The Magic Goes Away · Campaign Chronicle
Day 2
The Marsh of Forgotten Trials
A drowned proving ground tests strength, aim, balance and voice before the survivors turn towards a tower sealed behind living thorns.
- Party
- Asuran · Halen · Karl · Toby
- Route
- Dwarven Tunnels → Forgotten Marsh → Thorn Hedge
- Encounters
- Giant Crocodile · Four Trials · Restless Spirits
← Day 1: The Fall of the Safehold
The drowned road
Into the Marsh
The air shifted from stone-cool to swamp-heavy as the tunnels ended. Ahead lay a steaming mire of black water and hanging moss, alive with the endless hum of biting flies. Through the mist loomed a tower surrounded by a thick hedge of living thorns, its branches moving faintly like sinew.
Ancient causeways crossed the mire—too straight and too carefully formed to be natural.
Toby narrowed his eyes. “This place wasn’t made by chance.”
Karl nodded. “Once holy. Now forgotten.”
Asuran sniffed the air. “If holiness smells like rot, I’ll stay godless, thanks.”
By noon the insects had become maddening. Asuran disappeared into the reeds and returned carrying broad leaves and oil-rich roots. Using the edge of his dagger, he crushed them into a foul green paste.
“Rub it along your neck and wrists,” he instructed. “Stinks like sin, but the flies will look elsewhere.”
“Alchemy?” Karl asked.
“Necessity,” Asuran replied, sealing several spare vials.
The black pool
The Crocodile
The first black pool was perfectly circular and perfectly still. A sickly green light glimmered beneath its surface like a lantern submerged in deep water.
Asuran leaned closer. “No frogs, no ripples, no honesty.”
The reflection blinked.
The water exploded. A crocodile the size of a horse burst from the pool with its jaws spread wide. Karl met it with his shield and Halen with his greatsword. Toby’s arrow glanced from its hide while Asuran slipped under its reach and drove a dagger into the softer scales beneath its jaw.
Halen brought his blade down with a roar, splitting through skull, bone and sinew. The swamp became quiet again.
Karl wiped his face. “If that’s what hunts by day—”
“—then the night’s already taken a number,” Asuran finished.
Strength, aim, balance
The First Three Trials
A circular platform rose above the water, its rim carved with clenched fists. A red-furred monkey perched above it, screeching and pointing between Halen and Karl. The two climbed onto the platform and grappled. Karl fought with precision; Halen answered with raw force. At last Halen lifted Karl bodily and hurled him into the swamp.
The delighted monkey pelted Karl with mud and tossed a golden belt to Halen.
“Proof that faith can fly,” Halen laughed.
Karl spat out mud. “So can heresy.”
The next clearing held rotted shields, gourds and skulls suspended from vines. Toby struck a swinging skull cleanly. Asuran followed, sending his arrow through Toby’s shaft and pinning both to the same target. The monkey rewarded him with a finely made silver-fletched arrow.
A rotting plank bridge supplied the third test. Halen nearly fell; Karl crossed with care; Asuran moved lightly. Toby, however, never wavered. The monkey wrapped reeds around his ankles—the Sandals of Sure Step—before vanishing into the fog.
The final trial
The Trial of Voice
Standing stones rose from the next clearing, their surfaces carved with worn runes. The air vibrated as though the marsh itself were waiting. The monkey perched on the tallest stone, fell silent and pointed towards its mouth.
Karl removed his helm and stepped forward. “Not a contest of strength,” he said. “Of faith.”
“By storm and scar, by heart made steel,
By thunder’s grace, our fates are real.
No chain nor fear shall bend the cord,
For we are strength, and strength is Kord.”
The stones thrummed. A faint light moved through the clouds. When the echoes faded, Karl’s voice carried a new depth and resonance, like distant thunder beneath every word. The change was not a trinket or visible object; something within him had been altered.
Asuran whistled softly. “Well. Someone found their sermon voice.”
Halen grunted. “So long as he doesn’t make you sing again.”
The storm’s answer
The Statue and the Spear
Beyond the stones stood a colossal statue, half swallowed by the swamp. One arm reached skyward; the other extended an open hand. Lightning scars crossed its surface.
Karl studied it. The trials had been different paths through the same proving ground: strength, skill, balance and voice. Only now did their purpose become clear.
Thunder cracked overhead. The water at the statue’s base reflected the stormlight. Halen strode into the muck and pulled free a bronze spear as lightning crossed the sky. Ozone filled the clearing.
Karl bowed his head. “The storm blesses through action, not prayer.”
Halen grinned. “Then he’s finally met his kind.”
Thunder rolled across the marsh like laughter.
Before nightfall
The Hedge and the Tower
As the stormlight faded, the swamp became unnaturally still. Cold mist thickened around the causeways. Karl warned that incorporeal spirits lingered nearby—enemies the party could neither cut with ordinary blades nor drive away through prayers that no longer answered.
No one argued when Asuran insisted they move before dark.
They stopped briefly on higher ground. Asuran reapplied his salve, Karl’s altered voice sounded deeper even in conversation, and Halen rested the new spear across his knees while lightning faded over the horizon.
The day was not finished. Following the causeways, they approached the distant tower and the living hedge surrounding it. They carried a ladder and a simple purpose:
Scale the thorns and find a way inside.