The marshes were as inhospitable as terrain could come, but that didn't slow down the leathery faced men that marched in the marsh. Each dragging motion of their legs sent mud and muck slopping forward; each breath they took tugged more of the vile air into their lungs. It didn't matter. The Deadwood Devils were used to it.

"Bloody bugs," grumbled Raff, the redheaded man swatting a mosquito away as he trudged ever onward. "Can't believe we're fighting a million bugs just so we can get somewheres and kill some bugs!"

"Free 'em or kill 'em, it don't matter," grunted a big fellow in response, brawny with short blond hair atop his head. "Boss says we just gotta make sure the other gang don't get to keep 'em."

"The Mud Worms, yeah," muttered Raff, scratching at the back of his neck with dirty fingernails. He came to the edge of some dry ground, and he held his hand out so Boris could help him get out of the murky slush that came up to his knees. "But what're we even gettin' out of this? Most times he's all for adding to the little 'confederation' we've got going. What's got him bloodthirsty?"

"Don't ask me," replied Boris, shrugging his shoulders lazily. "You wanna know? You can ask the boss."

Raff shuffled in place. He didn't really want to ask the boss. The man had been in a... mood. Ever since the Devils had come back out of hiding, the boss had been on a warpath, making sure that every gang and every village knew he was back. It was about sending a message, so he'd said. But something about their current job had him even more on edge. It was... well... It seemed personal.

As Raff finally dried himself off, he brought his fingers to his lips and whistled. The sound broke the cricketing and croaking of the swamp, leaving silence in its wake. Then, slowly, a shadowy shape, low to the ground and bestial in posture, crept along the ground towards the bandits. It came out of the fog and into view: a scarred wolf, old and vicious with more bite than bark. Its fur was filthy, but its body was healthy and well fed. Still, that didn't make Raff feel any braver about putting his hand near the beast.

"Fang, Fang. You're a right vicious pooch, ain'cha?" Raff cooed, standing straight up and grinning down at the canine. "Love that in a woman, I do. Real good girl, you are!"

"You're a bloody idiot, Raff," grunted Boris, setting his spiked club against his shoulder. "Come on. We've got to keep moving if we're going to reach that camp."

"Aye, aye, but hang on a sec, ya big lug! We should take a breather. That march took the wind outta me!"

The bigger bandit rolled his eyes down at the shorter, skinnier one, then demanded, "And just where the Hell do you think we're going to sit down for a quick kip, eh, dumbass?"

"Over there," answered Raff, pointing lazily over toward a cave that rose just a bit out of the swamp. It looked dry enough.

The big bruiser scratched his chin, then nodded. "Fine. Ten minutes. That's all you get. Then we get back to the job before the boss hears you're getting lazy."

Watch, listen, and wait. That was the plan. Those were the tools she needed to use most effectively to survive, to endure. She didn’t have an island anymore, no private domain far from anything to hunt and eat and idle around. She could feel in her bones she was still so impossibly tired, but there was nowhere she could rest that would be safe enough for proper sleep, and without food and heat that sleep would do little for her. Try as she might not even the barest sparks would come to her call for a meager fire. Everything had to be done by hand, by hands that were already tired. It was a downward slope to ruin that only made it harder to climb the further down she slid, but despite it, she was gaining ground. Little by hard-fought little, she was getting stronger.



Euanthe’s flesh and scales were still largely a mottled gray. The dust of ages of stone and a lightless pit having robbed her of all color, but in the firelight, at night, she’d noticed a familiar bronze glint to her hands, and paws. Her claws had been coming back in. That was good. It would make a number of things easier. Chiefly among them, killing prey so she could eat. So Euanthe had done just that. The bones of the reptilian creature that had floated like a log and snapped vice-like jaws at her littered the floor of the cave. She’d not bothered to dispose of them because she would not be staying in that cave long. Some of the pieces might be useful, and she would take those with her, but there was no need to tidy a cave she would soon abandon.



It was too dangerous to stay here, she had heard them in the bog at night, seen their camp at a distance and in the dark watched them, and listened.



Men. She had known in her gut they still existed, unchanged from her time. There were good humans in the time before, though by her experience they were rare, but these were not those sorts of men. These were the other sort, just in watching them from afar she had been able to tell as much, feel as much. These were the kinds of men she was familiar with. The greedy glint in their eyes their sneering pride and jostling for dominance over one another through intimidation and violence. She did not know their language yet, but she was picking up more words by the day from watching them, even with what little she could understand, she saw how often they lied.



That was why she could not stay in the cave. Why she could not risk a deeper sleep, and why food was so hard to track down. With their hunting and their noise, easier prey wouldn’t come near, and if one of them got curious and stumbled into her shelter… they were as like to kill and skin her… or worse, as they were to try anything else. No best not linger in such a place blighted by their kind.



But she was not quite ready to leave just yet, and doing so would have to be done with care, which was why when she saw new men, different from the regulars at the camp, advancing quietly through the marshes, Euanthe receded into the cave and watched with keen interest. Her middle head pulled back even farther than the other two, to be more obscured in the dark. She lowered her body behind some rocks and watched. But they were still drawing near. Euanthe saw the wolf with them. She saw how it was not lean like the dogs at the camp, or the local hunting predators. Either these new men fed it, or it was finding far better game further afield than she had. The former seemed more likely to her, especially without signs of more wolves, or fear from the men.



Sinking the serpentine parts of her necks even further behind the rocks her outer two heads leaned forward, they shifted to wrap their arms around one another as if seeking support, cowering from the big scary men that were about to find them scared and cold and alone, clad in tattered rags in a cave. Like twin lures of an angler fish, only Euanthe would not eat men, save as a last resort, but it was better to have a plan than just be standing inside the mouth of the cave, better not to reveal everything all at once.



So like that, she waited for them to come to her, inside the cave.

The pair of crooks and their tamed wolf made their way toward the cave with Boris mumbling about wasting time as they went. He and Raff were in the midst of some tit-for-tat argument about their plan of attack against the other bandit gang when Fang started growling, fur standing up on his back as she stared into the cave.

"Hey, hey! What's got you worried, girl?" asked Raff, brow furrowed. Then he remembered the bone necklace he was wearing¹, the one he was borrowing from the boss, and he reached for the toothy adornment and ran his fingers along the sharp edges before speaking again. "What do you smell?"

The wolf growled made a series of snarls, and then Raff raised an eyebrow, looking at Boris.

"She says she smells, uh... snakes?" muttered Raff, raising an eyebrow.

"Snakes? Good eatin' if you know what you're doing," rumbled Boris, shrugging a beefy shoulder. "Right. A couple snakes shouldn't be any trouble for us. Let's get on in and see what we can find."

Shrugging right on back, Raff murmured a few words of encouragement to Fang before heading after his taller, more intimidating companion as the brutish man led the way into the cave. He came to a sudden stop right before the entrance, though, holding an arm out that caught Raff in the stomach as the thin man tried to march on forward. Raff groaned, then peered forward and blinked as he saw exactly what made Boris come to such a sharp and complete stop...

"Is those ladies?" he asked dumbly.

Yes, there appeared to be two ladies hiding a bit away from the cave entrance, standing behind some rocks and clutching each other out of fear. They were in tattered, ragged clothes, and their features were clouded by the shadows of the cave. Boris frowned. Raff grinned.

"Ladies!" repeated Raff, flicking an excited glance over to Boris. His eyes practically gleamed with delight. "Oh, Boris! If we rescues them, they'll probably be proper grateful, right?" Without waiting for a response, he started marching forward, but Boris was smart enough to grab him by the scruff of his neck and drop him roughly back behind himself.

"Think with your head, not your crotch, you addlebrained bastard!" growled Boris at the other man. "First, do you REALLY think there's two lovely ladies just waiting for us to rescue them? Second, since when are we in the rescuing business? Third, Fang was spooked for a damned good reason, and we know that dog's smarter'n you are; and what's more, you'd realize this stinks of a trap!"

"Aw, c'mon! They don't look dangerous!" argued Raff.

"The last time someone said that, Bjorn got eaten by an oh-so-pretty lady ghoul," Boris reminded Raff with a glare.

"But it's different this time!" insisted Raff, waving his hand insistently toward the raggedly clad women in the dark cave. "C'mon, Boris! I ain't seen a woman in WEEKS! Can't I just talk to her?"

"Raff, ain't no woman in all Charon would want to be within a ten mile radius of your scummy arsehole," snapped Boris decisively back at the skinnier fellow. The big man rolled his eyes and very quickly assessed his options. There wasn't anything to gain from robbing the women, clearly; they had no possessions of value on their person. They also were probably dangerous in their own right, else why would they have survived alone in the Marsh Flats? Really, there was nothing to gain... unless they were dangerous and could be negotiated with. The wolf was still on edge, so Boris could only assume they had to be dangerous.

Without any further ado, Boris raised his spiked club and pointed it towards what appeared to be two women inside the cave. He kept his distance from them as he spoke, and made sure there were a few stalagmites and stalactites in between as well just in case he needed cover quickly.

"Let's keep this simple, now," the large man called out. "We all know this ain't all what it seems to be, so let's have us a chat. Who are you, what are you doing here, and what do you want?"


Somehow, Boris got the sense that his words weren't being wholly understood. He noted the torn rags once more and realized the women looked hungry. Considering that, he reached into the pouch at his belt and pulled out a packet of travel rations. Roots, mushrooms, and week old jerky didn't exactly make a lordly meal, but he got the feeling the women wouldn't care. He tossed the packet over toward the nearest woman for her to catch.

"Eat," grunted the big fellow.

They drew closer, the new men in the swamp. They did not smell new to the marshes, did not look it either. Though one was fool enough to advance towards the cave, their wolf and the other were smarter. Euanthe’s tail moved behind the rocks, readied to lash out at the first sign of trouble but her two heads continued their ruse at first. They did their best to look afraid, mud-caked hair helping to obscure their features but perhaps it was the growling of the wolf, or the glint on their fingertips that had given them away. Either way, as the bigger one spoke She knew they knew her bait was exactly that.



She feigned ignorant for a while longer as she heard words but understood few of them. The two parts of herself that could be seen flinched and tried to cower further; but it was clear this gambit would go nowhere easy. The bigger one dug through pockets and seemed to find something, as the two parts of herself watched him with suspicion from the corners of their eyes. Sudden movement came first and she responded in kind. Even as the word that provided clarity, that she understood, followed after, it was too late to stop herself.



”Eat.” he had said but that word was overlapped with the piercing crack of a whip that echoed out of the cave the packet knocked aside and the actors no longer playing roles of damsels but watching the men, and the wolf. The crack had come from her tails lashing at the unknown projectile, deflecting it. But as her minds processed what was said, one of the two that could be seen eyed the splayed contents of the packet on the ground. There was a tense wary quiet for a moment and then, the faintest of rumbling. Not like the shaking of the earth or the falling of stones, but those tiny tremors akin to when a heavy cart or large draft horses would trot by on the road. The movements of something large and heavy padding softly on stone.



Slowly the two supposed women came more into view the serpentine nature of their waists more apparent as she allowed more of herself to be seen. The third shape more visible but still shrouded in the dark, one pair of arms began to pick the food up off the ground while the other eyed the men with the alert, twitchy suspicion of a predator backed into a corner. The third shape in the dark writhed strangely and the susurrus hissing of far more than two snakes trickled out in the faint echoes of the shallow cave.



Hesitantly the part picking up the things, and sniffing them, began to eat. She took a shred of spiced dried meat and pressed it to the reluctant lips of the other who refused to look away from the men. Slowly she chewed as she continued to glare. She, her other self, with a handful of edible things receded into the dark near the other shape and from the dim shadows finally, a voice, high and feminine, but soft and hushed, crackling with tremendous disuse.



“Why?”

Raff screamed in terror and mumbled gibberish as the serpentine monster made her true nature known. The wolf snarled and barked, its front low to the ground as if ready to pounce. But Boris - big, steady Boris - he kept his cool despite the terrified voice in his head telling him to run, telling him to get the Hell out of there before the creature attacked. With one hand he grabbed the harness on the wolf to stop it from attacking, and the other he grabbed Raff by the arm to stop the man from fleeing. Neither fight nor flight was the right decision.

Boris had seen awful stuff working under Granth. He'd done... things he preferred not to think about. He'd steeled himself for dark deeds before, and he could steel himself to talk to a weird... person, too.

The woman - the women? - slowly picked up the fallen food while Boris reined his companions in. Slowly, quietly, the monster began to eat, each body on the being seeming to have its own reaction to events. It seemed they were three distinct people after all... maybe.

"Why?" was the only word they spoke. No, it was the only word one of them spoke, soft and feminine in tone, completely at odds with the aberrant being that spoke it. Boris let out a low, thoughtful rumble.

"The boss likes meeting strange folk like you," replied Boris slowly, taking his time with each word. He wasn't being careful with his choice of words; the blond fellow just wanted to make sure the snake women had a chance to process each thing he said.

"There's more food where that came from. More food," the large man emphasized again, tapping a satchel at his side. "But it ain't free. You gotta help us first. You help us, you get food. You follow us, we'll bring you back to the boss, and you ain't never gonna go hungry again."

"You sure this is a good idea?" asked Raff. But this time, Boris didn't even bother talking to him. He just gripped the man's shirt tightly enough to choke him a little before letting him go.

"Those men," Boris continued, pointing out of the dank cave toward the very distant camp in the mists. "We're gonna kill 'em. You help kill 'em, you get the food. Deal?"

Notably, the big fellow didn't step forward to offer a handshake. He wasn't feeling that brave. He had limits.

"No Boss!"

The voice was more stern, more crisp, and its source was not obscured. From the bandits perspective, the rightmost creature, the one that had not slinked back, not stopped glaring, that part of her had answered immediately, understood quickly and decided. She, all of her, had learned that word in watching, learned enough and remembered enough to know she did not trust it. She growled and her hands shifted, fingers spreading, claws on more prominent display.

The leftmost, the one that had gathered the food, had retreated to the shadows, fed the other heads leaned forward again and spoke.

"We help you, we fight them, you feed us, we eat food." 
That voice was not the first that had spoken, or the second. It was gentler, less hoarse, lower and softer. 

"You leave!"

The aggressive part growled a conclusion to the response. 
Then there was another soft rumble and the dark in the cave drew closer. Stepping around the stones one clawed leg at a time. The hissing of snakes increased in volume as the large shape grew larger the closer it came. 

"You fight us...." 

This time the first voice had returned. As she spoke she drew her final head forward letting herself be seen with her scales and claws and mane of hissing serpents. 

"... we kill you. We eat you. We leave."

Unlike the voice of her glaring self, this one did not speak with restrained anger or passion, unlike the other part, she was also not making an offer. Her words were a cold statement. Less a decision more an observation formed into a warning. A clear statement of intent regardless of weather she would be able to follow through on her claims. She, all of her, knew that her words in their tongue were broken and poorly strung together, but by choosing the ones she best understood they felt they had delivered a clear enough offer. 

They would trade violence for food, and be left in peace, and if betrayed there would be direct violence.

"We will help."

she concluded, reaffirming her offer as she took another step forward to be more clearly seen. As she did some of the bones of the floating lizard she had eaten were knocked forward scattered by her footstep with dim rattling its flat skull filled with needle-like teeth now scattered in two parts. 

Euanthe waited to be certain she was understood. 

The whole conversation with the three-headed hydra woman was... daunting. Neither of the bandits felt particularly safe as the three woman attached to the same body argued with one another in broken sentences, and more than a few threatening words and gestures were cast in the bandits' way. But Boris stood firm with sweat rolling down his forehead, and he listened closely until, at last, the final verdict was made.

"Then it's a deal," the big fellow rumbled, wiping his arm across his brow and turning back toward Raff. His companion could see just how relieved he actually was once he turned his face away from the intimidating creature behind him. Boris took a few seconds before gathering his composure again.

"Right. Let's get moving, yeah?" Boris grunted the words out, but he didn't wait for a response. He just started marching out of the cave with a dour expression.

---

The trek to the camp had not taken especially long. An hour along the driest available patches of land in the murky morass led the motley band of ne'er-do-wells to a copse of withered, tangled trees. Using the sparse foliage for cover, light-footed Raff scouted ahead briefly and came back with a brief assessment of the situation.

"At least a dozen men around the camp," he explained in his jittery voice, "maybe more what's patrollin'. Can't see shit with the mist, though. Means we'll get the jump on them, but they's just as likely to get the jump on us when the surprise runs out."

"Then we got to be proper quick about this," replied Boris roughly, setting his club against the palm of his hand. "Don't gotta kill all of 'em. Just need to kill or scare enough to bust open the holding pen where they's keeping those bugs.

"You're with me, Snakes," the big brute decided, pointing with a thick finger toward a distant set of pens and cages with outlines just barely visible in the marsh. "We're gonna sneak on up and bust folk up close and personal. Once that's done, we free or kill as many of the Bogskippers - them's the big bugs - as we can. Raff's on lookout duty, and Fang's our backup if anything goes wrong. You understand?"

Euanthe hesitated at the mouth of the cave, only for a second. Squinting through the trees at what else might be out there, who else might be hiding. Two sets of eyes scanning for signs they may have missed, saw nothing and so she fell into step behind the two men. She eyed the water nearby the wet seeing an easier and quieter approach to her but then, humans didn't like getting wet and did not cope well for long in the mire. Their soft skin and clothes made for poor protection from things like the toothy lizards that played at being logs.

So she continued to lurk behind them, lowering her necks to keep her heads more level with the men so she would not stand out at a distance and did her best to tread quietly behind them.

In time, they were before the camp enough to slow and stop. The men started to speak to each other and only bits and pieces of what they said were words that Euanthe knew. Her aggressive head frowned and furrowed her brow, her opposite looked more concerned and her center self remained placid as ever, eyes still closed fast and covered by a blindfold.

"Snakes" she knew that was her, and two heads turned to face him. . "Sneak.... up close.... we free or kill..... many.....big bugs.... lookout .... Fang's...... wrong. You understand?" She folded all her arms for a moment staring back at him processing his gestures his tone and piecing together the words she knew. Finally one of her heads spoke.

"We go fast and quiet. Break cages, free bugs, kill men."

she repeated back to him in a stern and annoyed tone.

Euanthe wondered if she should do something to lure the men away from the camp, but the camp was too far from the water to lay much of a trap, and with little magic and a tired body, it would be far too easy to bite off more than all her mouths could chew. 

"You go first."

she concluded, gesturing for him to lead the way. 

"You catch on quick, snakes," Boris rumbled, then turned and nodded over to Raff. Without another word, the smaller of the two bandits creeped on off into the reedy marshes, securing a hiding spot to keep watch from while Boris led Euranthe towards the Mudworm encampment. Fang followed after Raff and vanished from sight almost immediately.

Boris actually moved pretty quickly through the marsh once he was separated from Raff and Fang. His longer legs gave him that extra bit of mobility to wade through the wetter part of the waters and to get extra stride on dry land. The closer the pair got to the camp, though, the drier the land became, and soon the brute found himself depending largely on the mist and on sparse opportunities for cover to stay hidden.

There was plenty of noise all around: toads croaking, snakes hissing, waters churning, mud bubbling, a very slight sound of rain, the moaning of the trees as they were brushed by a grasping wind... The whole of the swamp seemed to be alive. Buzzing, growling, shuffling sounds were there as well, most distant but just on the edge of one's sensation. That atmosphere lent the air a lot of tension... but it also provided the sneaks some protection from detection. It helped, too, that the place the Mudworms had chosen to make their home stank faintly of marsh gas. Even someone as filthy as a bandit would have some cover for their scent.

The blond bandit led his companion to a tangled trio of dead trees, then came to a sharp and sudden stop. He gestured for the giant three-headed hydra woman to lean forward and take a peek around the corner. He was already looking in that direction.

Ahead of them were three pens made of moss covered wood, each of which had a large number of huge insects in them. They were, in fact, as big as donkeys, and would make serviceable mounts for smaller beings. There were larger kinds among them as well, easily able to hold an average sized human, albeit with some discomfort. That was the raiders' goal.

Boris raised a hand and pointed toward some figures moving about in the darkness. There were four of them: two goblins, one human, and one half-orc. They were all on watch, but not doing a great job of it, clearly busy playing dice on some barrel being used as a table. The half-orc was the clear leader of the group given that he actually had armor and carried a greatsword of the local people. The goblins (one of whom was missing an arm) had only shortspears, and the human had a brace of daggers, a hatchet, and a buckler. None of them looked particularly cleanly, though the half-orc at least maintained a trimmed, pointed goatee and a devilish looking mustache connected to it. They all clearly had some fighting experience.

"You're the scariest. Go for the big ones," Boris grunted, glancing over at his ally. "I'll kill the goblins, then help you as soon as I'm done. Then we handle the bugs. Clear?"

This time, Euanthe understood enough of what was said to grasp her role in this. She moved further forwards and gestured for the man to go around the other way, giving her space to work. She gave him a moment to make distance between himself and her before she leaned her two more human heads around the corner. Her stony-grey skin was still not restored to what it should be, would not work in its pallid complexion and mottled appearance, as any sort of lure. The dark of the cave had made it easier to hide but out here the shadows were not so dark or nearly as reliable.

The two leaned around the corner more obviously, and one started to stifle a false giggle enough to draw some eyes her the other threw a rock at the half-orc, deliberately missing and then going wide eyed when he looked her way and 'running' back out of sight trying to give the impression of running away. The head that lingered a moment longer than her sister tried to catch the eyes of the human before stifling an overt laugh and seemingly running away in the same manner.

Euanthe was practically begging to be chased, while trying to make her invitations look both insultingly targeted and vague as to prevent calls for the alarm at least before these proud stinking bandits had a chance to see what was going on.

The half-orc did not appreciate having a large rock bounce off the back of his head. He turned with a snarl to face the source of the stone, drawing his blade from its massive scabbard at his side.

"Someone thinks they're going to play a game with me, eh?" growled the bulky warrior. He was an intimidatingly sized man, standing an entire half foot taller than Boris, and each step he took after the hydra-like women into the marsh was considerable in size. "Must be those brats from the village again. Come on, Long Tooth!"

Long Tooth, the goblin with two hands, started chasing after the half-orc. The pair disappeared into the mist away from the pens, leaving the one-armed goblin and the human by themselves.

Boris was not a very quiet man. He was a big, strong fellow, and his silhouette was visible in the midst. But the brutish bandit knew well how to maximize the element of surprise, and he came rushing out of the mist in a sudden charge that didn't give much time for a response. The human and the goblin turned to face the noise just in time to see a furious, grimacing face jutting out from the mist and for the taller of the two watchmen to catch a club with his face.

It wasn't a clean strike. Boris' target had just enough time to raise his buckler, but his strength wasn't as great as Boris', and the big man slammed through his defense. Still, that block was enough to turn what would have been a certain killing blow into a stunning one. The thin man sort of twirled in place and slapped face first into the muddy ground, but he started rolling onto his stomach and thrusting himself up to a knee.

The one-armed goblin rushed in with his shortspear to defend his compatriot, screeching fury up at Boris. The thug got nicked in the leg, and he grunted in anger before smacking the offending spear away with his club. Still, the goblin had bought just enough time for his ally to rise to his feet and lower himself into a fighting stance, a throwing dagger in one hand and a buckler in the other...

---

Elsewhere, the half-orc and his much smaller companion prowled through the mist, squinting about for danger. The scuffle hadn't quite started behind them, and they were too engrossed in their hunt to realize that someone had slipped behind them to attack their compatriots. The goblin had keener eyes, and he was able to keep track of their prey while the half-orc kept better pace.

"Come on out, then!" growled the half-orc. "You wanted to play games, huh?! Well, I've got a game I want to play with YOU! COME ON!"

As the half-orc and the goblin moved into the mists, Euanthe slowly backed up letting them gain on her, putting more distance between them and the camp. Between them and help. Her heads were low to the ground and the heavy mists made it easy to be seen as two women, short in stature fleeing through the fog. 

The goblin's better sight would make it easier to follow and perhaps, the first to be warned when the figures in the mist stopped retreating. The orc and his companion gained on them and as he called out his threats, Euanthe decided they had come far enough. 

"We..."

"...play..."

"...games."

The three heads spoke in turn as they stepped towards their pursuers and as she did she rose up, up, up to her full height, heads looming above the half-orc. The echoing report of twin whip-cracks sounded as her two tails swept around low and from the side attempting with their barbed heads to bind the shorter, more nimble, creature from running. 

The outer two heads took advantage of any moment of surprise they may have raised lunging at the half-orc's left and right with bronze glittering claws raking at his face and back as the serpents sensing commotion on her central head coiled and hissed in warning as she drew that blindfolded head back further to keep part of herself out of the reach of a potentially franticly swung blade. 

The half-orc, veteran as he was, was caught off guard by the duplicity of the aberrant hydra woman. He tried to raise his sword up in time to parry the monster's attack, but wasn't quick enough. The claws that struck his face were not enough to kill him, but the spray of blood and the scream he let loose told the world how dire his wound was. He fell back on his rump, clutching his suddenly empty eye socket, blood and other fluids pouring out onto his shivering fingers.

The goblin, however, was able to dodge the monster's initial tail attack, albeit only just barely. And though he could have tried to fight, he started dashing away from the scene. His avenue of escape was limited because of the aberration's presence, but he started running toward the shallows of the swap to get away from his fearsome foe.

It was possible that the hydra would have to choose between finishing off the half-orc or chasing after the goblin... unless she had a third option in mind. The bandit slinger, Raff, and his pet wolf were still nearby, presumably...

---

Boris was not having a great time. A dagger flew out and grazed his cheek; it didn't do much to hurt him, but it did do enough to surprise him. That surprise was all the time the one-armed goblin needed to lunge forward with a spear. The big brute took a second stab to the same leg, and he almost fell onto one knee as a result. His ambush wasn't working out quite like he'd planned.

The big fellow did, however, have one last dirty trick to try. The pair tried the same trick a second time; a thrown dagger and then a quick lunge forward. This time, however, Boris the Brute stepped over a log while retreating, and the moment the goblin charged, he kicked that lock toward the goblin.

The log struck the goblin in the legs. He fell face-first onto the ground, and Boris' spiked club shattered his skull open like a ripe melon. He leveled his angry gaze on his human opponent.

The other warrior still had the advantage. He had daggers aplenty still, and Boris was wounded; he planned to simply bleed his opponent out. But as he raised his dagger, some silent beast rushed behind him and leapt. He turned just in time to have his throat torn out by a fierce wolf.

Boris panted for breath, glancing back over at the wolf. He nodded to her, and he muttered only two words out as she stared back at him.

"Good girl."

Euanthe did, in fact, have a third option at her many fingertips. As the half-orc clutched at his face and dropped his face Euanthe could feel his warm blood clinging yet slick, on her fingertips. There was no time to pause, to think, to hesitate, only act. The runt was running but she had a task to perform and now it was a matter of them or her. She could look large and imposing but she knew, all of her knew, she was not strong enough to fight a whole camp of men at once. Combined they would take her down like a swarm of ants, and she held no delusions that the men she'd come with would linger and help her. They'd leave as easily as they came.

As the half-orc landed, hands on his wound in that unfortunate reflex, she made to grab him, four arms moving at once to grip and take hold and if they found purchase she would use the turning of two torsos, the whipping of two serpentine necks, the force of all her strength to hurl the half-orc in a hammer toss through the misty air towards the fleeing form of that elusive goblin. Listening for the sound of muscular bulk crashing into wiry frame and thudding against the damp earth.

Two birds, one stone, as it were.

The fight was over as quickly as it had started. The half-orc flew through the air like some macabre rag doll and smashed into the goblin trying to run away. The frightened goblin was pinned beneath his unconscious ally, and he struggled vainly to pull himself free, but couldn't. He cried for the half-orc to get off of him, but the half-orc couldn't move. He'd struck the ground face first. His skull had fractured, and he was dead.

The trapped goblin vainly tried to pull himself free, but being squirmy and nimble wasn't enough to pull himself out from beneath the weight of his old boss. There was nowhere to run. There was nothing to do but wait for the inevitable.

Just then, Raff came out of the mist, running up to within ten feet of Euanthe. He was panting for breath, stooped over, and pointing out into the mist.

"Five more comin'!" he wheezed out. "We'd best finish up and get out of here!"

---

Boris, meanwhile, started doing the one thing he was really, really good at: breaking stuff. His slammed his heavy club through the padlock keeping one of the gates open, spooking the jittery bugs inside and causing them to back away into a corner. They weren't fleeing the pen, though, and even smacking the pen didn't seem to make them do more than huddle and hiss. So, he scratched a magical rune on his club that had been carved by one of the boss's pet mages and whispered the command word. His club flared to life with magical fire.

Getting the bogskippers to leave was much easier after that. Boris just set the whole pen on fire, and they fled with incredible haste. He managed to get the second pen's members fleeing as well by similar means, leaving just one left...