You are significantly
tougher than when you went to sleep. Your heart beats more strongly, you feel brighter and more vibrant in your muscles and breathing. Some part of you knows that you can take a fair bit more punishment in a fight, and you have naught to fear from common diseases - even poisons or exposure to the elements will be attenuated.
You also feel much more competent in
mass combat, enough that you find your previous defeat surprising knowing what you do now. Fresh tactics flood your mind, ways to avoid getting trapped and mobbed the way you did before, tricks of speed and mobility that make you that much more dangerous in a large fight. You feel as if taking on a hundred armed men might be an even fight now.
You are hungry, but Gugujib has apparently been laying in a few stores for you, and you happily scarf them down. You slip out of your lair and engage in some hunting to fill your belly - you are reaching the limit of what your current food sources will do for your size. Having done it once, you can always return to cattle rustling as a food source in future if you want to make a habit of it. [3] The six now feral pigs are still alive, but have not birthed any new pigs - at least, none that have survived. You might want to set a swineherd to watching out for them in future.
By the time you return, Gugujib has risen and is waiting for you. After prostrating herself and offering various satisfying ingratiations, you silence her and instruct her to conduct her report.
4, 6
"Things are peaceful in the swamp, master. The three main villages are in a state of peace with each other and your hunting of the area has been infrequent enough not to attract too much attention. I can confirm that the Bloat King has put a sort of bounty on you - indirectly, that is. It seems that the Bloat King himself doesn't feel you are a threat, but the daughter that replaced the guardian of the Igrylligus shrine, Tulumata, She of the Drawing Dark, was close to Phragmita and has taken issue with you killing her sister. She has offered a boon to any kobolds that kill you and has been providing packs of trained spit lizards to serve as companions to those seeking you. I have not seen her in a fight, master, but rumour says that she engages in combat primarily through traps, poisons and stealth.
"I also have the locations of several homesteads and even one of the Bloat King's lesser shrines found, which I have marked here on this map of the local area. Speaking of the local area, I have learned a little more about where we are by talking to various elders, since I have always thought of this place as 'home'. We are in the centre of what outsiders call the 'Bitter Swamps', loosely divided into five regions. To the north, the swamps continue on until they rise into high hills and mountains. To the south, the land grows firmer and becomes deep jungle. To the east, the swamps eventually reach a wide open sea. To the west, the swamps thin out until they become open grassy plains.
"The reason I mention this is because there is a caravan! A few of the strange, tall, pink-fleshed people we call 'humans' have ventured into the swamps from the west, travelling with armed guards and beasts laden down with useful and rare goods, which they are trading as they move between the homesteads. It seems they will likely stop at Igrylligus soon to make trade before continuing on their way."
With that, Gugujib concludes her report. She looks up at you hopefully.
A) Commend Gugujib for her service.
B) Tell her she has done a good enough job to live... for now.
C) Allow her a trinket of her choice from the hoard.
D) Gift her with the guardian's bow as a reward.
What will you set Gugujib to doing now?
A) Return to espionage. Keep a finger on the pulse of the swamps.
B) Return to working as a hunter for you.
C) Remain here as a guardian of your lair.
And what will you do?
A) Investigate this caravan, since you know its general route and location.
B) Test your new skills and hardiness against the denizens of the third layer of the catacombs.
C) Head up and begin planning a way to tackle Tulumata, She of the Drawing Dark.
D) Topple that other shrine of the Bloat King's, just for fun and looting.
E) Go fuck with some kobold homesteads, or maybe even one of the villages.
F) Go seeking a new challenge or source of wealth entirely.
G) Something else?
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Topic: SPAMDRAGON: Swamp Baron (Read 39499 times)