A thick grey mist clung in the air as the five hardened mercenaries advanced towards the swamp. The moon was blanketed my thick, murky clouds from Cosmot. However, some stares shone bright, casting black shadows ubiquitously. Zanatos glared across the landscape.
"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" moaned Arturo, looking around him nervously.
"You probably wouldn't have come lad," replied Val as he walked along the beaten path..
"Yeah but as a member of this band, I think I deserve the right to know what the group is doing!"
"You humans, always complaining"
"Silence!" The conversation was broken by none other than Zanatos. "Look at you clowns! We're going to be facing none other than death itself in this swamp so stay focused! You have to be soldiers!"
"Oh my soldier days… don't remind me Zan…" cursed Julius under his breath.
"Brace yourselves lads we're about to enter the swamp!" whispered Thor. A few metres later they passed a sign. "NO ENTRY BEYOND THIS POINT. THE SWAMP IS OFF LIMITS. IF THE TRESSPASSERS COME OUT ALIVE, THEY WILL BE PROSECUTED".
"Chilling idea…" muttered Julius to himself and he gripped his dwarven, rune encrusted axe tightly. The party entered the swamps. As soon as they entered tall, bony, black figures surrounded them on all sides.
"Chilling trees…" muttered Julius as he surveyed his surroundings. Arturo took out the map of the swamp that the mage had given him, out of his pocket and surveyed the brown filthy paper.
"According to this, we should walk straight ahead for around 20 minutes until we see the largest tree in the swamp and then we should go North West until we reach a clearing. From there we can unlock a hidden door to the temple, inside grows this elusive plant." Moments later the party heard a splash echo through the swamp.
"Oooh its cold!" moaned Thor.
"Oh… I forgot to mention, we will be wading through the swamp…" Everyone moaned at Arturo. The warriors silently drudged through the thick black slime. Cries of strange animals could be heard from the distance. The swamp had become thick with trees on all sides. It was almost impossible to move anywhere but north.
"I can't believe this… what happened to just slaying the hordes of invading orcs back in Miridia…" cursed Julius.
"Hey! I heard that! How about I avenge my brothers and sisters on you halfling!" cursed Val.
"Halfling? Halfling? No one calls a dwarf a halfling and lives to tell the tale. Its time to die hellspawn!" Julius lunged at Val hoping to topple him over in the mud but Val was too quick. With lightning fast reflexes Val dodge and the Dwarf fell face down in the knee deep mud. Val then jammed his foot on the dwarf's head and pushed. Julius desperately fought for air trying to stay alive and then lashed out with a kick into the half-orcs knee, toppling him over. By this time both of them had been held back by the other three.
"Calm down! We have no time for your petty quarrels!" cried Thor. Zanatos eyes widened, his body tensed.
"Fools! You've done it now! You've awakened them!"
"What?" puzzled Val
"Run!" screamed Arturo.
At least a dozen pale, humanoid creatures leapt through the trees, pursuing their first proper meal in weeks. They were humans once, now pale, extremely bony, one could say skeletal figures. Their teeth, razor sharp just like their blackened nails. Gleaming, blood red eyes protruded from grim, hollowed sockets.
"Ghouls…" whispered Arturo as he ran for his life. The ghouls were advancing at an alarmingly fast pace. Their distorted, pale bodies cast wicked black shadows over the even surface of the mud. They screamed and moaned as they bound along the trees in search of food. Psychotic war cries…
"They won't stop until daylight!" cried Zanatos above the screams of the ghouls. His white breath was clearly visible as he breathed, in the midnight frost.
"We're going to have to fight them!" panted Thor.
"Well if that's the only option then so be it!" screamed the inappropriately named dwarf, Julius. He gripped his axe even more tightly. The Black Souls drew their weapons. Arturo drew his finely made, Elven bow, prepared to release death upon the ghouls. Zanatos drew his sword. It was forged of a dark grey metal. It was encrusted with Chaos runes, delicately painted in expensive gold print. The others also drew their respected weapons. The warriors tensed for battle as they had done a thousand times before, their muscles tensed, eyes alert. The ghouls had become silent and the swamp was eerily quite.
"Look out! I think see something left!" panted Arturo.
"I see something ahead!" cried Thor, his eyes darting nervously. As soon as one of the warriors saw a shadow or a flicker it had disappeared. The thick black mud seemed thicker than ever. It was knee deep, waste deep for the dwarves.
"I can't see anything…" moaned Val, beads of perspirations drizzling down his grimy forehead.
"Silence…" whispered Zanatos. The band stood there for quite a short time but it seemed like years. "Lookout!" cried Zanatos and he dived towards Thor. The mud bubbled and a ghoul burst out from under the mud. It lunged at Thor and gripped him about to tear an arm off when all of a sudden it's head completely disappeared. In a lightning quick flash Zanatos had cleaved its head clean off. Black blood spurted out of the neck in a fountain like motion, drenching Thor in the gruesome fluid. Another ghoul flew at Arturo from a nearby tree. Arturo jumped to the side, spitting death from his bow straight into the Ghoul's pale, clammy side. Before it could recover Val hacked the ghoul's head off while the body still flailed harmlessly in the mud. Several more ghouls charged through the trees, eyes glowing blood red. Val and Thor charged at the advancing horde of hell-spawn. The ghouls wailed and screamed as they were torn down by the efficient warriors. Julius joined the fray tearing at the ghouls with his axe. Zanatos fought the ghouls advancing from the trees, his blade delicately weaving in and out of their bodies in lightning flashes while Arturo backed him up with his arrows. A few minutes later, the skirmish had come to an end and the ground was strewn with the battered and severed corpses of ghouls. Zanatos cleaned his sword with a piece of cloth and returned it to it's scabbard.
"Everyone ok?" asked Arturo, while retrieving arrows from the grimy bodies.
"No one's heart too badly lad. A few scratches but no ghoul poison said Val, enjoying yet another victory. Arturo checked the map, the mage had given him. Some blood had seeped through his clothing and the map was terribly stained. However it was still readable.
"We're surprisingly close to this temple according to this," said Arturo.
"Excellent! The sooner we get out of this place, the better!" moaned Thor. "Who knows what other evil lurks in this swamp!" The band set out, trudging silently in singly line through the dark swamps. The dead trees were becoming thicker as they advanced deeper into the swamps heart. They surrounded the men on all sides except forward and back and became so thick that they clawed at the warriors armour. Tripping over on the gnarled roots and splashing into the mud wasn't uncommon. Because of the thick blanket of trees, little moon light seeped through and the surface was bathed in shadows. Eventually however the mud became scarcer and scarcer and soon they mercenaries were walking on a normal ground , only with a thin layer of mud, a few centimetres thick.
"Are you sure we're going to this temple?" questioned Val, doubting Arturo's geographic skills. The young mercenary had only just recently joined the band after being rescued from a band of trolls.
"Well according to this map we should be there," answered Arturo, looking at the man with a sense of uncertainty.
Thor strode angrily to the front of the line and turned to Arturo while still walking backwards.
"Listen boy! I didn't come here for you to get us lost in these swamps! I'd rather have been quickly slaughtered by those ghouls rather than to spend days roaming endlessly!"
"Well we should be there-," Arturo's answer was cut short as all of a sudden the ground beneath Thor disappeared and the dwarf began falling. Arturo instinctively grabbed Thor's hand. Arturo caught a view of what had happened. Arturo hesitantly pulled the dwarf up and they all marvelled at the sight before them. The path and trees had ended in a sheer, straight 16 metres drop. They had entered a clearing it was an extremely large hole, 20 metres in diameter. The edges of the hole were all even and no slope to the bottom was present. The hole was surrounded by a wall of dead trees, the only entrance and exit being the small path in which the Black Souls had taken. The clearing was bathed in rich, golden light coming from the moon.
"Ah yes, that's right, the map says here that it's some sort of canyon or ravine or something," said Val looking over Arturo's shoulder, at the map. At the bottom of this hole lay a small temple (almost a shrine because of it's size). It was shaped as a cube, fashioned, completely out of creamy stone. Large obelisks stood at each corner of the cube each one an equal distance from the temple. The obelisks were coated in bold arcane scriptures that only the gods could hope to understand. A small stone entrance could just be seen at the base of the structure. There was a small grate on the roof of the temple and the golden moonlight spilled through the small opening, into the temples inner chambers.
"Well then gentleman, we're faced with the problem with getting down into that temple," laughed Thor, eagerly.
"Anyone got any rope?" asked Arturo.
"Yeh I've got plenty!" answered Val. "I've always carried some, knowing an occasion like this would arise."
"Well, lets get to work," said Zanatos.