Harmony Session 9: The Girl in the Swamp
General Summary
When we last left our heroes, they had just emerged from an underground river overclogged with corrupted refuse and were immediately attacked. The creatures resembled small humanoids made entirely of vegetation and seemed to grow directly grom the strange spongy ground. Though weak, the phytozombies were resilient, especially when aided by the thorny vines that wrapped both Gorr and the embiggened Zoran up tightly. Gorr found himself on the front lines against these creatures and was soon overwhelmed. Thankfully, his friends were quick to respond and rescue him from a swampy end.
And not a moment too soon, either. The piles of vegetation that were the phytozombie corpses began to writhe and reassemble, once again seeming to grow from the living ground. Our heroes decided to take this opportunity to escape and climbed up the fleshy pillars holding up the thin mebranous ceiling. At the top, they were able to squeeze through a small gap and pull themselves up into the daylight.
An Unexpected Meeting
Nothing could have prepared our intrepid explorers for what they found above. Suspended in the middle of the clearing and seeming to grow from the very swamp itself was a massive half-flesh, half-swamp heart. It beat a ragged beat at the visitors, the pain of the effort obvious to even them. As if on queue, a half-dozen previously unseen phytozombies rose to stare at the interlopers menacingly, but they did not attack. A dangrous tension hung in the air as our heroes debated the next move. Battered and tired, fighting this thing and its minions was almost certain to end in wet death. So, Zoran took the opportunity to pull out his bone flute and play a little ditty. He barely began when a female voice called out unseen to demand the tresspassers identify themselves and drop their weapons. Gorr stepped forward and buried his twiggy little toes in the muck and let the swamp in. His awareness immediately blossomed and expanded. He felt the beat of the giant heart as if it were his own, felt the changing air pressure and humidity roll across the murky waters as if it were skin. He felt the presence of a human woman hiding high up in a tree with a bow aimed at him. After a bit of a back and forth, the woman identified herself as Lady Blight and informed them they were tresspassing on Lord Vine's lands. They were to leave immediately or suffer a painful end. The intriguing presence of Gorr and his insistence that they were there to help somehow convinced the woman to come into the clearing for formal introductions. Though she was disgusted to learn that a Second Expedition had come to Vardura, it seemed she needed help. She wasn't here to kill this gross heart, but cure it. Noting the party's success in destroying a sema den, she offered them a chance to help. Without hesitation, they accepted. Just then a large crashing was heard off in the distance, but coming quickly closer. Lady Blight said that Lord Vine was coming and they needed to leave or he would kill them all. She sped off into the swamp with our heroes trailing close behind.Broken Mirror
Lady Blight led our heroes to a swampy homestead tucked securely away in a magically-created grove of swamp trees. Inside, they found a neat garden, a small hut, and a bubbling cauldron of perpetual stew. Lady Blight quickly moved toward the hut, only stopping to pet a happily-wiggling but massive mound of swampy vegetation and bones. This was Whiskers, Lady Blight's guard dog. The interior of the hut was spare, with many items made from swangoskin and what looked like repurposed camping equipment. Lady Blight gave her visitors a long look, taking extra care to study the good Dr. Malachai. She then confronted the cornman, claiming that his presence violated some treaty. She was also confused at his size: apparently the maizegrown on Vardura were much smaller. When Malachai explained his deal, her demeanor grew grim and she kinda flipped out. It was here that our heroes realized that they were in the presence of a literal legend: Lady Blight was the girl who had gotten lost in Swango Swamp during the First Expedition. She was upset with Malachai because his existence stood as a twisted mockery of her decades-old trauma and abandonment. He had stolen her life. There was little our heroes could do as she got up and stormed off to leave them to find whatever rest they could.The Druid's Proposal
In the morning, Lady Blight once again met them in her kitchen, but was noticably calmer. She almost immediately apologized to Malachai, stating that she understood he had no control over what happened and that he didn't "steal her life" as she had claimed. She acknowledged that they likely had much in common, having both been denied a "normal" upbringing for another's desire for exploration and discovery. With that resolved, she proceeded to outline her plan for allowing these adventurers to prove themselves. Based on our heroes' previous success in the sunken lab, she believed that together they could successfully hunt down and destroy the sema dens she had tracked over the years. The closest was just over a day's march south in an old flail snail lair. Though they were eager to agree, Gorr decided to share his strange dream and the belief that finding the white flowers was key to the swamp's recovery. Lady Blight hastily dismissed this idea as foolish and ended the conversation. She was set on her plan.An Overdue Conversation
With the crew in agreement, Lady Blight allowed them to ask her a bunch of questions about her time on Vardura. She explained that she had been abandoned long before she ran off into the swamp. Her scholar parents had become enarmored with the volcano cult of the First Expedition and completely forgot her. She claimed that running away was a desperate attempt for attention, but this had been really strange. She had always been a practical child. She claimed that it felt like she had been drawn into the swamp, called even. It was not unlike Zoran's experience with his flute and the song. She soon became lost, but was rescued by the swampkin that inhabited the area. Maybe he took pity on her, but he started to care for her. He brought her food, led her to shelters, and protected her from danger. The swampkin even guarded the girl against the monstrous violence that erupted that fateful night 30 years ago. Over the next few years, the swampkin taught her magic and when the sema came, she played a vital role in the defense of the swamp. She named herself Lady Blight and her companion Lord Vine. Together, they fought a years' long campaign against the sema, but it was a losing battle. The corruption the creatures poured into the land began to affect Lord Vine and he started to become uncontrollably violent. Eventually, his rage overcame his control and he attacked Lady Blight. She escaped, but since then, she has avoided Lord Vine as much as possible while still trying to protect the swamp and its heart from the vicious sema. With their curiosity temporarily sated, Lady Blight tossed each of them a swangoskin of perpetual stew and led them into the swamp.Too Quiet
The day's travel passed without incident, but this did little to calm Lady Blight's nerves. Normally, this area of the swamp was full of sema happy to attack anything that breathed. Their absence was... concerning. The party got a fitful night's sleep, with Gorr even receiving another dream. This time, he saw through a being's eyes as it carried something precious and delicate in its arms. Gorr's dream image then kneeled down and placed a single white flower growing from a loose clump of soil onto the swampy loam. Gorr's dream reached out with swampkin arms and pushed the flower deep beneath the muck. Relief, resolve, and sorrow flooded Gorr, having finished a dire task. Before he woke, Gorr was shown where this "planting" had occurred: in a clearing near where Swango Swamp met the rocky slopes of a mountain, hidden between two huge swango trees. Once again, Gorr shared this dream with his friends and Lady Blight, but she shut him down again, saying that nothing like that existed and they should stick to the plan. She did not believe that the swamp was speaking to Gorr through his dreams. Zoran seemed to agree with her, telling Gorr he needed to improve his bedroom routine. The swampkin then accused Zoran of having an underdeveloped personality. Jesus. Still though, our heroes resolved to follow her. She nervously navigated the growing number of huge piles of corrupted sema refuse. Eventually, flickering lights could be seen in the haze of the swamp and the temperature increased. The lights soon turned into brief jets of flame that spouted from the swamp's popping bubbles. They came to a slight rise and Lady Blight signaled for them to hunker down. She told them the den was just over the next ridge, but when she rose to lead them in, she stopped short in surprise. It was not sema that awaited them but a walk of flail snails sliding about the entrance to their very not-sema-infested lair, their flaming appendages flailing around in warning.Rewards Granted
- Swangoskin canteens for all!
- Lady Blight's hospitality
Created Content
- When performing for the Heart of the Swamp, Zoran played an old lullaby he somehow remembered, but did not feel the same musical connection from before.
- Inspired by the beautiful exigency of their current situation, Azarki made an offering to Kharlo Chondricht of his foot callouses and thanked him for his guidance. When he awoke in the morning, a voice rang through his head: "Aw mate, it's more you guiding me!"
- Zoran had a very fun wrestle with Whiskers that garnered him quite a bit of good will with the creature and its master, but spent it all when he thoroughly embarassed himself trying to talk to Lady Blight while on the road.
Notes
- When Azarki healed Gorr in the fight beneath the Heart, the swampkin felt a flash of furious rage at being pulled back from his blissful unconsciousness in the swamp.
- Moving with Lady Blight through Swango Swamp was much faster than usual as she seemed to flow along unseen "currents" in the swamp water.
- Malachai tried to drop a couple of kernels in Lady Blight's garden, but they dissolved as soon as they hit the soil. Additionally, when planting for his daily sustenance, he couldn't help but shake the feeling that he wasn't wanted there. Lady Blight informed him this was due to a treaty signed between the maizegrown and Lord Vine that kept them from the Swamp in exchange for all the Spooky Water they wanted. Apparently, they have funnelled it all out east, but the source is somewhere upriver.
- Gorr believes that Swango Swamp is trying to communicate with him through his dreams. Most natably, Gorr was shown a vision of the swamp being built over with a city hundreds of years ago and felt the swamp's rage and fear at this atrocity. He also noticed a white flowering vine that had shared a symbiotic relationship with the swamp, but was now completely gone. Gorr believes finding this flower is key to healing Swango Swamp.
Report Date
22 Aug 2024
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