In which the survivor tells her tale

I write this as we snatch a few minutes rest following a very fierce fight with the gnolls. Zeni is moving from person to person, patching up wounds with the deft application of her healer’s kit, and we all are taking stock of what has happened, each in their own way.
 
It was a bad business, very bad. At least half a dozen gnolls are dead, maybe more than that, along with three of the four captives they had been transporting. The members of our adventuring party are alive, at least, but almost everyone is injured.
 
I have spoken with Jenna, the sole survivor (beyond ourselves), and what she told us makes me think that this fight could have been avoided, had we been more circumspect. These gnolls, it seems, were members of the Moonsteeth, the bandit group which we had heard mention of back in Drynna. They apparently have some dispute with Jenna’s village (this settlement is a strange tale in itself, which I will tell more fully below), and had taken these four prisoner having discovered them gathering foodstuffs and herbs in the swamplands. For reasons Jenna did not know, they had not been killed on the spot, or indeed harmed at all yet as far as I could see, and were being taken on somewhere else.
 
We could have bargained with them and quite likely secured the lives and freedom of all four villagers. The lack of a common language would have been a barrier, it’s true, but Raphael in particular has an easy manner that is eloquent even without speech. I think that he and I could have forestalled the combat long enough for a rough parley to take place, had others held their fire. These Moonsteeth are opportunists, by their report, and I don’t think that they would have chosen to do battle with us lightly, armed as we are. Besides which, we are carrying a good deal of coin following the discoveries in the caves, which could have been used to grease the wheels of amity. A combination of threats and bribes, skillfully delivered by tone and gesture, would surely have gone a long way to reaching an agreement without bloodshed. We should at least have tried. But we did not, we rushed to battle, and now the ground is soaked with blood. Perhaps that is justice for the gnolls, if they have truly lived lives of outlawry and violence, but justice purchased with the blood of innocents comes at much too high a cost.
 
Once the fighting started, Raphael tried to get the common folk away to safety, but they hesitated to trust themselves to his call (understandably, the whole situation must have been very frightening and disorienting). Seeing that, and that Sabali was also fighting alone in the same area, I made myself as visible as possible and got into the midst of the gnoll guards, offering myself as hopefully a more enticing target, while calling out to the villagers to flee to where Rapahel had indicated, so that he could shelter them. I found out later that only Jenna made it out, but even that one life saved is a grace for which I offer my heartfelt prayer of thanks.
 
To be honest with you, when I entered the melee I didn’t think that I would be walking away from it - there were a good number of them, and they were well armed and experienced fighters, backed by archers stationed on the ruined walls round about. My only plan was to hold their attention long enough to provide an adequate distraction, but, somehow, thanks to Arin, I am still here to make my report, as are we all. This is a dark day, but without Ioun’s blessing it would surely be darker yet.
 
The surviving villager, Jenna, is a doughty young woman who is coping with the situation better than perhaps might have been expected. I would guess that living in the rootgarden requires fairly strong nerves at the best of times, and she and her companions must have been aware of the dangers of wandering beyond the limits of their settlement. She is deeply distressed, of course, but bearing up well, given the circumstances.
 
What she told us about her settlement was both strange and troubling. It is a tiny community deep in the rootgarden - only a couple of hours walk from our present location. It was established some nine or ten moons ago by a woman named Berithia, who seems to have gathered a little group of people around her and convinced them to make a home out here. She must have a silver tongue indeed to draw folk here, given the reputation of this place, and it’s many dangers, but by Jenna’s account their little hamlet is a happy one and people do not generally regret the choice. It is home to perhaps two dozen people, so she says, and includes children among the number.
 
I asked her about the disease that Drynna has suffered, and whether they had experienced anything similar, but she said that they had not. That surprised me, given how close their contact with the swamp water must be, but what she said next was much more disturbing. Over the past few weeks they have experienced a number of unexpected and unexplained deaths - Jenna thought perhaps three (the fact that she could not remember exactly was strange, but I guess she was still very traumatised) - people who have died suddenly in their sleep with no other signs of illness. In a community of two dozen people, that three healthy individuals might die of natural causes in this way is beyond credence. Something is amiss there, perhaps another unknown disease, perhaps something more sinister. Not wanting to frighten Jenna, I did not press her for any further details at this point.
 
I did, however, ask her what her people would want done with the bodies of their fallen comrades, so that we could honour these dead in the manner they would have wished. She said that bodies in the village were normally offered to the swamp, as part of the ‘circle of life’. That in itself is not so strange, and indeed makes good sense here, where wood for cremation would be hard to come by, and solid ground for a lasting burial even more so, but nonetheless, it rang some warning bells for me. It means that, most likely, no one knows what has become of the bodies of those who have unexpectedly died. If someone is up to no good, then that could be a bad sign. I am probably just being overly suspicious, but, although Jenna herself seems honest, her tale raises more questions than it answers.
 
I don’t know the names of the gnolls, but the villagers who have died are Phillip, Yohanna and Dundar. All sons and daughters, perhaps husbands, wives, mothers and fathers. Each one a loss beyond reckoning. Before we leave I will say prayers for their peaceful passage through the Raven Queen’s realm, and Jenna will collect any personal trinkets which their loved ones would want to keep. Once that is done we will give the dead to the swamp, allowing them renewal, as is their custom.
 
Jenna has invited us to journey with her to her settlement, and I think that we should see her safe home, and perhaps find out more about this mysterious Berithia, and the run of bad luck her folk seem to have suffered of late.