Down and out in Nulb

Otis met us at the barge at midnight last night. It turns out the bargemaster, a man named Elmo, is Otis's brother. What a small world.

We followed Otis back to his shop. The curtains shivered in the windows of every house we passed. I wondered how secret our arrival would remain.

Nulb, it turns out, is a city on a marsh. Most of the ground is a stinky bog. I only saw the ground once or twice. Most of the time a fog covered the area. God only knew what kind of creatures lived there. Roads consisted of wooden planks covered in moss and mold. In some places there were holes.

"How many people fall through the street around here Otis?" I asked.

"To my knowledge," he said, "no one has died yet." He paused. "At least not from falling into the bog."

"Sensational," Audry said.

Our boots landed heavily on the wooden boards. There was no question that at least a hand full of people knew we where out and about.

"We're drawing attention," Marc said, gesturing at a window where the curtain was drawn quickly.

"We would have drawn more during the day," Elmo said.

"Whose attention?" Saul asked.

"Well, we'll talk about that tomorrow," Otis said. He pointed ahead. "Here we are."

His place was a dingy and rotten as every other building in town.

"Is it safe?" Anna asked.

"Well, no one's died yet," Otis said, "at least not from falling into the bog."

We passed his shop and entered the building next to it. Inside Otis's home was completely different from the outside. The stink of the bog did not enter, thank God. Looking around, the furnishings looked new and clean. He had paintings on the wall. The place looked comfortable.

"You're the first men to have come here in a long time," Otis said. He looked at Audry and Anna. "You are the first women to have come here in," he thought a moment, "two weeks."

"I'm sure we'll be far less entertaining then they were," Audry said. Anna snickered.

Otis grinned. "I have room upstairs." He pointed to a ladder that led up to a loft. "You are safe here, my friends. Please, you must be tired. We shall speak in the morning."

There's room for all of us, but only if we are cozy. Elmo went to sleep immediately. I never heard anyone break wind so much in my life. I'm fearful to light a lamp and cause the whole house to launch into orbit.

The next day we remained upstairs for the better part of the day. Otis had a job to do and to shut it down abruptly would have caused undo attention. Elmo left earlier, wandering around town looking for information. I spent time learning a little of magic from Marc and sparring with Saul (got to keep in practice), but for the most part we slept or did nothing.

Adventuring is like the military. Days of boredom followed by minutes of absolute terror.

Otis is closing up shop soon. Hopefully, Elmo will have more information and we can get to work.

Until then, more therapy.

---------------------------

Why the bugbears ran back to their lair, a dead end, is beyond me. They should have run to their leaders, unless of course their leaders were so unforgiving that they risked a worse facing them than us.

When we cornered them, they dropped to their knees (putting them at about eye level) and begged for their lives. We pressured them for information, which essentially confirmed what the gnolls had told us. Always good to know. We escorted them back up the stairs and told them never to return.

Anti-climatic? Yes, but believe me, that's a very good thing. In this world you don't worry about enough experience points so you can level up. You worry about dying.

On the way out of their lair, I found a bucket full of rotting meat. "My God, you guys eat this stuff?"

"No," one of them said. "It is for fishy-bug."

The gnolls mentioned something about that too, and then it came back to me. It had been a long time ago, but I remembered what was down there.

I knew what the fishy-bug was.

And that gave me an idea.