Most of the water was no more than ankle deep for the humans. Both men wore leather boots, so their feet were safe (though Coll observed that his were rather leaky, full as they were with bite marks from badger teeth). Benin’s heat aura constantly shimmered the air around him; it was denser and more concentrated than before, presumably a result of Bekkit’s lessons refining his focus. Anything that tried to drop down on the mage was in for a nasty surprise.
While Coll’s shoulders were protected by his ever-present chainmail, his neck and head were vulnerable. Rather than donning the chain coif he carted around in his bag, he elected to simply pull up the hood of his oilcloak. However, this did nothing to deter the ever-present biting bugs that swarmed the warrior like the walking banquet he apparently was.
Coll’s plight was made slightly less miserable by my new apothecary. Under Rattail’s supervision, he’d assessed the leaves and roots brought by the scouts and formulated an oily-looking lotion. Made from sarroway sap and cedar bark, when applied to skin and clothing the new repellant—apparently named ‘Fly Away!’—was as effective at keeping midges and mosquitoes at bay as Benin’s fire aura was at incinerating them. The mage was constantly accompanied by sizzling hisses as insects sought to feast on his flesh and instead met a fiery end. The sounds of immolated insects would have been maddening enough on their own without the oppressive orchestra of marsh sounds to accompany it.
My denizens clearly felt the same way I did. The children weren’t even arguing, despite the close quarters. They just huddled in their wagons, quiet and fearful. The sounds that filled the air were alien, far removed from the familiar birdsong of the forest, and even more ominous than the cry of owls. Here, there was hissing, rustling, and creaking warblers, croaking insects, and the occasional plop or splash of something breaking the water’s surface just beyond sight.
And the frogs. Gods, the frogs.
My first experience with the wretched amphibians, and I instantly hated them.
They were everywhere. Yelling and ribbiting, squelching and croaking, I despised their obnoxiously smug faces, their mucusy skin, their buggy eyes, their weird toes, and most of all, the freakish way their legs moved… I shuddered. Even when I couldn’t see them, they were always there, a constant chorus like a mockery of cicadas.
To take my mind off the little hopping horrors, I watched Binky instead. The fluffy arachnid was the only one who seemed unaffected by our environment. Binky’s long legs kept his body out of the shallow murky water, and despite the young gnome Pan once again riding on his back, the spider seemed perfectly content. I was a little concerned at the child’s exposure to falling snakes, but reassured myself that she’d basically proved herself immortal by now.
The new canopies—which the Augmentary had playfully dubbed ‘Snakeaways’—were doing their job and keeping my other denizens safe. They were simple enough, and hadn’t taken long to make; they were basically just hides stretched out on top of supports affixed to each corner of the wagon. The hides were scraped thin enough to be translucent; whenever a snake landed on top of it, the gnomes below could see it easily, waiting until it was near the edge and using sticks to fling it safely away into the swampy murk.
Every wagon also had a flask of antidote at the ready, just in case. However, there was no antidote for bacteria. The murky water grew even more so in our wake as the cloying air made my denizens sick to their stomachs. Having already drunk their previous stores, the gnomes were also forced to consume water from the raincatcher, which was basically just marshwater.
No wonder they’re ill.
After I instructed them to Improve the raincatcher, the builders devised a series of filters that improved the water’s quality somewhat, though still did not entirely purify it. Thankfully, after a few days, the majority of my denizens returned to full health as one by one they developed full resistance to the dodgy water.
“Hardy creatures, these gnomes,” said Bekkit admiringly. “So small, yet so persistent! Like the mighty cockroach.”
“Need I remind you what became of the last individual to call us cockroaches?”
“No offense was meant, young Core, I assure you.”
“I know.” He was right. Cockroaches were small, hardy, and persistent. My denizens were all of those things. No matter what happened, the gnomes would always come together and carry on, even when the odds were stacked against them. Especially when the odds were stacked against them.
Whether it was an army of kobolds or a deadly hostile marsh, we would take it on and emerge victorious on the other side—literally, in this case.
And hopefully soon.
Time remaining for Exodus: 12 days, 3 hours, 26 minutes
Forty-Four
Frogs
Corey
Vocation unlocked: Wetland Ranger
I blinked away the notification. This was the fifth time I’d seen it, which meant all of my scouts and Longshank had maxed out their passive Marsh Terrain skill. Though progression in any skill was usually cause for celebration, I withheld from assigning this particular vocation to anyone, since I was fervently hoping we’d have no need to set foot in a swamp ever again.
The maxed-out skill proved its worth, though. My scouts could now go for several hours before needing to return to the convoy, pale and sweating (which the Augmentary assured me was from exhaustion and not some kind of swamp fever). The bramblecramps attached to their shoes also helped some, as did their atrocious new snakeskin armor, but even so it was all they could do to find us a safe path through the marshy ground.
What I wouldn’t give for a couple of boulderskins right now…
The amphibious armored lizards were perfectly suited to this sort of environment. They would have been invaluable—assuming the gnomes ever overcame their innate fear of my god-born creatures.
That said, I’d noticed they were much more relaxed
