Katja swatted angrily at the swarm of bugs flying around her head. Her furious assault had no effect on the buzzing insects that effortlessly dodged her gloved hand and continued to swarm around her. She swore a curse that, had she any sorcerous power, would have scorched the marshlands to the bedrock and tramped forward. Her next step squelched loudly, sinking into the thick mud. When she pulled it up, it was coated completely with wet mud.

Katja found a patch of ground that was looked marginally more solid and walked on that. Though she hadn't thought it possible, in some places, the muck of the swamp was as treacherous as quicksand, clinging to one like a spider's web, and was deep enough in some places to swallow a person whole. Katja and Thrycia had found that out the hard way the first day they'd entered this accursed place. Luckily, Nadia, their third companion had been quick on the draw and had saved them with a spell.

The apprentice mage, may she rot in nine hells for all eternity, was ahead of Katja, striding effortlessly across the muck, without even getting mud on her fine deerskin boots, courtesy of a spell she'd cast that morning.  

Another spell, doubtless, kept the mosquitoes at bay. Where Katja and even the normally cool elf were sweating like pigs in the oppressively humid miasma, there was not a hair out of place on Nadia's head. Katja wiped her forehead, smearing her face with mud from her gauntlet. Nadia looked like she'd just gotten out of the bathhouse.

And, of course, she couldn't cast those same spells on her companions. "I have to expend some concentration maintaining the spells." She'd carefully explained. "You don't have the necessary training. They spells might last an hour, maybe more, before they'd begin to break down." Thus, her companions had been forced to suffer.

At last; thank the Lady, Katja thought; they came to a higher patch of ground that was dry or at least dryer then the rest of the swamp. Katja stumbled to the crest of the hill and slumped to the ground, shrugging off her pack. "Let's camp here for the night." She declared.

"If you wish." Nadia said. "We still have a few more hours of daylight left for travel, but I agree with you. It's not likely we'll find a better place to camp." Thrycia nodded, dropping her own pack. She opened it up and pulled out some stale travel rations and a skin of water.

Katja took her hardtack biscuit with a soft sigh. Hardtack beat starvation, but only just. Nadia mumbled some words as she sat down. A plate appeared in front of her. On it was food that might have graced a king's banquet table. A silver goblet appeared beside it, filled with a sweet, purple wine.

Katja groaned as her stomach growled, smelling the rich food as she chewed mindlessly on her hardtack, trying to wear it down into something edible with her teeth. Logically, she knew that sorcerous food couldn't be eaten by anyone who hadn't been raised from birth on it. As good as it smelled, the food would taste…off, which was usually quickly followed with the one foolish enough to try eating it heaving his guts in a bush. But that still didn't make smelling the food and watching Nadia eat it with every sign of enjoyment any easier.

After the meager, for two of them at least, meal, Nadia waved her hand. From thin air, the book Thrycia and Katja had stolen from the Mistress' Library appeared. Nadia grabbed it and flipped it open to a page and began reading. Nadia had been studying the sorcerous tome every chance she got.

She'd told her two companions once she'd learned enough, she would return to the Manor to challenge the Mistress, her former teacher. In the meantime, she'd travel with the two of them, seeing some of the world outside the manor. She'd never been outside it's walls before. The Mistress had brought her there shortly after her birth.

When she wasn't reading the book, she kept it in a pocket dimension, similar, to the one the Manor was in, though smaller. She could summon it, or any of the other items she'd stored there, with nothing more than a word. If the book was lost or stolen, after an hour, it would automatically return to the pocket dimension, from where she could summon it again.

Both Katja and Thrycia had taken advantage of this to lighten their packs somewhat, though Katja had kept her weapons and the essential items with her. She didn't like the idea of entrusting everything she had to one person, especially a sorceress.

She glanced over at Thrycia. The elf maid was sitting cross-legged, meditating. Katja sighed. Back in the mercenary company she used to fight with, evenings like this would have been spent with games of chance or contests of strength and endurance, not to mention, when they could loot it, copious amounts of ale.

Signing on with that expedition to kill that thrice-damned Lich had been a mistake from the beginning, as tempting as his treasure horde had been. She'd probably burned up all her luck making it out of his dungeon with her life, for she'd had nothing but bad luck since then.

First, she and Thrycia, the only other survivor, as far as she knew, of that doomed venture, had stumbled into a sorcerous fog-shrouded wood surrounding the Manor of an evil sorceress known as the Mistress. Thrycia had been the first captured, lured to the house by one of the Mistress' enchantments.

Katja had soon followed. At first, she'd been welcomed by the Mistress and her servants. It had been a trap of course, and after a failed attempt at escape, she'd been thrown into the dungeon to have her mind warped by the mistress' until she was nothing more than a mindless slave for all eternity.

Luckily, Nadia, the Mistress' former apprentice, had rescued her and Thrycia from their horrible fate. After the two had stolen one of the sorceress' spell books from her library, Nadia had been able to guide them through the fog and back to more civilized lands.

Unfortunately, Katja's bad luck had continued to dog them. The Prince who's sent forth the expedition had, quite naturally, refused to pay Katja and Thrycia without some proof of the Lich's demise. Worse, Nadia had been caught by the keeper of the inn they were staying at practicing her spells and Katja and Thrycia had been forced to rescue her from a peasant mob before she was burned at the stake as a witch.

After that, they'd rather quickly left the city. Since then, their efforts at earning money had all come to naught. The bandits that had been raiding the village of Hammleburg had turned out to be in the pay of a nearby Lord, who'd responded to their accusations by throwing them in the dungeons, they'd escaped before their execution but had decided to seek their fortunes elsewhere.

Crossing the Roark Sea, they'd discovered the merchant ship they'd taken passage on was secretly trading slaves and the three had found their new quarters rather cramped; chained in the secret hold with the other frightened girls the slavers had kidnapped. They'd managed to free themselves and were in the process of wresting control of the ship from the slavers when a pirate galley had pulled alongside and all of them had ended up chained to the oars, rowing back to the pirates' base where the three ended up on an auction block.

Luckily, one of the buyers had made the mistake of removing Nadia's gag to examine her teeth, which had given her the chance to cast a spell. With the pirates in hot pursuit, the three of them had fled inland. They'd eluded recapture, and since then had tramped across half the continent, doing such odd jobs and tasks as they found, to buy provisions.

"Hey, Katja!" Katja was interrupted from her thoughts by Thrycia. "It's getting dark. You want to light a fire?" She asked.

"This whole place stinks of swamp gas. One spark and we all go up in flames." Katja muttered. "Sure, why not. This whole cursed swamp's probably deserted; I think we can risk a fire." The two of them spent a few minutes gathering what dry wood they could find in the swamp.

"You want to help us?" Katja asked, as Nadia flipped a page in her book.
"You two look like you can handle things." Nadia said, without looking up from her reading.

Katja muttered more curses and piled the firewood on the driest patch of ground she could find. She knelt and muttered a short spell. Nadia had been teaching the two some simple cantrips, spells so easy even someone without magical talent could cast them. In theory, at least. Katja said the words she'd been taught a couple more time, with no effect.

"Let me try." Thrycia said. Though no mage herself, the elf had a much greater aptitude for magic then her human companion. As she said the words, a tiny spark blazed to life amongst the wood, which quickly caught. In a few minutes, they'd built up a small, warm blaze. Katja fed a few more branches into the fire, huddling close, with darkness falling, it was getting colder. The spell sure beat fumbling with flint and tender, if she could get the hang of it, that is.

Nadia yawned. She waved a hand and her book vanished. In between yawns, she spoke another spell and her robes disappeared, replaced by purple, silk pajamas. "Well, goodnight, friends." She said. Reaching forward and yawning something, she wrapped herself in a shadow like a blanket and was quickly snoring loud enough to wake the dead.

Katja sighed. She'd be impossible to wake now, until she was ready to get up. Part of her spell blocked out all sound, and the shadows wrapping her made it rather unnerving to try and rouse her by shaking. She opened her pack and took out her bedroll.

Carefully, she cleared a relatively dry spot of twigs and stones and laid out her bedding. Lying down, she quickly discovered she'd missed a few. She squirmed around, finding a comfortable position, before lying back. Trying to ignore the sounds of the swamp and the snores of her companion's, Katja did her best to try and fall asleep…

What happens to them in the night?

The three are visited in the night by a mysterious person…            
In the middle of the night, the three are attacked …  
Nothing. They have a good night's sleep and the next morning, continue their journey…