Morning found the party safely sleeping on the shores of the Nixie Pool. They had stayed up quite late entertaining the nixies with their stories and watching them show off their abilities. It had taken a while, but Sylvester had even managed to convince them to part with their giant wicker basket in return for his boat.

The basket was oval shaped, eight feet across one way and six feet across the other. It was obviously enchanted because of the perfect condition it was in. And, while wicker may be light, this basket easily weighed over a hundred pounds. In fact, Sylvester was the only member in the group who was strong enough to carry the thing without it significantly affecting his ability to move.

As Sylvester loaded his equipment other than a shield and his kusarigama onto Bask, he explained the situation.

“Well, we have two options for getting back to town. The long way is to go back the way we came.”

“I would like to avoid crossing through large swaths of swamp if we could avoid it. I only just got it out of my fur.” Karrank voted.

Kurt nodded his head in agreement.

“The faster way is to cut through about 12 miles of swamp until we reach one of the enchanted causeways. It will protect us and lead directly to Coruvon.” Sylvester offered.

“Is there any way for us to reach it without having to spend another night here?” Neil asked, scowling at the options presented.

“Not unless we suddenly gain the ability to fly.” Sylvester denied.

“Lets just go for the fast route.” Kurt suddenly spoke with a sigh. Everyone else nodded along, even if they didn’t like the idea of cutting straight through the swamp.

After wishing Deocea and the other nixies goodbye, the group set off into the swamp. It was decidedly unpleasant. Brackish water soaked them up to their knees, or nearly up to his waist in Neil’s case, and the buzzing insects were an ever-present annoyance.

After a few hours of grumbling about the terrain, the group spotted a few giant leeches. The size of large dogs, the slimy bloodsuckers made for the party at a disturbingly high speed. No one particularly wanted to fight these things, so they tried to outrun them.

Unfortunately, the leeches were significantly more at home in the swamp than the party and the party failed to ditch them. In the end, they had to fight. Karrank fired arrows at the approaching leeches, but it wasn’t very effective. Sylvester and Neil, however, used the opportunity to safely cast magic. Just as the three leeches arrived, Neil hit one with a ray of enfeeblement and Sylvester finished a prayer that bathed the area in a protective aura. It cost more energy to do it this way, instead of keeping up a continual chant, but it also allowed him to fight alongside everyone else.

As the magic took effect and the leeches’ charge broke, Sylvester swung at one of them, cutting into its side. Bask practically tackled one of the leeches and the two started fighting to one side. The last leech leapt at Karrank who narrowly managed to duck out of the way of its toothy maw.

Kurt immediately moved to help Sylvester in taking down one of the leeches as fast as possible, cleaving into it with his longsword. Unfortunately, the leech didn’t seem to care much.

Bask and its leech continued to fight, the leech managing to somehow avoid petrifying. Sylvester and Kurt managed to take down their leech while Karrank and Neil struggled against the last.

As Sylvester and Kurt began to help the rest gang up against the leech, Bask’s finally began to slow down as the petrification began to set in. Bask ripped off its now stone tail and killed it while the other tried to tackle Sylvester.

Everyone was soon ganged up against the last leech, which also began to petrify as Bask turned its attention to help. Everyone attacked the beast, but it managed to survive long enough to finish petrifying instead.

The group left the area as soon as Sylvester had shouldered the basket once more. They moved quickly, to avoid any creatures that had been attracted by the spilled blood. Thankfully, they didn’t meet anything else before they managed to reach a causeway.

The causeway was an ancient structure, built of thick logs that were beginning to visibly rot wherever they weren’t coated with slime from the marsh. Still, it was sturdy and easily wide enough to accommodate everyone together.

“This is pretty well made!” Karrank exclaimed. “Why didn’t we use it on the way over here?”

“Well, consider how heavy this light wicker basket it. The rowboat we just traded for it was heavier.” Sylvester rolled his eyes.

“I see. We likely would have lost even more time trying to transport that boat over the causeways than we would have saved from the more direct route.” Neil murmured.

After only a couple more hours of travel, they were forced to stop for the day. It wasn’t hard to set up a small camp on the wide causeway, and luckily nothing approached the causeway that night.

The next day, after a couple hours of travel, Kurt spoke up.

“It is surprising that we haven’t even seen anything in a while.” He commented.

“The entire causeway is enchanted; it protects those who travel on it.” Sylvester explained.

“Really?!” Neil exclaimed. “That’s amazing! I wonder how they managed such a thing; this causeway must be enormous when you look at all of it.”

“How old is this causeway then? It is showing its age, but for something enchanted to show this much deterioration…” Val wondered.

“The causeway’s magic is supported by an ancient bargain with the gods of this swamp. As they have faded away, so has their power.” Sylvester explained.

“Incredible!” Neil sighed in wonder.

“It is impressive, I’ll give you that. But it must still be pretty old for the gods themselves to fade away, right?” Karrank asked.

“It is old, but still not that ancient.” Sylvester shook his head. “The gods that support this causeway came through when the swamp was created. They didn’t have any support or sources of power in the area, so it was sort of inevitable that they would fade away.”

“Wait, came through?” Val suddenly perked up.

“Came through, what?” Neil asked, his curiosity piqued as well.

“This entire swamp is artificial. Someone, I suspect the druun, opened a portal to a different plane of existence which leeched water into the ground and turned the area into a swamp. The gods came through that portal.”

“That is… insane.” Karrank’s eyes widened and he took a fresh look at the swamp surrounding them all. “The sheer scale of magic like that…”

“That’s magic on a nearly unthinkable scale. Why would someone even want to do something like this?” Neil asked.

“I don’t know the details, but it involved a war. I know the nearby giants were involved and that the causeways are also lined with magical traps that specifically target elves.” Sylvester explained.

“I guess a swamp is a pretty good way to block an army.” Kurt joked.

“No kidding.” Karrank agreed.

“Hey look!” Neil suddenly cried out, catching everyone’s attention. “You can see Coruvon already!”

“You weren’t kidding when you said this was the quick way, huh?” Karrank asked with surprise. He had expected they wouldn’t reach the city until the end of the day at the earliest.

The group were welcomed back into the city and they spent the rest of the day resting. Red Kirsten, Molli, and Jennan were all interested in hearing about where they had gone, which ended up with Karrank regaling the local tavern with an only minorly enhanced tale of their recent adventures.

They spent the night resting in Shoehaven Manor with Mr. Galenar once again and come morning they set about planning their next move.

“Well, I assume we need to give the giant basket to the frog god in the swamp?” Kurt opened the discussion.

“We do, but there is a bit more than that.” Sylvester wobbled his head. “There are three parts to the engagement gifts. There was the basket, which we recovered, but there is also the amber that went in it and there was an iron rose as well.”

“Please tell me you know where they are.” Karrank asked.

“I do.”

“They are in the swamp, though, aren’t they?” Kurt sighed.

“They are. The problem is what order we want to visit various places, and if we want to come back to Coruvon partway through.”

“Well, we should drop off the basket before we grab anything new, since this thing is only going to slow us down.” Neil suggested.

“Right. Which of the rose and the amber be easier to recover? We can recover that one, rest up in town, and then do the hard one.” Karrank continued.

“The amber is easier, but we need to save that one for last because of that fact. Once we grab the third item, we will catch the attention of the fruum. One of the gods of the swamp, this one will be actively attacking us once it notices us.” Sylvester explained.

“Well, I would rather fight this thing with a precious rose instead of packs full of amber.” Karrank argued.

“Unless…” Kurt had a thought. “Is the rose oversized too?”

“It is. This iron rose is 8 feet tall and weighs over 300 pounds.” Sylvester nodded.

“Gods why…” Karrank groaned. “That thing will be nearly impossible to move. We couldn’t get it anywhere if we had to deal with constant attacks too.”

“Alright, so let’s look over the plan so far.” Neil decided. “We need to make it to the frog god, go from there to grab the rose and make it back to drop it off, all before heading back here to rest and recover.”

“I assume you have an idea of the route?” Kurt turned to Sylvester.

“I do. If we hop off the causeways to cut across the swamp, we can be done in about 10 days. If we stick to the causeways, it will likely take 11.”

“Sticking to the safer causeways in return for one more day in the swamp seems like a fair trade.” Karrank piped in.

“Agreed.” Neil nodded. “I assume the rose is where it is for a reason, however. What should we expect when we find it?”

“An island made of undead. With the necromancer still living on it.” Sylvester explained.

“That could be a serious problem.” Kurt pointed out.

“I know. If we catch him by surprise, however, we can hopefully take him down before he retreats into the island.”

“I don’t even need to ask to know that the rose will be inside the island, do I?” Karrank rolled his eyes. Sylvester nodded in response.

“Ok, so we need to prepare some holy water and something to protect us against the undead.” Kurt announced.

“I already have something for that.” Sylvester announced, pulling out the amulet he had gotten from the druun complex they had cleared earlier. “This will protect us for the most part.”

“I’ll go see about getting us rations then.” Karrank announced before heading out of the room.

“I am going to see if I can find any magic users in the city willing to sell me some scrolls or formulas that could be handy.” Neil headed out next.

“I suppose I will go see about getting us some holy water then.” Kurt shrugged and also headed out.

This left Sylvester alone in the manor. He decided to take a moment to take stock of all the magic items the group had access to.

~~~~~

The Party’s Magical Items:

+1 dagger (Karrank’s) +1 silver longsword (+3 vs shifters) (Karrank’s) +1 longsword (Kurt’s) +1 neutral silver dagger Ring of Snakefang (turns one nail into a poisoned fang) Ring of Eyesight (turns eye to glass and pops it out of head) Scroll of Create Water Scroll of Detect Magic Scroll of Heal Scroll of Prayer Scroll of Protection from Evil (on a mummified hand) Scroll of delay poison / resist heat 2 eyeballs of finding traps Woodland robe (makes it easier to hide in natural terrain) Holy sickle (+1 sickle, +3 vs plants) Spear of thorns (+1 spear, can deal bonus damage and immobilize a foe) Medallion of Warding (greater protection from evil) 3 potions of healing

~~~~~