As happens every once in a while, stablemaster Phaedrus can be seen in the company of raincrow. raincrow, an elf by nurture, something undescribable by nature, always seems a bit uneasy in the open street, as can be seen by his eyes as they search over every bit of terrain continually as he walks. Phaedrus, on the other hand, looks quite at ease, as if he knows just what everything is all about anyway. One day Phaedrus and raincrow were discussing one of the topics they sometimes discuss, mainly, the best way to make nets. Should one use plants, seaweed, or stewed goblin tongue tissue? raincrow had the feeling that stewed tongue tissue would work best, while Phaedrus insisted it was plant parts. So, the two of them decided to test to make sure. Only one or two problems remained. One, the plants Phaedrus needed were in the swamp, and two, no one seemed to have any goblin tongues about. They decided that the test would have to go on, so they made ready for a quest out into the swamp. Luckily it is rumored that there is a goblin city to the west of the swamp, so they could basically make one trip and kill two birds. Or throw one stone into two trips. Anyway, they made preparations and left on a bright Edgekeep day, the sun shining brightly in a sky that had seen it's share of things that Phaedrus and raincrow would do to win a bet... So the day came and they went out, those in the Twisted Dagger joking about what might happen. Would the swamp drain, or would the two come back running quickly into Edgekeep, explaining to the guards that closing the gates would be a jolly idea, and then watching as a goblin horde scrambles out of the swamp armed to the teeth? The two left in high spirits, both knowing that they couldn't lose. raincrow with his bow and quiver, all gray as his apparel, and Phaedrus, in brown, carrying no apparent weapon save a medium sized sword at his waist. "Eh, Phaedrus, I don't see why you even go out on this bet!" exclaims raincrow. "I mean, everyone knows, except perhaps you, that goblin tongues make the best nets." Phaedrus looks at the sky in a way like, "Why can't you tell him anything??" and says to raincrow, <> raincrow says, "But that's why they make the best nets!! Can't you see?" Phaedrus slumps his shoulders and they continue on. After entering the swamp the going gets a bit more tricky. They have need to find any and all somewhat solid place to walk upon for one false step could put someone in up over their heads, literally. The day wears on and nothing of importance happens until raincrow says, "Uh, Phaedrus? I certainly know that thing is not one of my illusions... is it one of yours?" Phaedrus turns slowly to look at a grotesque swamp monster rising behind him. The thing seems to rise out of the murk like animated murk, and then huge eyes opened. Eyes more than two, though, and when the eyes are finished opening there stared no less than 14 pulsating eyeballs. Two close quickly as raincrow shoots them with his arrows, but the swamp thing is not injured in the least, or so it seems. Phaedrus backs away very quickly and moves his hand. Tendrils of more animated swamp rise about the thing and enclose it like a cage. The thing makes no noise, but seems to be quite disgruntled by the situation and begins gnawing at the cage with what can only be murky swamp like teeth. Phaedrus and raincrow take the moment of opportunity to escape the nasty thing. Stay Tuned For Part 2We left our adventuring duo to escape the swamp monster, which currently is thrashing about trying to get out of a living cage of swamp matter animated by Phaedrus. Raincrow mumbles constantly about hating things slimier than ale ooze, which almost everything in the swamp is... ............. With the sounds of a swamp beast thrashing in much receding behind their travels, Phaedrus begins to become aware that the plants he seeks are slowly showing up. After a bit more travel, he finds a patch of them, and caringly digs up three plants. Raincrow says, "Only three plants? You can't make a full net out of only three plants." Phaedrus says, <> and proceeds to ignore raincrow. Raincrow shrugs, and then begins in earnest to make the goal of his quest. No one can get through the forest in one day by walking from one side to the other, and this includes raincrow and Phaedrus. Having agreed not to use any alternate forms of transportation, they make camp for the night on a rotting stump that protrudes a good 5 feet from the roiling swamp surface. Besides being attacked by another swamp monster and a horde of pigeon sized mosquitoes and a three legged swamp sucker and no less than a score flying brain yankers, nothing happens during the night. Morning eventually happens, as it usually does, and the two take down camp (takes approxiametly 20 seconds for them to do so) and begin their travels anew. They trudge through the boot sucking ooze like ants through peanut butter and find a bit of high ground that has escaped the ooze and muck of the swamp. Upon it there is a tree and Phaedrus nods to the tree, explaining to raincrow that the tree is the heart of the swamp and it's always best to be nice and cordial to the hearts of power. Raincrow agrees and promises not to let any dog run loose in this part of the swamp. They leave this bit of tranquility and enter the buzzing atmosphere of the swamp, warding off biting hordes of swamp wasps and creepy crawlers of such nightmarish quantities that one would think they multiply for years just waiting for the occasional traveler. Traveling through this bit of madness makes one wonder just how important is this bet? These two, Phaedrus and raincrow, are easily the best at what they do. Nearly legends in their own time, hotshot adventurers who boast about killing dragons and similar exploits grow silent as these two walk into a bar or pub. Fathers tell their children that if they want to be like raincrow they've got to eat their greens, and mothers tell their children that if they want to be like Phaedrus must do what they are told because that's what Phaedrus did when he was a child. None of this crosses the minds of these two men as they go through the swamp, though, they are simply annoyed by the amount of bugs. Finally they can travel no longer as it is getting dark. Finding another stump, they camp for the night, experiencing only the occasional swamp marauder. ................... Surprising them with its punctuality, morning shows up right on schedule and they begin another day's trek which should, if no mishap arrives, take them to the edge of the swamp where it is rumored a goblin town awaits. Raincrow looks eager as he walks, the smell of goblin blood in the air, the sound as his arrows whistle to their mark. Phaedrus doesn't look so happy to be going to a goblin city. He has what he wants, but will accompany raincrow to his destination if not only to heal him when the goblins decide he's taken enough of their tongues and decide to return the favor. Toward midday the ground gets harder and toward a bit after midday, the swamp turns into low deciduous woods. There is the smell of smoke in the air, and cooking, and stink as if from dung piles. Phaedrus and raincrow travel slowly and carefully, each of them almost invisible in their surroundings due to their skill and various abilities to not be seen. A little while later they see the goblin town. It is walled with cut trees, and on the wall stand three guards. They are quite unattentive, and as two watch one guard fall they laugh at his mistake. Then they notice raincrow as he aims, and make to sound an alarm. Raincrow fires an arrow and then so swiftly does he nock and fire another, the first arrow hadn't even made it's mark when the next was off. As the guards fall, one helmet comes off in the air, falling directly toward a large flat rock. Suddenly vines envelope the rock and the helmet lands softly making no noise. Phaedrus and raincrow hide the bodies and then skulk to the wall, which suddenly melts into a doorway, and enter. The wall then seemingly by itself repairs the hole... Stay Tuned for Part 3 We last left our adventurers skulking around the wooden wall of a goblin town. Made from the wood of the small tree forest surrounding it, the wall is not very sturdy, but that doesn't matter for they had found a different way through the wall. .................. They enter inside a compound structure, and it is dark. An eire red glow lightens things up a bit as Phaedrus unsheathes a red glowing sword and holds it in front of their path. In a corner of the room is a bed with a goblin snoring that disgusting snore of a goblin. Kind of a mix between gargling bat snot and choking on old vomit. Raincrow whispers, "What the heck..." and quickly slits the goblin's neck, then severs the tongue and puts it into a small black bag. Phaedrus shakes his head almost sadly, but not quite, and the two skulk over to the door and scan the surroundings. Inside the town, which was once a human inhabited town (rumors have it that the humans are being breeded for food. Goblins like human infant soup.|), the buildings fall slowly into ruin. Some walls are rotted out and fallen into the streets. Goblins cavort in goblin-like manners all around, like rats in a sewer. "Place smells like a sewer..." comments raincrow. Phaedrus looks slightly annoyed to be here and says, "Will you get on with it? I don't have all month to do this. I've got things that I need to do rather than watch you blindly slaughte-" He is interrupted by a small hand axe that is hurled his way. Both raincrow and Phaedrus seemed to have forgotten just where they were, and standing outside the door of the king's closest nephew, they drew undo attention. "What're you doin' here, you human scum? You got to go back to da cages." says a fat little goblin waddlin up to them. Evidently the goblins do not get much exercise with no rivalries, so have grown fat, or at least the leaders have. Raincrow flicks his wrist and the goblin leader falls with a knife imbedded in it's eye. Before raincrow can retrieve the blade, a mob of goblins rises and begin shouting, "Look! The human killed Gruntkip!" and the like. It seems these goblins have not seen a human type fight back in some time. The alarm is raised, a rusty bell nearby, but not for long. The ringer falls with an arrow in his neck, it's origin raincrow. In front of them a mob of goblins runs screaming, waving nasty objects with points such as grisly swords with old entrails still on the blade. Suddenly a wall of vegetation springs up around the mob and the mob soon dies for the vegetation happened to be full of long spikes. That many holes in that many bodies of goblins leads to a lot of blood which flows from the mass death and begins to turn the area into a sticky blood mud. raincrow mutters, "That's just plain disgusting. I've eaten troll burgers that had less blood." He and Phaedrus then go in search of lone goblins ripe for tongue cutting. Rounding a corner they stop as it seems the alarm has woken the actual guard. "Erg." says Phaedrus. They turn around and run the other way, only to be confronted by another groups of guards. "Mmmm." says raincrow. Raincrow kneels and faster than one would have thought possible fires six arrows, cutting down 8 goblins. It takes good aim and strength to judge accurately which necks are in front of others and which necks arrows will go through. raincrow looks displeased, though, and says, "I can't believe I missed so many! Normally I could easily cut down two of them suckers with one arrow... I must be slipping." Phaedrus can not answer at the moment, though, for he is watching the approaching guard from his side quite carefully. "Hmmm..." he thinks. "There twelve of them and one of me, assumming rc is busy... I feel sorry for them." He then holds his sword expertly in front of him. Seeing as how they outnumbered him 12 to 1, the goblins did not think anything of simply rushing the human in a brown robe carrying a slightly glowing red sword. The first three had no chance. That is, no chance of even known what hit them. The other ones, before they died, saw a red flash move through the air so swiftly that it couldn't have been a sword wielded by just any human. A moment later Phaedrus stand some feet from where he started (yes, he had to move a bit) and looks at his sword. Interesting how it didn't need to be cleaned off, and the how the blood seemed to soak right into it. Raincrow looks behind him for a moment and says, "Poor little guys. You didn't even give them a chance, Phaedrus." he then snickers a bit and looks carefully for the last two guardsmen on his side. They poke their head around the wall to be caught by two arrows, each getting one in the eye. "You see, Phaedrus," raincrow says, "It takes practice to fire two arrows at once." Phaedrus looks around and says, "Quickly, get your goblin tongues. I don't favor this slaughter, even if they are goblins." Raincrow nods and goes about his grisly business and soon has at least 20 goblin tongues in his bag (which does not seem to get larger). "Well, I'm ready," says raincrow, "What about you?" Phaedrus checks in his cloak and sees the three plants and says, "I'm fine. Let's get out of here." They begin down the same street and see the edge of the town. Behind them a horde of goblins, armed to the teeth and riding jackals, follows and closes. Phaedrus turns for a moment and beckons at the street,which then folds up and collapses on the goblins. Phaedrus shrugs at raincrows gagging motions, because blood squirted out the edges in large gushing drops. They reach the wall, and not bothering to even be neat about it, simply obliterate it and plunge into the swamp. .................... Some time later they reach Edgekeep. They get to the main gate, enter, and then sit down to work on their nets. Phaedrus coaxes the plants to grow large leaves and stems which he carefully cuts (then causes the plants to grow more, etc), and raincrow fishes the goblin tongues he had in his special magical pickling bag. At sundown they are finished with their nets, and they hold them up. Raincrows reeks a bit of goblin bile, while Phaedrus' looks green and serene. They go for the big test. Four stakes in the ground, about two feet up, and the net is attached to each side. Then one of them jumps from about 20 up in a tree and see if the net holds them. Both nets survive this test. The next test is to string a net between two trees in the eastern forest, and bother a creature that looks something like a bear, but tends to grow larger teeth, claws, and armor piercing tale. After getting it to chase them, they lead it into the net. If the net holds, then it passes. Both nets hold. Last and final test is at the water front at a certain cave where a nasty horde of razor spined sea monsters live. You drape the net around the entrance, and make noise so as to attract a sea monster. Raincrow went first and found his net to be not quite good enough. Phaedrus smiled, and went second, and found to his delight that his held a moment longer than raincrow's. But both their nets broke, and the bet is null, and they sit dejecetly while sea monsters thrash about, and eventually decide to hike up the ridge so as to get a better view of the sunset.. A few hours later they return and sit down to watch the sea monsters chew other fish to small bits. Then they see the boy, about 14. He walks to the cave, drapes a silvery net around the opening, makes noise, and a sea monster charges into the net. The net holds. A moment later the boy halls the sea monster out of the water, clubs it a couple times, and begins to drag it away. Raincrow looks at Phaedrus, then runs over to the boy, graps him, and demands, "What did you make that net out of? Tell me!" The boy grins sheepishly and says, "Well, I found two torn nets here and pathed them together using each one..." raincrow's hold loosens and he stands there stunned, while a little ways away Phaedrus almost rolls into the monster infested water as he loses his balance from laughing so hard.