DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

WEST OF GARION'S FOLLY, NEAR THE OLD STONE CAUSEWAY (ALL)

The troupe had woken to grey skies, but at least the rain had stopped. Breakfast* at the Sheath was quick and the trio passed through the Mire Gate not long after dawn. To say that Muckmire Fen, the brown quagmire which confronted the adventurers almost immediately upon their exit from the walled town, was busy would be an exaggeration but neither was the swamp quiet. Eel hunters were already out on their punts; people fished from the banks of the fen where the waters were almost clear, and lithe-limbed frog-catchers combed the reeds and rushes surrounding the body of mucky water.

Across that stinking fen stretched a crumbling stone causeway, an extension of the Old King's Road that spanned the entirety of the mire at its narrowest point, some hundred paces or more. Beyond that -- well, there were mists and fog on the other side of the Muckmire, but the group could still see that the far shoreline was lined with dark pines. Beyond, the shadows of a dramatic mountain range rose in the distance.

At first, Dufgal thought he could hide and rest in the church, but ravens, rats, albino earwigs, and centipedes all had laid their claim. It was their territory and he was not willing to close his eyes for a minute with the way these creatures creeped toward him as he sat.
So he made his way back out into the night. He was vigilant about not getting caught by the lumbering idiots on the guard, but he did not expect to nearly step on Vari, a young street urchin that collected gossip for Grag Morgrun. Under the loose clothes and dirt, Dufgal was never quite sure if Vari was a girl or a boy, but the twinkle in their eyes was a certainty that being seen while on the lamb was worth silver. He quickly put his right finger to his lips and his left fingers into his coin purse. He counted out the coins until the smile on Vari’s face was big enough. Then he ran for the woods, possibly to never return.

Tyravasiel-Llir has shouldered his pack beneath his threadbare cloak. Once more he looks the hunchback, although he does not walk like one. Indeed, there's a spring in his step as he departs the village, and his leather-wrapped cane dangles from his grasp rather than tapping along before him. On the bridge, he breathes deep of the mire-scented air.

"So glad to be out of that burg, with its boobs of all conceivable sorts," he announces. "Speaking of, do you suppose Dufgal survived the night?" Ty surveys the swamp through his blindfold, paying particular attention to the fishing punts. "I should have tried the eels rather than the beef. There's something to be said for fresh-caught eels."

Anora scrunches up her face at the man’s mention of eating eels so early in the morning. The could barely stomach them at the best of times.

"I suppose they would have paraded him through the streets at first light, had they caught him. They do seem the type, do they not?" she says, sharing Ty’s pleasure at being away. Save for the coin and the promised tome, Anora had little love for being this far out.

She pulls her blue robes up an inch, to keep them from flitting about in the wet underfoot.

"Let us get to sturdier ground, if such a thing exists."

Aldric's constitution is being sorely pushed as the party hikes along the King's Road to Hirot, leaning heavily on the broken oar. He is still recovering from having his lungs filled with sea water, and is perpetually winded. However, he is fueled by his intense fear of faith in Pelagia, and finds the strength to keep up.

"I have every confidence in Pelagia... who will wash fair Dufgal up upon our shores... whenever she wills it."

He takes a moment on the bridge to wipe the sweat from his brow.

"Boobs? My dear Ty, your capacity for hearing is so great that you can hear the sway and heave of bossoms! Truly a remarkable human being."

"Perhaps you could beseech your Pelagia to cease her clawing at the hem of my robes?" Anora asks, with some scorn.

"Might she be the patron of tailors and washerwomen, so that they might make a coin at my expense?"

As the trio walks and converses, the walls and the few tall wooden buildings of Garion's Folly gradually diminish in size behind them. In short order, they make their way onto the old bridge, stepping carefully around the fissures and cracks that mar what once must have been an impressive structure. Cold, wet muck surrounds them on both sides as they strike across the fen, assaulted by the sounds of buzzing flies, croaking bullfrogs, peeping peepers, cheeping birds and things splashing in the deeper pools of lily pad and algae-covered water.

They are not a third of the way across when the causeway's condition worsens, lashed and broken down by wind and rain, and by time. The three journeyers keep to the safest, surest path on the ten foot wide modestly elevated road -- and this causes them to go left and then right, to avoid sections that look ready to fully collapse, to hop or crawl over other portions that already have.

Something about Anora's comment - the word clawing, perhaps? - triggers a strong reaction in Aldric's soul. He remembers Pelagia, enormous a terrifying, surfacing from beneath him. Her voice breaking his mind. Her size so vast he felt like a gnat. "No, I don't think I shall," he says, his voice weak and distant.

Anora ignores the man’s weak, raspy response, as she precariously crosses the stone work.

"The ruffian-kings you find in the cities very often improve the conditions of the very worst-off around them. Through that, they buy loyalty and love…" her tone suggests that she doubts such a thing is possible.

"… it’s a wonder that… oh, what was his name? Grag?… It’s a wonder this Grag hasn’t kept the roads in good condition, so as to buy himself some good will."

Perhaps he didn’t need it. Perhaps he ruled through muscle alone, in whatever petty kingdom it was he had carved out for himself amongst the merchant and guards of the Folly.

"You might even say that my ears have eyes," Ty unconcernedly answers Aldric's barb. "Like..." Like what? He's got it. "...like a deep sea fish. Clearly the Black Bitch of the Depths is working her will upon me." Aldric seems to give Pelagia new names all the time; Ty figures he can do the same.

As they move along the dilapidated portion of the bridge, the beggar hops over gaps and pivots from sure stone to stone as neatly as anyone with eyes to see. He still wears the blindfold, but since they left Garion's Folly, his effort to maintain the ruse of blindness appears to have vanished.

From within the cover of the treeline, Dufgal first hears and then sees the trio as they banter up to and across the stone bridge. He can’t quite discern their conversation, they seem unaffected by his transgression nor do they seem to be warily concerned about bandits. He thinks to warn them and is surprised to feel that he has begun to care what happens to them. It is a foreign feeling and he doesn’t quite know what to do with it. He decides not to trust it and disappears back into the woods. Once they pass, he starts following at a great distance constantly scanning forward and back, performing the self-appointed job of scout.

The journey across the bridge takes longer than expected because of the suspect footing, and as the travelers cross the three quarter mark, they are partly enveloped by the mists that seem to roll out of the woods on the other side of the fen despite the morning's gradually rising temperature. There is no lack of evidence of Garion's folly all those years ago -- visible in the muck and brown waters on either side of the bridge are the long-abandoned, rotten remains of piers, wharfs, decking, walkways, smashed and sunken fishing boats... quite an investment had been made in trying to make something of the Muckmire.

With the clammy mist comes a wetness on the stone, and on the slime and scum covering so much of it. And comes a much more treacherous finish to the crossing... for as the trio pauses to ferret out the best way through a particularly slimy patch, the sound of cracking, rumbling stone comes from below.

Part of the bridge is giving way, collapsing!

Age-old mortar crumbles as a section of the bridge, shifts, shears, and comes apart. Whether it's the weight of the travelers or just the cruel hands of time, it's difficult to say -- but either way tons of stone drops down into the black-brown sludge beneath the structure. Despite his blindfold, Ty is quick-footed enough to move and be on the far side of the sudden gap; Aldric is not so lucky -- he has to leap back to not be part of the thundering tumble of stone.

As for Anora the Blue...

Anora is so taken with the sudden prancing of the beggar-man, that she pays little enough attention to her own predicament!

The sound of the falling rock carries down the fen in both directions, echoing and rolling, and when it finally drifts off into the distance the bridge is still again. Aldric and Anora find themselves separated from the beggar by a chasm that spans the whole width of the bridge, a chasm that ranges in distance from five to more than ten feet across. A makeable leap in places, certainly, but can the stones on either side of the gap be trusted?

Aldric landed on the wrong side of crumbling bridge, predictably. Bad luck was a constant in his life, an unwelcome yet stalwart companion.

"Surely you have some magic that can be of assistance here, Anora the Blue?"

He wondered the same question about himself! Like a mystic fisherman, Pelagia gifted him a fresh catch of spells every day."I could look into the future to ascertain the safest path, but we could also just ask Ty to use his walking stick to test the stability of the ground. Go on, Ty! Give the ground around those easy-to-jump gaps, check if the ground is solid enough to support! Mind you don't fall in, of course."

Ty turns back and stares through his blindfold at the human unfortunates on the other side of the gap. After a moment he shrugs-- they can't help their clumsiness-- and wanders directly over to the place where he judges the gulf to be narrowest. Standing a little back from the edge, he prods the stones with his 'cane' in order to gauge their firmness.

"I do have a spell for the occasion, yes. I hadn’t planned to use up the spark quite so early in the day!" she says, clearly unwilling to let the bridge cost her her magicks until all other avenues were exhausted.

"There’s no way to know what lies ahead on the road." she says, with furrowed brow. "It’s best not to be too hasty."