Swamped

Sing 'rain rain go away'

Either shove it back into the base by a window or put it somewhere it might be safe from the rain, maybe a tree you saw while walking earlier

You feel like you ought to at least give the hen a chance to make it through the rain, if it comes. You take the shirt off the hen's head and fashion it into a sort of crude harness, then put the hen inside and start climbing a nearby tree. You sing a song to yourself about keeping the rain away to calm your nerves a bit.

Just as you make it to a branch and put the swamphen on it, you hear an alarm bell echoing throughout the swamp. That's probably about the rain. You decide to head back inside, and scramble down as quickly as you can.

Of course, not being a particularly skilled climber, you wind up falling off the tree. Thankfully, you hit the walkway and not the swamp muck, though perhaps the latter would be a bit less painful.

Just as you pick yourself up, you spot the barge driving by, much faster than you've seen it move before. You hear someone shout at you to get inside and hurry, just as you see a few drops coming down.

You're not far from the front doors, thankfully, but with your new injuries it feels a bit further than you'd like. And you can't help but notice that once the rain started, it picked up very fast. You hobble over towards the gate, and just a few steps away you hear a strange noise behind you. Something like RRRRRBBBBRRRRBBBRRBBRRR.

You turn around to see something pulling itself out of the swamp muck not far away. Then you see more of them. The rain's too thick to make out any details, but you get the distinct sense you shouldn't wait for them to find you.

You rush to the gate and knock with all your strength, just as you feel a disturbingly strong tug on your arm from behind.

What are you going to do, other than pray to every god you can think of that they don't leave you locked out for fear of letting the things in?

They'll let you in, but it's going to cost you that arm. Sorry.

Try and twist your arm out of... whatever it is. Is that a doorknocker? Anchor yourself on that doorknocker and don't fucking let go.

Punch it, getting yourself more stuck than before.

You attempt to wrest your arm free, but the... thing... pulls harder. In desperation, you try to punch it, but you feel your arm being more tangled.

Panicking, you grab the knocker and pound it harder and harder, until you feel the gate rise. Two mudpikes start poking at whatever's behind you, as a pair of hands pulls you inside.

Or most of you, at any rate. It seems the creature still managed to hold onto your arm.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit," one of the guards says. "We messed up. Should never have let you out."

"I knew this was going to happen one day," the other groans, taking you by the intact arm. "The day I found out, I started saying we should tell the new recruits about the rainspawn. But no, everyone's so goddamn superstitious. Don't talk about the rainspawn when it's dry, it's bad luck! Tell that to the newbie with the missing arm. Tell them that it's bad luck to mention the rainspawn."

You howl in pain.

"Medic's already on the way," another knight says. "A few minutes after you left, Burgundy asked what the hell she was thinking sending you out, so she sent more of us to the front door and sent a messenger to Medic just in case. Thank the gods you didn't get any further away."

John Medic soon arrives.

"Oh dear. Oh dear." He puts a cloth over the wound and shoves a needle nearby. You feel the pain start to fade away.

"That's going to dull the pain temporarily while we get you to the infirmary," he says. Two knights lay down a stretcher next to you, and you lie down on it. "I am so terribly, terribly sorry. So is Sergeant Burgundy. This never should have happened."

As you get carried to the infirmary, you find your thoughts a mess. You think to those horrifying creatures... rainspawn? Your missing arm. Everyone who could have told you about them, but didn't.

You're not even sure what to make of it all. As you find yourself in the infirmary once again, John Medic stares at you sadly while he bandages up what's left of your shoulder.

"I realize it's a little too late to ask this now, but... is there anything I can do for you?"

hey doc care to lend me a hand *ba dum tish*

Uh oh, which arm did you lose? The dominant one?

"Read me... your favorite book!"

You can't answer that, but ask him to stick around. You don't want to be alone right now.

Stare blankly up into the ceiling.

Despite everything, you are your father's son, so you want to know everything about what just went down. What are rainspawn? Does this happen in other swamps 'cause it sure didn't happen at home. Are they active at all when it's not raining? Where do they come from, where do they go? Who would win in a fight a swamp beast or a rain spawn? It might be a bit out of your current reading level, but have there been any books on them?

You're finally calming down enough to really take stock of what's happened.

You lost your right arm. You're stronger in the left, at least, so if you really had to you could probably still throw a skyslicer. But swimming seems out of the question.

And you feel... well, not quite angry. You weren't warned about these creatures specifically, but it's not as if you hadn't been told the rain was dangerous. And if you'd just let that chicken go from the start and left it to its fate, you might have been fine.

But it still hardly seems fair. And yet, what can be done about it? It's not like they can give you your arm back now.

And you know John Medic cares, if nothing else. If anyone else were here, you might be in a far less forgiving mood.

"Just... stay here, for now," you say. He nods in understanding.

You sit there for a few minutes before you're finally ready to unleash the question that's been on your mind.

"What are the... what did he call them... the rainspawn?"

John lets out a deep sigh.

"We don't know," he says. "I'm... I'm sorry. They're too dangerous to be near, as I think you can attest. No one's ever gotten a good look at one, not without getting eaten."

"Eaten."

"It's a small miracle you only lost an arm. The rainspawn are relentless, and there's no safe place from them out there."

"No safe place." You think about your father. "So if Father wasn't here or with the Marshguards..."

"Probably eaten." John nods sadly. "But we don't know for sure he's not somewhere in the Marsh Fortress. They're a secretive bunch, even among themselves."

"I see." You just lie down blankly again, before asking one last question.

"What happens to me now?"

"What do you mean?"

"There's a lot of training I won't really be able to do with one arm."

"We're not going to abandon you. If you want to stay here, you can stay. We'll figure something out about your training." He sighs. "Of course, I wouldn't fault you for leaving. I can't deny it, you lost your arm primarily due to our failure. As far as I'm concerned, you don't owe us anything."

He pats you on the intact shoulder.

"And you don't need to make a decision on that right away, either. Right now, what matters is your health."

Suddenly, someone rushes in.

"Medic. Got a prisoner, badly hurt."

"Understood." He turns to you. "Sadly, duty calls, and I'm afraid I can't stay with you the whole time. But I can send for someone else, if you'd still like some company. Is there anyone on the base you'd like to see?"

Lisa, probably, but holding cards is going to be hard with one hand.

Yeah Lisa!

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"I'd like to talk to Lisa Black."

"Right." John nods. "I'll send someone to find her, and I'll be back once the rest of my work is done. Just, hold tight until then."

You find yourself alone, at least until another knight walks in. You don't recognize her, and she just waves at you awkwardly.

"Medic asked me to stand by in case you need anything," she says. "I, er. I'm sorry about what happened."

You aren't sure what to say. You're not really in the mood to socialize, but at least you're not alone any more.

You settle on "Thanks," and leave it at that. Neither of you is very talkative, it seems.

It's a few minutes before Lisa arrives, and the other knight apologetically lets herself out.

"Damn. It hasn't been a good first week for you, has it?"

"Not really. I was hoping you could help to take my mind off things for a bit."

"Well, cards are probably out then. I'm sure you can play one-handed, but it's going to keep calling your attention to why you need to do that."

"Probably."

"But there's always word games, those are good for passing time. Or we could just talk if you'd rather. What do you want to do?"

Ask her who was the other knight who just left!

And then try word games!

Grab a book (preferably one that's uplifting rather than depressing) that's a bit past your reading level. Read it together, and work through the tougher words.

How about sword games? What's the worst that could happen, you could lose an arm?

I'm down for sword games

"Do you happen to know who that was that just left? She seemed a bit on the shy side, and I felt a bit odd asking her anything."

"Ah, that would be Cindy, Medic's apprentice. Yeah, she's not very outgoing. She told me she's hoping to get better about that by the time she takes over the post, but I don't know how that's going to work out."

Lisa steps a bit closer.

"What, did you ask me here so I could keep you up-to-date on the rumors? I can if you want, but I feel like that's not your biggest concern right now."

You shake your head.

"No, no. Just need someone around, and I don't know that many people. I'm not... not quite sure what exactly I want just yet, though."

"I suppose that's fair, after what you've been through."

She seems a bit sad. Does it hurt her to see you like this? You haven't exactly known her that long, pleasant as it's been...

...but she lost a friend, didn't she. And now that you think of it, he must have been caught by the rainspawn. Damn, you must be reminding her of that.

"I've been working on my reading," you say, in an effort to change the subject. "Could you help me with that? I want something a bit, challenging. But, well, cheerful. Because, you know."

"Cheerful," Lisa says. "Well, I think there might be something good here... ah, this is an interesting one."

She pulls a book off the shelf and takes it over to you. You take a look at the title.

"Sword Games," you say. "What's it about?"

"Sword games, of course," she replies with a chuckle. "Which is to say, it's really word games but they've all got some sort of silly twist to them. My aunt and uncle wrote it together, they were knights here twenty years ago. Playing around with the words might help you learn to read them better."

"Sounds interesting. I think I'll try that."

You turn to the table of contents, and try to pick out a game that sounds interesting.

Peary Riposte

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word ladders!