It didn’t start out as a pn. The s couldn’t pn because it no longer uood anything but now. It knew what more meant though, and it always hungered for more. It was those ses that filled the murderer’s dreams. If there were more men like you to dig, then you would find it. If you hadn’t killed your parthe two of you could look in twice as many pces and you’d already be rich by now. They were the regrets of a damaged mind ied by a huhat could no longer be sated by a single victim. They were echoes of a person that no longer existed, but every night it found a thousand subtle ways to make the victim long for more hands to help him dig up the s. All he needed were a few sves or even a small gang to help him tear the fen apart and find his ill-gotten gains.
The murderer didn’t notice how sick he was getting, or how the isnd he’d built his hovel on had started to grow with the waste earth he brought back daily. All he could think about was his worn-out shovels and the strong backs he o dig more of this accursed soil. So, one day he left, and the s didn’t even try to stop him. It khat he would be back - no matter how long it took. The wraith followed him to the edge of its domain, surprised that it could see a small vilge from there, just across the goon. It had known it was out there somewhere, because sometimes they ate its fish ht down its fowl, but the pce was an afterthought. Looking at it now, all the shade could make of it, was that it only had a few dozen souls at best. The s would have loved to devour them, but they were just out of read uhe prote of a vague curtain of light that had to be the work of the divi could feel the sanctified nd of her temple, even from this distance, so for now the wraith would have to let it be, unless a fisherman was foolish enough to cast his oo deep into its mire.
The days blurred in the absence of a human mind to toy with, and so it drifted among the fog. For a time, all that the wraith cared about was that its treasure tio slowly sink downwards. It had started out five feet under where the hovel now stood but was closer to twenty feet now. It had left the yers of mud and slime behind and was now buried firmly ihick band of red cy that hid beh the s for at least a league in every dire. No one would ever find its treasure now - the s was certain of that. After drinking deeply of intoxig emotions like fear and madhough, the s had developed a taste for humans, and desperately wanted more.
Then one day, there was a boat. No - there were several boats, paddling from the river that marked the edge of the s towards the nds of mist and darkhat the wraith alone held sway over. The murderer had returned, and with him he’d e with a rge group of men. Many of them looked even less savory than the murderer that brought them here. He’d certainly seeer days. He’d left a frail and starvi looking for help to find the treasure he’d sought alone for almost two years. He returned bound hand and foot - the victim of someoronger who’d smelled opportunity. The big man wasted no time and began barking orders before they’d even arrived. Ohey made ndfall on the murderer’s isnd, a handful of hen quickly stirred the sves from their oars to start unloading everything they’d brought with them.
Within mihere was more activity in the heart of the fen than there had the entire rest of the time the wraith had been aware bined. Boards. Tools. Food. Sandbags. It didn’t know the words, but as the men unicated with each other it learhem. None of them had eaten or drank of the s yet - so they were mostly beyond its vaporous reach. That was fihe wraith merely watched as they turs very heart from a small ay isnd with only a hovel, into a true campsite. That was wherung up the murderer from a strong tree, shing him to make sure that he hadn’t fotten anything before they were doh the lunatic. The s watched, and it feasted, enjoying the pain and despair as the light behind the eyes of the man that had murdered it so long ago finally went out. After he’d hung there for a few hours someone finally cut him dowing him spsh into the water where the s could finally taste his flesh.
It had waited years for this moment and would have waited years more if it had to. Now that the day had finally e though, there was a feeding frenzy as water rushed to fill the corpse’s chest, dragging him below so that the catfish could nibble, and leeches could drain to their heart's tent. A pulse of power flowed through the wraith that it had never known before as the soul of another living human was dragged screaming from whatever its true destination was meant to be, into the dark heart of the bog. Its obsessions added to its own, and its need fold only amplified the hat were already there. The sensitive among the sves could feel it, and made a sign against the evil eye, even as most of the rest of that motley crew let out a ragged cheer while the animals ripped the corpse to pieces and made the dark water bubble and froth.
When that grim business was done, and the waters were finally still. the newers turo the business of keeping away the darkness. Dry wood was hard to find this deep, and what they’d brought with them would only st so long, but for now they had enough to keep the shadows at bay. The s was in no hurry as it circled them. They would falter… they would drink its water a its creatures, and then the wraith would worm its way iheir heads the same way it had with the murderer it had haunted for so long. Now there was a small part of it that wahese betrayers to die as bad as it had wao feast on the murderer - but it would have to wait, because if the wraith ate at this group too quickly the rest would merely flee. They o be cultivated and allowed to dig until they caught the deadliest fever of all. The ohat had ied every corpse that had e befold fever.
Their camp formed over days. The inal hovel was leveled except for the posts and embers that had held it up, then the floor was repced by pnks, and walls made of cloth were put up to keep the bugs out. It was in that room, almost out of its reach, they schemed while sandbars were dug up by the sves and used to expand and ftten the main isnd. Shacks for the men and supplies, and vas tents for the sves quickly became the pattern. Two me watch every night and tehe fires, keeping the darkness at bay and weakening the s when it was at its stro during the darkest hours of the night. It had enjoyed feasting on the murderer, but he was sloppy and careless. The shadows had found a thousand ways to worm into his soul, but now the s worried that these men and their precautions might be too much for it to devour.
For a time, they were. The newers were cautious ahodical, eating the salt pork and ships biscuits they’d brought with them while they kept up the fires a about their methodical sear, eliminating one isnd at a time in a slowly expanding spiral that turned up very little. Then one day the sves got it in their head to supplement their meager rations with skewers of freshwater drum and carp. It started with a couple of them surreptitiously using a bit of line and a watch fire to feed the grumbling in their stomachs, but soon spread to most of the men. They devoured the flesh and spit out the bones, but worms and parasites that they tained, along with a touch of darkness - those persisted long after the meat was digested and passed. Those men didn’t belong to it yet, but every day they got a little closer.
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Soon it was feeding off their dreams, taunting them with visions of gold, or eveer - escape. Days of hard work and nights of treasures they would never have soon wore dowhe stro of them, and the whole time the darkness of the s ged on it all. After almost a month of fruitless searg came the first escape attempt, followed by the first mutiny. Those lead to the first whippings and executions, and every drop of blood that ended up ier made the wraith that houhem ache for more. Being able to drink deep of so much essence so often was a luxury it had never imagined before, and its read power only grew by the day.
The siess started with their leader. The s khat if it started to pick off the weakest, the stro would just flee while they still could, denying it the revenge and vitality that it craved. So, it watched and waited for his habits to s - for his men to fail to boil the water long enough or for him to leave his windows open oering nights. Then in the peak of summer, wheer levels were at the lowest, and the ruins of so many of the smaller isnds were visible above the much-reduced water lihe task master came down with a bad case of gray fever. His sweating became more profuse even as the su, and then his skin turned ashen.
“What you need is to take a trip into Aiden. I’ll row you myself. They’ve got a real healer, and gods know you need one,” his sed in and argued.
“Bah,” said the taskmaster, weakly. “We both know that if I leave half of the superstitious mutts we have here will run for the hills. I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.”
“That might be true,” his sed agreed, “But isn’t that reason enough to think about pag all this in. Maybe that lunatic had no idea what he was talking about.”
“We’re ick. I feel it in my bones we're close,” the leader answered, before ending the versation.
They were close of course - practically on top of it. The s khat, but it also sent dreams telling him that almost every night tely. That they were so close. That any day now they’d find the object of his desires. He was certain they’d find the gold before the fever broke, but while he y in bed, other disasters abounded. Without careful iions, rats had gotten to two casks of food and spoiled them pletely, and a crew returning with firewood had capsized on the way bap after hitting a snag that hadn’t beehe day before. A good man lost his leg to a gator, and two sves drowned in a panic to escape, in water they should have been able to stand in.
While the wraith drank deep of all this human suffering with one hand, it had used tremendous amounts of its energy to cause them, and so it was a loss. It was getting impatient though. It khat this group cked the monomaniacal dedication to seeking the treasure that the murderer had uhey found something, and it was loathe to give up a single - even to keep them here forever. A few days ter the taskmaster was well enough to leave his sick bed, aarted to issue orders - they were leaving. That’s when the real madness started. One of their pole boats sank, three sves escaped, and several more fell sick with a bad case of goblin guts. If things had been going bad before they decided to leave, then they got much worse ohey were making preparations.
Four months earlier they had arrived with 23 living souls including the murderer toward the end of spring rains, and now that summer heat was finally dying off 14 people were making pns to leave in the day or two. They’d been humbled by nature aed on by powers they couldn’t see, let alone uand.
That’s when the mage came.
