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IS SWINDERLOG SWAMP GROWING?
A Two-
Part One: Dateline: 6-
Rumours have surfaced that the boundaries of the infamous Swinderlog Swamp in the center of the Kingdom are growing. This reporter had to find out. After a few leisurely wagon rides followed by some harrowing cross country races on horseback, this reporter was able to track down some leads to the rumours
As everyone knows, Swinderlog is a vast expanse of muddy wasteland, reeds, vines, and thick foliage that dominates Homeward. Many have entered the swamp never to return and the place has countless legends concerning danger and darkness that lurk within its expanse. The air there is fetid and stinking, while the sky is dark and heavy rain the most common of weather. Even experienced adventurers fear this place, where nature itself seems to conspire against them. It stretches in the West from the outskirts of Lionel nearly to the walls of Poldoon in the East.
In the recent past, the swamp, and the Dungeon of Swinderlog Hole, was the battle ground between two of Bereny's premier guilds and the diabolic entity of folklore, the Spindley Man. The White and Black Towers banded together to put martial prowess and necromantic art to the task of defeating, not once, but twice this vile creature that haunted the nursery rhymes of our children.
Rumour of the swamps expansion first surfaced soon after the Crown announced the new road between Lionel and Poldoon. The Dwarven Corps of Engineers, who typically do their best work underground on such projects as dungeon courtyard carving and renovation, were enlisted to make a long lasting and sturdy road requiring little to no maintenance in the future. The dwarves delivered, but not without some grumbling, this reporter soon found out.
"We were supposed to create the road around the Northwestern reaches of the swamp North of Lionel," groused chief engineer Thent Bolduker, of the DCE, "But when we reached the area closest to the swamp according to the survey reports we were given, we found boggy ground from East to West as far as the eye could see. We ain't ones for complaining. Figured some fool bureaucrat don't know how to mark a map or annotate a report, so we put the road right on through. Took some extra effort. We drained the water off into storage ponds. Hauled in slabs of granite to reinforce the road's foundation. Put in water passes under the road so the waters of the swamp could flow back and forth naturally without undermining the road's footing. When we were done, we knew that road would last for over a hundred years whether there was a swamp there or not."
When asked about whether he thought the swamp was growing, Thent gave me a look like I was crazy. "Only thing growing in there is swamp flies and lizard men," he said as he showed off a pair of lizard skin boots he was wearing, "and you can always stop a lizard man from growing." The elbow to this reporters ribs to punctuate the dwarf's joke have them still aching today.
So, I followed up with the Crown office of Surveyors and Cartographers concerning the erroneous survey report. "There is no swamp where those dwarves put the road in," Clerk Ninth Class Toliver Toinbee assured me with a huff. "They are just trying to get a few extra coin from the Kingdom’s coffers for work they didn't even do." Clerk Toinbee would hear nothing else concerning erroneous survey reports and rumours of the swamp’s growth and quickly had me ushered out of the office.
With no help from the Crown, this reporter sought more reputable cartographic resources. This lead to the Cartography Offices of Herman, Mirimon, & Russett. "If the reports we have been receiving recently are to be believed," said Oliver Russett, one of the trio of cartographers, and member of the Great Library, "Then I would have to believe the rumours."
When I pressed him further about evidence, he pulled out reports from traders who travelled the area several years ago and adventurers who more recently travelled the new road on their way to Poldoon. "If you look hear where the new road intersects the road that travels between Poldoon and Drax, all this area East of the intersection used to be open land. According to these reports, the swamp has expanded, not just to the Northwest where the new road goes through, but across the original." Oliver sighed heavily. "Why they even say, that a farmstead used to be here," he pointed to one of his old maps where a signed farm lay and then to his latest one indicating only a section of swamp. "Our reports say there is nothing there but a few fence posts and a collapsed chicken coop now."
Oliver was then kind enough to provide the names of the two adventurers that filed the reports with him. This reporter also tracked down the family that claim to have lost there farm to the growing swamp.
IS SWINDERLOG SWAMP GROWING?
Part Two: Dateline: 18-
After reporting on the danger of the growing boundaries of Swinderlog Swamp last week, this reporter set out for the war ravaged environs of Poldoon. It is within sight of the blood erupting body of the Emperor in Crimson that I found the Crusader of Cambron, Endre Varga Toth, the first soul to bring light to the swelling problem of the Swinderlog.
"I can't really say I saw the swamp growing", he explains. "I just know that when I set out to reach Poldoon to assist against the hordes of goblins facing it, I requested a map to help speed my journey. What I got was considered accurate, but it was admitted to be several years old."
When Endre first reach Lionel, with the first sights of Swinderlog further East, something about the swamp seemed different from what was described to him. Rather than a uniform "expanse of muddy wasteland, reeds, vines, and thick foliage", he saw some areas of harder packed mud that appeared no harder to cross than open land and other areas even more boggy and fetid than the majority of the swamp.
Not giving it much thought, Endre quickly found the new road and proceed North Northeast. He found the Lair of the Brain Eaters along the edge of the swamp just East of the road about two days North of Lionel. No sign of the disembodied brain creatures or White Tower forces in sight. "No doubt, the Tower Knights have the fiends well bearded in their lair," comments Endre.
Further North, he found the road turn more directly Northeast and into a section of swamp his maps showed no sign of. "Truth is, while as serviceable as any road in the kingdom," Endre describes, "It didn't look like much more than a wilderness trail." It was then Endre began to take a more thorough accounting of the swamp as he travelled.
"While passing though the swamp, it just seems more of the same as the days pass by. But, when I look behind me, I swear the swamp is changing." He goes on to explain, "I can't say any of the open lands bordering the swamp swelled with moisture, but some of the hard mud areas became waterlogged, some of the normal swamps became boggy, and even some dried into hard mud."
"I confirm everything the Crusader claims," blusters William Adams, Captain of the hot air balloon, the Electric General, when I caught up with him West of Poldoon. The winner of the First Hot Air Balloon Race had much to say on this and other matters. "From up in the sky, you can't really see the swamp through the thick clouds that seem to cover the area in gloom, but it certainly stretches further than the days I first entered the skies over Lionel in my race to land in the city square." The captain went on to expound upon his victory, but this reporter was eventually able to turn him back to the issue of Swinderlog.
"Well, with the announcement that the goblins had an airship the size of a castle, I had to head toward Poldoon to see what other threats might lurk over the skies of the city. I followed in the wake of the fleet footed Endre Varga Toth as I and my crew traversed the Bereny landscape." It was then this reported noted the dwarven and human wagon guards that were busily securing the tethers on Captain Adams balloon while they roll their eyes at his monologue. "We of course, had to set down for provisions now and then, landing on more than one occasion amongst the fetid waters of the swamp. Keeping in mind the crusader's reports, we kept a careful watch on the stagnant waters."
"Sure enough, during one particularly long stop, we found the water levels constantly in flux," he says with incredulity. "At some times, it even appeared as if islands were rising and falling in the swamps waters from day to day. Still, the most dangerous sight were lizardmen priests and the soul maggots they did summon. As the beasts came close, we ascended back to the heavens to avoid confrontation."
It took a couple days, and many retellings of the tale, before this reporter was able to bid the captain and his crew adieu. It was in the confines of the Dungeon of Drax Courtyard where this reporter found the last witness. Steven Stolpvfus and his family were now residing in a ramshackle hut made of wooden crates and strips of of cloth in one of the corners of the courtyard. Since abandoning their farm, they have eched out a living doing small jobs for the merchants and adventurers of Drax, just barely making ends meet.
"Even thoo the swamp was several miles to the Sooth, we always knew it was there with the over cast that could be seen on the soothern horizon," explains Steven as he nails up a new plank to the side of his hovel. "But the last two years was the strangest thing. That over cast sky seemed to grow clooser and clooser. Cooldn't quite figure it oot until my oldest boy came back from hunting one day." Steven pauses and motions for a tall lanky boy to come over. "Go ahead and tell the lady whot you saw."
The youth had wild dirty blond hair with soot smeared on his face from some odd job he was doing. "I was down in the fields Sooth of the road. A good place for huntin' wild boar and the occassional wild cat that comes a prowlin' oot of the Tallias Forest to the East. Nothing much oot there this day, but I was hopin' to come across some rabbits or squirrels." He looks at his father for permission to continue and Steven motions him along. "I was walking down into a shalloow holloow when I stepped knee deep into the thickest mud I ever sunk in. Took me until almost dusk ta poll myself oot and while I did it, I coold see that wasn't all the mud. To the Sooth, that holloow turned all to mush, with strange weeds growing and I coold even see a pond. I been going in that holloow plenty of time hunting and I can tell yoo, it wasn't muddy like that on a rainy day."
The boy then nods to his father who takes up the story. "After Caleb came back and toold us what he foond, things got worse real fast. First that holloow and then the entire plains Sooth of the road seemed to turn dank and fetid. More and more days were over cast and oor crops began to suffer. When the land North of the road began to soften, we knew we were in real trooble."
"Then one day," Steven began, "Miriam screams for me while I was in the barn. I came
oot with my pitchfork in hand to find my yoongest son Emmanuel caught playing tug-
"Steven," a matronly mother figure speaks up, pushing aside a makeshift cloth curtain, "We are getting out of here', I said to him. 'Find a nice prootected estate and Baron needing some farmers to tend his land."
"That's right," says Steven, agreeing with his wife, "but we haven't foond one yet. We packed up oor wagon, hitched up oor last horse, and in two days times, headed west to the dungeon. In that time, the barn collapsed and we lost our front porch to the softening groond. I hear there ain't nothing left except our chicken coop. They say the lizardmen keep fat maggots in it the size of piglets." The man visibly shivers.
All were asked if they can figure out what's causing the swamp to grow. "Perhaps the lizardmen are behind it," says Steven. "Maybe the Brain Eaters did something before the White Tower chased them back into their lair," offers Endre. "I think it's the goblins," voices William as he goes on to explain his extensive theory that the growth of the swamp is the goblins, 'final solution!'
It is all conjecture at this point. It could be any one of them. It could be a combination. Or it could be something else. The Spindley man, perhaps. All that is known for certain is there is little evidence to any cause. Still, it can't be denied, the swamp is changing and it doesn't appear to be for the better.