Day 12

A full two days have passed since we lost our fight with the denizens of the sinkhole. I probably should have kept updating my account of events during the last couple days, but our collective morale seemed somewhere between an Iraqi tank crew driving the Highway of Death and a century waiting their turn at Cannae.

Amongst the five of us who remained, I guess I’m in charge. The quartet of Dogkin so far made no attempt to rejoin their pack. My main guess why is they are probably the offspring of the fallen Alpha. Now that Stripes is in charge, they aren’t welcome there anymore.

I regret to say, it seems like the dryad died shortly after the finale of our battle. It hurts considering that this whole mess started when I tried to free her from the sinkhole. Admittedly, I know nothing of the physiology of magical creatures but she wasn’t in the best shape when the fight started and must have expended too much of her strength in our efforts to slow the cursed land. As we fled, I found her facedown, unresponsive and cold.

It felt wrong to just leave her. Dryads are creatures of the forest, so she would have wanted me to lay her to rest amongst the trees. I carried her out of the meadow and found a sheltered thicket. There was something tomb-like about the canopy of evergreens and brambles. I laid our fallen companion on her back and led the other survivors on our search for safety.

Safety was harder to find than expected. After abandoning us when the spider knight killed the old Alpha, Stripes established a new den in the forest farther out to the west. Out of all the Dogkin, he liked me the least and that sentiment remained as strong as ever. We inadvertently crossed into his territory and he let me know precisely how welcome I was. One moment, we wearily trudged through heavy underbrush and in the next I dodged rocks and the shaman’s stupid exploding pinecones. None of us had any fight left so we ran. If Stripe’s pack wasn’t still terrified of the presence beyond the meadow, we’d probably be dead.

With the north and east blocked off by the Deadwood and Stripes being petty and unreasonable, the only way remaining was due south. In the end that way didn’t work out either. Do you know what a Shwark is? I made up the name just now so probably not. Anyways, travel south and you’ll hit a gigantic swamp. And in that swamp unfeasibly large predatory fish swam between the inundated trees. Care to take a guess to the meaning now?

I’m ten billion percent sure that I’m also responsible for the shwarks. The vegetation doesn’t kinda dead and the big yellow and purple spiders are all over that place too. It does add a bit of evidence to a theory I’d been working on.

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We mostly followed the path of the stream south. I was curious if we’d find a point where the opposite bank wasn’t cursed (we didn’t). I had a good look at the water. It seemed…fine. Fish still swam in the stream and the water ran completely clear. It only fouled up once the stream emptied into the swamp and grew stagnant. Maybe the curse couldn’t easily cross flowing water? It was something to think about.

Day 13

After a full night’s sleep, I decided to go back and search for some defendable location in the meadow. Here’s the logic behind that seemingly crazy scheme. If the shadow ants or whatever crossed the creek to take the rest of the land, we’d simply slip away through the western forest while Stripes was preoccupied defending his territory. If the curse couldn’t or didn’t cross the stream, our side of the meadow was still a green and hospitable site to eke a living. In any case, unless we wanted to swim with shwarks or go to war with Stripes, escape wasn’t a choice.

The Dogkin started the morning demoralized and it took a bit of effort to wake them. Whenever I tried to shake one awake, they would whine and lie back down. I’m not going to blame them. The pack that had been the center of their lives had tossed them out, and it left them listless and without purpose.

However, I’m not resigned to that fate. And while I’m still able to get up, so will they. With a lot of perseverance and whistling I got all of them moving. It didn’t take long until we reached my old home at the bend on Adam’s creek. It’s not the idyllic place that it was a few days ago, but water was still key and it’s still the most defendable point near the stream. It was a hard decision, but we reestablished camp there.

I have a confession to make. The Dogkin clearly have a spoken language and I totally intended to learn their names in that language. But bark-speak was completely incomprehensible and necessity forced me to call them something. Its not culturally sensitive, but I gave them new names. Red was the only female. She’s got red fur. Bandit has black mask-patterned fur over his face. Cheeks’ face was broad with very long fur over his cheeks. You can guess where Socks came from. And yes, I realized afterwards I’d given them all pet names instead of something more dignified. Sorry guys; what’s done is done.

Once we got to our new camp, we played charades. More accurately, I played charades and hoped they’d understand the tasks I assigned each of them. I wanted Red and Bandit to try and hunt something. They seemed to understand and disappeared into the woods. For round two, I assigned Socks and Cheeks to help me collect firewood.

The three of us split up. An hour later I had a good collection of fallen sticks when I noticed something odd. I’m pretty familiar with this area, and some of the trees seemed to have moved. It wasn’t a trick of the light, it’s like they uprooted and went to a spot where there wasn’t a tree before.

I had a strong suspicion on the reason. I went to the thicket where I left the dryad. She was where I left her except she now lay inside a ring of oaks curled under a sunbeam. Confirmed, I know nothing of the physiology of magical creatures.