Originally Written in August 2018
Uploaded on April 7th 2022
Standing at the bow of the boat as it surges through the thick green goop of the swamp, a great tall woman, skulls of beasts slung on her wide shoulders, gazes between the tall mangroves. The reptilian head of the ship stares forward, slathered with paint the hue of spilled blood, its eye slits showing no emotion. The ancient man is hunched over the lone oar, his body draped with a black moth-eaten cloth, his scraggly long grey beard dragging less than an inch above the algae-choked fetid water. He turns his head to the warrior woman, his half-blind white eyes dragging up her muscular back, strewn with scars from innumerable battles with brutish beasts and bragging boors. Sliding the old wooden oar through the sludge, he raises his voice to her.
“Why have you come to this land, Kazza of Killopolis, oh Leg Lopper, oh Snake Slasher! Why do you deign these murky muck serfs with your weaponry and skill?”
The woman of Killopolis answers, “I have come for the thrill and for the bounty which the Lady-Protector of your own slimy land has made for the defeat of the Beasts of the Bog.” Kazza picks her teeth with a dagger, her great iron morningstar slung on her waist. “I have been promised retainers by the lady-protector of the Swamplands of Yugga, and a great reward if I am to solve the pestilence which plagues your fisher villages”
“I see, I see. You do know that our Lady-Protector has called for adventurers and mercenaries from all throughout the known world to defeat our Swampland’s plague yes? Gigox of Gratia could not fell the leeches, Hirgug the Hirsute was swallowed by the slime gulls!” the ancient man croaks out as the oar scrapes against the muddy bottom of the bog.
“None of them were Kazza” the warrior woman states.
The wrinkled ancient man squints at the back of the barbarian before turning back to face the swamp, the boat continuing to crawl forward slowly through the muck and mire. Kazza of Killopolis scans the thick treeline, seeing the shapes of crawling things slinking between the tall roots, hearing the cawing of ominous avians roosted in the writhing branches. She scratches her face as she waits for the ferry to reach the village of the Yuggans.
Her scanning eyes see the dim light of the village around the corner of the mangrove thickets, the reptilian head of the boat steadily growing closer to the settlement. As the boat lands on the muddy shore, Kazza steps off and into the dark swamp village, the buildings sad and grey, the people pale and slimy. The warrior woman flips a golden coin emblazoned with a fanged skull to the ferryman, thanking the ancient man for his boating her to the village of the Yuggans.
Her pointed metal boots sink into the mucky shores, as she is approached by a Yuggan clad in concealing black robes, a gnarled scepter made of yellowing bones in their pallid claw, a silver eyemask hiding their face and their emotion. They rush up to Kazza, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her through the muddy boulevard, speaking with her as they come to the chief’s hut, current abode of the Lady-Protector of Yugga. As they scramble past the mud-fishers and reed-farmers toiling outside their simple homes of reed and mangrove wood, the beady black eyes of the Yuggans staring at the foreigner as she passes by, pulled along by the masked messenger. Coming near the chief’s hut, a construction made up of several mangrove trees that have been bent into the shape of a squat hut, complete with cloying green and black smoke billowing out from the central opening at the top, the tortoises oft seen domesticated in these southern lands tethered to a post outside of the hut.
Stepping through the clinking pieces of bone and bronze on string which make up the doorway to the meeting hall, Kazza sees the Lady-Protector of the Yuggans sitting atop her rotting log throne, the sign of the protector of the Yuggans which has been passed from protector to protector for generations, and which the protector must always sit atop. The masked messenger bows before the lady, their silver eyemask slightly sunken in the mud. Kazza does not bow.
“I do believe you know why I have hired you to come here, oh Kazza of Killopolis?” the Lady-Protector mewls out almost melodically.
“Yes.” Kazza states simplistically.
“O-Oh… Well then I guess you need not my explanation,” her face blushes softly, somewhat embarrassed. The flame behind her is stoked by two pallid and sweaty Yuggan courtiers, their blackened iron pokers moving about the coals and rubbery swamp logs. “I shall pay thee once you have returned with proof that you have killed the terrible things of the bog which prey upon my people, the pernicious and perfidious things which spread fear amongst my people!”
“Alright” states the warrior woman.
“I will provide thee with an entourage of hirelings to assist you in any way you may see fit, oh Snake Slasher!” The Lady-Protector of the Yuggans, clad in green silks and sitting atop her rotten throne, gestures to the five nervous-looking slimy folk behind her. They are wearing simplistic garments of rough burlap and dirty dingy cloth, quite obviously serfs of the mud-farms which had been recruited for this purpose.
“Thanks be raised to you, Lady-Protector of the Yuggans. I will depart soon.”
“Oh but woman of Killopolis, thou art a foreigner! Thou shalt know not in which direction to seek the beasts!” The pasty swamp-serfs fidget anxiously. “Travel to the northeast, oh Beast Brawler, wherein the dread Guttersnipe lairs! It is a most perfidious beast, which snatches away the serfs of the village which sits nearby, and which slurps out their bones!”
“Thank you. Come along, retainers of mine.” The warrior woman exits through the door from which she came, taking the shivering swamp serfs with her and leaving the Lady-Protector and the servant with the silver eyemask behind. Hopping atop a few great tortoises, their necks stretched high and their shells a great vault of boney hardness, the warrior woman and her retainers gifted her by the Lady-Protector depart for the northeast, sludging through slime and crawling through mud while on their way.
“Do you believe in this one, oh my lady?” the servant with the silver eyemask asks.
“Yes I do, quite verily, oh vizier. I can tell she is a good woman, selfish, but a good woman. She will succeed where the others have failed.”
“Ah, I am sure of it, my Lady-Protector.” The servant with the silver eyemask, that vizier to the Lady-Protector of the Yuggans, clutches a black dagger made from the sharpened wood of some ancient mangrove deep in the swamp in their claw as they depart from their Lady-Protector and into the bog after Kazza, that warrior of Killopolis.
Great giant fish, carp and catfish and eels of all sorts, wiggle by through the murky waters around the green-stained feet of the great tortoises. No sun can force its way through the lattice of mangrove branches which blot out the sky, compounded by the fog which settled upon the muck during the journey. When Kazza and her entourage pass by traveling fishers of the Yuggans whilst at work, the hirelings have friendly discussion with their fellow countrymen, but the warrior woman does not talk with them. She hears the cawing of some distant bird far in the mangrove thickets, reverberating off of the trunks of the marsh-trees. She hears the burbling of some nearby frog, croaking in the undergrowth. As her suspicious eyes glance around she sees shapes moving in the darkness on either side of the riverways but does naught to identify them.
The vizier worries that they have been found out. They cling to the branches of some mangrove on the fringes of the river, watching the warrior woman. Her eyes come in contact with theirs, and they freeze up for a moment, their heart racing in fear of failure, but the gazing and squinting eyes move on. Their black wooden dagger digs into the bark of the tree. They hear the cawing of some distant bird.
Having travelled for but a few days, day and night melting together like two metals melt in a furnace, forming an alloy of twilight which hides all knowledge of travel and of time, Kazza of Killopolis and her entourage of hirelings come upon the Yuggan village of Gurgat, victim of the bone-sucking Guttersnipe. She ties up the tortoises on rotted mangrove posts at the port of the village, and strides through the muddy streets and into the town.
In her great booming voice, the warrior woman shouts for the whole small village to hear, “Attention serfs of Yugga! Attention burgomeisters of the Swampland! I have been sent by your Lady-Protector to route the Guttersnipe from your lands!”
None come forth. Any Yuggans, their skin slimy and pale, their eyes beady and black, who may be living in the village, remain in their homes, not crawling out for the warrior to see.
“Pah! Do none of you cowards wish to even inform me, the great Kazza, Brain Basher and Gut Gorer, of the lair of this thing which causes such fear! Fools! Idiots! Cowards!”
A single Yuggan, squat and malformed, their skin shining with a mixture of swamp slime and sweat, timidly comes forth out of the mangrove door of a hut.
“Ah, finally, someone with even the most feeble modicum of courage! Foolish girl, weakling, where is this Guttersnipe?”
The timid Yuggan points feebly to the east.
“Many thanks be raised to you, oh you warrior among cowards and coward among warriors!” The warrior woman Kazza picks up her great iron mace, its head the size of the small Yuggan’s bumpy head, and shouts suddenly to her retainers. “We travel east!” They jump in fear and surprise at this, shivering and wincing with every word the warrior shouts.
The silver eyemask-clad servant crawls down from a red mangrove, and swiftly moves into the outskirts of the slimy village, slinking about behind slumped reed huts, hiding in the shadows and behind walls. The long thin nose of the silver eyemask pokes out beyond the wall as the vizier glances this way and that, seeing the tortoise entourage of Kazza and her pasty Yuggan hirelings crawling slowly to the east. The servant follows, moving low and close to the ground, crawling so that they are not seen. Some hidden bird caws in the distance.
The thick legs of the tortoise mounts sink into the cloying mud as they crawl ever deeper into the swamp. The eyes of the warrior woman scan the surroundings as those of her nervous servants glance about this way and that, fearful of their very surroundings. Kazza quickly looks back to them, and laughs loudly.
“Fools! This guttersnipe will be nothing but some local beastie that scares you poor peasants, nothing of real danger or spite!” Kazza turns back to face forward as her great big tortoise slowly marches through the mud “Fear is unwarranted!”
After travelling to the east for some short period, the slowly marching entourage comes upon a slight clearing in the mangrove-thickets, light pouring in in ways not allowed in earlier portions of the fetid bog. There is a fallen tree here, its roots leaning over an opening which leads under the slimy muck, rivulets of brackish water slowly trickling into the underground. Kazza the brave warrior of that dark city Killopolis approaches the uprooted mangrove, poking at the opening with her mace. The silver-masked servant climbs up to the higher boughs of a red mangrove tree of the swamps, gazing down upon the scene, the warrior and her pasty retainers knowing nothing of their watcher.
Kazza bangs at the roots with her iron mace, dislodging chunks of dirt which tumble and fall into the opening below. A small white thing, barely any larger than some marsh fish, crawls forth and reveals itself to the group. One of the pale Yuggan hirelings, their face malformed and leaning to the right of their body, blushes slightly upon seeing the little creature.
“It is a mangrove squirrel!” the Yuggan exclaims “What a little cutie!”
Kazza looks down upon the pale white squirrel, her typical frown turning into a very slight smile, when a similarly sized pale pink tendril extends itself and adheres to the fur of the rodent. Surprised by the sudden appearance, Kazza leans in just slightly, only to be further surprised as many more similar tendrils reveal themselves from the dark recesses below the fallen mangrove. These thin pink tentacles, tipped with a small pad of thorns and hooks, pierce the skin of the small squirrel, and the malformed Yuggan, once blushing from the cuteness of the swamp rodent, now grimaces in disgust as the mysterious tendrils remove all of the bones from the small creature with a loud slurping sound.
Collapsing to the bog floor in a heap of loose skin and wet flesh, the mangrove squirrel is no more. Kazza, reeling in disgust, slowly climbs off of her tortoise mount, readying her mace in the process. A single small and fat limb extends out of the opening, sinking into the mud on the bog surface. Another wrinkly telescopic limb extends into the surface world, the light green of the flesh made only paler by the flowing rays of the sun like that of a candlelight, revealing the slimy translucence of the thing which these limbs are attached to. Kazza gestures to one of the Yuggan retainers, a skinny pale boy of no more than seventeen years, who wields a dilapidated crossbow. She points with her head to the hole, indicating to the young swamp mutant to fire upon the creature once it fully reveals itself.
Another slimy green limb crawls forth. Then another, and another. A single round eye on a squat stalk extends out into the sunlight, followed by a long trunk of a mouth. The whole of the body crawls forward and into the sunlight, a long light green tube of a torso, lined on both sides with many telescopic limbs. Innumerable pale pink tendrils flap about in all directions, emanating from a central circular maw which sits at the tip of the almost cone-shaped head. The stalked eyes glance about the area, one of them fixating on Kazza as she stands there, mace at the ready. Her eyes dart to the Yuggan she gestured to just moments before, urging him to fire at the thing.
With a loud click and a quieter whizzing sound, the bolt fires from the rusty device, the force almost throwing the thin boy off of his tortoise. Kazza’s eyes follow the small projectile as it flies through the air, contacting with the middle of the conical head. The dread guttersnipe lets out a curdled screech and crawls toward the boy quickly and awkwardly. Seizing the moment, Kazza jumps at the beast, bashing it in the back of the head with her iron mace, a single stalked eye flipping around quickly to stare at her in the face as she clings to its slimy surface.
Banging wildly at the head of the beast, it rushes to the tortoise of the Yuggan youth with the crossbow, a swarm of sucking tendrils reaching forward and, with a loud slurp, removing the skull of the tortoise mount in only a few moments, leaving rough holes in the scaly skin. Kazza screams a battlecry, aiming her mace for the large wet eye. It contacts, causing an explosion of vile vitreous fluid to spurt about in every direction, coating her face in the blue liquid. Blinded for a moment, she lets up her banging at the beast, though the guttersnipe is in no fine condition either. Flailing about, the telescopic legs wiggle wildly as the thing rears up, causing pale sweaty hirelings to cower in fear. The other remaining stalked eye stares about, looking for victims as its pink tendrils swarmed about.
Kazza of Killopolis, briefly incapacitated by the pernicious slime of the burst eyeball of the beast, forces the goo off of her eyes with her free hand, able to see what she had previously only been hearing. Loud slurping sounds and broken screams turns into the crumpled skins of two of her Yuggan retainers, some of their bones still in the tentacles of the beast. One of the Yuggans, in a burst of surprising bravery, comes up to the thing and begins to slash at it with a knife just as Kazza is able to remove the slime, and she sees this as an opportunity. Crawling further up the guttersnipe’s long thick body, she hits it on the side, causing it to veer in that direction. The retainer, noticing what Kazza had done, rushes up to it, stabbing into the opposite side repeatedly, over and over again. Writhing to and fro, Kazza climbs further up the body, reaching the head once again, which she had slipped away from in the slime of battle. Clinging to the skull of the beast, she slams down hard in the same spot as the crossbow bolt which yet still stuck out of the monster, pushing it so far in that it reached the stinking brain of the thing. Its telescopic legs give way to feebleness, as Kazza laughs a triumphant laugh. Collapsing to the muddy bog floor, the guttersnipe was no more, and neither were the Yuggan bow with the crossbow, and another of his fellow swampfolk.
Climbing off of the slimy beast, Kazza walks over to the collapsed corpses of the two Yuggans and the now dead tortoise. She hangs her head low, inviting the remaining pale hirelings to join her. The empty skins sink into the muck as they stand there for a few silent moments, only broken by the clicking sounds of insects and the occasional cawing of some distant bird.
After the silence for the fallen Yuggans, Kazza moves to the corpse of the foul guttersnipe, and pulls out a single knife, serrated and with a handle of light wood. She cuts through the thick flesh of the neck of the beast, dragging it over to her tortoise and attaching it to the mount with lengths of hemp rope.
“We travel on. There are more beasts in this bog than just this bone-sucker,” says Kazza, the Beast Brawler.
After the entourage of marauders travels on, the servant in the silver eyemask climbs down from their position in the mangrove tree, striding over to the empty skins of the fallen Yuggans, picking them up in their wrinkled hands and moving on, after Kazza of Killopolis.
The band of travellers moves slowly through the ever tightening mangrove thickets, the strong limbs of their tortoise mounts gathering leeches, worms, and ticks of all sorts as they wade through the green goop below them. The trees slowly begin to give way to smaller sorts of mangroves, sparser and with more space between them. The brackish water gives way to smoother fresh water, and small islands of tall swamp grasses reveal themselves, all as the party moves further inland. The silver-masked vizier clings to the mangrove trees, hiding in the shadows just behind the group, the long nose of their eyemask sticking out from between tall mangrove roots.
Kazza and her entourage of feeble slimy peasants find their way to clearer waters, only small islands of sharp grass identifying this place as part of the swamp. While still in the Swamplands of Yugga, easily seen by the grey skies and the soft earth, they have left the murkiest regions, and enter the half-mythical sacred river which supplies the whole of the Bog with its waters. Straining her eyes, the warrior woman of Killopolis gazes upwards, seeing the large blurry shapes of flying things off in the distance, circling in the sky as the light of the sun struggles to meaningfully pierce the thick cover of the dreary clouds.
“We ride on! There are still yet beasts to slay!” Kazza barks, pointing north along the river with her mace. She looks down a bit and rubs at a piece of green flesh which became lodged in between two bumps of her mace, removing it with her gauntlet-clad right hand.
Stepping along the moor-dirt islands of the clear river, the tortoise mounts are pushed on by their riders, having walked for days on end through the swamp and the mud. These lumbering things have seen such things their fellow turtle brethren have not, though they lack the words with which to say this.
Waiting patiently for the group to move on, the masked vizier crawls forth, dragging the empty skins of the dead Yuggans with them. A raven flies behind them and rests on a long dead branch, looking down at the hunched form of the Yuggan below, pale skin revealed only by the naked arms which extend out from the loose fabric of the clothing as they drag these empty skins along. The raven flies down and bites at the empty husks, only to be swatted at by the vizier, as the tortoises march on in the distance.
The great tall mangroves recede completely, leaving only the wind-swept moors of inland Yugga, dotted by the occasional isolated settlement, their buildings squat and black, pushed around by the strong winds of the open marshy plain. Kazza’s hair whips wildly in the wind, looking forward as the tortoise caravan follows the course of the fresh river as it meanders this way and that through the moors, black grassy earth on either side of the waterway that divides this land in twain like the slice of a sword divides limbs. She barks an order to the slimy Yuggans and glances back at them, their wiry, oily black hairs whipping about just as hers do. Turning back to face forward, she hears a loud cawing up above, and cranes her neck to gaze upward.
Circling above them is the blurry shape of some flying thing, a long beak and great wide wings the only defining features of the silhouetted bird. Shrugging her shoulders and choosing to ignore it, Kazza pushes her tortoise mount onwards, but one of its great lumbering feet steps into something softer than the surrounding dark mud, and a great loud caw crawls forth from the dirt below as a massive being erupts from beneath the group, making slime and black mud rain down on them all.
“Gah! Confound it, a slime gull!” shouts Kazza, that warrior woman of Killopolis “We shall not be routed by a simple bird, yon fools and cowards!”
The great goopy bird flies up to meet its mate in the sky, swooping down in a slimy arc with the other at the group, Yuggans jumping and ducking out of the way. Kazza gazes up at the two, seeing their full form as they fly through the air, swinging down to attack and grab at the tortoises. Their long bone-white beaks grab at the sacks of food brought with the gang of adventurers, their pale eyes stare almost half-blindly at their targets before swooping down. The skin of these avians is covered not with feathers but with a thick green ooze, of the sort that blends in well with the mud and muck of the moors and marshes of the Swamplands of Yugga. Kazza has seen these beasts before, in passing through the moor-plains in transit, and flails up at them with her mace, but to no avail. An ooze bird swoops down and cleanly slices off the arm of a pale pasty Yuggan in one quick movement, the other coming down and gulping down the head of a tortoise in its beak. Kazza, in reaction to the slaughter seen before her, pounces at the vile things with her mace, bashing their beaks and leaving gaping cracks in their avian ivories. But in her focus on the combat with the slime gulls, the warrior woman left her mount untended to and unguarded, leaving it open to attack. One of the grimy things swoops down and grabs the head of the vile guttersnipe, flying off with it, as Kazza turns to see the green trophy of her successful kill stolen by some bog bird. Screaming at the thing, she runs off in the direction of the bird, leaving the remaining Yuggans to fend for themselves, something which goes quite poorly for the slimy weaklings, their mounts murdered by the flock of grim gulls, their limbs removed in a most bloody fashion by the razor-sharp ivory beaks of the birds. The eyemask-clad vizier gazes at this gory scene from over a slight hill in the plain, watching Kazza run off after the bird with her stolen trophy.
Pale Yuggans, clad in black cloths, crawl forth from their squat huts to stare at the long-haired warrior woman as she darts across the moors and after the slime gull with the head of the dread guttersnipe. She yells vulgarities and curses at both the bird and at the poor villagers and swampgrass farmers of the Swamplands, waving her mace about wildly in her anger at herself for leaving the head unguarded. The short stalk eyes of the strange beast stare down at Kazza, taunting her as slime of the gull slowly oozes off of the creature as it flies to the north east.
After some time of flight, and some time of tiresome chase, the slime gull comes upon a nest set within the boughs of a lonesome mangrove, growing in the slimy mud of a cliff face at the far edge of the Swamplands. It flies up into the nest, leaving the head of the dread guttersnipe within it. As Kazza draws near, she hears the chirping sounds of many wrinkly little babies, eager for their slimy mother, but she leaves without much other than a warble said to her feeble little children. The warrior woman hesitates for a moment, allowing the slime gull to fly off, but then continues on her way, jumping over a bend in the river that surges past, its flow pushed on by the waterfall that tumbles down the muddy cliff. Reaching the side of the steepness, she digs her gauntlet into the earth, slowly and laboriously climbing up the muddy cliff-face, followed by the climbing of the lone mangrove as well. Covered in dirt and sweat from days of travel in the thick aired swamp and from the tiresome climbing of the muddy cliff, Kazza has reached the nest of the slime gull, and sees the children of the thing. They are small and pink, only some of them having the green slime oozing from their slime glands, their eyes closed shut. Some of them crowd about the meaty head of the guttersnipe and nibble at it, leaving small little bite marks. Kazza reaches down and yanks the trophy from them, slowly climbing back down the lone mangrove and to the earth below. But once she reaches the cliff itself, she walks over to the waterfall and stands there, as the slow current moves past her armored feet, and she gazes back toward where she began, across the Swamplands of Yugga. She hears a noise beneath her, and looks down.
“Hail and well met, oh Kazza of Killopolis!” says the vizier with the silver eyemask “fancy seeing you here, oh you skilled warrior!”
Kazza sneers down at the vizier, wondering why this figure which she has not seen for so long a time has suddenly appeared so deep into the wilderness. Then she sees them. The bodies of her fallen hirelings, the empty skins and decapitated corpses. And she snarls down at them even more.
The vizier with their silver eyemask jumps in surprise, running forward clumsily into the waterfall, dragging the many corpses on a long rope behind them. Kazza pounces down from the top of the waterfall, striding through the stream of clear water and into the pocket behind it. Hidden under the waterfall is a little alcove, roots of tall grasses and drips of fresh water hanging from overhead, and with a small little altar of beak ivory and black mangrove wood sitting squarely in the center of the chamber. Kazza steps forward, but the vizier turns back to the warrior woman, brandishing their yellow bone scepter.
“Step not one step further, you beast!” screeches out the vizier with the silver eyemask. “You will not make my plans cease!”
With the bone scepter remaining pointed at Kazza, the eyemask-clad vizier goes about their work, laying the pale corpses of Yuggans on the altar, one after another, until it forms a great mountain of gory viscera, open cuts oozing onto empty skins in one great pile. The vizier with the silver eyemask wiggles his scepter at Kazza, threatening to use their vile sorceries on the warrior woman if she makes even a single movement.
“Thanks be raised to you, oh Kazza of Killopolis, Yugg-Slasher and Bone-Sucker! Thanks be to you for killing so many of your hirelings so that I may go through with my plans!” the vizier laughs a half-sick cackle that ends in wet coughing.
Kazza is taken aback by these statements, at a loss for words to truly respond to them. The vizier comes to the front of the altar and approaches Kazza, waving the bone scepter and calling forth a serpent and a long thin worm from the mud surrounding them, which wrap themselves around Kazza’s arms and legs and bind her in place, as the short little pale thing reveals their intent.
“The Lady-Protector of the Yuggans does naught but sit around on her holy stump! She is ineffective and worth naught but daggers and knives, and not beauteous sorts of knives which are sold in rich markets of far-off lands, but rusty daggers, rusty daggers of bloody sort driven through her throat!” The vizier gesticulates wildly with their bony claw-like hands to emphasize the points being made. “In ages long past, when the only building in swampy Yugga was the misty temple of the long dead ancient gods, there were great kings and queens who ruled over minor fiefdoms of their own, and who used great arts now long forgotten! In this bygone age, when the world was of a new sort, the queens and kings of Yugga were true, were strong, were of a real nature! They made trade with other lands for more than just our mangroves and our turtles and our slaves! But all this changed with our foolish revolution in more recent days, which put in place the line of the Lady-Protectors! Pah! Fooey! Nothing but false monarchs, with no divine justification! They sit upon their half-holy stump thrones, when in days long past, our monarchs ruled over great lands and killed great beasts! And now our Protectors must call weak mercenaries from other lands to fell our gulls? Foolish!”
Kazza, wriggling in her slimy bonds, attempts to extricate herself from that which holds her fast, while the crazed vizier only continues ranting.
“This is why I called for you. Yes, ‘twas I who called for you, oh Kazza of that foul Killopolis! You were the only survivor of that violent wreck of a city, traveling about the many lands for pay to placate your foul greed! Yes, we in this land know of your story, oh Kazza the Serpent-Slasher! You would fell the beasts, yes, but most importantly you would let your retainers fall as well. The oily blood of the people of Yugga, those who drink of the River Yugg and who dwell in our muddy fastnesses, ‘tis the only blood that shall bring forth the once-great kings and queens of long lost Yugga! You care not for those foolish weaklings which surround you, and so you would allow for them to perish at the hands of vile beasts of the bog!”
Kazza looks up at the vizier, feigning being hurt by these words as she struggles to remove her hand from the slimy worm which wraps around it.
“There are many more reasons other than these which I have spelled out here, as you rightly know, oh Kazza. I shall waste no more time. The long-forgotten monarchs of our glorious past shall once again rule over us and guide us to victory!” the vizier screams out at the top of their lungs, their black tongue wriggling in their wide open mouth.
Turning back to the altar with the mountain of gore and corpses, the vizier with the silver eyemask begins to wave their bone scepter about, chanting words in ancient forgotten tongues. Growing louder and louder with each incantation, Kazza of Killopolis only continues to struggle with more vigor as she sees a great gaping maw, lined with teeth, open up beneath the many bodies piled up on high upon the beak ivory altar. With a foul sucking sound, the many pale bodies are all slurped into the leech-like mouth, and only moments later, as the vizier continues their chanting of esoteric phrases, a long pale arm, though much more beautiful and fully formed than the mutant Yuggans, reveals itself, reaching up clutching an ancient blade in hand. At this point, the struggle of Kazza ends, and one of her hands escapes, breaking free of the slimy grasp of the worm. Jumping up with great speed and agility, Kazza bonks the vizier on the head with her mace, a loud crack resounding onto the dirt as blood soaks into the dark cloth. The sorcerous incantation having ended, the toothy maw closes shut, and the slender pale arm clutching the ancient sword is cleanly sliced off of the remainder of the body. Leaning down, Kazza takes a knife to the neck of the rebellious vizier…
The Lady-Protector of the Yuggans, fanned by her bumpy malformed servants, jumps in surprise when Kazza enters her chamber. “Oh Kazza, you great warrior! You had been gone for quite so long, we had thought you dead, swallowed by slime gulls or the like!”
Kazza reacts with simple short noises to the statements by the Lady, bowing before her and opening up her bag to lay out the trophies which she had gathered to prove her successes. She lays out the severed head of the dread guttersnipe, green goo oozing from the stump, and the Lady-Protector rejoices.
“Oh, thanks be raised indeed! Thank you, oh Kazza, for slaying such a pernicious thing on our poor land!”
The warrior woman removes an egg of a slime gull, gathered from the nest which sat in the boughs of the lone mangrove on the far end of the muddy land of Yugga.
“Defeat of slime gulls as well? Oh, true miracles!” the Lady-Protector says as she claps enthusiastically.
Then, Kazza of Killopolis places the severed head of the vizier, still wearing their silver eyemask, the yellowing teeth of their gaping maw on show to the whole chamber.
“O-oh… My dear vizier… Why did you kill them, oh Kazza?”
Kazza responds succinctly, “They were a traitor to you, and a sorcerer.”
“I-I see…” the Lady-Protector struggles to keep down her sick at seeing the grim face of death laid before her.
But that warrior woman Kazza reaches into her pack one last time, to lay out the smooth and beauteous arm of the long forgotten king or queen of Yugga, the ancient dusty sword still in their clutches. Kazza gets to her feet, having placed the four trophies of her successful endeavor in front of the Lady-Protector.
The Lady seems confused, “What is this, oh Kazza? Some young girl’s arm?”
“An ancient king, allied with the traitor.”
The Lady-Protector of the Yuggans blushes softly, her eyes glancing down and away from the warrior woman in slight embarrassment. Her eyes scan the four trophies laid before her, and she looks back up at the warrior standing before her.
“Thanks be raised on high to you, oh Kazza of Killopolis! Thanks be raised indeed, for the saving of my people and the saving of my land! You are entitled to your rightly reward, oh warrior” she snaps her fingers and a malformed youth walks forward, wearing flowing black robes and a hood that covers their face. In the mutant claw of this young servant there is a chest full of silver coins and emerald jewels, handed to Kazza of Killopolis as reward for her violent deeds. Kazza bows once more before the Lady-Protector, and walks back out through the doorway of bronze and bone hanging on string, her pointed metal boots sinking into the mud of the village once again. The Yuggans, with their beady black eyes, stare at her as she walks back toward the ancient boatman, and she climbs aboard once again, to go away from the Swamplands of Yugga and the beasts of their bog.
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