RP:Illusions in the Misty Swamp

Part of the Surface Tension Arc

Synopsis: Krice departs Gualon and travels through the swamp when his journey is interrupted by an odd light in the distance. He follows the light to a solitary tree and finds the decaying tableau of a campsite. The light, a will-o-wisp, moves, luring Krice into the swamp where a grey ooze awaits to split this prey with the malevolent orb of light. However, Krice proves too clever for their ruse, and the will-o-wisp engages in a more direct attack, when suddenly an undead ghoul, moving in a serpentine fashion, appears at the campsite. Krice investigates this third creature, and is attacked. During swordplay, Krice's katance cuts free a brooch from the undead's cloak, and its magical illuson shatters. It is a yuan-ti, the swampy or desert cousin of the naga. Krice defeats the naga and the will-o-wisp and ooze eat its body and leave Krice alone. Krice takes the enchanted brooch for himself.

NPCing by Gevurah.

The Swamp

Krice moved from Gualon toward Kelay, traversing the more rigid pathways of earth that steered him relatively clear of the swamp's more gelatinous zones. He was dressed in his usual black attire, though this time with -two- katanas strapped to his back in criss-crossing formation, allowing him to grasp at their hilts visibly protruding from behind each shoulder. As he walked, the scarred man seemed oblivious to the creatures that lived in the swamp, or at the very least held no concern as a result of their presence.

An orb of light flickers in the distance before Krice’s line of sight, just off to the left — his 10 o’clock, in military speak. Few trees populate the swamp, but those that do are thick and gnarled. They predate the swamp itself. In the muck, no saplings may flourish. These few trees are here because they beat the marsh in that epochal geological race to claim this patch of land. Their old roots have fanned wide beneath the grime and provide weary travelers with a sturdy bed. And so this light hangs from a low-hanging branch. Warm yellow in color, positioned cleverly as is human, it is common to assume the light source is a lantern. But no other movement or sign of life can be detected beneath the branches. What more, and this is quite difficult to articulate in terms man can understand, there is a primal feeling of wrongness. This feeling, while bereft of logic and evidence, persists. It presses down on all who gaze upon the light. Something is wrong. Someone needs help. Come. Quick! Help!

Krice noticed that lantern the moment he stepped around one of the few gnarled trees, its twisted trunk no longer obscuring the light from his perspective. He glanced at it, first in subconscious reaction, and then gazed more intently upon the light as if its glow was magnetized, drawing him in. Though the warrior had passed through Gualon's swamplands many times before without issue, something about -this- expedition felt decidedly off. Unable to immediately identify the problem, though not lacking in desire to do so, the silver-haired enigma shifted his trajectory to approach the light, his left arm bent upward over his shoulder to take hold of the hilt behind it. At best, Krice had eaten a particularly rancid piece of fruit and was subsequently rendered paranoid. At worst, his paranoia was actually understandable hyper-vigilance and he encountered more than just a benign glow in the swamplands. If the latter, then at least he'd be clearing the way for other travelers to pass through safely.

The light doesn’t move from its position as Krice approaches. The only movement is the yellow flicker of presumably a flame. Once Krice is beneath the broad expanse of branches of that fateful tree, he’ll spy an old bedroll riddled with mold, a ripped open knapsack, and a broken lantern on the ground. From the knapsack seeps out decaying food, covered in a writhing layer of maggots and a black cloud of flies. The buzz deafens. The stench rises above the foul reek of swamp to add its own putrid musk. No body, alive or dead, is here. The light which attracted him snuffs out mysteriously. Should Krice stop in his tracks for more than a second to inspect the scene before him, he’ll find himself struggling to start walking again. A sentient, malevolent ooze, perfectly camouflaged in the same color as the swamp, attaches itself to Krice’s legs and slowly starts to suck Krice under like quicksand. It could take an hour or so to complete, thus Krice has time, but time alone isn’t enough to save the warrior against the powerful drag of the ooze.

Krice knew the swamp. He knew it well. Many months of travel between Gualon and its neighbours ensured that he -had- to learn the lay of the land. He harboured a modest disinterest in smothering himself in the goop that lumped the terrain together here, and thus had learned the more solid pathways that would lead him out safely. Investigating that strange light, however, meant that he wasn't on his way out of the swamps. Krice stopped a few metres back from the looming bows of that originating tree because he didn't need to get closer; evolved senses helped him detect the stench, and register the sights, of the long-abandoned makeshift bedroom from afar. Unless that peculiar goop extended out so far, to include the thick network of roots over which he stood, Krice would be safe as he spent a moment to inspect his surrounds. The disappearance of that light didn't escape him. Furrowing a brow, the enigmatic man adopted a quizzical expression and flexed his fingers around the hilt of his sword as he looked around. He lingered just a little longer, trying to uncover the mystery of that light, the abandoned sleep space in the middle of the swamp, and the strange ambience that thickened the air.

The light reappears a few yards to Krice’s left. It laughs playfully, in deep tones.”Yoo hooooo!” it calls, clearly impressed with its own game. It cackles again and lightly bounces in its hover. Despite its childlike approach, the thick ambience of wrongness remains palpable. The patch of swamp between the light and Krice is knee-high. Unseen beneath the muck, the ooze moves. It seems both creatures, whatever they may be, are fixed on Krice. The ooze moves very slowly, however. The light moves quickly.

Krice's eyes shifted toward the light upon its reappearance and he stated quizzically. He had seen many strange and baffling things over the years but never a bobbing light... that giggled. Whilst his deeper expression read 'what the f--', his surface appearance was a less-aggressive embodiment of that, gilded gaze intrigued but guarded. " What are you?" He called to the light, remaining in place, the entrapping sludge oozing harmlessly in front of him.

The light laughs again, possibly at Krice’s question as if it understood him. It zooms quickly, like a falcon diving for prey, towards Krice’s forehead. If it collides with his head, Krice will feel an electrostatic surge through his brain that would cause pain, like a very brief migraine, and possibly even make him see stars as if he were about to faint. But he shouldn’t faint or suffer any more than that. If the light misses, it will turn and dive again, and again, and again, always laughing. If Krice’s katanas are not enchanted, they will slice through the light, the will-o-wisp, without causing any harm. If they are magically enchanted, they will crackle against it and create short tongues of lightning in all directions and cause the creature pain and slow his game. During this battle, if Kthe warrior’s vision should ever turn back towards the rotten bedroll, he’ll see that suddenly a decaying, undead man stands there, staring at him and the will-o-wisp. The undead man sways slightly side to side in a serpentine pattern that breaks the laws of physics imposed upon the human form.

Krice was so perplexed by the light-ball's laughter that he didn't think to dodge it. The strange little creature connected with his forehead and the resulting effect caused him to stumble backward on his left foot - half a step away from the quicksand. The warrior cringed and hunched over, lifting his right hand up to the side of his head. Clutching against silver hair, as if to squeeze the pain and prevent it from spreading, Krice suffered the momentary migraine somewhat gracefully. A grunt followed the fading of that pain and he looked up, squinting through the subsequent dizziness at the erratic ball of light. What the hell -was- it? Flexing his left fingers, the man withdrew his sword and brought it down sharply in the same motion, cleaving the light ball right through its middle - only, not. Just as he came to terms with the little creature's lack of substance, his eyes were drawn to the movement of a corpse not previously seen. As the dizziness and headache - and all around confusion about this encounter - faded, Krice directed his gilded stare toward the strangely-animated body and angled his sword in that direction, but kept it low. Rather than address the light-ball again, the composed man stared at the moving cadaver, intermittently dodging the light ball's attacks - sometimes accompanied by a swat of his free hand - if it continued.

The will-o-wisp sees the undead human as well and readjusts its game plan. It hovers like a vulture near the tree, then dives towards the undead creature and communicates wordlessly. The ghoul does not react. His dead eyes focus on nothing. His body lifts and writhes under a power not of his own. He does not stand on his own two feet, but instead on ankles bent backwards so that his weight seems to rest on the curve of his ankles and bridge of his feet. The ghoul’s torso is too long for his legs and arms, as if he were once normal then stretched on a rack like taffy. He wears a cloak with a brooch as its clasp. The brooch’s elegance and craftsmanship clashes with the rotting scene. A darkened ruby sits at the heart of the brooch, set in an ornate weave of hematite. The undead continues to undulate patiently until Krice is just a meter beyond striking distance, then it lunges like a viper, head first, and its ragdoll legs dragged on bent ankles. It clears striking distance and then some under a power unseen. In place of fangs, it fluidly draws mid-lunge a short, curved sword out from under its cloak and slices towards Krice’s chest.

Krice must not have been expecting such a response from a reanimated corpse, for its sudden attack inspired surprise to the surface of his expression. Without hesitation, his left hand was on the hilt of his sword and he pulled it free, striking downward into the undead's curved blade in smooth, swift deflection. As he brought his arm back up, the warrior flicked his katana diagonally upward, seeking the rotting man's throat. In the same movement, he darted backward to achieve some distance between himself and the corpse, booted feet purchasing on other tree roots further removed from the sludge that perculated beneath the swamp surface. From this vantage point, the silver-haired man watched the scene and considered how best to proceed, another wrist-flick dispelling rotted flesh from his katana blade, presuming he had met his mark.

Krice’s katana splits the undead’s throat, but two curious things happen that one would not expect. First, it bleeds, hale, warm red blood, as if it were a living thing, it doesn’t die, as if it were an unliving thing. Its wounded body undulates in retreat, bones rolling in and out of their sockets, poking out angularly beneath thin, rotting flesh. The second surprise comes as a result of the fact that Krice’s katana nearly cut the brooch free from the cloak. The jewelry clings on by a single thread. Precariously it sways to and fro until snap! The thread bursts. The illusion of the undead creatures dissipates. In its place hisses a yuan-ti abomination. A mutant part snake and part man, muscular in the extreme, with arms and pectorals that blend seamlessly into a snake body below, and viper head above. With the illusion broken, Krice can see that his katana in truth did not cut the beast’s neck, but across his chest. The gash bleeds profusely, but the warrior snake is not so easily dissuaded. Again he lunges forward, this time feigning left and right with the speed and whip of a boa constrictor. He curves his torso around the tree and slams his large tail towards Krice, hoping to crush him against the broad tree behind him.

Krice arched an eyebrow. Another thing unexpected - the metamorphosis of zombie to naga... or rather, the dispelling of illusion for reality. His experience with the snake-people race was not much, but he knew of them enough that he was spared the 'what-the-eff' that otherwise would have resulted from seeing such a hybrid of species. Further thoughts on the matter were quelled in the wake of the naga's attack. That thick, muscular tail pushed Krice against the tree as intended, back-first into the unforgiving bark of its trunk, and he grimaced from the impact. Lacking the weaknesses of regular humans, the silver-haired warrior survived the hit and managed to protect his chest with his katana. Angled upward, the blade poking out past the naga's tail, Krice pressed its sharp curve forward with his right hand fisted against the less-sharp ridge on the opposite side. His intention was to cleave the strange creature's snake-body from its human aspects, thus freeing him from the tree and allowing him movement for further attacks.

The naga had prepared for such an attack, could not predict the strength and speed with which Krice strikes. Krice’s beats the snake’s evasive maneuver and slices deep into the snake’s belly. It hisses and struggles to remain upright. It swings its sword wildly in Krice’s direction, the final act of a creature smelling death on its own flesh. That’s when the will-o-wisp, malevolent spectator, swoops in for its final act. It attacks the naga! It feeds off the neuro-electrical charges of a brain just as it realizes it will die. Its former prey, Krice, is substituted by this new one. If Krice doesn’t finish off the naga, the will-o-wisp will. It then blinks out of existence. The naga’s dead tail slips into the swamp, and the waiting ooze slowly begins to pull the carcass under to sate its appetite. The wicked ecosystem of the swamp drums on, humming, gurgling, sucking, sinking. Krice tussled in the figurative web of its food chain,, where creatures predate on anything to establish themselves as the arch predator. He escapes by the skill of his sword, and luck of his fate. The shining brooch winks at him in the setting rays of the orange sun.

Krice relied on his skill, not the uncertainty of fate, to free himself of the snake-like creten that had attacked him. Muscled arms tensed to push the katana blade through the entire thickness of the naga's tail, whilst he pressed his back to the tree behind him to avoid the wild flailing of its retaliatory swordplay. Only once he had cleaved through the snake body did he withdraw his katana, recoiling toward his own torso before reaching up to deliver the killing blow. Halfway through the gesture, with the curved steel angled toward his for but still within his own space, Krice caught sight of that strange glowing ball again. Hesitation on his part allowed it to finish off the naga in his stead, and he looked on in bemusement. Only moments ago, it had seemed as though the will-o-wisp's target was -him-... and yet here it was, killing the creature who had attacked him. With the naga dead and the glowing ball once more dissipated, the silver-haired warrior was allowed a momentary reprieve to digest what he'd just been through. Concluding that it was a strange, unexpected, peculiarly-resolved encounter that he wanted to avoid repeating, the enigmatic swordsman stepped clear of the sinking corpse and lingered to observe. For whatever reason following, Krice opted to take the brooch that shone upon the junction of the fabric, pocketing it shortly after. He lingered no longer, now that the wisp and swamp had taken care of the aggressive snake-beast--though what would take care of the wisp?--turning to once more continue on his way, albeit a little more hastily, given his loot.