Jym, Mongo, Lethe, Dawn, Scion, and Macros (along with Snarl the gnoll huntmaster) had just defeated the giant ant queen and the kruthick hive lord, but they still had an entire hill of angry giant ants to deal with. They decided to leave rather than risk being discovered. Jym pulled out the compass again and they followed it along a winding path in the direction from which the kruthick invaders came. These tunnels were strewn with many dead ants and a few dead kruthick, but eventually these thinned out and they passed into empty kruthick tunnels. They took a downward sloping tunnel which eventually opened into a natural cavern.
Across the cavern was an opening to the outside. Outside was a bog stretching in all directions and the sky was darkening to night. The party decided to make camp in the cave for the rest of the evening. They noticed that they all smelled pretty ripe, from the ant juice, but Snarl was particularly smelly. He didn't seem to mind however, and even commented on how good Dawn smelled to him. Dawn was a bit disturbed by his attention.
Snarl also looked very emaciated and watched the rest of the party eat with salivating envy. Scion took pity on him and convinced Snarl to take a bath in a pool of water conveniently located in the cave while she foraged up some frogs, lizards, and crayfish for him to eat. Jym spent some alone time in the bog looking for signs of life and found some suspiciously large webbed footprints in the soft ground.
In the morning the party headed out into the bog following the path of the compass. The bog was contained within the walls of a massive crater and was teaming with life. The webbed-footed prints grew more numerous as they approached a primitive looking settlement of reed huts surrounding some ruins. On closer inspection the ruins appeared to be of a broken tower that looked as if it had been dropped from a great height. Guarding the front of the ruined tower were a pair of bullywugs, an amphibious humanoid resembling frogs, carrying reed shields and clubs. The sound of croaking and chanting could be heard coming from the inside of the tower. Suddenly there was a female scream and the croaking chorus grew louder.
The adventurers hadn't been noticed by the bullywug guards yet. Jym sneaked closer to the side of one of the reed huts, but Mongo charged straight at the guards. The bullywugs croaked and hopped into battle. They leaped onto Mongo flattening him into the muck. More bullywugs hopped out of the huts, armed with javelins, to join the fight. The rest of the party took the bullywugs by surprise and attacked, but they were in turn surprised by a pair of giant frogs wallowing in nearby pools of muck. The giant frogs shot out their sticky tongues, entrapping Dawn and Macros, swallowing them whole and then leaping away from the battle to digest their prey in privacy.
Jym and Snarl went after the frog that swallowed Dawn, chasing it around the corner of the hut and to the edge of the bog. Lethe and Scion helped Macros escape from his frog and killed it. They then helped Mongo deal with most of the bullywugs, although they learned that bullywugs cause weakness to anyone who attempts to heal themselves near them. A pair of bullywug twitchers ran from the fight and leaped over the ruined wall of the tower to warn those inside. After the group caught up with the final frog and saved Dawn they returned and surrounded the tower.
They could see into the tower through the many breaches in its walls. The center of the area was taken up with a large bubbly muddy pool. A piece of scavenged masonry served as a crude altar near the puddle. On the altar was a young girl being held in place by two evil looking bullywugs adorned with totemic charms and painted with dried mud symbols. At the back of the room was a crude wooden statue depicting a fat and multiple armed bullywug. In its lap was another large pulsing chaos crystal, apparently the pole that the compass was drawn to. Around the edges of the room were arranged a number of fat bullywug worshipers acting as the source of the chanting and croaking. A few bullywug bodyguards, including the two twitchers from earlier, were standing around watching the sacrifice. A muddy pit occupied one corner, its contents hidden from view.
A massive battle followed as the party attacked from multiple sides at once. Mongo, Lethe, Macros, and Jym barreled into the room while Dawn, Scion, and Snarl sniped cautiously from without. The mudlords, the bullywugs holding the girl who was now unconscious, dropped her to the altar and summon forth a pair of mud men from the puddle to defend them. They croaked forth magical energy that blasted the adventurers with fire and thunder, but also caught their own allies in the blast, killing the weak croaker minions around the edges. Mongo waded into the room and savaged the mud lords. Macros kept the mud men and a few of the bodyguards busy. Jym and Lethe dealt with the brutes who kept charging them.
The battle was frantic but brief. After the last bullywug was slain Mongo lifted the unconscious girl onto his shoulders, Jym put the crystal into their bag, and Macros looked into the pit. The bottom of the pit had many muddy and rotting bodies in it, but there was one terrified young boy still hiding down there. The rest of the group was certain the boy must be an evil entity, but Macros was brave enough to climb down and talk to him. The kid called himself "Rudiger" and had a severe speech impediment. Macros brought him out of the pit to meet the rest of the party. He told them that the girl was his sister "Lisa" and that they had both been taken from Elkridge by the "fwying dwagons" and then left in the middle of the bog.
Lethe noticed the child was clutching a necklace and when he asked about it Rudiger said, "My dad said the Waven Qween would pwotect me." It was a piece of jet carved to resemble a black raven wing. Lethe took the necklace from Rudiger and decided he could use it as a holy symbol of battle +1. The boy stayed close to Lethe since he was the only human in the group and had the necklace. Jym searched the bullywug bodies and the corpses in the pit and found a muddy, but still serviceable, short-sword and 200 gold coins. He gave the sword to Macros who after cleaning it up discovered that it was an oathblade +1, which would synergize nicely with his defender abilities.
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