The next morning, Gorfang announced he had some doubts about the deal they'd made. He declared that he was going to visit Damarus in his lair (as decribed by Lynien) and re-open the conversation. Lynien and Eloy accompanied him; Méabh hadn't returned from the Mageguild overnight, and Uruk was sleeping off a rather pleasant night with the ale-cups.
All the way there, Eloy was worrying about what his orc comrade was going to do. Convinced he was going to cause trouble and start breaking people, he managed to infect Lynien with nerves as well, so that when they arrived, she elected to remain outside.
The door was opened by a well-dressed young manservant, who allowed them in and courteously guided them to a small ground floor waiting-room as Damarus was busy for the next half an hour. Gorfang paced heavily for the next twenty minutes, increasing Eloy's nerves, and then they both heard footsteps descending the stairs above. As Lynien had described, the noise was considerable. The front door slammed, and a few moments later the footman re-entered to tell them Damarus would see them now.
As 
Gorfang started up the stairs, making enough noise to drown out blacksmithing, Eloy leaned close to the footman's ear. "I would suggest you fetch my friend here a good stiff drink; it might calm him down," he whispered. "Certainly sir. Same for you?" was the reply. "Milk please," said Eloy the non-drinker firmly, before following Gorfang up the stairs.
At the top, the man ushered them through the door into Damarus' office, where they found the man himself, seated behind his desk. "Gentlemen. A pleasure to see you again, so soon," he said politely. "Please, take a seat." Gorfang sat down. "Thank you," he said. "Good of you to see us. But. Why should we risk our necks for a miserable four thousand?"
Eloy braced himself.
Outside, Lynien had drifted across the road to a sausage seller, and secured a rather dubious looking snack. As she ate, she eyed the building, her experienced eye relating her memory of the inside to the layout of the windows outside. Deciding which was Damarus' window, she settled back to await the first body being hurled through it.
Inside, Gorfang and Damarus were debating keenly, and - so far - without violence. Gorfang contended that 4,000 wasn't much, even converted into magical items. Damarus pointed out that the hire was not the end of the story. First of all, there was the bonus; then there was the adventure; and finally, the prospect of loot if the legends of lost civilizations in the swamps turned out to be true. Yeah, right, thought Eloy, but didn't comment. Damarus nearly caused a fight when he pointed out that people after a fixed income would be better off working on the docks than adventuring, but Gorfang didn't rise to the potential insult.
At this point the drinks arrived on a tray, and Gorfang picked up the milk with a grateful nod. Eloy stared at the little ceramic cup of clear liquid for a moment and then reluctantly took it.
Gorfang then started asking about the opposition. Damarus was apologetic, but admitted that he was unable to tell any more than he was permitted. "Is it the Fae Mhor?" asked Eloy suddenly. Damarus didn't turn a hair. "More legends!" he said, "Do they exist?" Eloy chuckled. "There's one dead behind the Dungeon Tavern for a start," he commented. "Drink up," urged Gorfang.
Gorfang stood up. "Please ask your client for me," he said in closing, "to reconsider telling us about the opposition. The less we know the less chance we'll come back. Also, please ask him to define the bonus a bit better?"
Damarus nodded. "I will ask," he said.
Eloy tried to put his drink down, but Gorfang noticed, and encouraged him to finish it. A few minutes later, he stumbled down the stairs and wobbled out through the door behind the orc, blinking owlishly in the sunshine.
Back at the inn, Eloy ordered two glasses of milk while Lynien preferred a flagon of mead. Eloy ordered a big mug of the savage spirit he'd had on the first night for her instead, but she wasn't impressed.
After a while Damarus' footman appeared, bearing word of Gorfang's request for more information. The message was simple: "The opposition have no idea that this thing has been found. The less you know about them, the safer you are. On successful recovery of the Pyramid, a bonus of 15% of its value-" Gorfang snorted and looked skeptical - "as determined by an independent Mageguild assesor, will be added to the fee."
Gorfang picked up the drink Eloy had bought for Lynien and handed it to the manservant. "It will have to do," he said, "here, have a drink." The youth took the cup. "Thanks very much," he said, and drained it. Four seconds later he was spark out on the floor.
"Time to get going," opined Eloy. Gorfang scribed a note for Damarus: 'We are setting out now. The chances of us returning, and of you getting the Pyramid, are reduced by your witholding important information.' He tucked this in the footman's tunic and left him to recuperate.
The party stared through a curtain of rain at the city of Nasirolan. For some, it was their first sight of the city where lizardmen and humans shared power; for others it was more of a homecoming.
The city itself was unique among Alair's settlements. Once capital of the northern land of Orwin, it was the first place liberated from the armies of Varkar when the Elvenhost landed just before the Slaying. Since then, a coalition of power formed from the advanced lizardmen and the humans of the region had filled the power vacuum to create the land of Dalghendor. The result was a blend of architecture not found anywhere else. Normal human styles stood side-by-side with the low, rounded structures favoured by traditionally-minded lizardmen, and above both soared the incredible glass towers found nowhere else in the world.
Understandably, in the downpour, the subtleties this of this were rather lost on the travelers. Pressing on down the road, they entered the city in search of shelter. Splitting up, Méabh and Uruk went off to secure lodgings, while Gorfang, Lynien and Eloy went on some errands.
First on the list was locating some form of library, in order to try and find where the Mengis lizardmen lived. Nasirolan had no temple of Aderra, and no-one felt inclined to apply for permission to use the theocracy's library, so a professional sage was the only practical option. After a little investigation, the party arrived at Dorsan's Information.
A uniformed librarian came up to Gorfang and asked what he wanted, ushering him to a table. Eloy drifted off and started idly reading spines on the (locked) shelves.
Gorfang lit a foul-smelling cigar, causing the librarian to recoil in horror. "Oh, no, please don't do that here, there's too much paper!" he protested. Gorfang stubbed his cigar out again on the polished table. "I have two questions," he said, "One: I need to know where to find a lizard tribe called the Mengis." "That should be easy enough," answered the other, tearing his gaze from the wounded table. "I know of a volume with maps of tribal territories ... Just 1 silver for that one."
Gorfang nodded, satisfied by this. “Second,” he said, and stood up. With a single movement he unhitched his massive doubleaxe from his shoulders and brought it around in front of him. The library was fairly quiet anyway but the ensuing silence was deafening, broken only by the sounds of people trying to flatten themselves backwards against the walls. Gorfang, appearing not to notice, placed the axe on the table with a clunk and sat down again. Everyone breathed again.
Behind, Eloy had located a rack of books he felt weren’t properly watched. After a moment’s work, he had the latch open and slipped a book out. Flipping through, he realized it was a book on bookbinding. Lynien looked over at him and he waved it at her. “Look at this!” he called. Lynien cast an expert eye over it as she came over. “It’s worth a whole twenty-eight gold,” she said crushingly, “and when we steal things we don’t wave them around.” Eloy put it down. “Who’s stealing?” he asked unconvincingly.
"What do you see there?” asked Gorfang of the information salesman. There was a pause. “A weapon?” Gorfang sighed slightly. This was going to take longer than he thought.
"How many blades has it got?” he asked. The man’s face cleared, he was on firmer ground here. “Four,” he replied confidently. Gorfang paused. “No, how many ends has it got?” The librarian got there in the end; “Two.”
"Good. Now – what am I?” There was a rather longer pause while the man considered and rejected a few suicidal answers. “A warrior,” he tried. Gorfang had had enough. “An orc,” he supplied. “This,” he gestured to the weapon, “is an orc doubleaxe, a weapon peculiar to my species. In the way of weapons, it is made in different ways by different makers. I collect powerful magical weapons, and I am seeking legends, myths and real accounts of powerful magical orc double axes.” The librarian nodded again. “Right you are sir,” he agreed. “That will probably be a day’s work through various volumes,” he continued, “and that will cost five silver.” Gorfang put ten gold down on the table. “Oh! That will be fine, sir,” said the librarian, “I’ll just get your change.” Gorfang shook his head. “No need for that,” he said “It may be a couple of weeks, though, before I come back for the results. This is a deposit.” The man bowed. "Ask for me - Stenfors - when you come back." he said.
Eloy had tried again, and had this time located a book on the animal life of the Trakar. Just as he picked it up, one of the librarians took it gently from his hands. “No, sir, we do the research,” he said and put it back. “But I want to buy it,” protested the human. After some discussion, he managed to purchase a similar book, by one Berephor, on the fauna of the Trakar swamps. This cost him 50gp.
Leaving the sage’s premises, the next item of business was to trade the group’s horses for something more suited to the swamps. On the western edge of the city, the side where the lizardmen were more prone to live, they found a corral packed with enormous lizards, with a lizardman leaning on the fence in exactly the same way as most of the horse traders they’d ever met.
This lizardman - Rallyt - was happy to guide them through the process of selecting and purchasing six riding lizards. There were several important differences between horses and lizard mounts. The movement for a start; horses went up-and-down, wheras lizards undulated side-to-side. They were also a lot lower; riding through swamps on those was going to be muddy, thought Lynien, blessing her impulse buy of a pair of thigh-high riding boots in supple leather. Five lizards cost the group 180gp, which they made back half an hour later by selling their horses. No-one even suggested that Gorfang should part company with Shamlakh; the warg’s broad, agile feet and keen intelligence were more than up to travelling in marshlands.
Eloy pondered aloud whether lizardmen could mate with these things and create offspring. Most of the others just looked faintly disgusted, but Lynien glared at him. “Inter-species copulation is a sore point with me,” she snapped. Wisely, Eloy subsided.
There being plenty of daylight left when all this was done, the group elected to push on into the swamps straight away, and make all speed down the riverbank to seek out the Mengis lizardman tribe. Mounting up, they prodded their lizards as Rallyt had showed them, and the monsters lurched forward. Uruk was taken by surprise the first time, and slithered sideways off his mount to sprawl in the street. Scambling up as the others laughed, he jabbed his beast rather harder the second time and held on rather tighter as it accelerated to catch the others up.
Four 
days into their journey, the time came to angle away from the river and head inland. Following the river had been easy, but now it had dropped out of sight, Eloy was beginning to become nervous about the accuracy of his navigation. The ceaseless rain didn’t help, as the stars were hidden at night. Everyone was cold, wet, muddy, and mercilessly harried by the bloodsucking insects of the Trakar swamps, as well as being bored and depressed by the featureless, dismal view in all directions. The smell of wet orc had also led to the party stringing itself out in a loose formation, isolating each member in a damp ball of misery. Sloshing along in a miserable half-doze, they were almost oblivious to what was around them – too boring to pay attention to – and if it had not been for Eloy’s wild yell they would have been completely surprised.
The human 
had been the only one paying much attention to the surroundings, casting around constantly for some sort of landmark, and when the ground started to shift and rise next to his lizard it caught his eye at once. As he shouted a startled warning, the muck and vegetation humped itself up and rose, higher than a man, into a blurred bipedal form dripping and writhing. Another rose on the other side of the line of lizards, making the ambush complete. Eloy had only reached ‘L’ in Berephor’s book of, but Gorfang had heard of this sort of thing; larger ones lived in the Tainted Forest at the north end of the Desolation. They were shambling mounds, sub-sentient carnivorous plant creatures, and the party was their chosen afternoon snack.
Uruk reacted with lightning speed. His hand-and-a-half sword flashed in the rain, and he jabbed his heels into his lizard to induce it to charge into action. With a savage twist it lurched sideways, catching him unprepared again, and with a sullen splat! he pitched face-first into the mud.
Sceptical of the probable results, Lynien drew her bow and sent an arrow straight at one of the shamblers, swearing quietly as it skidded off the creature’s slimy, rubbery hide. Eloy, right next to one of the monsters, didn’t need to move his mount and lashed out with his sword, cutting a wound and releasing a flow of green fluid – sap? Blood? He wasn’t sure and didn’t care. The shambler had struck back, hitting his leg so hard he wondered briefly if it was still there before seizing him in a smothering embrace in arms that began to tighten inexorably. Behind him, at the head of the column, Méabh cast Mage Armour to protect herself before making an attack. Great, thought Eloy bitterly as his ribs creaked.
Gorfang spurred Shamlakh forward, and the warg bounded to the attack. Both orc and wolf scored telling strikes on their target, which gurgled angrily at them and responded by battering the orc with its’ armlike extensions before lunging forward in an attempt to grab Gorfang off his mount. The orc deflected this and managed to get in an extra low blow as he did so.
Lynien’s arrows bounced off the back of the shambler throttling Eloy and she lowered the bow in disgust. A thought struck her, and she fingered the Necklace of Fireballs Eloy had given her.
Uruk, back o
n his feet, swung a mighty strike with his sword and carved an enormous hole in the shambler, making it stagger but not bringing it down – or stopping it from slowly choking the life out of Eloy.
Méabh now cast her second spell of the combat, and it more than made up for the wait. Hordes of small lizards, swamp rats and insects boiled up out of the swamp and swarmed all over the shambler holding Eloy, biting and tearing. Green shambler sap poured out in all directions, and the monster lurched around trying to brush off the vermin.
On the other side of the column, Gorfang smashed another mighty blow into the second shambler, and it disintegrated into a shower of bits of vegetation. He wheeled Shamlakh and bore down on the other monster as Uruk dealt it another heavy blow. Gathering all his strength, Eloy heaved, and finally managed to tear free from the shambler’s grip. Instantly he hit the mud he was squirming to his feet, sword raised, desperate to avenge himself on the beast before Gorfang could arrive and dispatch it. As he poised to strike, however, the black sword Veldrin tore through the shambler from above and it collapsed back into the mud.
"Well done,” said Gorfang cheerfully, “You kept it busy!”
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