Re: Chapter 2 - The Trial of the Beast
With no time to lose our heroes divided their efforts. Darcon, Vadim, and Shade slogged off through the swamp in an effort to reach the island graveyard in a timely fashion, while Garland, Constantine and Jonah remained with Dimka and the massive, scaley corpse of the blood caiman.
The two lads were gone for the better part of an hour which gave Garland ample opportunity to examine the massive crocodilian. It was prime specimen, pot bellied and more than twice as long as Garland was tall, with bow legs and an enormous maw filled with terrible teeth. It bore all the marks of an apex predator, long healed scars and gashes from clashes with other carnivores and gore marks from panicked prey, all layered over a hide so horney and scaly that only a powerful blow would penetrate.
All of this made an inspection for anything out of the ordinary difficult. But such was Garland's medical expertise that he was able to sort the normal wear and spot a series of long scars that didn't seem consistent with a predator's life. They were long healed, but the beast had a series of long, perfectly straight, razor thin scars around its eyes and snout. That sort of scarring would only be consistent with blows from a bladed weapon, and nothing as large or damaging as a sword or axe. It looked as if the caiman had received a series of blows from a dagger or long razor at sometime in the past.
At length the boys arrived with a flatboat full of fishermen and the village skinner, who quickly turned the area into a work platform and started in on the corpse--skinning, butchering, and pulling out every piece that could be used. It was a huge job, likely to take the rest of the afternoon, but the villagers also arrived with extra boats to take the rest of the group on to the boneyard.
The trek through the swamp was a sucking, sodden slog. A journey of less than a mile turned into a meandering, aimless route as our heroes moved from island to island in search of a clear way through the mire. At times they had to wade through water up to the waist, and more than once they reached a dead end spit of land and had to re-trace their steps to find a clear route.
Perhaps motivated by the sharp claws that dug into her shoulder whenever she got too deep into the water, Shade seemed to have the easiest time moving through the swamp. She had to spend her time waiting on Vadim and Darcon, both of whom had a particularly tough time slogging through the wet and the muck.
They didn't make up very much time on their way to the boneyard. It was almost an hour later when the little islet containing Morast's graveyard hovered into view, and it was a very footsore and muddy trio of adventurers that stumbled onto it.
Or very nearly stumbled onto it.
Just as they were wading the final stretch to the shore they could hear the swishing of oars behind them and the stifled chuckles of Dimka and Teg, who tried to keep their faces still as they poled past with the others in tow.
At last our heroes stood on the banks of a small island in the center of the swamp. Once well maintained but now given to a year's overgrowth and neglect, the small surface rose to a quite dry hillock in the center and was surrounded by scraggly swamp trees planted in a ring just at the water's edge around the island perimeter. Stone markers could be seen through the reeds at the crest of the hill.
Crude fetishes, simple, roughly humanoid figures made of sticks and bound with twine, dangled from the trees and were propped in the reeds. The three village lads made a respectful gesture as they stepped onto the island and began twisting new fetishes of their own to leave at their ancestor's graves to mark the visit.
You don't manage to make any progress through the swamp so you don't make up any time. Shade passed her survival, but Darcon and Vadim both failed.
