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Ch. 2
The swamp is a saltwater tidal marsh and if not for the pervasive malignancy, a supernatural infection that offers nothing but soul-altering danger, it might be considered beautiful in a dark and twisted way. This frightful place off the Eastern shore is made from the runoff of the Great River. The Great River runs down from the Northern mountains, a craggy set of peaks home to deep caverns filled with gem-crazed grey Dwarves and the high-up nests of the red dragons chief among the other dangers.
The Great River’s watercourse runs through the Capital city and by hundreds of small hamlets. Undoubtedly these populations have been affected greatly by the pollution of discarded magic and other unnatural elements that caused the Blightedwood infection. The particulars are hard to come by being the place is notorious for trying to kill all visitors.
Maybe it is denial that the citizens think themselves safe from the Blightedwood, where the air shimmers with fungal spores adrift on the wind. Spores that cause dreadful respiratory infections. The infection is known to put the patient to sleep and then fill their airway with spores that slowly devour them from the insides out as they mature to start the whole process over again. The shrooms then explode poisoning almost all fauna with these flesh-eating microscopic particles.
All water is covered in a thin, greasy veneer. Duckgrass pokes out from underneath hiding schools of fist-sized flesh-stripping fish. The water lizards grow twenty meters or more in length and weigh as much as two fully grown horses, the beasts have jaws filled with sharp wicked teeth coated with venomous saliva. Escape from their crushing mouths and death stalks still. It eats away the flesh and muscle softening it for the lizard's weak digestive system. Run too far and instead of escaping the runner just melts into yet more off-colored muck.
Even when wandering far from the softer parts of the swamp much risk in becoming meal is available. Because even the plants are carnivorous. Can a full-grown creature bust out of thin petals that clamp down? Sure, but eventually the hallucinations start and they will lead an infected person right back to the plant he destroyed. The roots are the important part anyway, and they reach up and entangle and pull their victim into the earth.
Obviously, there are snakes. The size of which are legendary. A mere man would not satisfy the biggest of them and their voracious appetite. Other vipers are so small they look like worms and remain unseen even when they bite. Their nip rots the body from the inside and sets the nerves on fire within paces. There is no escape from this painful death, but thankfully it is a quick one.
The swamp rodents can grow to be as big as wolves.
The wolves are as big as cows.
The deer have razor-sharp horns and a violent protective temperament.
Swamp bears roam and are known to grow ten meters tall and will try and eat anything stupid enough to smell like food to them.
But there are also some creatures that even the most deadly of the swamp monsters avoid.
The chief among them is the former baker known as Thomas Loaf. He is hiding from the new sun in a burrow he dug near dawn. It’s a ruined tortoise hole, delicious-delicious-tortoise-pulled-from-its-shell-still-wiggling-and-fighting-for-life-even-when-I-crunch-crunch-crunch-crunched-on-it-until-it-slid-down-his-throat-in-one-bloody-clump. The tortoise hole wasn’t very big. But Thomas Loaf has lost the ability to judge smells versus reality and he strongly thought more turtles were hiding themselves below the earth. He is not even that hungry, but now that he is a giant pig, his whole existence has become eating, digging, and---
“What’s that?” his very intelligent nose asks his incredibly stupid brain.
A snack and a horsey! He tells it back; out loud, in a voice more squeal than language. He has had these kinds of snacks before. Succulent sweet meat like nothing else on crunchy yummy bones. Just their smell and his stomach comes to life. He doesn’t leave the swamp so the challenge is to get to them before that. He can’t wait and bounds to his hooves, all four, and shakes the dirt off in giant clumps
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Running he still does on the rear two legs. The front retains their opposible thumbs and when possible he likes to wield felled trees as clubs or spears to conquer prey and finds one immediately that he pulls it from the ground, roots and all. A squirrel pops out of the branches and attempts to scurry away but Thomas Loaf is quicker and slams his new weapon down pinning the fleeing rodent with a branch.
He knows the snacks are a few miles away still and munches on his furry snack dragging his tree behind him as he moves through the swamp. He is not allowed to leave the swamp. When he tries to leave the swamp it hurts inside his head like a bad burn.
So Thomas Loaf does not leave the swamp. But he does wait. And while he waits he starts digging for the merest suggestion of a mole. He digs and finds it is a mole and it tries to scurry away. He gets lost in the soft black soil the smell of the cold dampness, going after it. It doesn’t take long to find it and when he does he eats the mole and forgets about so many things for a few minutes.
“Holy mother of Atuna,” the curse was followed by a neighing horse and the thump of a rider hitting the ground.
Thomas Loaf had fallen asleep. He cracks his eyes slowly at the disturbance. The sight of a snack so close and so easily got makes his stomach gurgle happily. But then the snack begins to scramble away. Then he sees the horsey. It’s getting away too!
Oh, the rage. He climbs to his feet like one would, and leans his entire weight against an old-growth tree until it begins to rip from the ground and fall over. He nudges it ever so softly so it falls directly onto the fleeing horse stopping its scream of terror forever. The swamp is bathed in a new type of silence after that. The kind of silence of a collected many waiting for an ending. A cruel painful ending.
Then his attention turns to the man in hunting leathers still trying to get his heels into the wet earth and stand up. Thomas Loaf drops to his knees and lunges.
The man in leathers moves like he expected the attack and just manages to be somewhere else when the creature lands with a powerful whomp.
Thomas Loaf has no wind for a moment and struggles to his knees trying to get that deep breath. The effort is ragged short snorts instead. He definitely does not hear the long sword being freed for its scabbard. But he feels it as the blade is brought down on his right flank.
Yes, it hurt, but it does not injure Thomas Loaf. The blade simply bounces up painfully almost in time with his rear left hoove, which kicks out and slams the hunter in the chest. He flies some distance away before smacking into a thick tree trunk. He drops down to his hands and knees, things inside him likely very broken, dedication clearly etched on his warrior-face, he stands to meet his foe.
Thomas Loaf lumbers to his feet also. And it’s a struggle and he takes far longer than he should, especially for someone in a fight. So far this has been fun, but he doesn’t have much stamina and it’s time to get things over with. He isn’t a gazel or tiger with limitless energy to stalk and then kill. His single lunge wore him out. He pushes through the effort though only so he can take a nap. But this effort is taking too long and his nap is overdue.
With an angry grunt and a push, he is up and turned just in time to catch two sharp daggers in the soft flesh of his bulbous fatty bosom. Yes, again, it hurt. Yes he snorted a bellowing cry in retort, but what he didn’t do is miss an opportunity.
The hunter falls without his weapons. All of his weapons are lost to the swamp, his horse his dead. His last attack was his last. But before he can die he finds himself being lifted by a giant hoof with a thumb and his first bite is his favorite, still booted feet. Still chewing he goes for bite number two.
This is how Thomas Loaf eats; he rips the Hunter in half and begins to eats him from the inside out like one of the sweet fruits that grow from trees. Thomas Loaf doesn’t like the wrappers, they make his mind feel sick so after smooshing the gooey parts out and slurping any of the remaining goodness off he tosses what remains into the swamp.
It’s not like he understands what he is doing exactly. He has very few rules in his simple brain. Snacks are always so much fun but they must never escape. Some do try and run from Thomas Loaf, but none have succeeded.
Then he smells more snacks. Six and another horse. These are far away still. Outside the swamp. Even thinking about a place that is not the swamp the fire begins smoldering in his head.
Thomas Loaf is disappointed at this and finds himself fighting through the growing fire to try and get at them early. He can’t leave the swamp. Yet he can’t refuse the hunger either. He can’t refuse. Even if he wanted to. Even stuffed to the gills on hunter, the smell of snacks drives him into a hunger frenzy. Other creatures will pay in the interim, but soon when this smell enters the swamp it will be his special treat, a special treat that will make him feel so good.