“To some, prospecting and surveying uncharted lands are boring, tedious, dangerous work. For others like me however, it was probably the most rewarding work possible. After all, what could be more exciting than being the first to set foot on heretofore unknown lands, to see its sights with your own eyes and chart its contours with your own hands?” - Elark Slewyn, One of the most storied pioneers in the history of the Clangeddin Empire.

Early in spring the following year, Aideen bid her farewell to the nobles she had come to know and befriend over the months. The siblings from Dvergarder would also depart from Algenverr shortly after her own departure, headed straight southwards through Jonkver on their way home.

She herself took the route north and east, Where she traveled through Algenverr territory for a good two weeks more, before she reached their border with the swamplands. It was easy to notice when she arrived, as the shift in landscape was unmistakable, with how the sparser woodlands of Algenverr gave way to the denser forests of the swamplands.

Similarly, the air turned noticeably more humid, and had a stench of rot and decay in it as she came closer to the swamplands. The swamps in the region were notorious for their deceptive appearances, where what appeared to be a small, shallow puddle might actually be a deep hole waiting for an unwary traveler to step on and drown in it.

Dry land was rare, only seen sparsely in tiny clusters here and there, and for the most part, to traverse through the swamplands meant murking through the dark, murky waters of the swamp. That also meant braving many of the indigenous inhabitants, which ranged from the docile, like tree squirrels and and the typical horde of filter-feeder birds one might see in such environments, to the far more dangerous.

Aideen had already run afoul with a massive alligator that was easily four to five meters long on her first day in the swamps. The beast had ambushed her from beneath the murky waters, and tore her left arm straight off. She had just left and healed the wound, rather than engage with that sort of beast in its home ground and waste time unnecessarily.

The dark, murky waters and the soft, muddy soil made progress slow, as her steps were slowed by her feet sinking into the mud all the time. Some areas were so deep she had little option but to wade or swim across, which turned her off-white clothes into a more off-black color. After those clothes started hardening and stinking she just discarded them and did without instead.

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At another time, an ugly rotund beast the size of a carriage chased her over several kilometers until she finally lost her patience. When the beast’s large, stinky maw opened wide and tried to bite down on her, Aideen took a small vial of Dragonfire Brew - the normal sort - from her storage and tossed it into the beast’s gullet.

The explosion that ensued threw her against a nearby tree as thick around as her leg, hard enough to snap the trunk in half and splattered bits and pieces of the beast over the surrounding area.

Much like what the Algenverr nobles and locals told her, the swamplands were extremely unsuitable for habitation purposes. For Aideen’s own plans, the wild beasts weren’t that big an issue. If she were to migrate there with other unliving, they would be able to clear an area without much difficulty since they literally don't fear death or injury.

On the other hand, the lack of solid ground to build on proved to be a far more difficult quandary to deal with. The muddy soil of the swamplands were so soft and water-bogged that even if they had earth mages solidify the land, the swamps would just seep in and soften it again with time. Building larger establishments was nearly impossible when one couldn’t even lay a proper foundation for it, which was a difficult issue to solve.

Even so, she still spent eight whole months surveying the lands closer to Algenverr, with occasional delves into uncharted areas deeper in, and saw no real change in the soil situation, before she called an end to the survey for the time being.

Aideen made her way out of the swamps over the next month, pausing for a short while before she reached inhabited lands once more to take a good, long bath on a clear river stream. Her body was pretty much caked with filth and other detritus from the months in the swamp, where there was no water clearer than the murky, filthy swamp water to clean herself with.

Only after she had scrubbed her skin raw and healed it back had she left the river, dried herself, and dressed in fresh clothes once more, finally feeling clean for the first time in months. To say the least, it was not the most pleasant of experiences, which was one reason she cut the survey short rather than do the whole area in one go as she had originally planned.

Instead, she changed her plans to survey the Forest of Despair first, which she would enter from Jonkver after she talked with the locals for more information. A letter of introduction from the Duchess of Algenverr would be helpful in that regard, which was why she returned there first.

The swamplands were a disappointing place so far, with no location suitable to build large buildings on, much less for a whole city. The horrible quality of the local water sources and lack of arable land were also points she had not liked one bit. While her plan was first and foremost to find a home for her own kind to live on, she had no illusions that a thriving place would not attract others to it.

To live in squalor and filth was definitely not part of her plans, so unless the deeper reaches of the swamplands had some more hospitable grounds to use, she would likely strike the area off her list. Aideen only hoped that the Forest of Despair would prove to be a more bountiful area compared to the swamplands.