Author's note:
Thank you ssp47 and blooknaburg for your reviews! Get ready-this one should be good.
***
An hour before dawn I met the two that were to go with me. One was an elf and the other was a halfling. They both had longbows slung over their shoulders and were wearing brown traveling cloaks. They handed me a cloak and told me it would help us hide in the swamps. They said that they would not bring anything else aside from wineskins and a week's trail rations. The elf's name was Rywin and the halfing was Coggin. We left immediately on foot.
Rywin led the way and Coggin protected the rear. To get to the swamps, we had to take a three-day hike over the plains and then cross over a deep river. After that we would need to go one more day on the plains before we reached the swamps. We would not light any fires to keep attention away from us, and we were to push as hard and fast as we could.
We met no opposition on the plains. We reached the river on the third day at about noon. We had no raft, and there were no trees anywhere near us. It was too swift and too deep to attempt to cross by swimming, and there were cataracts not far downstream. We headed upstream to look for a shallow point, or some sort of bridge. It took us the rest of the day, but we finally found a small village that had constructed a bridge. Strangely, there wasn't anyone in the houses. The town was empty, with no sign of life. We found the inn and decided to spend the night in a bed.
For some reason, I had a hard time sleeping that night. It was pitch dark outside, aside from the moonlight, and I heard a moaning sound. At first I thought it was the wind, but then I heard it again. I woke up Rywin and Coggin, and we stepped outside to investigate. Something dark moved between the moon and us, and the three of us quickly pointed our bows at it. We watched the shadow fly around some before Coggin broke and fired. The arrow flew right through the shadow, which then spotted us and flew to the ground. Rywin and I loosed our arrows. They both missed their targets.
The shadow resembled a human, but it was distorted badly. It charged us, screaming an undecipherable language. It reached Coggin and swung at him, bypassing his armor. Coggin fell to the ground with a scream.
I launched another arrow at the shadow, which passed right through. Rywin drew a short sword and jumped at the shadow. He plunged his sword deep into the shadow's chest. The sword turned a bright blue and the shadow exploded into tiny balls of light.
Coggin had no wounds, but he somehow lost his strength. Rywin and I helped him up and into a bed. We were forced to stay there for two days while Coggin recovered. Fortunately we met no more shadows.
We left the small ghost town and headed towards the swamp. The ground was slowly going from flat and dry to uneven and wet. Towards the end of the day, Rywin went to look for a place we could make camp at. Instead, he found a camp of orcs. It was decided to take them out. They weren't hard to find, they had lit a fire and were singing some sort of profane orc song. There were four of them, all in a circle around the fire, their weapons discarded in a small pile of junk.
We quietly got into our places in the knee-deep muck (well, for Coggin it was wast-deep). I gave a low whistle and we all hit our targets with deadly accuracy. Three orcs fell and one was sitting and still singing. Coggin stepped onto the dry "island" and snuck up on the unsuspecting orc. He drew his dagger and managed to slit the creature's neck.
Author's note: If you don't know much about swamps, let me explain a little bit. In a swamp, you will have small pools/lakes, you can have marsh-type land (where there is still water, but a lot of plants growing in the water itself), soft wet ground, and then you get the islands, elevated portions of land where trees and other plant life grow. These are mostly dry. Well, if any of that is wrong, then that info applies only to my swamp :)
We found nothing of interest that they had. We let the fire keep burning so we could dry off and sleep for the night. In the morning we kept our search up for more orcs. Rywin led and Coggin kept the rear, as always. At about noon we found an island to sit and have lunch at, but then we realized Coggin was missing. We backtracked for hours trying to find him, but we saw nothing. As Rywin went to look through some bushes, he disappeared through the marsh bottom. I chased after him and fell as well, however I landed on a hard dry surface, in the middle of a squad of orcs.
We were bound and gagged and taken to the orc chieftain. There we saw Coggin had been through the same thing. The chieftain ordered us to be put into a prison cell and held for ransom. Our weapons and armor were taken and we were thrown into a small cell. It was carved out of the ground and had steel bars. The ground was soft here, so we started to dig through the bottom of the cell. The orcs had left us alone, and we managed to get out.
We heard a couple of orcs coming down the hall, so we took position to attack them. There were two; each had some sort of crude leather armor and an old axe. We were on them before they realized who we were. Rywin held one and I held the other while Coggin beat them down.
We took the axes and left the rags. We had no clue which way was out. This cave network was made using no logic at all. We must have gone in circles at least three times before we found another hall. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, so we quickened our pace, only to be received by a large gathering of orcs. Many torches lined this large room, and there was a tunnel that led up. To get out, we would need to kill some twenty-odd orcs with only two rusted axes. We ran back into the tunnel and turned to face them. Coggin got behind us as the mob of orcs rushed us.
Limbs and heads were flying left and right. I was the first one to take a hit, a deep gash on my left arm. Coggin grabbed the sword of a fallen orc and joined us, hacking away at the knees of the orcs. Coggin was then hit in the head with a large club and was knocked unconscious. As we neared the end of them, Rywin took a near-fatal blow to the chest. We finally defeated them all. I dropped my axe and picked up Coggin, and ran up the tunnel to the surface, with Rywin in tow. We ran out of the swamp and reached the old town by midnight. We slept until the morning. When we woke up, Coggin had recovered almost completely. Traveled back to the castle, but this time it took us four days. When we arrived, we told him of the underground lairs, and he quickly sent orders for a military unit to report back to the castle.
We were given our pay, and outfitted once more. I once again took a longsword, longbow, and this time took chainmail. I was also given the customary cape of the scouts, dark green in color. The pay was very large, 100 platinum coins. Now I just needed to find some affordable yet reliable weapons…
Author's note: I hope you liked this one. Was it long enough? Hehe. On the monetary system..1 platinum coin = 10 gold coins, 1 gold coin = 10 silver coins, and 1 silver coin = 10 copper coins. I think the average salary of a farmer is something like 1 gold coin..and your average longsword costs somewhere between 10 and 15 gold. So, 100 platinum is a VERY large sum of cash.