Surging forward, the Brotherhood of the Platonic Solids came through the trees to find themselves on the edge of a great swamp and also upon a scene of fresh carnage. A great wyrm of familiar darkling scale arose out of the waters edge and set upon the hapless remnants of a band of gnolls, a roaring serpentine shape out of the swirling mists that moved with impossible quickness. Corpses were cast about like bloody dolls; broken spears and shattered shields littered the battlefield. Deep furrows rent the muddy ground and the stench of rot wafted across the battlefield.

As the last gnoll fell, Marquis D’Annunzio “The Picador” charged across the field, followed by his new compatriots. The dragon, roared in pain beyond the evidence of its wounds, though the disheveled state of its scale belied some other more awful affliction. After the trading of a few blows, the beast leapt into the air and flew into the fog.

The sun shone bright then through the miasma of mist, parting to reveal a lonely tableau as the Great Swamp stretched interminably south (some Bards claim that it reaches to the sea). Iced and frosted with winter cold, the swamp was a broken land of small islands amid brackish shallow fens. Great gnarled trees stretched their wooden fingers across channels of freezing water to interlock in tunnels of moss filled foliage before falling inevitably to the sucking muck below. It was not an entirely abandoned landscape, crude low bridges stretched from the banks in two places, connecting island to island, some more precarious than others. In the distance a cloud of smoke darker than fog hung over a large island. Upon this sodden hillock perched a dismal pile of stones, a dark keep. A circuitous road of makeshift log bridges seemed to lead towards that maze through the amazed mire. Then the fog descended again and all was murked with that great miasmic soup.

Not ten yards away a bridge led to a nearby island where the last survivors of the gnoll band brandished their weapons and barked in the dark speech: “Begone in the name of the Witch Queen and the Mountain King. Uh, All Hail Lady Sondra the Witch Queen, Mistress of the Forge! We’ll gut ya!”

These defenders were quickly defeated. Their weapons were ugly things, but each carried a golden coin hung from their necks by a lanyard, bearing the stamp of a Three Fingered Claw.

One beastman carried a pouch which contained a crude map.

After some discussion, the heroes continued across another bridge to a large overgrown island. Cedric climbed a tree and looked about. To the south, a wide bridge led into the fog. To the east, a smaller lash of logs provided some access to a nearby hillock, and just below on the north end of the island, was a small hut at the base of a rotting tree. A thin trail of smoke wisped from the doorway. The party approached this hut and a strange sight greeted them, an ancient elf with long pointed ears, stringy hair hanging lank like folds of his decrepit flesh, in a creaking voice invited them into his noisome abode.

Inside the hut was a boiling cauldron handing over a small fire. A short stack of skulls formed a pyramid against the back wall. The elf stared with unblinking eyes filled with a sort of fey madness. He spoke, nearly incoherently about something called Obitu-que, about the Wars of Endless Dark, about the Fall of the Savage Kings, the skulls of heroes, the plague of savage bestiality which kills lizards, princes and queens, a plague which only “THE DEAD” can cure. “Do you come to Fight the Witch Queen then?” The Old Elf raised his hands and a dozen skeletal warriors arose from the sodden earth and brandished rusty implements.

The battle was like a vision, like a dream. The cleric spoke a fervent prayer, “MOTHER!” and the skeletons crumbled to moldy ruin. The heroes stepped forward and struck the old elf cleaved him in twain. The old creature’s body faded to nothingness leaving only a cackle and a laugh, “Can you Survive the Legacy of a Savage King?”