what would leave behind a skeleton this big, probably a giant of some sort, except that its lower body moved more like that of a satyr, than a giant's more straight and human-like joints. It had four arms, with four digits on each hand, and strange protrusions from its upper and lower arms, where bone seem to grow out haphazardly.

The giant thing bent down over the swamp water, it then started to search near to where the sparkling things that fell from the portal had landed. When it found one, the giant skeleton pressed the thing to its forehead. A shimmer ran through the monstrosity as a low thrum sounded and waves formed on the water circling the creature. It then repeated this process, of searching and pressing what it found to its forehead, several times. Until having found nothing in its last attempt, it rose and ambled off.

I sat quietly for quite some time after the thing was gone, until the imp broke the silence.

"Well, that happened."

I started to giggle, trying my best to contain myself, full out laughter did not seem safe. I started to wonder if I had gone insane, had this all been too much and now my mind had snapped? Did insane people ask that?

Resisting the urge to take a deep breath I leaned against the tree to think. What was the connection between the slave pens, the gems, the pool, the portal and finally the giant skeleton?

"There was no Mana in that thing." The imp said musingly looking in the direction the monstrosity had gone.

"What do you mean?" The imp blinked back at me in surprise.

"Obviously it was a golem of some kind, though making one out of bone seems strange, it should have been fueled by a spell but there was no Mana in it." The imp waved its hands in the air as if to give emphasis to its point and I nodded slowly in reply while trying to wrap my head around what that might mean.

"If it is not animated by Mana, what else is there?" I asked, hoping that the imp might have an idea. It looked thoughtful for a long time before replying.

"I don't know, question is, why would something like that be here."

Personally I wondered what the connection was to the sparkling objects that fell out of the portal, what did they do and why?

"If you could animate a seriously enormous creature, would you just leave it out in a swamp? Why do all that work and then have no use for it?" The imp finished its earlier thought.

"Right, that is strange."

Quest!

Inform the Temple of Logate of the undead abomination in the swamp.

Reward: 800 Experience.

I felt confused and surprised; I had gotten a quest, which gave some answers and implied others. The giant thing was an undead abomination, which was either a type of creature or a specific creature, either way it was informative. I had never heard of an undead though, which seemed strange with mother's focus on creatures. The quest also implied we were currently in the swamp that I knew lay some distance to the west of Logate. If I was in another area, the quest did not make sense. But then came the questions, why not just give the Temple a quest directly? Why did I have to go there and tell them of this? Why would the Temple care? This all seemed unnecessarily convoluted.

The quest had issues though; The Temple could only be reached through the Noble Quarter or the High Quarter, since the Temple was situated on the border between the two, as far as I knew. Both of those Quarters were gated, as opposed to the Slums or the Merchants Quarter where anyone inside the city could enter them.

Getting through the gates was not possible looking like a street-rat, looking like a swamp monster would not make it easier, I concluded as I held out an arm in front of me and a glop of mud fell from my arm to splash into the swamp. Even cleaned up and as presentable as I could be, I would not be let in. I looked down at the muddy water that covered my legs to way up on my ankles with a frown, it was sticky and unpleasant.

"It is over, the lass lost her mind. I am doomed, woe is me, I am too young to be dragged into the suffering of madness, dear anyone, save me from this horrid fate!" As it was want to do, the imp cut my thinking short and I rolled my eyes at its antics.

"I got a quest." I told it simply.

"You got a..." The imp stopped speaking for a moment as its eyes bugged out.

"You got a quest?!" The imp flew nearer and leaned forward, I could see that it had some half dried mud on the top of its head and on the tip of one ear, which made me grin. It leaned in to look deeply into one of my eyes.

"Yup, totally snapped, nobody home. Too bad, she was such a... violent, abusive and sarcastic girl. Imps everywhere will miss her."

The imp flew backwards a bit and bowed its head with folded hands over its chest, as if in mourning, its soft cackling laugh bouncing between the trees for a moment, we both froze to wait for any reaction from either the undead abomination or other creatures in the swamp.

That brought an other question to mind, I had not actually heard or seen anything other than the abomination since we came here. No insects, no snakes, no birds making noises. Had everything been scared away by that giant skeleton? Had it killed everything? Something so large chasing insects seemed more than a bit humorous to imagine. Was a swamp supposed to be completely silent at night?

"What is the quest?"

Apparently the imp was not pleased with being ignored, and wanted attention.

"To tell the Temple about the giant monstrosity." The imp shook its head.

"There is no way you are going to pull that off." Since I mostly agreed with it, I just shrugged and kept listening for any noise around us. Since the moonlight was not that bright, the chances of me spotting something small was slim to none, but there should be some larger animals around the swamp, I thought.

I was a bit frustrated at the fact that mother had focused so exclusively on magical creatures, I did not know what might live in a swamp like this, other than creatures that had Mana and there were no trolls around that I could hear either. The abomination had not seemed particularly focused on hunting anything, so what was going on?

As if conjured by my attempts at locating something other than the abomination, a translucent shape which was roughly humanoid rose out of the swamp water in front of me. It looked like someone had made a bad outline of a person and then filled it with gray fog, which kept slowly roiling inside it.

I wondered if this thing was dangerous. It did not seem so, but I was not one for assumptions at this point. I put my right hand in a soggy pocket and felt nothing. Repeating the action on my left, as my heartbeat sped up, resulted in a handful of enchanted objects which I swiftly threw at the fog creature. They all flew harmlessly through it, impacting nothing, this was not good, perhaps it was a friendly fog creature?