Swamped

You can't see a way. There's just too many people here. And it's not as if you don't stick out, between your lack of experience and your single arm.

Then you spot Clancy heading towards the line. He's a troublemaker, and he seems a good deal brighter than his squad leader. Exactly the sort of person you might want help from in this kind of situation.

You get close to him.

"I need my weapon," you whisper.

"At this hour?" he whispers back. Then he smirks. "Don't know what you want it for, and I won't ask. But you've got our back, so we've got yours. Just stick by me."

As the line thins, Clancy waves to one of the armorers.

"Hey. Kid here's been eager to help out, so we're doing a late-night training session. I've got some free time and curfew's late, so..."

"Right," the armorer shrugs. "What's the weapon?"

"A skyslicer," you say.

"Ah, right." He glances at your missing arm. "I suppose that's manageable. Heard you did a number on one of the Marshguards, so maybe you can fight one-handed. Best of luck."

He goes in, and comes back out with your skyslicer. Clancy waves and leads you away to an empty room. He lifts up a panel in one of the walls, revealing a small passageway.

"Squib Squad knows a few good places for sneaking around," he says. "I don't know what you're planning, but this'll probably help you out with it. It's a tight fit, but not so tight you'll need to crawl, and it leads to a few different places." He scrawls a quick map showing the possible exits and hands it to you. "Can't help you out any more - y'know, gotta act like I don't know anything, and the less I know, the more convincing it'll be. Best of luck, regardless."

You thank him, and slip into the passage. From here, it seems you're on your own.

You look over the map. The next step is finding a good place to leave the passage without being spotted, and then making your way to the cells to find Mudviper.

Of course, you'll also have to somehow find a way to talk to her without drawing the attention of the guards. For that matter, it's best if you don't alert the other prisoners; you don't know what they'll do, but they might raise a ruckus if they know you're just leaving them there.

You should think carefully about how you're going to handle this.

Wait for the shift change, and sneak in. Pretend you are a guard up to Mudviper's cell, maybe you should get a plate of food or something so you look like you have some business to be there... you could even sneak in a key, or something sharp for mudviper to break out with. If you left a note of where you'll be later for her to "kidnap" you, it wont look as if you organized the jailbreak... of course it runs the risk of Mudviper letting the other Marshguards go, but you may want to return to the Bogknight base at some point, and this way you leave room to spin a good story about what you were doing.

If the Marshguards really are after you, then you might be able to just slip something into Mudviper's cell to help her escape. Then she'll come for you when she has the chance. You can even leave a note suggesting a meeting place.

Of course, she might free the others. You don't know. But this is the best plan you've got.

The problem is getting there. You contemplate passing yourself off as a guard at the shift change... but no, you're too new to go on guard duty, and with your missing arm it's not as if you can easily pass yourself off as someone else. Besides, you don't even know when the shift ends.

Well, there's an exit near the cells according to Clancy's map. You decide to take a look there and scout things out.

You emerge in another empty room. You peer out the door carefully, and you can see the entrance to the cells. So you could watch for the shift change, you suppose, although you're still not sure what you're actually going to do.

Suddenly, you hear a loud noise coming from the cells. That might be trouble... but it also might be an opportunity to slip in.

What are you going to do? Wait here and see what happens? Rush for the cells? Or perhaps head back to the passageway?

hide and watch what unfolds from the shadows

mudviper can tell you're near on account of her great sense of smell and hearing. so, she's being pretty noisy all of a sudden. you can sneak into the corner of the room with the cells while the guards are distracted.

You decide to wait.

Before long, the noise stops, just as you see someone else run in. Then you hear a shriek, but only briefly.

Well. This sounds like trouble. You decide to slip in, and see what's going on. You look around, and when you're satisfied no one else is coming, you quietly slip into the cell block.

And then you see two knights on the floor, and Mudviper standing around with the keys. Seems you didn't need to come up with a plan after all.

"Come on, Viper, let us out too," says one of the other Marshguards. You think that's the one you hit with the box.

"You two will be fine. They haven't identified either of you, and even if they did, Kroska tends to be satisfied with knowing their criminals are stuck in a swamp. They'll let at least one of you out at the next prisoner exchange... and I expect that will be happening rather soon."

She suddenly looks right where you're hiding. Does she know you're there?

"I knew it was a bad idea sneaking in here," the other Marshguard grumbles.

"You're just sore because you got knocked down first."

"Both of you, be quiet. I'd prefer not to have to knock out another guard, it's inconvenient."

She starts walking out as the other two sulk. You quickly slip back through the door, though it's probably too late. You need to take a moment to process this.

It's a moment you don't get. Mudviper soon grabs you by the throat - you don't even hear her coming.

"Marshall Laikenne, correct?"

"Y...yes," you say weakly. She knows your last name... she must know who your father is, at the very least. But can she really take you to him?

"Good. Now, I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I'm going to take you to the Marsh Fortress. I can do this either with your cooperation, or without. Which way is it going to be, Marshall?"

How are you going to respond?

"Why do you think I'm here? To fight you?"

With cooperation!!
and then ask how she knows your last name

Cooperate, but keep the map hidden, and dispose of it when you get the chance. You don't want marshguards knowing too much about the base. Guide her to the nearest exit. There will be guards, but Viper's shock gloves can knock them out...oh yeah you should probably get her stuff first.

"I'll cooperate. I didn't come here looking for a fight."

Although you don't plan to show her the map, or let her know about the passage you used. That's not information it's a good idea to share with the enemy.

She lets you down, though not particularly gently.

"How do you know my name?" you ask.

"I can answer your questions later," she growls. "Right now, we have two goals. Get my gear back, and get out of here. So unless you can help me do either of those things faster, you just do what I say. Understood?"

"Yes," you say weakly. You don't have a lot of choices at this point.

"Normally, confiscated gear would be in storage," she says. "But from what I've gathered, you've had your hands full today, so all our gear is being held in a room just down the hall until tomorrow."

That sounds strangely convenient. But then, you know somebody has to be helping out, or you wouldn't have found that note in the first place.

You follow Mudviper down the hall, and she opens a door with the keyring. Inside is a small table with a few items on it - that must be the weapons.

Mudviper takes a pair of gloves and puts them on.

"There. That should keep us from having too much trouble on the way out. I'll try not to knock out too many of your friends, but I make no promises."

You're starting to wonder what you've gotten yourself into. Still, it's far too late to turn back now. Might as well see it through and get some answers.

Surprisingly, you barely encounter any guards on the most straightforward route through the base. It can't be that far past the extended curfew, but it seems most people are already asleep. With Mudviper leading the way, you slip past them without incident and reach the main doors.

Then you see that, as usual, there's two knights watching the gates.

"I can deal with them - nonlethal, don't worry. Do you know how to open the gate?" Mudviper whispers to you.

"Well, um. No. Especially not with one arm."

"That's troublesome, then," she mutters. "How are we to get out, then?"

She seems to be expecting you to come up with something.

There are a massive network of tunnels...some of which open up outside

you can go out a window of a nearby look-out tower, but, climbing up or down the outside wall is extremely difficult even for people with 2 arms, you'd have to jump and land in the water.

you think you remember a tree close enough to the outer gate to jump to and break your fall.

You start by thinking about the tunnels the greatrats used... but you weren't there yourself, so you aren't actually sure if they lead outside. Even if they do, greatrats (and burrowers, for that matter) are more flexible than they look, so the passages might not be wide enough for the two of you. Plus, if they are, that's an opening the Marshguards might exploit against you later.

You then ponder going over the walls.

There aren't a lot of windows in the base - probably due to the rainspawn, and for that matter, the actual rain. But you do recall seeing a few lookout points with shutters, and come to think of it, one of them was near the tree you climbed when...

You shudder a little, which doesn't escape Mudviper's notice.

"Are you going to make yourself useful, or just shake like a coward?" she hisses at you.

"Sorry, bad memories," you say. "I'll be fine. There's a lookout post on the floor above, with a tree just outside the window."

She glances at the arm you no longer have.

"I can manage that, but what about you?"

She has a point. The last time you tried climbing down something, you ended up in the infirmary. Being injured while sneaking out with an enemy officer is something you'd rather avoid.

Do you take the risk, or do you have some other idea for how you can get out?

whether you can manage it or not, it's your only option. looking on the bright side, maybe it will help you get the hang of climbing with one arm

You can probably make it down and it is unlikely she wants you injured (makes crossing the swamp difficult)

"Yeah. I'm good at going down things, what with gravity and all. Though I might need you to catch me."

consider maybe taking of your shoes for more foot grip action when climbing

always helps me lol

"I think I can handle it. Might need you to catch me if I slip, though."

She gives you a doubtful eye, but she seems willing to put up with it for the moment.

"Fine. Lead me there."

You take the lead, and head to the nearest stairway. The lookout point isn't too far off from there, but someone's on duty.

Mudviper takes care of that with a quick tap to the back of the guard's neck. You look down, and realize it's Nathan.

"He'll be fine," she says. "He's just napping for a half-hour or so. That should be enough time for you to get down, right?"

"Yeah," you say. "But it might be easier barefoot. Better grip on the trunk. Can you help me get my boots off, and take them down for me?"

She gives you a glare, but she helps you take off your boots, then climbs into the tree.

"Be quick," she says, before slipping down at a speed you wouldn't feel safe at.

Fortunately, stepping out onto the trunk isn't that hard; you have to make a small jump, but it's manageable and there's a branch that offers decent footing. You slip around the trunk and start making your way down, slowly and carefully.

Then your foot hits some sap, and you struggle to keep your grip. Fortunately, by then you're low enough for Mudviper to grab your leg. With a little bit of help, you make it to the bottom. Mudviper wipes the sap off and puts your boots back on.

"Now, we can't have any more delays. Follow me, and stay in the shadows."

She leads you down the walkway, then guides you to another tree - this one shorter. It doesn't take long to climb up into the branches, and then the two of you scramble through the canopy for a while.

You've got no idea where you are, but at least she doesn't seem inclined to lose you.

Suddenly, she stops.

"Shit."

"What?"

"I hear footsteps. Lots of them."

"We've been spotted?"

She shakes her head.

"Worse, if I'm right." She pokes her head out through the leaves, then dives back in. "Oh hells, I am. We've got problems."

"What could..." You decide to see for yourself. You climb to the end of the branch you're on, and look through the leaves.

Up ahead, you see more Marshguards than you can count. Some are marching along the walkways, some are in makeshift rafts... you even see a few in a lifeboat. Nearly all have weapons raised, save for the ones carrying lanterns.

In the lead, you see the Rider, floating through the muck on his beast, spear at hand.

Weakly, you sink back into the canopy.

"They're attacking," you say in disbelief.

"Those damn fools," Mudviper hisses. "If they'd just waited a couple of hours, I could have told them the poison was for the rats. Now it won't do any good even if I do tell Rider. The order's already gone out."

It seems Mudviper doesn't want this fight any more than you do. Is there anything you can do?

well, at least meet up with Rider! Maybe since you're so important and all, maybe Rider can get the attack called, or at least get the other members of the marshguards to agree to postpone it.

This might play to your advantage honestly, if the Bogknights are victorious in repelling the battle, than with all the confusion of an full on attack, nobody will piece together the various clues that you were behind mudviper's breakout, they will just think you were captured during the heat of battle. And if they fail... well it doesn't really matter then does it, nobody but mudviper and whoever set you up to break her out will know. It might weigh heavy on your conscience though, especially considering the incapacitated Nathan, who wont be properly warning the base of the battle.

Even if the full marshguard regiment cant be recalled, maybe you can still get to Rider and get a partial recall of the marshguard forces they are in direct contact with. Of course even though it's an immoral fight and gross leap in aggression, now that the orders have been given and there is no way to properly communicate a retreat to the rest of the troops, there's no advantage for the rider and the marshguards to not put their full force into the fight. You are going to have to convince rider somehow to get the troops directly under their control not to participate, which might be tricky.

The only answer I can see is to have Mudviper leverage yourself as collateral to convince Rider to let a loosing battle take place. You are worth something to the marshguards, maybe enough to shift the tide of this battle. Appeal to Mudviper's emotions to get her on board with this, she knows the bogknights aren't bad people, just a diametrically opposed force. She must know someone in the base too because of the whole note thing, just cross your fingers it's someone worth going up against her commander for.

If she leaves you here, hidden, she can come back for you if she's negotiated a losing battle (or at least a weakened marshguard force) and if she doesnt come back for you, then you return to the base as a traitor and hope you can do something to help with the battle.

You can't let them attack the base...All the bogknights...They're not ready for an assault like this. People will die. You have to stop that from happening.

What tools do you have? You can't stop this many people. Mudviper has said even Rider can't stop this once the order has gone out.

The rat poison? This entire army thinks that the base has stockpiled poison? MudViper must mean the fly egg poison, so...

Tell MudViper..."We have to lie to them. You just escaped from the base and my dad is over there. Tell them the base is on high alert - they know you escaped and took me. This will not be a stealth attack. If that doesn't work, tell them the rumors on poison are true. That if they keep marching they will be facing an alert, active army with lethal toxic weapons and not a sleeping unprepared base like they think."

That should at least make them hesitate. The more battle-hungry ones might not be satisfied leaving without a win. If it doesn't stop the assault entirely, you do have a bargaining chip, one that could stop this conflict but also mark you as a traitor.

Send most of the Marshguards back, leave only the talented and stealthy. The Bogknights are looking for escapees, not an army (though they'll certainly notice one). There is one target that they may have checked for stowaways, but not one that a lone Marshguard could easily use to flee.

You'll take them to the barge.

You think desperately. Mudviper knows the situation better than you, so you decide to run what few ideas you have past her.

"What if you did talk to Rider? What would he be able to do?"

"Not much. Only about a third of the Marshguard are proper military, so we're not as organized as the Bogknights. An operation like this is less of a planned assault, and more like fifty separate squads all moving at once, at their own speed. Rider could get his own squad to retreat; and if he did, a few of the more reluctant squads might follow his lead. But a lot of us are itching for a fight. Even if they see Rider breaking off, they'll keep going. That's if I can convince him in the first place, mind."

"Would that be hard?"

"He already thinks this is a bad idea. But the decision's been made, and he's not the sort to disobey orders. He was already doubtful of the poison, so if I tell him it was completely wrong, that won't change a thing."

"What if... what if it would endanger another objective?" you ask. "Like, finding me. If you told him that the attack would ruin your chances of finding me, what would he say?"

"I don't think you're quite that high priority," Mudviper hisses. "But you might have the right idea. If attacking meant risking something more valuable, he might change his mind..."

"The barge," you say, recalling Lou's words.

"Better, but I don't think that would do it," Mudviper says, shaking her head. "It'd be valuable, sure, but if the attack succeeds, we could take it anyway. Even if we destroyed it in the attack, we wouldn't really be worse off. It's not exactly our top priority."

"Well, you'd know more about what's top priority than I would," you sigh.

"That would be keeping Bogknights away from..." She pauses. "From our fortress. I can't give you more details, but that's a clear enough idea. A small group of Bogknights is sneaking past our defenses. I know about it because they caught me and tried to get information out of me, before I managed to escape them. With most of our troops on the move, there wouldn't be enough back at base to keep them out..."

She turns to you.

"But if we don't find a group of infiltrators at the end of the night, my story falls apart. So, I'm going to have to count on you to provide them. Get some knights you trust together, and take them to our fortress - but warn them that they will be captured. I'll handle stalling the assault force. It'll give you a chance to warn the base, too. Understood?"

"Yes."

"Good. I won't repeat myself." She leaps away, towards the advancing forces. "Good luck, Marshall."

You start heading back. You don't have time to worry about what sort of punishment you're in for. All your thoughts are occupied with the question of who to ask for help with the infiltration.

Burgundy would probably be willing to help you out to try to make up for what happened

Well you did save Walter's life.. But even beyond that, something makes you think you can trust him.

SpoilerShow

looking back through the adventure...dang marshal has made a lot of friends

Lisa Black comes to mind - she was a huge help in getting acclimated to the base, and she certainly would do what she could to keep from losing any more comrades

You remember that Tom Ninth had been captured by the marshguard once before...he might know a bit about their fortress...

From what you've gathered, the Dean is probably connected to this whole fly-egg rumor...you might be able to guilt him into it...and he would be interested in the chance to study the flora and fauna near the Marshguard base. Not to mention, having knowledge of the many things that can kill you in the swamp.

You've gotten Burgundy into enough trouble as it is...you should probably leave her alone. Aside from the guilt she may have towards your arm, you haven't gotten to spend a lot of one on one time with her. You do know the marshguards fear her...but that might change if they keep her locked in a cell.

Sargent Greenwoods however, has gotten to know you well. While do you don't want to explain your apparent defection to a superior officer, you can imagine what her advice would be on who to bring:

"You're Fishbone Squad remember?"

• Mary Baker has helped you train...and she might know a bit more about Flame-tech
  
• Stacey is likely fast asleep right now, but she may be inclined to believe you and help with aquatic infiltration.
  
• Riley is good for stabs.
  
• Jackson is also familiar with navigating the swamps - and someone handy with rope could really help with the whole...climbing thing
  
• Juliet Corser's artistic talent might not be the best help in this situation...but an alert bogknight with a battle axe would be a huge help in getting the base ready for an attack.
  
• Mark...might know some good prison games to play, what with the we are going to be captured part.
  
• Tom Tenth, you're not really sure what his strengths are but you think you could convince him to come along at the promise that something like this could earn him a new nickname.
  

Thinking it over, you should take Mary for sure, Mark, Jackson, and Stacy. If either The Dean, Tom Ninth or Tenth seem up for it then they should come as well.

Juliet and Riley need to get the base on alert. Get Riley to alert Sargent Greenwoods and Juliet to alert Burgundy. Let Lisa know as well.

The thought is far back in your mind, but...who is in charge of the base right now? Is it still Sar--Commander Ash? If he holds a strong front during this it would really bode well for him. You wonder why Commander Long had to step down. (You're sure he's not involved in anything shady...but even then it won't look good if he's let his post go during an attack.)