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The elder lizard responded to my mention of the relic nonverbally. Struggling with its weight, he retrieved his basket and led the way to the dam. The narrow path put me in an awkward situation of being unable to help him bear his load, so I uselessly followed behind, leaving a thin trail of light. The two children disappeared into the forest, but a pair of young adults took their place. They followed at a respectful distance.

Surprisingly, the dozen or so lizardfolk shoring up the dam paid minimal attention to the strange human wielding a sword with the glowing contrail. Instead, they pursued their tasks. They hauled logs and baskets of earth to clog leaks that plagued the entire structure. I’d lost sight of the children, but I suspected they watched us from somewhere. My guide stopped at a pair of lizardfolk adults who paused in their labor to listen.

The old lizard put down the basket, turned, and rasped in his language. “My name is Rither of the ninth shelter. I am afraid I don’t know what you mean by ‘relic’ unless you mean our idol. But that has already been taken.” He bowed in shame.

“Who has taken it? Your chief?”

The younger adults looked at the elder.

“We have no chief. We haven’t had one since we abandoned our village. That’s when the manitou came and put us to work.” He glanced at the sloping pile of timber.

“Why are you damming the channel?”

He gestured to the basket, and I noticed it contained fish. “It is something we normally do for food. We prefer deep-water fish and have maintained this dam for centuries. But the manitou forced us to build a spillway to divert water into another valley.”

“Why would it want that?”

The lizard’s eyes sagged in despair, and he shook his head, refusing to answer.

One of the younger lizards, who’d yet to say anything, answered. “Drying the swamp gives the creature access to its master, Yumba, an ancient witch. The manitou wishes to awaken her. Yumba still sleeps beneath the Great Fen.”

“A witch?”

All three lizards bowed their heads but said nothing.

The dwarves mentioned witches. They ruled like world bosses, and while I’ve faced formidable opponents, stopping a manitou from wakening their master seemed like a good idea regardless. The ward worm, a world boss, reached level 65. But since these manitous acted as servants, I hoped its level fell significantly lower—something I could solo.

“Hmm, but you said you disbanded your village before this manitou arrived.”

One of the younger lizards replied. “One by one, we lost council members to the lake.”

The old lizard hissed. “It is a time of madness.”

I crossed my arms uncomfortably while carefully avoiding poking Gladius into anything that didn’t deserve it.

Their woeful tale sounded familiar. The relic wore down the mind of the nearest leader, drawing them to it. If lizardfolk can’t breathe underwater, the pull would have been fatal, like moths to a flame.

“Do you say you’re losing your leaders to the lake? Does that mean you can’t survive underwater?”

One of the trio boasted. “You’ll find no better swimmers in Miros than the lizardfolk, but we must surface for air.”

“How long before your leaders left for the lake?”

The three adults looked to Rither, who answered. “They gibbered nonsense for days and conversed with invisible forces. Then they disappeared. Only after we followed them did we discover the lake’s draw.”

It sounded like their minds were weaker than Thaxter’s, who took weeks before giving into delusions. I’d hoped that the water might somehow block the relic’s influence, but in this case, they fell prey to it faster.

Still, it wasn’t the dire scenario I’d imagined in the village, of a region warlord marching toward Lizardfolk Central, delivering the relic into the arms of a more powerful ruler. From Rither’s description, it rested undiscovered underwater.

“How does the manitou come into the picture?”

Rither gestured south to a great swamp spanning the continent’s interior. “We couldn’t stop our leaders from drowning in the deep lake. Abandoned our village seemed to be the only path to survival, but as soon as we disbanded, the manitou came.”

“And it forced you to its purpose?”

Rither nodded. “No one can reason with it. It only obeys its master.”

I raised my blade. “Death is everyone’s master. Do you have any canoes? If I destroy the relic, you can begin another settlement.”

The lizardfolk exchanged glances before the elder spoke. “Without our strongest warriors, we can’t fight the manitou. We lost our canoes to the lake, and we can’t make another without the manitou punishing us.”

The three lizardfolk looked at me expectantly.

I traveled here to fight monsters and didn’t waste time dithering. “Where is the manitou?”

Rither climbed over the timbers, beckoning me to follow.

I held up a hand. “Okay—I’ll deal with the manitou first, but I need you to start your settlement again.”

The young couple exchanged worried looks, and Rither gaped.

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I held up both hands while trying not to wave Gladius around. “I know. It’s dangerous for you, but it helps solve your problem. I get an attack bonus from fighting inside a foreign settlement, and this dam is close to your village.”

After a long pause, the interface denoting my location changed from Otter Lake Channel to Kirikus. Rither’s nameplate acquired a title, Governor of Kirikus, but he didn’t seem any worse off. The change put me on the clock. I had to kill the manitou and destroy the relic before he lost his marbles.

Given the circumstances, a side-quest to kill a bossy manitou delivered a win-win scenario. I needed experience, loot, and a means to reach the lake, and the lizardfolk wanted to live in peace. Over the year, they’d lost their strongest to the relic’s allure. Trusting me with a canoe wasn’t a substantial risk.

“If I cannot kill the manitou, disband the settlement before nightfall. Meanwhile, can you make a canoe for me? The sooner you make one, the sooner I can free your leaders from the relic.”

Rither nodded. “It is a deal. The manitou lives inside. Come with me.” Though timbers tilted at every angle, the old governor clambered across them like a child on familiar playground equipment.

I took more care to follow, balancing from log to log. They looked treacherous, but none shifted beneath my weight. Pockets of clay, mud, and dead brambles packed the dam’s interior. Some patches had dried, but most looked wet from seepage.

When we neared the dam’s midsection, the thickest part of the structure, Rither gestured to a hole in the timberwork fortified with vertical posts. The lizardfolk evened the floor with horizontal logs reinforced with clay. My escort bowed as I approached the dam’s mouth but made no motion to enter.

“I can take it from here. Are you telling me this dam is stable?”

“It has stood for centuries.”

I nodded, seeing no equivocation in the old lizard’s expression. At least I wouldn’t have to deal with anything collapsing around me. Leaving the old lizard behind, I fired up Heavenly Favor and reignited Presence. The spell lit the tunnel’s interior.

White ivy with pale leaves wound through the crisscrossed timber that made the tunnel’s support work and rafters. Flowers of every color accented the sallow vines. The foliage grew thicker the further I entered the dam.

I prodded a flower with Gladdy’s tip, suspicious of their role in this place. Had their perfume subdued the lizardfolk? I smelled but detected no ill fragrance and received no debuffs. I Scorched one, but toasting it into ash produced no unusual results. Though they made no hostile or hazardous reactions, I doubted the things served as decorations.

All around me, wood groaned, and water trickled. The footing would have been much worse without mud and clay packing the gaps and uneven pockets.

Neat piles of fish bones marked the entrance of a more expansive corridor filled with white vines, and it seemed a wonder that no formal support work held the roof in place. Instead, the architecture relied on the locking tangle of logs. Gravity and friction held this giant pile of matchsticks intact. Everywhere, water dripped.

A huge wooden idol lay on the far side of the space. Its crude muzzle bore a resemblance to the lizardfolk.

A great pile of mud in the room’s center moved, and a nameplate appeared.

Name

Yumba Manitou

Level

38

Difficulty

Challenging (yellow)

Health

3400/3400

The manitou twisted into a ten-foot humanoid with features one might expect from a swamp monster. A two-foot-long proboscis hung between two hollow sockets, which served as eyes. Thick layers of shaggy green vegetation served as its hide. Wraps of thick moss swarming with flies mummified its form. For a mouth, an orifice pullulating with small flies gaped. The cloud of flies disappeared when it inhaled, only to emerge when it roared at my entrance.

Wielding Gladius Cognitus while empowered with Aggression’s double damage tipped the scales in my favor. It wasn’t long ago when Fabulosa and I tangled with Odum’s level 38 steed. The game rated the Grinion Mammoth orange. And yet, by myself, the game considered this witch’s servant a mere yellow.

Unless this behemoth possessed armor I hadn’t yet detected, it looked soft and slow. Besides the usual jabbing, I could employ slashing attacks, which worked well against creatures this size.

Even with Aggression, I knew better than to count on an easy fight. Without a partner to depend on, healing myself in combat proved difficult and conditional. Even if I could draw the manitou out of the dam, I doubted the lizardfolk would help me defeat something that had cowed them into submission.

It was a shame that Yula couldn’t fight by my side. Her superior nature manipulation spells might have made short work of this foe.

Above the creature, pale vines emanated from great bulbs that hung like chandeliers. The giant flowers weren’t so low that they’d reach me if they possessed carnivorous inclinations, but they weren’t beyond the swing of my longsword.

While waiting for the swamp thing to close the distance between us, I charged Gladius with Imbue Weapon. For every second of charging, it delivered another 2 points of damage—4 points if I critted. With Aggression, this wasn’t a sustained fight, and I could afford to blow some mana.

I backed away, giving Imbue Weapon time to enhance my blade, whose entire length glowed with arcane energy.

A quick survey of the chamber revealed four side tunnels that turned into one another, forming a figure-8 layout. The entrance tunnel intersected its center, where the manitou rested. I detected no impediments or complications from the architecture. The space gave plenty of room to swing and thrust my sword-and-a-half, and when the manitou reached me, I did so.

I performed a Thrust, a safe opening against plus-sized opponents. Charge seemed a little reckless without a healer nearby, and I wanted to know my enemy’s abilities before relying on rash maneuvers.

If I didn’t count mopping up fleeing goblins, this counted as my first battle with Gladius, and I wanted to see how he performed. My blade struck for 212 damage—a respectable amount, considering I’d only put 20 mana points into Imbue Weapon. The blow also carried an 87-point Bleed totaling almost 300 damage. Taking out 9 percent of its health pool seemed a positive first step.

I dodged the first monster’s attack and inflicted another 188 before the manitou punched me for 43 damage. Rejuvenate ribbons spiraled around me as my third jab missed.

The monster’s lackluster swing grew my confidence. Seeing no special abilities, I traded blows with the creature, backing away to give myself a little extra time to buff up my attacks with Imbue Weapon. Simple math dictated an easy victory if this unfolded into a tank-and-spank battle—it seemed too much to hope for.

A sound like tearing lettuce came from behind, and I disengaged to see what made it. A cocoon of white vines as thick as a Wall of Thorns filled the entire entrance tunnel. Even with multiple Slipstreams, I couldn’t flee from combat if things went south.

I shrugged it off—I came down here to fight anyway. Since I couldn’t get back into the entrance, I took one of the side loops of the figure-8 layout. With every available second, I invested mana into Imbue Weapon to maximize my output.

The monster showed immunity to Shocking Reach, but it wasn’t a problem because I had no other electrical attacks. I cast Scorch when the opportunity arose. At a cost of only 10 mana per cast, I could inflict 88 points every 10 seconds.

The stupid monster followed me in its lumbering gait, and the looping layout maximized my ability to kite it around.

After only a half-minute, I’d knocked off a third of its health while I’d only lost 40 percent of mine. This ratio seemed like a losing strategy, but I possessed healing mechanics to tilt the scales in my favor. To test this, I backed away and cast a Restore, nearly bringing myself up to full health.

But the bulbs hanging overhead bothered me. I avoided standing beneath them in case they birthed adds or expelled debuffs. Their conspicuous presence implied some special role in the manitou’s lair.