RP Session 10: "Mired in the Mire"

Bendane Kingsparr: HP 20/8+12 | HD 3 | Inspiration [✓][✓][✓] | Exhaustion 1.
Ej: HP 21/9+12 | HD 3 | Inspiration [✓].
Rahkazar: HP 35/15+20 | HD 3 | Inspiration [✓] | DECIDER.
Rawiya ola-Yetim: HP 20/10+10 | HD 3 | Inspiration [✓].

---

Available NPCs: Che'vanna Rohannan
Wealth: 55.8gp
Daily Expenses: 2.4gp/day
Rations: 20
Total XP: 1,095/2,700
Day Count: 48
Reputations:
Elves of Kulik +1 neutral (with Ej +2 friendly)
Skin Thieves -1 slighted
Valani Myssathelyll +2 friendly

---

Reach Jital Alive: +300xp milestone
Find & Obtain Samples from the Black Fingers Dig: +400xp milestone/+350gp
Obtain the Heirloom Amulet from Shannara Uksonnos'her: +1000xp milestone/+800gp
Bring Wurthenk Some Valuable Information: +??xp milestone/+??gp
Find the Source of Valani's Troubles Before the New Moon (Day 48): +100/+200/+400xp PERSONAL milestone (varying levels of success)
Obtain a Curative for Blissra: +450xp PERSONAL milestone
Reach the Guardian's Valley: +100xp PERSONAL milestone
Return 12 Oath Ribbons to the Families of their Owners (3/12): +5xp/ribbon, +40xp on completion PERSONAL milestone

---

Current Initiative Order: Out of Initiative

A new course decided, the Bravos pressed on downriver. Conditions were far from balmy and the air was close and damp, but the swollen river made a fine highroad with all of its debris and blockages swept up against the ragged and sunken riverbed.

By day's end they'd found their fork and taken the left branch beneath the watchful gaze of a cluster of silver-plumed wading birds whose ugly croaks in no way matched their majestic figures. Those croaks seemed to haunt this stretch of the river, alongside the occasional mighty splash as the large avians swooped low to natch some hapless fish or frog from the river's surface.

The most difficult part of the day was finding suitable land upon which to make camp. Any clearing at the riverside was swampy and flooded, and there was no sleeping in the canoes as there had been the boat - if the rain came whole they slept a canoe would turn from bed to coffin quickly.

Eventually as the light grew too wan to go on they went ashore and, leaving their boats as far from the river as oar-tired arms could drag them, they trekked a half hour into the jungle to find a bare hilltop. At first Ej feared that it might mark a colony of army ants, but it seemed that the waters had driven off the millions that had crafted this clearing and they were able to build a fire and enjoy a comfortable night beneath the stars.

The night by the anthill passed uneventfully save for the mosquitoes who only seemed buoyed by the wet. Their larger cousins, the ones the Bravos had dealt with on their ride downriver, remained blessedly absent.

Getting back on the river not long after dawn they made good time with the floodwaters, often able to set aside their oars and let the river take them for long stretches before the current became turbulent or the river narrowed. At one point they passed a small cluster of black-scaled freshwater crocodiles who slid lazily into the water. Bendane saw a great dark shape larger than his whole canoe travelling along in stealthy silence beneath him for a few minutes but the intimidating reptile seemed satisfied to observe, and with a flick of its powerful tail it vanished beneath the brown river.

By the day's end they pulled their canoes ashore a few yards before the riverbank spread out into a mass of mangroves. Ej explained that they probably didn't want to make camp there - not only was the ground unreliable but all manner of venomous water snakes made their homes amongst the mangroves, as did the crocodiles, massive constrictors and more.

With no good bank to drag the boats ashore, they had to take turns watching the moored boats. It would only take a heavy rain to sink the little craft to the bottom of the river, and there would be no retrieving them should that happen - not by normal means at least.

It was a grim watch standing waist deep in the river with a million heartbeats and two million eyes hidden in the dark of the jungle - the cries of insects and animals only grew greater at night and often more shrill, and the sudden splash of something large retreating through the river or the thrash of some unseen traveller making its way through the canopy could be unnerving in the cool, dark water.

Rahkazar suffered worse from the leeches, and had to spend a good half hour burning the fat little slugs off with a smouldering stick before she could return to he bedroll.

A subdued and early night saw them all rise well before the sun to go through the bags Rawiya had filched from the Maylentyr kitchens. Pickled eggs and brown bread toasted on the embers of their fire, even a slab of oily butter (though no one had seen a cow since arriving on Valani... or a chicken when it came to it) broke their fast.

Whether or not their craft might boast some dubious value as
memorabilia, a quick scout by Ej showed that the next leg of their journey would be mangroves and mud, and the prospect of adding days to that crossing quickly saw the Bravos elect to drag their canoes to a high clay bank overlooking the river (startling a cloud of brightly plumed parrots that were licking salt from its face) and leave them well clear of any flood water, with a bright scrap of cloth suspended from the nearest branch.

Should they need to take to the river again the canoes would not be hard to find, and if some poor traveller came upon them then that would be an act of charity they were unlikely to regret. There were, after all, no plans to return.

The first day in the mangroves was miserable. Every step was a battle to push through the sucking mud and the little saplings were able to tear through boots and whip at limbs. More than once Ej called them to a halt an instant or two before a snake, the first black and gleaming like an assassin's leathers and the second gaily coloured like a bed of flowers, slithered by on the surface of the floodwaters with sinister grace.

It was not the snakes that they should have feared though. Rawiya spent much of the day hanging back and investigating pieces of driftwood, collecting interesting pieces that weren't too waterlogged to dry and work later. A dark branch with a bruised purple tint and a gorgeous grain was something she simply couldn't pass up, but snatching it from the water she was horrified when a garish centipede the length of her forearm emerged like an arrow from the recesses of the branch and sunk its punchers into her arm.

The pain was horrific, but as the day went by her wound began to blacken, her arm tingled and she began to sweat profusely despite shivering with cold. Ej examined her wound gravely, and though he assured her that it would not be fatal she would also need to preserve her energy as they went forward, and it would be days until she began to recover. He proclaimed it was time that they stop for the day, and so with the sun still high they sought a camp.

Nowhere was truly dry when it came time to lie down for the night and they slept on a pile of driftwood trapped amongst the mangroves - a natural raft that stank of stale water and made fire impossible. The night in the jungle was as bonechilling as the day was sticky and waking was the hardest it had been since their days in chains beneath Solace. But they rose, ate in silence and trudged into the next day.