After lunch, it was finally time to say their farewells, and they gathered at the East gate. Leőn embraced the Princess briefly and was out of the gate first. Waving each other off they were all on their way. Gob was relieved to be back on the road at last.

CAAAARRRRAAAAARWWWWLLLL!

The Cockatrice soared overhead in a sweeping loop before returning to the palace wall.

Once past the chasm that surrounded the palace, the pass was an easy meandering gravel pathway that descended gently through icy mountain terrain, before gradually changing to frosty stunted grass, and then clumps of pine trees.

Gob had been fiddling with his cloakofnight as they walked. He was trying his hardest to make it do something, but nothing seemed to happen. He pulled it off, threw it on the ground and stomped on it in frustration. The cloak whipped around his ankle and tripped him over in response, making him growl at it angrily before zapping it away into his inventory.

"That's very advanced gear Gob," said the White Orc, "it will take some time and some practice for it to adjust to you, it's been with the Count for hundreds of years... by the look of it you'll need to make friends with it first, and I'm not sure stomping on it is going to get you there! Ancient magical gear can take some getting to know, but once you're bound together it can be extremely beneficial to you both."

"how i do dat?" asked Gob with a scowl.

"For now, just wear it. Let it get used to you, don't try and make it do anything."

Gob sullenly took it out of his inventory again, flung it around his shoulders and stomped off.

After a few hours of walking through a lush green pine forest, the path ahead seemed to descend into a dense murky looking mist. The closer the mist was to the trees, the less lush and green they grew, and the more stunted and dead they seemed to be.

"That mist is the outer edge of the Putrescent swamps of Mugwar." said the White Orc. "It's strange, I don't remember the Swamps extending this far up the pass. The Princess did warn me that the going through here would be slow and unpredictable. Every step we take forwards from here will need to be careful ones."

Leőn just grunted and disappeared into the mist with his hands tucked deep into his pockets.

"Leőn you had no way of knowing the Princess was your Aunt!" called Kylie after him.

The White Orc just chuckled quietly, "Fate can be a cruel mistress," he muttered, "and seemingly crueller to Leőn than most!"

"da prinsess woz his auntie!?" exclaimed Gob "iz dat wy he so grumpee? I juz fort she likd ze cont betta. he iz very likabl!"

"Shhhh Gob!" said Kylie, "She probably did like the Count better, but she also worked out her half sister was Leőn's mother. She let him know this morning and he didn't take it well... I think he was mostly embarrassed. He was obviously besotted by her. Maybe just... don't mention it to him ok? Give him some space."

Gob shrugged. He didn't know what the fuss was about.

They entered the mist together. The trees within it were leafless, stunted and gnarled with grey trunks and brittle warped twigs that felt more like they were being sucked slowly downwards than growing upwards.

But there was something much more than just stunted growth here, there was something… vile and putrid and mutated about it all.

There was a mixture of smells Gob could almost taste, each of them disgusting and choking, sometimes even causing bile to rise in his throat. He had become accustomed to the constant harsh whipping ice-cold gusts of the Mountains. Here the atmosphere was thick, moist, still and stagnant, more like fumes than air, with a background hum of bloated buzzing insects.

Gob noticed a fat winged grub with a pointed spear-like mouth sucking on his arm and smacked it. It burst with a wet

Splat!

The road of the pass was still gravelled, but to the sides of it the ground looked like it had become much softer and muddier, with puddles of putrid water that sometimes gurgled and bubbled, exploding from time to time with a thick wet

Blop!

and teeming with wriggling things that tried to crawl out and up onto mouldy fungus mounds that surrounded the puddles. Every thing was an off green or a brown colour, the only exception being a few scattered small purple flowers.

"wot iz dis?" Gob asked looking around them. He'd never seen anything like it. The mist meant he couldn't see very far ahead of them.

"Better question, what is THIS?!" said Leőn, who had returned from scouting ahead and was pointing at Gob with horror.

Gob felt his body tingling, and a sticky clamminess seemed to come over him. He looked down at himself.

The adorable fluffy white down of the shagpilehide had receded, and instead his skin had taken on mottled brown colour and a knobbly, slimy texture like an amphibian.

"eeeew!" said Kylie before she could stop herself. She put her hand over her mouth to try and stifle a laugh. She couldn't help herself though,

"You look like a toad!" she laughed, "even your eyes have got big and googly!" He could sense a difference in his vision, and he rotated his eyes around to test it out.

BA HA HA HAAAHAAA HA HA!

Laughed Kylie and Leőn together, not able to hold it back.

"Fascinating..." said the White Orc, peering into Gob's eyes closely, "Your pupils are horizontally elongated, just like a frogs... describe to me what you can see!"

Gob focused on a gnarled tree nearby, ignoring Kylie and Leőn,

"iz weerd..." he said, "i can see neely ALL AROND miself. even tho leőn an kylz iz ova dere," he pointed behind him, "i can see dem wen i look heer! orso, i can see fings moovin all arond. evyfing dats moovin, even da tiny liddl magots! but dat tree, i cant see it very well... iz sort of blury."

It was a very strange sensation for him. Instead of just looking 'somewhere' as he usually did, his new vision seemed to allow him to look almost 'everywhere' at once, but his attention flicked around his visual field, automatically directing his attention towards anything and everything that moved, and more or less ignoring anything stationery.

"Hmmm..." said the Orc thoughtfully, "movement based vision, wide perception range... you probably have excellent night and aquatic vision too I suspect. Leőn, let's try this out: run as fast as you can into the mist and conceal yourself..."

The Elf disappeared, still giggling as he went.

"Leőn ova der" Gob pointed into the mist, "I WOCHIN YOO ELF" he called out.

"KEEP YOUR EYES TO YOURSELF TROLL!" he called back through the mist, running further ahead to scout out the path.

Gob looked down at his claws. He always liked to know what was happening with his claws. Unfortunately he wasn't impressed this time. His slicehooks had reduced to short, insignificant little things. He poked himself. Still sharp. But small. And there were webs of skin between them so that his hands looked like flipper fins. As his skin felt slimy, he decided to take off his cloakofnight for now, zapping it into his inventory.

"Ahhh Gob... aaaahhhh... you've also grown a ridge fin on down your back…and a… and a… a ha ha ha! A… TAIL! Ha ha ha ha ha! BA HA HAA HA HA! Sorry Gob, I'm so sorry... you just, you just look…

"ridicalus" he finished, swiping his tail around behind him. It was actually quite long with a wide webbed paddle on the end, and underneath that, a very unpleasant looking jagged barb.

"Hey, get that thing under control!" said the White Orc, "It looks dangerous."

Leőn reappeared beside the White Orc. "The gravel road disappears into a bog a little way ahead." he reported, "We'll need to ensure… AHA HA HA HA BA HA HA!" he broke out in laughter as he noticed Gob who was turning around in circles trying to work his tail out.

"HA HAA HA HA! YOU LOOK LIKE THE LOVE-SPAWN OF A TROLL HAG AND A FROG!"

Gob glared at him. "if i iz a frog den, wy don yoo kis me an see if i terns into a princess?"

Leőns face went from laughter to shock.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Ouch! Too soon Gob!" said Kylie stifled a laugh herself.

"You were saying?" said the White Orc, interrupting.

Leőn glared daggers at Gob then turned to the White Orc.

"The pass ends quite suddenly up ahead, so we'll need to tread carefully. The ground is dangerously soft... what's wrong with you?" he asked, looking now at Kylie.

Hic-click!

She suddenly hiccuped and made a very strange clicking noise. She coughed lightly, embarrassed but also a bit wobbly. She seemed wheezy and breathless. She didn't look good. She didn't look ruby-red anymore. She was changing gradually to a putrid sort of a dirty red-brown colour. Her usually lithe body was bloated and almost bulbous. She held up a hand.

"I'll be OK" she wheezed, "I'm getting gassed up is all. I'll adjust, just give me a few minutes."

Hic-click! Click-crackle-click!

Coooooooooouuuugghhhhhhh! Cough!

Hock! Spiiiiit! Hic-click!

She deposited a congealed blob of something brown and oozy on the ground in front of them.

"Phew, sorry guys, that was disgusting."

They continued to the end of the pass, keeping an eye on her. After a little while and a lot of disgusting blobs and some more strange clicking sounds she seemed to balance things out a bit but she still looked pudgy and a sickly brown-tinged red.

"You can all stop looking so worried" she said after a while "I'm a gas being remember, I can stabilise most things pretty well, but there are some noxious elements in the air here. I think we should all be concerned about what we're breathing right now. Except maybe for bog-toad here" she smiled at Gob before coughing up another blob and hocking it out, "he looks right at home."

"Ha!" said Leőn meanly, still seething from the Princess jibe, "Bog-toad it is!"

Gob growled at him.

As Leőn had said, the gravel path simply sank away into a wide stinking bog. Gob looked around, not sensing much of anything moving that looked threatening, and without thinking too hard about it, jumped into the bog with a muddy splash.

"Gob!" wheezed Kylie after him, "what the heck are you doing?!"

Gob didn't really know what he was doing, he'd never swum before in his life, but he felt quite capable, he'd even wanted to, and now that he was in it felt kind of… good.

emerged:skill:swimma

"i chek path" he swam down into the bog water, and as he looked under the surface, he could actually see... or maybe rather sense... through the water very well, just as well as he could through the thick misty air above the surface. What was more, he felt like he could hold his breath for a long time... in fact he seemed to be breathing through his skin! Even though that made no sense to him. It was a very strange sensation.

He emerged at the other side of the bog and climbed out again, the mud sliding easily off his already slimy skin. He started walking along the edge, and the ground seemed firm enough for the others to follow... until a patch of it gave way under him and he flolloped back into the bog with a

Squelch!

"don step on dat bit" he pointed to the spot as he climbed out again.

He quickly held up a hand to stop the others. He sensed something moving ahead. They all stopped and crouched low.

Shuffle, squelch. Shuffle, Shuffle, squelch!

Whatever it was, it was moving slowly and didn't seem aggressive.

It was a line of eight men. But not men. Their eyes were blank white balls in their sockets, where they even had eyeballs at all. Their bodies were in various states of degradation, there clothes and skin both hanging off them in ragged strip's.

"Zombies?" suggested Leőn.

"Not necromantic," said The White Orc, "these poor men have parasites."

He was right. Somewhere on the head of each of the shuffling men was a great fat grey leech. The front leech-zombie had the creature hanging off the back of its head so it hadn't been immediately obvious, but once they could see it they couldn't unsee it. It hung from the back of his head and was so fat it dangled halfway down his back. The second man in the line had the leech hanging off the side of his head like a fat heavy earring.

They shuffled along in a line, their blank eyes staring vacantly straight ahead, their mouths hanging open, with drool running down their chins.

There was a sudden flurry of activity part way down the line. One of the little purple flowers suddenly sprang up from the ground underneath one of the leech-zombies, and opened a wide jagged maw full of green needle like teeth. It was powered by a thick muscular stem that was massively bigger that the innocent looking flower that grew out of its giant head. The carnivorous plant maw shot forwards and clamped down around one of the zombies with a wet

SLAP! SNAP!

It was wide enough to completely enclose it, and immediately receded back into the mud with a sucking sound,

tttthhhhhiiiiioooowwwwcccccchhhhh!

All that was left to show it had moved was the little purple flower swaying back and forth.

The leech-zombies didn't even register the loss, and just kept shuffling and squelching forwards, closing the gap in the line as if nothing had happened, and continuing off into the mist in the other direction.

The others just stayed perfectly still and watched them pass, silent, stunned.

Kylie hiccupped and clicked.

"We should follow them," suggested Leőn in a whisper, "they're obviously heading somewhere.. it might tell us something about this place to see where they go."

Once the leech-zombies had passed them, they fell into a line a few paces back and walked slowly along the same pathway in their wake.

They moved slowly, but seemed to have a sense of where to walk to ensure they didn't continually slide into the bog waters.

"Are we sure this is a good idea -stiflecough-?" Kylie asked, "what if there's more of them?"

Hic-tick!

Kylie covered her mouth quickly, apologetically.

"You are making some very odd noises you know. And there's definitely more of them," replied Leőn, "I'm hoping there's a whole village full of them... because if there's a village here, then there should also be a road we can follow."

Leőn was right. Before long, the old decrepit, rotten buildings of a ruined town loomed out of the mist ahead of them. The leech-zombies shuffled through what would once have been a town guard house but was now just a lopsided, sinking pile of algae-green stone and rotten timber overgrown with fungi and bog plants.

The town's buildings rose to two storeys each, on opposite sides of what once would have been a generous central street. The buildings might have been very tidy and respectable once, but now, looming out of the mist and covered with rot and barely still able to support their own weight, they looked eerie and haunted.

The leech-zombies shuffled into the central town square. As Gob and the others approached, they could see first a few more leech-zombies emerge out of the mist, then a few more again, then a horde.

"Oh my goodness -stiflecough-" gasped Kylie, her hand over her mouth in shock.

There weren't just men here. There were women and children. An entire town had been infested with the leeches.

Coooooooooogh Coooough! Hic!

"Kylie!" admonished the White Orc.

"I'm so sorry!" she gasped.

Coooooooooogh!

The lifeless white eyes of hundreds of tortured leech-zombies looked Kylie's way, their heads turning slowly,

wwwoooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

and low moans welling up in their throats.

As one they started shuffling towards the intruders to their town,

wwwoooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

this time the moans were behind them as more of the leech-zombies stumbled out of the decrepit houses that lined the street they had just entered the town through.

The four of them stood back to back, as the zombies lurched at them from every direction.

"Kylie, the best mass-zombie killer is fire; this is would be a perfect opportunity to show us what you can do." said Leőn urgently.

Kylie stretched her hands out in front of her.

Hic-tick. pppppfffz.

Hic-tick. pppppffffffzzzzzz.

"Ummmm, guys, I can't get my Magic to work..." she said worried.

Coooooooooogh! Cough!

Hic-tick. pppppfffz.

"kylz, iz yoo ok?" asked Gob concerned.

"I can't do it!" she exclaimed desperately, upset, nearly in tears, "I can't do anything!"

"don wory bout it kylz, com sit on mi hed an i'll stchak em an stomp em insted!"

"Good idea Gob, make us a path out of here." said the White Orc urgently.

Gob pulled out his flask.

"To Krunch!" he called out, taking three swigs.

+1size +1size +1size +1size +1size +1size

Gob swelled up and turned to Leőn, in a booming voice he said, "WICH WAY YOO WANT TO GO?"

"Can you see a road out of the village from up there with those horrifically large googly eyes?" he replied.

Gob did a quick scan around. All he could focus on were the leech-zombies lurching towards them. He just picked a direction and lumbered off that way. He kicked at zombies as he went, flinging them across the village square, where the they crashed and knocked down other zombies behind them.

"DO SOMETHING WITH THAT TAIL GOB, YOU NEARLY TOOK MY HEAD OFF!" the White Orc called from behind him. His hammer was out and he flung it into the thick of the zombies, smashing through them easily, leaving a trail of gore.

Gob had an idea and experimentally swiped his tail towards the zombies on his left, collecting a whole swathe of them in a single sweep at the same time as he kicked and stomped on the ones in front of him.

"HEY THAT WAS AWESOME GOB! DO IT AGAIN OVER THIS SIDE!" shouted Leőn, who had been flashing forwards into the horde and dispatching zombies. As fast as he was though, he wasn't making much of a debt in their ranks.

Gob swept his tail right, taking out another large swathe, this time four of them were impaled on the barb on the end of his tail and he shook it to dislodge them.

emerged:skill:barbtailsweep

"I'M NEARLY OUT OF TIME" boomed Gob.

"REMEMBER THE COUNT'S SUGGESTION GOB!" the White Orc yelled back,

"TOAST AGAIN!"