As suggested by the Mage, hustle we did. I’ll generally say that we were “walking” through the swamp. And certainly, much of our travel was indeed walking. But quite a lot of it was also wading through water, and even swimming. Due to the presence of the humans, we actively tried to stick to land over water as we traveled, but there is simply too much water to avoid it, and the water in a swamp is often deep enough that swimming truly is the optimal method of travel much of the time.

I’m not a strong man by any stretch of the imagination; not in this life. But I seem to have underestimated how taxing swimming while carrying large canvas backpacks would be for these humans, who did not have the natural swimmer advantage of the lizardfolk. I had done similar things while in the army, both for drown proofing and for general fitness, but I didn’t really account for how much less fit these two would be compared to my old self.

To be fair, swimming while carrying a load really is hard work. In my mind it is great physical training, but the pace we have set is not something that would have given my old self much trouble if it was only for a day or two. Even at my fat and old stage I would've made a better showing of myself than these two; it's painfully obvious that neither of them have had any actual training in swimming, much less swimming while carrying a load. We didn’t make it to the edge of the swamp that day. I had vastly overestimated human mobility.

We also, fortunately, were not forced to fight anything. We certainly saw alligators and giant toads and even a couple evil apes, but none of them were determined to attack us after they realized that we were passing by. That is particularly fortunate with regards to the evil apes, they are notoriously aggressive. But the mage wanted to hustle, so I tried to avoid conflict. As evening approached, we found a spot to camp. I gathered some wood and started putting my flint and steel to use.

“What are you doing?” asked the Mage.

“Starting a fire.” I replied.

“No no, I see that. Why?”

“Because that’s what we do at night.”

“Are you stupid, or are you trying to signal someone?”

“Neither. I’m a lizardfolk, we are cold blooded. If I don’t start a fire at night, the cold air wreaks havoc on me. Depending on how cold it gets, it might be enough to knock me out entirely, or even kill me. We light fires in our huts that burn overnight, too. You’ve seen that. It’s for good reason.”

“Interesting. I have to admit, I’d been curious as to whether you were closer to a human or an amphibian. I suppose I have my answer now. Nonetheless, fires are too dangerous. They attract all manner of monsters. You never, ever burn a fire at night when you’re traveling outside of civilization.”

I’m a bit inclined to take offense at the assertion that we’re far from civilization when we’re less than a day's travel from my village, but I have to agree that we aren’t particularly civilized, so I let that portion of his claim stand. Anyhow, it's not like his concerns lack merit. It was fire that led Roark and the rest of my clutchmates to the mother and children on our birthday hunt, after all.

“I’m not sure how well it will work, but how about we meet in the middle? I’ll start a fire, but then I’ll cover it with rocks then a layer of dirt and lay on top of that. If I cover myself with some foliage to help keep insulation going, it might be enough to keep me through the night.”

The mage clearly plans to object, but pauses with a finger half raised, and then continues on to ask “Covering a fire with dirt means there’s no fire. How does your plan keep you warm?”

“Well for starters I’m not completely certain it’ll work as well as I’d like, but cooking food using buried coal and rocks is already a thing in some cultures. I’ll need to get a lot of rocks, and I expect it’ll probably start off too hot before ending up too cold within a few hours, but it takes about 12 hours to cook a hog covered in banana leaves, so even using impromptu materials it might work. Covering myself after that provides insulation, which helps trap the heat that bleeds out, which should extend how long I stay at a functional temperature. Magic aside, heat transference is far from instantaneous. The more I can do to trap heat, the longer it’ll take before I have to try making a fire again.”

“Remarkable. All those scrolls you used to play with, I always thought you were studying them, but it just seemed too difficult for someone so young, and a lizard at that, to be more than playing. Oh don't look at me like that, it’s not like Lizardfolk are known for their libraries." Jim snaps at me. My facial expression hadn't changed at all.

"Where would you have learned about the cooking habits of other cultures? I’ve been at your village for several years now, very few lizardfolk could even be said to possess average intelligence, and your kind almost never cook anything aside from some meat sticks or stews for a celebration, or that awful excuse for alcohol," Jim soon continues, "Why are you so much smarter than the rest of your kind?”

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“A dedicated effort. Let’s not keep wasting time though: Yes or no? What daylight is left will soon fade, and I’ll need to gather a bunch of materials.”

At this point, Joaqim speaks up “I reckon there's no call for it. I thought this would happen, and I have Comfortable Journey as one of my spells. Outside of magic, this won't protect you from a fireball or anything, but you’ll be safe from the kinds of high and low temperatures you might run into out in the wild.”

“I have to confess, that is a huge improvement over my plan. Thank you kindly!”

And with that settled, the next order of business was food. On my own I'll usually end up checking for very small creatures, and by that I mean what I can find underneath of an overturned log or something, because it's much faster and easier to find rotten wood in a swamp than it is to find something bigger and tastier like a snake or a rabbit to kill. Especially since my aim isn't exactly great so even when I find something there's a real possibility that I won't be able to take it down before it escapes.

With a bit of dedication I can usually succeed at using my sling to handle small game, but I wouldn't be able to reliably hunt for 3 that way even if I were willing to invest the time. I need to hunt for 3 though, and I don't have all day to dedicate to it, so this time I swim around and catch a few fish instead.

I’m not a big fan of fish. Not at all. It's not that fish are bad per se, I used to really like them back on earth, but these aren't exactly tuna and white fish, and I’ve just eaten so very many of them over the last decade that any interest I had in them has long since dissipated.

Think about that for a second: How many mosquito fish and bowfin would you need to eat to decide you'd rather be eating maggots? As horrible as it is to say, I hit that point years ago. Regardless, sustenance is sustenance, and lizardfolk are particularly well equipped to catch fish by virtue of their conveniently located claws, exceptional night vision, and of course their natural swimming ability.

No sooner did I get back than the mage decided he wanted a fire after all. It turns out that he’s not a fan of sushi. He grumbles a bit about how we should’ve brought food with us, but he doesn’t push hard. He probably knows that I didn’t have much money to be able to afford any but the absolute most basic of supplies. After a relatively comfortable meal, we put out the fire.

“So, who’s on watch first?” I ask.

Color me surprised, the guy with night vision is the one they want to be awake in the middle of the night. Shocking, I know. I’ve always hated being woken up in the middle of the night, having to stay awake for a few hours, and then being expected to go back to sleep like it’s nothing. I do mention that just before dawn is when it’s actually the darkest, not the literal middle of the night, but it seems like they’re also not fans of having their sleep interrupted… And since realistically I can expect for them to be more useful in a fight than I am, it's my turn to give in rather than push back. For a moment it really feels like I’m back in basic training, getting to argue about fire guard shifts.

Once we've finished eating and taken a few minutes to settle in, the priest and I go to bed. Sleeping on the floor has been our norm for a long time, so even though there’s a few more branches poking around here than normal, even the human has no trouble falling asleep quickly. In the middle of the night, unsurprisingly, I wake up to the mage, by now somewhat bleary eyed, saying that it’s time to switch out the watch. I acknowledge his statement with a low moan and climb until I’m standing.

“Sleep well” I groggily say, clapping him on the shoulder once before moving away to assume guard. I’m bleary eyed too at this point, but even though it's been a while, I have no problems keeping myself awake for the 4 or so hours expected, estimating the time by the location of the moon in the sky in the areas it peaks through the canopy. The priest is already starting to stir when I give him a couple shakes to wake him up and he takes over.

As I’m laying down, trying to relax enough to fall back asleep, I hear a low-pitched moan. At night in the wilderness (or in this case swamp), the ambient noise often includes a lot of rustling and general animal sounds. Roaring screeching, humming, biting, and so on, some of which will sound downright dangerous. It isn’t, usually, a problem. Why attack a group when someone is awake? There is easier prey to be found. But that moan was unnatural. This might be one of those dangerous exceptions.

Although it’s pretty tough to pin down distance and direction with just your ears, it sounds like it’s pretty close and might be coming closer. I’m not sure if it’s the right call or not, but I start to cast magic armor on my leather. It’s not a terribly effective spell, but I’d rather count on not being hit in the first place over being able to absorb a hit a little bit better. I don't have enough levels under my belt for it to really show yet, but being able to absorb damage is what my high toughness is for.

By human standards, all armor is uncomfortable to sleep in. Veterans will often wear leather while sleeping, but most new adventurers will try to hold on to the vestiges of comfort they can find along the road. It usually only takes a couple times where they find themselves under attack while naked for them to decide that, while plate is still not practical because any attempts at rest tend to be uncomfortable enough that you wake up thoroughly exhausted, leather is a pretty good balance between being ready for a fight and being able to get rest out of their sleep. By the standards of my scaly armored hide, aka lizard folk standards, it is not a big deal to wear my armor to bed. I might even be able to sleep comfortably in heavier armors, though I won’t know that with any confidence until I’ve had a chance to try it.

A minute passes without incident, but now I’m confident that whatever it was that made that moan, it hasn’t left. It’s watching us. By this point Joaqim has noticed that there’s something out there too. He’s looking around in the dark, tilting his head and straining his ears to try and figure out how worried he should be. He begins slowly working his way towards the mage, though he still doesn’t seem to have made the decision on whether or not to awaken him.

I’m not sure if I should be annoyed that he didn’t want to wake me up first, or glad since I’m not actually asleep yet. Scratch that, definitely glad. I’m ok with it if the mage blasts something to smithereens and I only have to wake up long enough to snack on a precooked meal. I move onto casting the health absorption imbuement onto my boots. Yes, an armored lizard probably has their legs and feet covered just like any other species intelligent enough to understand the value of armor.

Those boots required a bit of custom crafting of course, at this point they are very human like but with openings for my claws to stick out. I’d rather not have to deal with things like having my legs or toes amputated if I can avoid it, but honestly covering the toe claws would just feel ridiculous and awkward. I'd certainly get more value out of a spell release turning my imbuements into more conventional of spells, but that skill checking causing my imbuement to spell 3 out of 4 times isn't something I'm willing to risk when combat may be imminent.

The beast is close now. Very close to where we laid down to rest. It seems likely that my second imbuement will be interrupted.

Yep, there it is. The moment that Joaqim begins to shake the mage, the creature springs out from behind a nearby copse of cypress trees. Oh, great. There’s more than one, it has a friend. Bob Ross would be proud.