The group walked into the marsh solemnly and followed the trail as far as they could. It was perhaps a half mile before the tracks disappeared below the now ankle deep water. And it was more than the lack of visible tracks that was causing them trouble.
The muck was hard to traverse on a normal day. But for the pair of men with issues walking, it was an absolute nightmare. And they weren’t the only ones having issues, as Santino was veritably twitching at the sound of the mosquitoes flying around his ears.
The only member of the group having minimal trouble, Trollblood spotted a patch of high ground, clear of the reed-choked swamp and covered in smaller flowers. “Hey,” he said. “Does it look to anyone like something got dragged through here?” He pointed at a patch of crushed flowers.
Before anyone could look, they were interrupted by the sound of a woman’s cry. “That doesn’t sound quite right,” Stein said.
“Yeah, it’s like when I’m faking a girl’s cry,” Santino said.
“What?” Stein asked, looking at the man.
“What?” Santino asked as if he hadn’t just said something weird.
Trollblood listened. “There it is again.”
“That came from a different direction,” Heimish noted.
“It sounds a bit like Aleece,” Trollblood noted, making a superstitious sign against evil.
“That was from somewhere else again!” Stein hissed at the third sound.
“It’s probably a trap,” Santino said. “Instead of going straight at it, let’s circle around…” As he talked, he had been moving in the direction he was suggesting. Then he stopped as the sound called out directly in front of his path. He stopped talking and drew his sword.
The other three followed behind him. Just as they got off of the mound, suddenly a massive spider with the eerie face of a human appeared and bit at Heimish, who just barely managed to dodge. “Shite!” the preacher shouted as he cast a spell.
A burst of light – known colloquially to those of the adventurer’s guild as a magical light grenade thanks to one particular wizard – exploded out from a point in front of the creature’s face, both blinding it and burning it.
The spider reacted by disappearing, shifting from the material plane into the ethereal. “You scared away my newest girlfriend,” Santino pouted. The face wasn’t half bad looking, after all.
“It’s a phase spider!” Heimish said. “We haven’t seen the last of it.”
The others readied their weapons, and as soon as it reappeared, they struck as best they could. Santino and Trollblood charged in – as difficult as that was in the muck – and Stein loosed a readied bomb, which missed as the spider lunged at him. It bit him and lifted him from the ground.
He felt poison surging into his veins, but he shrugged it off. He had dealt with worse back in his early days working with Lorrimor. “You’ll have to do better than that!” he shouted, swinging his cane. The blow glanced off the creature’s thick exoskeleton, doing no damage.
The irony of his words and his ineffectual attack were not lost on him. And, unfortunately, Heimish’s blast of magical iridescent light did little to the spider, as it shrugged off the magic.
Trollblood, however, was a bit more successful. He swung his massive crude hammer and struck a crushing blow. The hit destroyed one of the spider’s legs and cracked the chitin on its abdomen.
Santino, still not quite in range, did something else entirely. He was filled with rage and now seeing red. The water next to him was bubbling. It had been for some time, though it was gentle enough that only Stein had noticed, and only just barely. Now, however, it was a rolling boil.
“LET GO OF MY SISTER’S BUTLER!” Santino roared, pointing his sword. From the depths of the marsh, a spiked chain shot out and wrapped around Stein, wrenching the butler from the spider’s grasp.
Terrified and reeling from the damage, the spider fled back into the ethereal plane.
Santino helped Stein up as the chain disappeared. The butler was shaking in supernatural terror at the touch of the hellishly warm chains, but was unharmed by them. Of course, he had taken damage from the spider’s bite, which Heimish attended to immediately.
“There, there,” Santino said, inappropriately caressing the man’s cheek.
“Why didn’t you tell us you could cast spells, lad?” Heimish asked Santino.
“I didn’t know,” Santino answered. “This was my first time doing it.” He laughed. “I guess I popped my spell cherry.” He looked at Stein. “Was it good for you?”
Stein, regaining his composure, just rolled his eyes.
“The creature hasn’t returned,” Trollblood noted.
“We probably hurt it too much,” Santino said. It was mostly him who had done all the work, of course.
Santino started walking ahead of the others. “What are you doing?” Heimish asked.
“Shh… I’m bait.”
“Do you know any other spells?” the preacher asked.
“I don’t know. Didn’t know I could cast that one.”
“Well, I’m proud of you for coming into your power. Your magic will be a great force for good.”
“Okay,” Santino answered noncommittally.
Back at camp, the three men who had pranked Santino decided to put on a juggling act for Kendra and Natalya as way of apology. “This is rather good,” Kendra said to Kaleb.
“This is our trade,” Kaleb answered. “Once Aleece is found, we’ll be heading to Lepidstadt. There’s some kind of shindig going on there, with plenty of commotion. Commotion means people, and people means money.”
“Fair enough,” Kendra said, returning her attention to the show.
Then, all as one, the three men stopped and grabbed their stomachs. Natalya heard an audible, high pitched groan emanate from the bellies of the three men. What should have been three sounds came out as one singular noise as they dropped the balls and looks of horror crossed their faces.
As they ran off, Kendra looked at Kaleb questioningly. “Something they ate, I guess?” the ringmaster said.
Natalya looked around, and most of the camp’s occupants looked ill. Alarmed, she quietly motioned with her head. Kendra spotted the motion and looked, spotting what she had spotted.
“I don’t think they’re the only ones,” Kendra said, pointing out the others to Kaleb.
“I’ll look into it,” he said. “One moment.”
After he left, Kendra leaned in to Natalya. “I think I know what happened to my brother’s missing candy,” she whispered.
The group in the marsh continued on, and while they heard more noises, the spider didn’t dare approach them. They walked for a bit longer before Stein spotted something. “There!” he pointed. “Are those bodies?” he asked.
They moved to investigate, and Santino found something familiar. “Hey, big guy, is this her?” he asked, yanking the half-eaten corpse from the muck.
“Aleece,” Trollblood wailed, his voice cracking as he dropped to his knees and cradled the body.
“Take all the time you need,” Heimish said, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “We’ll look around and see if there’s anything else here of import.”
He had been hoping to find a still living victim, but all he managed to locate was a small box of brass weights like those used by merchants to measure the weight of goods on scales and a magnifying glass that appeared to be made of silver.
It was late afternoon – perhaps an hour before sunset – when the party returned to camp with the body of the young woman. The stomach ailment that had afflicted camp was mostly over, thankfully, so the Crooked Kin gathered around to mourn their fallen.
But Santino had something more important to do. “I need to find wood,” he told Kendra.
“What for?” she asked, following along. Natalya followed as well, uncomfortable around the grieving performers.
Santino picked up a large piece of scrap wood and handed it to Natalya. It was too heavy for her and she dropped it. He frowned and picked it up. “I need to make a sign.”
“What kind of sign?” Kendra asked, visions of rather inappropriate possibilities flashing through her mind.
“A warning. There’s a dangerous monster out in the swamp.”
“That’s surprisingly reasonable.”
“Yeah, I don’t want anyone to go out there and end up killing her before I can sleep with her.”
There he was. There was the Santino Kendra expected. “Oh, I see.”
When he was finished, Santino had made a rather decent sign. It even had a doodle of the monster. “Danger: Phase Spider. Don’t go into the swamp, stoopeed.”
“You spelled that wrong,” Natalya pointed out.
“Oh!” Santino said. “I always get those two mixed up.” He crossed out “Phase” and wrote “Faze”. “Much better. Thanks.”
“Um, anytime,” the tiefling answered as she noticed Kendra shaking her head.”
The trio returned just as the sun set and the Crooked Kin lit the funeral pyre for Aleece. They watched solemnly as the people mourned their fallen friend.
When it was over, Kaleb approached them. “Thank you for your help resolving this. Of course, we wish things had turned out different, but we’re grateful for your help.”
“Of course, Kaleb,” Kendra said.
The pale man sighed. “Well, I guess it’s back on the road in the morning. We can’t afford to delay any longer.”
“About that,” Kendra said. “We’re going the same way on a personal errand for my late father. Maybe we can travel with you?”
“You and your friends are a capable group. We’d be glad for the company. Good night, all of you.”
After he was out of earshot, Santino turned to Kendra. “He’s vulnerable. You should get a piece of that.”
Exasperated, Kendra rolled her eyes. “Santino…”
“What? You don’t want him? Can I have him?”
“Santino, get back in the carriage and go to sleep.”
“Fine,” he said. “Wasted trip, lost all my candy,” he grumbled as he walked off to do as he was told.
“About that,” Stein said, appearing from the shadows. “Was everyone in camp sick?”
“Yeah,” Kendra said. “We should probably not say anything about my brother’s missing candy.”
“Probably for the best,” Stein agreed.
They traveled through the next day, finally arriving at the town of Lepidstadt in early evening. There was a decided air of mirth and excitement as they arrived.
“Is there a festival going on?” Heimish asked. He regretted not finding out what Kaleb knew before parting with the troupe at the gate.
“I don’t think so,” Kendra said as they rounded a corner to the town’s main square. In the center, the people were erecting a massive wooden effigy and all around it was kindling.
Kendra had heard of this. This was something the people of Lepidstadt did to punish criminals. “I’m going to go find out what’s going on,” Santino said, jumping out of the slowed carriage before Kendra could stop him.
“I hope he doesn’t do anything reckless,” she said.
“Stay with the carriage,” Natalya said. “I’ll go keep an eye on him.” Kendra would be safe enough with the carriage and the two men. And after all, while protecting the young noblewoman had become a bit of a cause for the tiefling, it wasn’t like she needed to keep an eye on her all the time.
“Thanks,” Kendra said.
Natalya did her best to tail Santino as he pushed his way through the crowd. At one point, he grabbed a man. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“It’s the Punishing Man!” the gap-toothed man exclaimed. “We’re gonna burn the Beast of Lepidstadt!”
Santino let him go and the man ran off to go find more kindling. “Well, if you’re gonna make a big wooden statue, you have to make it right,” Santino said to himself, grabbing a log. He slung it over his shoulder and bounded up past the guards.
He then climbed up and tried to jam the log into the effigy’s crotch. “What are you doing? Get down from there!” a guard called out.
“You didn’t make it complete!” Santino shouted back. He thought he’d done it and let go so he could admire his handiwork. But the large, makeshift manhood fell off of the wooden man. “Damn,” Santino swore. That thing had been heavy.
He noticed that half of the people in the square were staring at him. Drunk on the attention, he climbed higher, all the way to the top of the sculpture.
Natalya looked around desperately, trying to find a way to get him down without killing him or further angering the agitated guards. But she couldn’t find anything. She spotted a few men wearing the crest of the Adventurer’s Guild and began heading their way in hopes that they might be able to help somehow.
But she stopped in her tracks as she heard Santino shout from his perch. “DOWN WITH THE BEAST!” he roared, raising both arms into the air in triumph.
Flames engulfed Santino and ignited the massive wooden sculpture. But they did not seem to harm him. Indeed, the flames didn’t touch Santino, instead, they seemed to do something else. They were revealing him.
On the top of the flame, Natalya could see Santino, completely different than he had been before. No more was his head that of a man. Now it had become more like that of a dog, though it retained some partial features of a human. And his torso still remained that of a man, though his legs had become more like those of a dog as well.
In all, he looked like a cross between a man and a giant mastiff.
He then looked at the horizon, where the moon was rising, and let out a bloodcurdling howl that silenced the entire crowd, who now stared, slack jawed and terrified.
“It’s a werewolf!” one of the guards exclaimed. He grabbed his horn and blew it. Natalya could hear the sounds of several other horns answering in the distance. The guards would be closing in soon. All of them.
What the hell was she going to do?
0 Comments