Session 35: Tower Power

Low sun gilded the rag-brown waters of Blackroot Bog as the companions reached the knoll—one of the few dry humps in a country that seemed determined to drown itself. Two tattered tents sagged there like ruptured bladders. Wind hissed across the reeds, carrying the sweetness of rot and the faint clink of unseen bones.

Thalmiir Brukur, iron-shod boots squelching, speared a pole through the torn canvas of the nearest ruin. Pebblesong watched the old dwarf’s shoulders tense; on the other side of the cloth something heavy shifted wetly. A breath later the barbarian tore the flap wide, and dusk poured over the carnage within. Two bodies—what remained of them—lay entangled in mildew-stained bedrolls. Ravaged throats gaped like dark blossoms; one corpse was missing half a leg.

Bartholemeow’s striped tail bristled. “Ghasts,” the shapeshifter rasped, voice incongruously low for a creature no larger than a housecat. His quick eyes mapped the claw marks scoring the canvas, the drag-slicks in the mud. Waer’dara’s midnight gaze lingered on those slashes, her imagination feeding the silence with skittering shapes.

Bhakris Edge murmured a warrior’s prayer and knelt among the dead. When the human’s rag-covered foot twitched—an obscene, lingering spark of undeath—Pebblesong flicked a mote of starlight. The corpse’s ruined limb vaporised in a hiss of silver fire. The druid exhaled; the twitching ceased.

They searched the litter of belongings with solemn practicality. A chain shirt, small enough for the feline bard; a seaworn cloak stitched with subtle, leaf-like filigree; a plain short-sword and quarterstaff; and, folded in oilskin, a fading parchment inked with a route through the bog. Thalmiir’s craggy face cracked with surprise when Pebblesong’s spell revealed gentle auras around cloak, mail, and map alike. Yet when the barbarian shrugged the cloak across his broad shoulders the magic guttered, indifferent. Grimacing, he pressed the mantle into Pebblesong’s hands. “If steel won’t guard ye, lass, may shadow serve.”

Bartholemeow, meanwhile, preened beneath his newfound armour—metal links whispering as he padded. His purr faltered only when Hat, eyes bright with acquisitive mischief, produced the sheaf of vellum. By lantern glow they traced its inked path: six campsites stitched north-to-south across the morass, a pencilled detour skirting a tower sketched in hurried lines. Someone—perhaps the dead—had feared that spire enough to veer days out of the way…and still perished here.

Night claimed the bog. Bhakris insisted on rites; wood was scarce, but tent-poles and canvas, soaked in lamp-oil, made a humble pyre. Pebblesong called clean water from thin air to douse the tainted ground, and Waer’dara threaded silver-black smoke into a spiralling sigil for the Spider Queen. As sparks drifted skyward, Thalmiir hammered pots and pans into a dangling barricade—an orcish door chime to warn of shamblers. They set watches and tried, each in turn, to ignore the stink of roasting sinew.

Mid-watch, Pebblesong tested her gifted cloak. One moment she stood beside the dying coals; the next she was simply gone, winking between reed-shadows. Bartholemeow chuffed admiration, but Thalmiir only grunted, stabbing the darkness with his axe’s butt until the dwarfling re-emerged, grinning behind him.

The final watch fell to Bhakris and Waer’dara, yet the deep hours were restless for all. Those who slept found themselves trudging through the bog anew—yet drier, stranger. A manor loomed ahead, shifting between tower, steeple, and bastion as though memory itself warped. On its threshold waited a figure cast entirely in back-lit shadow. Its voice seeped from darkness like oil:

You have come farther than most, bearing such curious trinkets. I thought to feast upon you…but curiosity stays my hunger. Let us see how you fare.

The dreamers tried to answer; no words formed. The figure’s shadow stretched, a maw of night swallowing sky and swamp alike. Pebblesong wrenched awake, heart battering her ribs. Around her Hat, Bartholemeow, and Thalmiir writhed, faces pale beneath sweat. Dawn found them hollow-eyed, limbs leaden with a weariness sleep had failed to mend.

Yet resolve rose with the sun. “Whatever haunts that tower spoke to us,” Pebblesong whispered, recounting the dream. “If we flee, it will hunt another. Better we bring the fight to its doorstep.”

Thalmiir spat into the peat. “Aye. And if it preys on the living, then steel and stone will answer.”

They tallied rations—some salvaged from the fallen, others conjured as bright red goodberries—and filled skins with druid-wrought water. Then, weapons ready, they set their boots upon the route inked decades before.

Morning haze clung to their ankles. Wagon ruts soon cut across their path, furrows deep enough to drown a child. Thalmiir knelt, reading the earth. Shod hooves—two, maybe four—had dragged the cart north-east, but its course bent westward, away from their map’s line. Judgement flickered behind the dwarf’s eyes; he led them along the hardened track while it served, then veered back toward the hidden campsite once the ruts strayed.

The bog changed. Vines draped from crooked cedars, and thorny runners knotted the ground in mats thick as ship’s rope. Progress slowed to a crawl. Bhakris hacked a path, each swing of his greatsword severing ropes of greenery that bled bitter sap. Pebblesong, seeing the smaller folk flounder, twisted flesh to magic—becoming a broad-backed bay horse. Hat and Waer’dara clambered onto her with delighted shrieks, but druidic hooves proved no match for the bog’s cunning. Vines writhed, tangling fetlocks; Pebble-horse stumbled, nearly pitching her riders into the muck.

Bartholemeow darted ahead, claws flashing, slicing creepers like silken thread. Yet even feline grace found no purchase when the ground itself shifted, and the bard vanished chest-deep in black water. Thalmiir hauled him free, the dwarf’s scarred arms trembling under mail and fatigue.

After two hours of grueling labour they burst from the strangling thicket onto firmer peat. Breath steamed. Muscles quivered. Behind them, the shredded vine-wall knitted shadows over their retreat—as though the bog begrudged every step they’d stolen.

Seven sluggish ripples spread across the stagnant pool flanking their new camp—a silent counting of unseen pursuers. Pebblesong’s cloak stirred, responding to some distant eddy of darkness. Bhakris planted his sword point-first, gaze fixed on the north where a lone crow wheeled above treeline.

“Whatever waits within that tower,” the paladin said, “knows we’re coming.”

Thalmiir rolled his shoulders, lifting his axe despite the tremor in his arms. “Good,” he growled. “Let it set the table. We’ll carve the meat.”

The bog sighed around them—vast, ancient, and watching—as the companions caught their breath and tightened the knots of courage that would have to last until nightfall…and beyond.