Prologue

Fierce lightning erupted through the darkness as iced rain tumbled down from the sky. Elise slowly picked her way along the Black Swamplands; the harsh weather hampering her progress worse than the swamp water she was traversing in. The wind chilled her all the way to the bone through her rain-soaked cloak. The only thing that kept her going was knowing her Kingdom’s survival depended on the information she now knew. The rain shortly turned to hail and the wind blew more fiercely, but the weather and swamps were not her only concern.

The Black Swamplands belonged to Chaos, a creature of unparallel strength and ferocity. Chaos was her worst concern, though the Swamp Crawlers were a close second. Swamp Crawlers were invisible to the naked eye and were known to be near only by their unbearable stench. Normally by the time a being smelt them, it was too late. A solitary Crawler was weak and easily defeated, but they hardly traveled alone. They usually ran in packs of twenty, sometimes more.

Elise cursed as her right foot slipped off dry land and landed into an abysmal of wet sand. As she struggled to free her foot, a wretched odor of decomposing flesh began floating through the moist air. Her efforts tripled, she couldn’t attempt to fend off the Swamp Crawlers while her foot was stuck. A shimmer appeared out of the corner of her eye the instant her foot came free. Her cursing increased, they were readying for the attack. The swamp was at her back while the Crawlers were certain to be surrounding her on all other sides, leaving Elise only one option left for survival. Casting an electrical spell in front of her to contend with the Crawlers and so as not to alert Chaos to her presence, Elise quickly turned around and leapt out into the swamplands. Hoping desperately she would land on the small patch of dry land that was barely visible in the distance.

Elise didn’t make it; she landed in the thick marsh with barely a splash, the small stretch of dry land not even two feet away from her. She struggled in a desperate attempt to reach the land, while the black waters surrounded her and began sucking her under. She quickly stopped moving when she realized it was causing her to sink faster. When the swamp reached her shoulders, Elise thought back to how she had come across the information she had, which, now, was all for nothing.