Majobo finished reading that thirty year old report. He chuckled to himself, ‘you were right about one thing General, at least,’ the Magus looked up towards the Eye of Abendego.
There it sat off the coast. Even while standing at the ruins of his old employer's observatory, hundreds of miles away, it was still visible. The Hurricane that broke his home country’s back: the scholarly kingdom of Lirgen. The Eye was swirling, it was so tall it seemed to sunder the heavens, and it was so wide it could house a small country. Gazing at it started to make him wander.
‘Well, how’s it looking?’ His friend Suma’s question rescued his mind from becoming lost in the storm.
Majobo looked down the hill to reorient himself. The Magus had dragged along his two companions to the observatory; it used to sit atop a hill just on the north side of the Frogmarch River. Much like the once great capital city of Hyrantum however, it had sunk. Unlike Hyrantum, it had not sunk into the Frogmarch, but instead, down the hill. Constant storms had weathered away at its baroque architecture, and half the building was scattered amongst a mudslide. Currently, they were scaling down the steep unstable hill, in case anything important got stuck on the building's way down. Majobo was unsure if his employer had survived, but it had been thirty years since the Eye of Abendego struck, and he needed answers.
‘Majobo mate, it’s filthy and we ‘ant got time ta dally.’ said Gelk, sifting through a chest partially embedded into the side of the hill.
‘Sorry,’ Majobo rubbed his muddy face, ‘no break away storms, not yet anyway,’ Majobo tossed away the report, which quickly got swept up by sudden high winds.
Eventually, after finding nothing worthwhile, they made it to the bottom. The second floor seemed to have made a small clearing in the thick treeline once it hit the ground. The remains were slowly being reclaimed by the Salt Marsh, with overgrowth and vines. Gelk wasted no time turning over stones to investigate.
‘Are you sure,’ Suma asked, 'that there are no breakaway storms?’ She stumbled to the bottom of the hill.
Majobo turned to Suma, muck and filth had coated her braies, legs, and even red dashiki. The young, black, bald wizard had managed to keep her spellbook in good condition at least. After all, it was bound with the finest leather from the Mwangi Expanse, so she was not buying a new one.
‘Suma,’ Majobo answered, sliding down the hill and almost tripping over and into the ruin walls, ‘I have never been less sure about anything in my entire life.’
‘Don’t worry Majobo’ Suma idly opened her book, marking a page with her thumb, then closing it, ‘this “Eye of Abendego” is still a new phenomena, it’s doubtful even your philosophers could have made heads or tails of it.’
‘Not that it matters,’ Majobo observed, ‘the Eye’s sudden appearance left only a few thousand Lirgeni survivors, most of them head east, if there are more of us still in these Sodden Lands… we… they won't last much longer.’
‘I’m trottin’ around in the muck looking for bird-cage liners, and you two ladies aint helping.’ Gelk snarled, quickly flicking through a book - then tossing it aside.
Majobo could not blame him for being mad. All the pasty pirate had for protection was a shield emblazoned with his old crew’s insignia. His sailor’s uniform offered no defence, and he was covered with cuts, bruises, muck, and Majobo swore his pock-marks were getting worse. Well armed however, a corroded bronze axe on his belt with some javelins tucked in his shield.
‘Of course, I’ll start looking.’ Majobo picked the book up from the mud and began flicking through.
‘Wot, think I can’t read?’ Gelk asked.
‘Nope,’ answered Suma, still not helping.
The pirate kicked over a stone in frustration, then reached down, ‘Ah fahnd sumfink!’ Gelk picked up a small red stone in the shape of a five pointed star.
‘Let me see that.’ Suma sauntered over, and quickly inspected the small rock, she wasn’t using her magic, which probably meant it was not that great of a find. A drop of water fell onto the stone, Majobo looked skyward. A breakaway storm had crept up on them, and it began to rain from thick clouds. Gods it made the smell of the swamp even worse, salt marshes had this awful rotten egg smell, but this place used to be a freshwater bog. The sudden environmental change caused the nearby rivers to clog up with dead fish, and rodent bones. Majobo noticed his faulty weather prediction didn’t seem to bother anyone but him.
‘Ioun Stone,’ she began, ‘an Eastern Star to be exact, activation allows you to comprehend other languages. It will take a few minutes for me to figure out how to use it.’
‘Communication between other creatures is useful.’ observed Majobo.
‘Not quite’ Suma contradicted, ‘It is a one way path, as you would say. The wielder can understand foreign tongues, but it still does not allow you to speak the language.’
‘So wot?’ Gelk snatched the rock back off Suma, ‘you can understand sum frog people gawkin’ at yas, but not the other way round?’
‘Croaking, not gawking, but yes-’ Suma paused, and shot the Pirate a very serious glance, ‘why frog-people specifically?’
‘Saw some feet prints earlier, faded, but webbed, so definitely froggies.’
‘Grippli?’ Suma asked rather pedantically.
‘Nah, not those little buggers, they’re barely two bleedin’ feet tall, narr these were bigger, err… big frog-men, man sized, even.’
‘Damn it Gelk!’ Suma exploded, grabbing him by the scruff of his collar, ‘those were toad prints! Not frogs! Toads!! Why did you not tell us sooner!?’
Majobo interrupted by unsheathing his bronze khopesh, the rain beat down against the Magus’s Lamellar armour, and seeped into holes torn into it from previous engagements, where the metal plates hid.
‘Do you hear that?’
Haunting buzzing emanated from the tree-line. There was nowhere to hide, and fleeing through the treacherous swamp would take too long. Majobo, Gelk and Suma had no choice but to stand their ground. The three had backed up against the hill, hoping the few dozen feet between them and the treeline would be enough. Javelin, spell and khopesh at the ready, their attention was focussed solely on the buzz coming at them northwards. The sound became clear, the foliage rustled - Suma was about to unleash her magic, but nothing emerged.
Gelk screamed. A hawk-sized four winged insectoid had stabbed its proboscis into the pirate's neck and was sucking up his blood. Gelk began to flail about and roll on the ground, barking and cursing.
‘But - where di -’ Suma let out a raspy gasp. Two arrows had pierced her chest and pinned her up against the muddy hill, one had gone through her book and into her heart, the young wizard's head slumped down, falling silent.
Discordant croaking passed around the trees like a maddening cacophony of mockery. It made Majobo freeze in place, just for a moment, long enough to watch his friends die in front of him. Tribal toad-folk warriors hopped down from the northern treeline, each nearly three feet tall and green in hue. Four of them, at first, brandishing clubs and sharp branches. One wound up their sling and hurled a bullet towards Majobo, which the Magus ducked underneath just in time. He took a step forwards, slid his hand across the flat of his khopesh, and cast Blade Lash. The spell's magic took hold, and he slashed the sickle-sword into the air. The blade grew to twenty feet in length, and he spun it round like a whip, slashing at the leg of one small boggard wielding a greatclub. It tripped arse over teakettle into the gravel. The others leaped backwards away from the blade, probably fearing it was still sharp. The Khopesh retracted back to the hilt, dragging the greatclub combatant forward slightly, and returned to its original shape.
The croaking stopped, and as it did, two new boggards emerged from the treeline, a fat one with a small stick, and one wearing a hide kilt, but carrying no weapons. The pair surged ahead of their allies towards Majobo. The fat one raised its hand, the sling wielder reloaded, and two arrows from the treeline flew again in Majobo’s direction. With two quick slashes, he cut the arrows out of the air, but a sling bullet followed and struck him in the shoulder, pain shot down his arm. Then suddenly the fat boggard blasted him with a ray of frost magic that chilled him to the bone. He raised his sword slowly to attempt another blade lash to keep them at bay, but the kilt wearing boggard had already gotten within ten paces of the Magus. It puffed up its throat pouch, which expanded to half the size of its body, and released a deafening cry. Dirt was kicked up and stone crumbled beneath as the noise washed out. Majobo attempted to brace, but the sonic wave made his ears pop and ruptured his insides, his vision became shaky. After a few seconds the clamour stopped, he dropped to his knees, and vomited. The Magus winced in pain, then cocked his head round to see how his friends were doing, hoping for a miracle.
A boggard clad in make-shift turtle-shell armour was removing its stone axes from Gelk’s back as he lay face down in the dirt, the Bloodseeker mosquito continued to drain fluid from his now lifeless corpse. Suma was still upright, held in place by the arrows, the dashiki’s colour disguised how badly she was bleeding. If she had somehow survived the arrows, then the sonic blast surely put an end to her. The energy of the fight came to an abrupt halt, they had lost.
Two webbed feet had placed themselves just in front of Majobo, it forced his eyes to travel up, further than he expected. This one was at least five feet tall, it looked like a toad, but stood like a man. Its mouth was lined with miss-matched sharp teeth that poked through its lips, the bulbous yellow eyes inspecting him closely. It carried a shoddy bow slung across its shoulder. Hung over its boar-hide armour was a cape of leaves, which made for surprisingly adept camouflage. The creature grabbed him by his locks, and lifted him to his knees in front of the eight smaller boggards, squatting on their hind legs in a circle around him, just in front of the ruins. It stood to his side, like a butcher presenting its meat, and spoke to its hunting party. This hideous sequence of belches, high - pitch croaks and growls probably constituted some sort of language to these beasts. Occasionally he could feel the tip of something sharp against his skin. They stared at him with no sympathy or remorse, save for three. The sonic kilt-wearing boggard was tending to another’s injury, indeed it was the only one showing any concern to its comrades at all. The turtle shell-clad boggard had found the Eastern Star, and shared it with the fat one. The fat one snatched it off him, and though the turtle boggard did not try and take it back, the fat one still shoved their snout away. It inspected the shiny rock.
A few minutes passed, and Majobo had neither been restrained, nor killed. He had no weapon in reach, all he could do was size up his captors as this…. lecture continued.
That’s when the Magus realised, judging by their sizes, their inexperience, and this lecture the tall boggard seemed to be giving…
‘This… is a school?’ Majobo groaned under his breath. A couple of the Boggards cocked their heads when he spoke, ‘damn it… we were beaten by… children? On some… god-forsaken field trip?
The monster didn’t strike him when he spoke, it just waited for him to stop speaking, then continued.
A bestial roar rose miles away in the distance, some mighty creature issuing a challenge or defending it’s territory or something. It gave them all pause. The Boggard wielding the great-club, who looked more toad than folk, growled under its breath.
‘Had Suma not perished so quickly, we might have stood a chance, and then… I could have…’
The boggards looked bewildered. They must never have seen another creature cry before. The mentor afforded an explanation in its own tongue, deep chuckles emerged from the little monsters.
‘No!’ Majobo shouted, ‘I do not weep for my life, or my friends! You’ve won, that isn’t what matters,’ Majobo was not physically struggling, he only had the energy to yell - and the teacher still was not stopping him, ‘I will never find out what it was all for! My people, the Eye of Abendego, and you monsters overtaking what’s left of the proud Lirgeni kingdom… I will never find out, what was it for? Why did so many of us have to die! What god wanted this!? Our dream of a reunited Lirgeni kingdom… It will never come true, Lirgen will fall as we desperately cling to our old ways, and we are fated to join her…’
The boggards all seemed dumbfounded, not one of them even seemed to understand his words, or his passion. But through his tears, Majobo caught another glimpse of the fat one. It looked stunned, and he saw something he was amazed he hadn’t earlier. The Eastern Star orbited the fat boggard’s head.
