The sun rose (sort of), and of course I got to start my day by being treated to the three religious folks celebrating the new day in their own special ways; perhaps I should just sleep in a little from now on. But eventually we passed that, and decided to join together as we tried to get out of this cursed swamp. This led to an interesting problem: Elealion keeps livestock, and we were forced to share our raft with the two dogs as well as a mule and a pony. I hope he has plans to clean this thing off every day! But we all fit on the raft (barely), and I fortunately found myself up front with Haley and Leighla. Elealion stayed with his animals (I like our furry friends as much as the next elf, but he carries it a bit too far), and Prihelm and our nameless comrade (who shall henceforth be known as Dogboy, or just DB) stayed in back. Of course, I shouldn't have to say where Mitsy was, but in case my reader happens to be exceptionally slow on the uptake, I'll make it clear that the resident flirt was, of course, in back with the men (and probably wishing that the raft had a little more privacy, although it's remotely possible that I'm wronging her...).

We traveled for a while, when all of a sudden the swamp went kind of dead. Next thing I knew, a very large and ugly crocodile came up over the side of the raft and bit me! Have I mentioned that I dislike swamps yet? To make a long story short, Leighla eventually killed the beast after Prihelm proved his ineptness with a glaive and I proved my even greater inability with my sword (hey, YOU try stabbing a giant crocodile in the eyes while it's gnawing contentedly on your thigh! It's not easy!). It was then that I learned one minor drawback to go with Leighla's tremendous archery skills: her god doesn't even grant her the ability to heal her friends! And she wants me to worship this guy? I don't think so! Fortunately, Prihelm showed that he was better as a healer than as a warrior; he covered my wounds with his hands and they went away! This was somewhat embarrassing due to the location of said wounds; Mitsy just looked jealous. I swear I'll never understand that girl!

After all this was taken care of, we proceeded to float through yet more clouds of stinging insects, past huge patches of reeds which made it impossible to see what was near us, and so on. The sky continued to be dark, though it was incredibly hot and humid. The trees continued to block out what little light came through, and the party continued with no small degree of trepidation. It was at this point that Prihelm suddenly fell out of the raft; he was poling us along, the pole caught in something, and the great bloody oaf went overboard. This was, of course, the cause of much concern, since he was wearing heavy armor at the time and proved entirely incapable of staying afloat. Paladins! Naturally, he had to rely on Haley, Mitsy, and me (the three smallest people in the entire group) to pull him back into the raft, although Mitsy was mighty peeved that we were helping her; apparently, she wanted to rescue him by herself (no doubt in order to have his gratitude so that he would be more receptive to her flirting, which the poor man had been trying to ignore all day long; doesn't the twit realize that as a paladin, the boy has vows?). DB went out into the water to try to save Pri, but we managed to pull him aboard before DB could get there. Of course, the fact that the water was only up to DB's chest makes me wonder a little about Prihelm (he could have always just stood up!) but then, as I mentioned, I'm not so sure about him anyway. Meanwhile, Mitsy was mooning over the poor paladin in a most distasteful way ("Oh, Pri baby, are you okay? I was so worried about you, baby!"), and it was all I could do to keep my meals down. Perhaps a hearty clout upside the head would do the woman a bit of good...

We seem to be approaching a good campsite; I think I'd better stop writing. Besides, I may need to save DB from Mitsy's clutches; in trying to dry out, he just removed far more of his wet clothes than is safe around that girl. I'll write again tomorrow.