#Lore24 – Entry #136 – Muckenmyre Month #15 – Into the Muckenmyre
From the journal of Takara, Slave Inquisitor of the Stellae Illustris, Town Marshal of Grimbridge.
Any scent trail that might have lingered was gone as we moved along the many marshy areas along the Crocodile Run, but Jessiryn seemed to know the area the bandits had described to us, keeping himself at the bow of the boat while Augra handled pushing us along with the long pole at the stern. The areas off the Way were full of life, and I saw plenty of the titular crocodiles as we went along. I did see a few indications of recent travel along the route, though I missed some that our keen-eyed rangers didn’t, usually scrapes along the many trees in the area or broken branches, even a few muddy footprints, perhaps where they had to kick off after their boats became stuck; the attack had come at night, and from the descriptions we had, most of the crew had been human. Plus, they were likely distracted by their new allies.
I’m not good with casual conversations, so I had made no efforts to strike nay up with our new companions, but thankfully Satella had no such reservations, and tried to learn as much as she could of Jessiryn and Augra while we traveled. I could tell some of her questions were refined from her interrogation training, but nobody else seemed to have picked up on it. Still, Augra would not speak, and I began to wonder if she couldn’t, only grunting or making gestures, while Jessiryn handled the lengthier explanations. Satella even had the town guards, Joeseph and Abdel, chatting before long.
Jessiryn had been part of the elvish army, tied to one of their Great Houses on this side of the world. Elves were far more uncommon around the Empire, something to do with the lingering taint from the damage caused by the Cataclysm we kerryn caused in ancient times that can physically affect them, as I’ve been told. He had been assigned to a scouting unit attached to a larger force that had bee set on reclaiming some wildland territory from the savage tribes of orcs, goblins, gnolls, and other ill-tempered humanoid races, but things had turned bad for them, the numbers they were facing much larger than they had counted on. His unit had been overwhelmed, and many of them captured with little hope of surviving the orcs. For whatever her reasons, Augra had saved him, initially claiming him as her prize for the night’s entertainments. While the rest of her tribe were enjoying their dark festivities, she and him had made their escape. They were both outcasts in some way or another, he tired of his people’s constant attempts at war, and her never truly fitting in amongst the orcs due to some amount of upbringing she had had amongst civilized people. She’s apparently quite the talker once you get to know her, though the scowl she shot at him upon saying that may indicate otherwise.
And so it was they had stuck together, living off the land and venturing wherever their whims took them, doing odd jobs here and there that made use of their skills, having come from the wildlands to the far northeast all the way to the swamps of the Muckenmyre. Jessiryn admitted that they cared little for bandits themselves, having dealt with their fair share of them over the last couple of years, usually in the very roles they were taking on now.
I was not entirely prepared for the questions that he asked of me, though, having thought I was perhaps beneath notice for the time being as I kept my senses trained on the swamps ahead of us. He said he could guess Satella’s nature by her holy symbol and garb but stated that I was something of a puzzle, unlike other kerryn he’d encountered, either in the cities or roaming the spaces in between them. I kept my explanations short, that I had been shipwrecked and wound up in Grimbridge, a slave of them Empire, now in a strange land. He could tell there were big gaps in my story, of course, for I made little effort to hide them, but he didn’t press me to tell what I truly was, perhaps sensing my discomfort with the subject.
It is something of a strange feeling to admit that I have grown disillusioned with my duties as a trainer of slaves, perhaps more so with my status as an inquisitor amongst them. Having tasted what it means to be free these past weeks…I am honestly surprised that my mind would begin to change so quickly. I still feel a great conflict within me…I still think often of my service to the Emperor and my duties within the Stellae Illustris, and wonder if I could honestly return to them now that I’ve tasted what it is like outside of his influence. Before, the Empire was my entire world, and I never questioned anything that I was told or that I did, for it was simply the way things were.
Now…now things have become greatly more complicated.
Our journey along the Crocodile Run lasted perhaps three or four hours, and as evening shadows began to lengthen, Jessiryn had us pull into a moss-shrouded cove and tie off the boat. Once we were ashore, he made a quick and crude map of the area ahead of us, with Augra grunting and making her own corrections when he had a detail wrong. We would likely start encountering bandit lookouts soon, for we were perhaps half a mile overland to their hideout, a particular area of the Muckenmyre where there was a decent amount of solid ground amongst the ruins of an ancient city that had not fully sank into the swamp, even a fairly well-preserved fortification known as Swamp Drake Hold. The bandits Satella and I had spoken to had mentioned old buildings and ancient walls but had said nothing of it being an ancient fortification.
Abdel said that he recalled hearing about the place a few times while growing up, said it had a bunch of dragon motifs about it, mostly worn down and hard to make out, but had never been there himself, though had a few cousins that had ventured out there a few times, though this was long before the bandits had apparently taken over. It had been some years since bandits had made themselves known this close to Grimbridge, so having a place like that to use as a base made sense.
We would need to survey the area first before we could make any sort of plans about how to proceed with capturing our quarry, so we set off, making use of what light we had left, with Augra and Jessiryn leading the way, me close behind them, while Satella and the town guards followed a a bit behind us. For all of her immense size, Augra moved through the overgrown swamp like a wraith, even managing to hide herself from me a few times as we went, even though I had her scent.
With darkness overtaking us, Jessiryn and I heard the first signs that we were upon the old fort, faint conversation ahead, though we had yet to spot any lookouts, and I smelled cooking boar meat on the breeze. Now things would get dangerous.