The Mud Flats (Act 1)

Mud Flats

My first thought is of mud, sucking, thick, pooling around my boots. The place is damp and dreary, the skeletal trees forming a thick canopy up above that chokes out most of the midday sun. Water glistens all around me, splashing around my feet as I walk Eastward, the buzz of distant cicadas rising and falling as I go. After the endless melee of the Terraces, this new area feels almost peaceful, but that impression lasts only a moment. Something huge and spikey is dashing through the gloom towards me, shrieking. It looks angry, and very hungry. Something huge and spikey is dashing through the gloom towards me, shrieking.

I ready myself for the thing's charge, and when it comes, it knocks me reeling. Suddenly it is upon me, slashing with its great, leathery taloned feet, and biting savagely with a weirdly colorful beak. I fight back gamely, my sword first clanging uselessly off the sharp spines that run down the beast's back. Finally, my blade finds a soft spot just at the breast, and my attacker goes down in a screech of blood and dirt. I have only enough time to wipe my sword clean on its hide before three more of the monsters come running up, and my next hour is spent fending off a steady stream of them. Occasionally they are joined by more walking dead, this time covered in the very mud that clings relentlessly to everything here.

With the bird creature's weakness discovered, I make steady progress across the expanse of the mud flats, pausing here and there to examine what are obviously nests secreted among the trees. My rummaging brings more angry bird things upon me, but also yields a few useful pieces of equipment. As dusk begins to take hold, I find myself on the outskirts of the marsh, where a yawning black cavern opens in the rising cliffs ahead of me. It is uncomfortably dark inside, and the mouth of the cave reverberates with the roar and crash of the sea from somewhere deep within. But the salt sea air is a great deal more refreshing than the stagnant swamp stench of the flats, so I venture in without a second thought.