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  One would never think of Trammel as a deep continent, but if one were to query the populace on where the bottom of Trammel lied the answer given would unanimously be the cruor swamps. It may not be common to think of continents as things with depth, but the cruor swamp was in fact deep, a constant slope that burrowed lower and lower below sea level. A deep pool of stagnant liquid blanketed the swamp burying all vegetation save for the occasional tall stalk or tree that could manage to reach out for a breath of air.

  As one moved south from Aegis and deeper into the swamp they would notice the constant downward incline, the swamp like a trap encouraged entry but negated almost all escape. Deeper into the swamp the serpentine mountains begin to blot out the day star and the thick forest canopy denied any rogue rays of light that dare try to enter. A constant bog of darkness encased in water and littered with its offspring.

  At the moment it was by a tree at the deepest point of the swamps in the very center of the spiral created by the serpentine mountains. The mountains had this patch of swamp completely surrounded and many of the tree’s forebearers were watching ruefully up above. The spiral of the swamp was so deep down that it was essentially a river with an underwater forest hidden below, but right at the end at supposedly the lowest patch of land in the world, a small mound protruded from the water surface. It was on that mound that the picturesque scene of a large mushroom trimming a dying tree took place.

  The tree had seen better days, it was old and withered. Its bark was a sickly grey and its branches were so frail that if not for the protection of the mountains, the wind would probably tear them off. There was a time long ago where this was a beautiful tree that outshone the rest of Trammel. That tree had even bore a fruit and all were confident that the fruit would be a boon for the swamp, a catalyst of change.

  The fruit was granted a caretaker, but that caretaker had failed and now both the fruit and the caretaker were gone. A human, of course, had stolen itself into the swamp; somehow, it had managed a feat no other had ever done and traversed all the way to the tip of the swamp’s spiral, to the bottom of the world. Certainly, the human was not expecting to be rewarded with such a wonderous existence at the end of its horrific trek, but it was, and it took its reward with it as it left.

  The mushroom wanted to leave the swamp and search for the fruit just as the caretaker did, but alas it had too many responsibilities, too many other children that still needed its care and attention. The fruits mother, this tree, was one of those children; once the pride of the entire swamp, now a geriatric burden requiring continuous upkeep. Most of the mushroom’s responsibilities of late were dedicated to keeping this tree alive. Without its child neatly tied to its branches the tree was self-destructing from its sorrow.

  The mushroom tried what it could to alleviate the tree but even it was beginning to have doubts in the odds of the fruit returning. It had been two hundred years since the fruit and the caretaker left the swamp. Two hundred years without anyone to share a conversation with. Of course the mushroom loved the rest of its family, it loved every one of its offspring who prowled through the damp shadows of the swamp, but there would never be another that could match the brilliance of the fruit or share such motherly pleasantries as the mushroom could with the caretaker. Yes, the mushroom loved all of its family but those two weren’t just family, they were friends. Instead of being with them the mushroom had to suffer the disapproving gazes from the mountains while laboring for the wholly unappreciative tree.

  Occasionally one of the younger residents of the serpentine mountains would even try to descend and finish off the tree. The mushroom would hate to admit it, but it almost enjoyed the interruptions, a short bout of excitement to add a little diversity to its life. Whenever it killed the attackers it would have to drain them of their blood and save it for one of their siblings to come and retrieve.

  It was always the same sibling that came to acquire the blood; it was much more amicable than its younger brethren and was very understanding towards the mushrooms plight. Another reason for the mushroom to look forward to some attackers, because when their sibling came for their blood it could capture a glimpse of those conversations with the fruit in that creature. The mushroom originally had wanted to keep the blood for itself, the blood of the mountain residents could fertilize the swamp wonderfully, but such ideas never came to fruition.

  The mountain residents were very protective of their blood, they didn’t want another tree such as the one at the tip of the spiral sprouting after all. As much as the mushroom didn’t mind fighting the younger mountain residents it did not want to gather the ire of the elder generation. The blood gathering sibling had warned the mushroom that if at any point they discovered that the mushroom was keeping some blood for itself then their three-armed patriarch would descend himself to sort the situation. The mushroom could never let that happen, it had seen the three-armed patriarch battle at the third tournament and it never wanted to see it fight again.

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  The mushroom was not too familiar with the happenings of the humans, most of its experience with them involved them stealing one of its grandchildren and eloping with it so it had not been too inclined to make chums with them. Even before the mushroom’s soured opinion had the chance to form it was simply too busy or plainly just uninterested in the world outside the swamp. Despite this fact, the mushroom was quite curious about the third tournament. The mushroom was a little over a millennia old at the time. Still young enough to be reckless and inconsiderate of its position in the swamp. The tournament alone was not enough to garner the eye of the mushroom, what made this tournament different than the others however was the reaction of the mountain residents.

  The mountain residents had been quite active over the announcement that the three-armed patriarch would partake in the Tournament as an official contestant. The mushroom had never seen so much activity in the sky, usually the mountain residents spent most of their days hidden within their caves admiring their trinkets, but as the months went by and the Tournament was coming to a close the sky up above merely got livelier. At this time, the mushroom was not nearly as vital to the prosperity of the swamp, so it risked briefly leaving the safety of those murky waters called home to go see the last few rounds of the tournament.

  The mushroom dearly regretted going to witness such an unbearably vile bloodbath. The mushroom thought that the tournament was supposed to be an honorable duel of equals, but the ‘fights’ that the mushroom saw had been so disturbingly one sided that even it, a creature that subsisted off of the nutrients of decomposing corpses, found itself feeling queasy.

  Worst of all, the humans did not take too kindly to discovering the mushroom’s existence and were especially unhappy with the methods it used to enter the Tournament arenas; apparently killing was not taken as casually in the human world as it was in the swamp.

  The humans immediately took it upon themselves to initiate a series of highly organized crusades against the swamp in an attempt to completely eradicate it. These assaults obviously went horribly as humans were ill adapted for traversing the swamp. This had the small silver lining that at least their countless sacrifices supplied the resources to allow the mushroom to grow to the power and authority it currently had. A human may consider that a success, but the mushroom was not such a selfish being, it saw the crusades not as a bonus of resources but as a malus that attracted more disdain from the humans which would inevitably cause problems in the future, as was proven in the incident with the fruit. These cascading effects of negative results were all brought about because the mushroom thought it would be safe to leave the swamp.

  After that incident it chose to never leave the protection of the swamp again. Throughout the three hundred years since the third Tournament it had only ever been tempted to leave again once: for the fruit. It had been a difficult task to restrain its emotions and not act out recklessly. Thankfully, the mushroom had grown much since the first time it left the swamp, mostly due to the crusades, and had the intellectual clarity to do what was necessary rather than what it individually desired.

  At a glance, it would seem the mushroom had made the right decision, the swamp was thriving like it never had before. The only humans who ever entered the swamp were either suicidal buffoons who could barely last a day or the Tarragon monks who were respectful and accommodating to the ways of the swamp.

  It took a long time for the mushroom to quell its prejudice and ally with the monks but they had proven time and time again to be friendly folk, they rooted their homes in a small sliver of land between the cruor swamps and serpentine mountains; they only intruded under either of those territories after speaking with an ambassador that had been placed with the monks. Once the mushroom began trade with the monks it came to realize how useful humans could be at times. Due to the monks’ unique position they had been a wonderous intermediary between the swamp and the mountain residents; thanks to this bolstered communication there had been much less violence against the opposing forces, not no violence, but less.

  At a glance, it would seem the mushroom had made the right decision, but that was just at a glance. Time tolled on the swamp and it became clear that without the fruit the swamp’s current prosperity was but a temporary affair. The fruit was the swamp’s last chance to break out of its desolate confines, to reach out and become a true faction and respected member of Trammel. The mushroom did what it could, but it was no longer the young sporeling it used to be. A new authority was needed to rule the cruor swamps, an authority that could enact more change and instill more of its will to manipulate the waves of the soul sea, more so than the mushroom ever could.

  Compared to the fruit, the mushroom was past its prime, the mushroom was old, the mushroom was stagnant, the mushroom was weak, the mushroom was hearing the chime of a bell. In front of the mushroom by the tree the beginnings of a pink shape sprouted out of the thin air. The mushroom dropped its gardening tools and readied itself for combat, it knew not how this enemy got so deep into the swamp without it noticing but the mushroom would never let the tree be ravaged again. The mushroom released a thick cloud of spores to encompass the mound they stood on. The enemy did not change its behavior to this clearly hostile reaction, instead it continued to grow until it became what seemed to be a small pink rhombus, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards the mushroom holding a glowing parchment: It read.

You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Mire