Unfortunately, they soon left the river behind for the swamps. At first it was just more water underfoot. Dark soil that held their boots a little too long. Roots rising in knotted ribs above the ground.

  Then the air thickened. Humidity pressed against Miri’s skin like a damp hand. The clean pine scent of the northern forests gave way to something richer — wet bark, slow water, rot and bloom together. Cypress trees rose from black pools, their trunks flaring at the base like ancient pillars. Long curtains of pale moss hung from branches overhead, swaying lazily despite the still air. Mist drifted low over the water.

  Tony slowed, his ears rotated.

  “This is either beautiful,” Miri said quietly, “or the prelude to being eaten.”

  “It can be both,” Tamsin replied.

  Something buzzed. Miri swatted absently at her neck. Then again. Then—

  The air thickened with it. A low, rising hum.

  “Do you hear—”

  The mosquitoes arrived in a cartoonish cloud of shadow. They descended, a drifting cloud of needle-legged persistence.

  Tony snapped at the air with a disgruntled chuff. Miri tried Arc Bolt once out of reflex. It killed three. Eight bajillion remained.

  “This is undignified,” she muttered, slapping at her arm.

  Tamsin stepped forward and exhaled slowly. Wind gathered at her fingertips and rolled outward in a widening spiral. Steady, disciplined airflow. A circular current that lifted the swarm and pushed it back like smoke.

  The buzzing thinned and began to scatter. Tamsin adjusted her wrist and tightened the spiral. The remaining insects spun upward, caught in a column of moving air, and dispersed into the canopy. Silence settled.

  Miri blinked.

  “…Marry me.”

  “No.”

  Tony sneezed aggressively at the last lingering mosquito and looked deeply betrayed by the concept of flying insects.

  They continued forward as the ground worsened; what had been damp became soft, what had been soft became mud.

  Tony stepped confidently into what looked like solid earth and sank half a paw.

  He froze. Slowly lifted his leg to examine it. Mud clung between his toes.

  He set it down. Picked it up again.

  The other paw went down.

  Also mud. He stared at it.

  Miri watched in growing anticipation.

  Tony took one careful step. Then another.

  His gait changed. High, exaggerated lifts. Delicate placement. A horrified, offended prance through the swamp like royalty betrayed by flooring.

  Miri made a sound that started as a cough and turned into helpless laughter.

  “Oh my god. Oh my god.”

  Tamsin pressed her lips together. Failed. Laughed once, sharp and bright. She looked up at the sky, feigning complete ignorance. Nothing in the sky to laugh at, that’s why she definitely was not laughing.

  Tony flicked his tail in dignified outrage and attempted to shake one paw mid-stride without stopping. It did not improve matters.

  “You look like a house cat,” Miri informed him between breaths, “wearing booties.”

  Tony glared at her before stepping into a slightly deeper patch.

  Both front paws disappeared and he froze again.

  Miri lost it entirely while Tamsin leaned lightly against a cypress trunk, shoulders shaking. For a moment, the mist didn’t feel ominous. The moss didn’t feel heavy. The swamp was just… a place.

  Alive. Damp. Ridiculous.

  Tony finally made it back to a patch of firmer ground and flopped dramatically onto his side, lifting all four paws in silent protest.

  Miri wiped her eyes. “You’re such a baby,” she informed him.

  Tony huffed as she Cleansed his paws.

  The next day, Miri started to share Tony’s opinion of the marshes. The mud tried to suck the boots off her feet with every step. When it began to dry around the edges, it was hard as concrete and merely gained more layers. And weight.

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  She was using a stick to scrape the side of her boot when they heard it.

  The sound rolled low and violent through the cypress trunks, sending birds shrieking up out of the hanging moss. The ground trembled—not enough to throw them, but enough to be felt through the soles of boots and the pads of paws.

  Tony’s head snapped toward it instantly. Tamsin was already moving. Miri quickly followed, heart kicking hard.

  They angled through the trees, boots sinking half an inch into wet earth with each step. The air smelled thick—rot and river and something metallic underneath.

  Then they saw it.

  A man was braced against the roots of a massive cypress, shield raised, boots half-buried in churned mud. He was alone.

  In front of him towered something that did not belong to clean rivers or quiet marshes. It stood nearly twice Tony’s height at the shoulder—if it had shoulders. A hulking mass of bark-armored flesh and twisted vine muscle, its body a knotted fusion of driftwood and rot. Moss hung from it in slick curtains. One arm ended in a splintered hook of wood and bone. The other dragged through the mud like a tree trunk.

  Its “face” was a hollowed knot of darkness with faint green light flickering somewhere deep inside.

  It swung.

  The man’s shield caught the blow. The impact sounded like a tree snapping in a storm. He slid backward three feet through the mud. Didn’t fall or run, he shoved forward instead.

  “Back!” he barked hoarsely at no one in particular.

  The creature answered with a low, grinding roar that sounded like roots tearing free from soil.

  Miri felt the shape of it immediately. Too big for one person. Too strong to burn down quickly. Exactly the kind of thing that kills you slowly.

  “Tamsin,” she breathed.

  “I see it.”

  Tony did not wait for consensus. He surged forward in a streak of orange through hanging moss, splashing through mud without hesitation. The stranger’s head snapped toward them in shock as the tiger launched.

  The creature turned just slightly—

  That was enough.

  “Mark,” Tamsin whispered.

  A thin, nearly invisible thread of wind snapped from her hand and wrapped around the creature’s upper trunk. It tightened and pulsed once.

  Marked.

  Miri stepped in. Her Arc Bolt cracked through the humid air and struck the creature square in its chest. Bark split and green light flickered violently inside. The thing roared and backhanded toward her—

  Sidestep.

  Miri vanished a half-step to the left in a clean, efficient displacement. The wooden hook tore through empty air where her ribs had been. She felt the wind of it across her face.

  Tony hit the creature’s flank, teeth finding purchase between hardened plates of bark. He wrenched sideways with terrifying force. The stranger didn’t hesitate. He slammed his shield into the creature’s leg and drove his shoulder forward, forcing it to shift weight.

  “Left side’s weaker!” he shouted.

  Tamsin was already drawing. Wind Lance formed in her palm—a compressed spear of shrieking air—and she released it into the marked seam Tony had exposed.

  The impact cracked bark apart.

  Sap—dark and viscous—splashed into the mud.

  The creature swung blindly. Its wooden arm smashed into the stranger’s shield. This time, he dropped to one knee. Mud swallowed him to mid-calf.

  Miri cast her Warden Veil shield just as the creature’s second limb came crashing down. The barrier flared, structured mana shuddering under impact.

  It held. Barely.

  The stranger looked up at her through the shimmer. “…Thanks,” he grunted.

  “Don’t get used to it,” she shot back. He grinned fully then.

  Tony tore free and darted behind the creature, forcing it to pivot. That was the opening.

  “Now!” Tamsin snapped.

  Miri didn’t overthink it. She drove forward, blade reinforced—not overloaded—committed. The sword bit deep into the cracked seam Wind Lance had opened.

  The creature bellowed. The green light inside it flared brighter—

  The ground tremored. Mud liquefied beneath their feet. The stranger slammed his palm into the ground. “Tremor—!”

  The shockwave burst outward in a localized ripple, countering the creature’s destabilizing pulse just long enough to keep them upright.

  Miri adjusted mid-step. Sidestep again.

  The creature’s hook-arm crashed down where she’d been. She came up inside its reach. Too close for leverage. Perfect for precision.

  Arc Bolt at point-blank range. It punched through the split bark and into the glowing hollow. The green light flickered brighter—

  Tamsin’s arrow followed.

  Clean. Precise. It vanished into the same wound.

  Tony lunged one final time and wrenched backward with everything he had.

  The creature split, neither explosively or dramatically. It sagged. The green light dimmed and the massive body collapsed into the mud in a slow, groaning crumble of bark and vine.

  Silence rushed in heavy and wet.

  Miri stood frozen for a breath. Then two.

  [ You have defeated a Bog Golum Lv15! ]

  She dismissed the System messages.

  The stranger remained kneeling, shield planted in the mud. He looked up at the three of them—human, elf, tiger. “Next time,” he said, breathing hard, “try arriving ten seconds earlier.”

  Miri blinked. Tamsin lowered her bow. Tony shook mud from his whiskers and sneezed.

  Miri pointed at the collapsed monster. “We saved your ass.”

  The man glanced at the corpse. “…I helped.” He pushed himself to his feet slowly.

  Up close, he was broad-shouldered, armor scuffed and dented, shield gouged deep. Dirty blonde hair, sparkling brown eyes. Not young. Not old. Strong in the way of someone who had learned the cost of not being.

  He studied the trio. They studied him back. After a moment, he stepped forward and offered his hand.

  “Fen.”