Saturday, September 21, 2019

Master of Strings Ch99: The Unseelie Swamp

Zilo, Tess, and their little sprite guide pushed to the east of the forest deeper into unknown territory. Night had reached it's peak with silver rays of light slipping through the above forest tree barrier. As they advanced their way forward, the trees slowly had their bark darken and the leaves above turned much more dense.

Zilo glanced about and spoke to the sprite, "So those... Quicklings they're called? They live around here?"

The sprite continued to flutter along, but spin about to fly backwards and address Zilo, "No. The quicklings might be fey, but they have no allegiance, they scatter about and live in all places of the forest. Neither the Seelie or Unseelie court will suffer their presence for long. That said when either court deems so, they'll call on them for a task that their speed equips them for."

Tess moves forward in the marching line to address the sprite closer, "Wait, then where are you taking us if they live all over?"

The sprite indignantly places his hands on his hips and continued, "Well like I JUST said, the two courts hire them to do stuff, otherwise they just kill intruders and take their stuff on the spot. Since they didn't kill your friend and-"

Zilo finishes, "and Sayulati didn't hire them, then these... Unseelie must have. So you're taking us to their court." The Sprite nods with a grin as Zilo finishes his train of thought. Zilo puts his hand to his chin and says, "by the way, you folk have been going on and on about Seelie and Unseelie, what exactly does that mean?"

The Sprite slaps his forehead in disappointment and says, "And here I was almost proud of you. Who in Mab's name walks into fey lands without knowing about the fey courts!?" Zilo blushes as Tess places a hand to his shoulder and speaks, "It was an accident you little squirt! Zilo, think of it like how elves and drow do stuff. The Seelie are the mischievous good fey led by Titania, and the Unseelie are the evil sneaky fey led by Mab."

"Oh, got it, well why do the Unseelie want Zatrian?"

"That would be a question for them." Says the sprite holding out his hand for them to stop. Past the few trees in front of them there is a noxious odor that wafts toward them of rotting plants and wildlife. The treeline split into a clearing with a some sort of  giant swamp spanning a few hundred meters around. The moonlight covered the surface of the water to show some sort of creatures rumbling around just under the surface of the mud.

The sprite speaks, "This is as far as I can take you, I wish you luck in finding your friend."

Tess and Zilo give the little guide a quick nod as it flew back the way they came from. The two move to some of the trees to hide themselves as they look to the movement in the liquid-like mud. They scan the surface before Tess suddenly and sharply gasps. Zilo looks to her and she points to the middle of the swamp.

There on the surface of the swamp faces toward the night sky is a face, with it's eyes closed and a pained expression upon it. After looking a bit longer, the face looked to be that of Zatrian, trapped by the mud all around him and with whatever is moving below the surface of swamp between them and him.

Zilo breaths deeply and forms Harmony into it's longbow form. At the same time, Tess takes out her blade staff and begins to shift her skin and eyes to that of a copper dragon. Once both have prepared themselves they shot out from around the trees and made their way to the edge of the swamp.

Tess speeds ahead as Zilo sets up at the edge and aims his bow around her. Tess leapt from solid rock to rock to avoid getting stuck in the mud. Suddenly a child sized creature erupts from the mud and right toward the charging elf. The creature was covered in matted muddy fur and had a long ugly face, as well as lanky arms ending in sharp claws. Among the fey this being was known as a boggart.

As the little monster flew toward Tess it is struck out of the air by the silvered shaft of Zilo's bow. Tess continued hopping forward with more and more boggarts leaping toward her. Zilo shot down as many as he could, but as Tess got farther away he began to miss some of the shots. Luckily Tess was more the swift enough to slash them from the air with her blade.

Tess steadily advanced with Zilo covering her, but as she hopped to a new rock, a boggart laid in wait next to it, and as she landed it swiped up at her calf and despite it's small size managed to sweep her off the surface of the rock and into the muddle swamp. Zilo lurched forward trying to see what was happening as bubbles popped on the surface where Tess had been dragged.

The boggarts began to split off, now, half making their way to Tess and the other half making their way to the shore where Zilo was. The bard tried to fire some arrows below the surface and stop them, but without a direct target he missed all but 2 of them.

The bard reverted his bow back to it's musical form and played two quick strums on his violin, casting Cat's Grace followed right away by Bull's Strength. After that he retrieved his new Songsword into his right hand and rose aloft his buckler.

6 of the little beasts shot out of the edge of the swamp at the fetchling at the same time. Zilo swung his blade with an immense amount of magically powered force and accuracy and cleaved one of them in 2, and as another drew close he cracked his buckler into it and batted it away from him. The other four he had no answer for, and was forced to hop back and hope they were scared from his assault.

The 4 did not scare easily and advanced flanking the bard on all sides. He managed to stave off two of them with his sword and shield, but the other two leapt in and with their claws they slashed at Zilo's chest and his left thigh.

Zilo grimaced from the attack, and knelt down, but he then tried to strike back and cut down the ones he could reach. He felt the blade in his hand willing him to move faster and faster with magical speed as he swung, making his cuts fast enough for the boggarts to lose any chance of reacting. With 3 back to back slashes his mad mince meat out of 2 of the boggarts that made the mistake of striking him, but the other two backed away after seeing this.

The boggart Zilo had knocked away finally got back up and charged at the bard, not having seen it's allies get diced up. Zilo once gain was clawed in his shoulder before flicking the blade around and cutting off the fey's head as it stood behind him. The two fey in front of the bard looked full of fear now, but Zilo needed them to begone so he could move to help Tess. He flicked his sword forward and reached to his hip.

Zilo reach down to his side as he pointed his blade forward, and in a flash his scorpion whip lashed out and grabbed one of the boggarts and yanked it off it's feet toward Zilo. The bard spurred on by his new blade's speed, thrust his blade and pierced the little annoyance. The last boggart used a bit of it's fey magic to become invisible and fled into the treeline, never to be seen again by the bard that night.

Zilo looked back to see if Tess was alright and he saw that she had managed to fight off the boggarts on her, only taking a few claw marks, but nothing fatal a she continued to make her way frantically toward Zatrian. The boggarts behind her didn't look to be chasing her out of angry though, they looked distraught and full of fear, like the last one Zilo had scared off.

Tess reached her submerged companion and with one lift of her draconic strength the elf was free and spooked awake. The boggarts behind the elves stopped in their tracks and began making their way back into the water. They looked to be fleeing for some reason.

Zatrian's eyes were wide with horror as he looked to Tess then back to where he was trapped. He looked back to Tess and spoke, "We must leave immediately, befor-"

As the words left his mouth the entirety of the swamp lurched up for a moment, then collapsed back down, with the surface of water lowering about a meter or so from where it was moments ago, showing more rocks than previously.

Zatrian looked down at the water and in a fearful voice whispered, "She's coming."

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