It was a quiet camp they left the next morning, unfortunately their work still had to be done.  The rain that had fallen before dawn was heavy on the ground, and only added to the muck and misery of the Black Marsh.  It had been a long run from the waypoint in the Dark Wood, and they spent several hours more fighting their way through the marshland.

As was inevitable, they all ended up fighting off on their own.  Martenus went chasing down a group of goatmen, Thane and his crew were looting a camp of carvers, and Meize found herself running from a couple of very angry brutes.

She tried to work her way around to Martenus, but she kept coming up against a wall or other substantial obstacle.  Every time she stopped to take a shot at them, they got too close.  One got in a good hit that sent her reeling.  They were on top of her before she could get her senses back, and she fired everything she had at them.

Their bodies collapsed on top of her.

-----------------------

"For love of the Goddess, Necromancer, stop!"  She cried in desperation.

Thane stopped dead in his tracks, blinking, uncertain where the disembodied voice had come from.

"Don't just stand there!  Help me!"

He looked around, trying to find her, and when he finally did, he couldn't help but laugh heartily.  There she was, lying face down in the middle of a huge puddle of mud, pinned beneath the bulk of a dead brute.  Her usually cool, calm, I'm-just-as-good-as-you composure was replaced by that of a petulant, muddy, little girl.  She tired again to pull herself out from under the corpse, but her hands couldn't find any purchase in the slick muck.

"What the hell are you laughing at?  I'm going to drown in this puddle.  Help me!"

Still chuckling, he carefully made his way over to her.  He grabbed her by her wrists and pulled her gently out from under the beast.  But just as he got her to her feet, he slipped himself and landed wetly on his backside, pulling her back down on top of him.

She froze, uncertain of his anger, and consciously aware of her proximity to the man.  But he surprised her and in a completely uncharacteristic turn of events, flipped her over with a playful growl and pinned her beneath him.

"If I have to run around all day now with soggy breaches, so do you."  He teased.  "Is this what I get for helping a lady in distress?"

She couldn't help it as a giggle escaped her.  "Get off, you fool!"

"Indeed, I have been a fool."

Before she could question him on his last comment, Martenus came around the corner and caught them in their compromising, mud-soaked position.

The man's mouth opened and closed several times, as he was clearly at a loss of words.

"Oh, just get over here and help get this oaf off of me."  Meize sighed.

Her insolence was rewarded with Thane rolling her over onto her front in the mud and sitting down on her backside.

"Martenus!"  She cried out in laughter.

The paladin carefully stepped into the muck, and no sooner did Thane mutter, "don't slip," than he pitched face first into it.  Thane, still sitting on his wiggling perch, started lobbing mudballs at Martenus's exposed back.  The man looked up just in time to catch the next ball in the forehead.  With a roar, Martenus dove at Thane and drove him off Meize and down into the mud.  Copious amounts of goop than began to rain through the air, until Thane finally grabbed Meize as a human shield.  Martenus paused only the moment it took him to grab his buckler, scoop it full of dirty water, and hurl the contents at both of them.

And so the game continued until all three lay collapsed together in the mud, their energies entirely spent.

"How do we explain ourselves to Akara?"  Meize tentatively asked.

"We don't."  Was all Thane replied.

And they didn't.  Despite the stares of curiosity and disgust, they simply marched through the camp.  Meize was hard pressed not to laugh when Akara bent over and kindly asked if they'd had a hard day.  "You could say that," was all she allowed herself to reply.

As she had lost her club and shield under the brutes, Martenus and Thane helped her buy a new staff.  It was of excellent weight and balance, and it felt so good to have one in her hands again.

After a hot bath and a hot meal the rain began to fall again, so Meize joined the other two in their tent to go over battle plans for the next day.  It was a short discussion as exhaustion overtook all three of them.  They spread out their blankets and slept.