To start with, when I say that "nothing happened" last night, I should be honest and say that my plan failed, not that nothing happened. I wish I'd thought of this earlier, but unfortunately, my companions seem to be totally incapable of going without sleep even for just one night. Heck, I've been going without sleep for the last two weeks; what're their excuses? Anyways, we tried to stay awake, but it wasn't going so well. Merf and Haley in particular seemed to be having real problems staying up. Indeed, in trying to keep Merf from falling asleep, Leighla (who was watching from outside with him) wound up having to throw rocks at him; I just wish she had better aim (I never thought I'd be saying that about her!), since she must have broken a dozen windows doing it! And as for Haley... Well, let's just say that we tried to let her sleep, since there were plenty of us waiting inside, but once she started snoring... Who would've thought that someone so small could make so much noise? Oh, she denies snoring (of course), but personally, I'm surprised she didn't wake herself up! Ah, if only she were an elf; it's awful hard to snore during Reverie, although there WAS my great-aunt Rose... But that's a story for another time.

Eventually, the struggle got to be too much for us, and we all fell asleep. And if you've been following this journal at all, you know what happens when we all fall asleep. So we appeared in the dream world, and yet again, bad things happened. Also yet again, I most definitely do not want to talk about it, except to say that it involved Mitsy (obviously a nightmare, eh?) and she killed poor Norp and ate his spleen (I always knew that Mitsy was a man-eater, but this is taking things a bit far...). This was a bad thing, it later turned out, as death in this strange dream world seems to cause death in real life! Poor Norp is dead; somehow, this doesn't bother me as much as some of the other deaths have. I suspect it's because when you've lost two companions already in the last few weeks, losing another who you barely know isn't as bad, and when you've seen the kinds of horrors that we've seen recently, finding an unmarked corpse isn't such a big deal. I never thought I'd be saying this! I mean, it's not like I enjoy stumbling on corpses of my acquaintances on a regular basis, but it seems that you can get used to that kind of thing! I so wanna go home!

Anyways, we spent the rest of the night being incredibly bored, and since the entire thing seems to have been an utter failure, we went back to the inn for breakfast and to sleep for a month or so. Since for a change, nothing bad happened (I can't believe we went eight whole hours without a disaster of some sort; the Fates must have been sleeping on the job!), I'll just skip ahead to when we woke back up.

We had decided, if you remember, to go visit Julian Rooden so that we could ask him some rather pointed questions about his magical thread. Well, we decided to try to get Pielle, the errand boy who delivered the thread in the first place, to act as a guide, but the Fates having woken back up, we found out that he left for Marais d'Tarascon a few days earlier (I have this sneaking suspicion that the poor boy will never be heard from again). No one else was willing to go into the swamp with us, even when Haley tried to bribe them with our (nonexistent) gold. I somehow failed to find this particularly reassuring...

After a brief stop for shopping (cancelled when it was pointed out that combat in hip waders is awful tough), away we went into the swamp. Oh joy. How I was convinced to willingly go back into that nasty place is beyond me; I want a raise!

Let me say now, just to get it out of the way, that I HATE SWAMPS! I assume you already know this, but in case it has been forgotten... And though this is yet another thing that I can't believe I'm saying, the swamp near Port d'Elhour isn't anywhere near as nice as the swamp near Marais d'Tarascon. We had to walk through the hip deep mud rather than poling along in relative comfort (i.e. worrying only about crocodiles, giant frogs, and bloodsucking insects the size of small birds) on a raft on what passes for water in this bloody place. And the wildlife isn't as friendly either.

Our first indication was when we got to a largish lake; we had to walk around it, because it was too big to go through, and at first, I was very glad we made the decision not to wade, since we saw a duck just vanish into the murky black waters all of a sudden, followed shortly thereafter by the reappearance of several of its feathers and perhaps a bit of blood (it was really rather difficult to tell, given how nasty and dark the water was). The main impression I got was that I didn't want to go there.

Since I had no intention of staying in the swamp any longer than absolutely necessary, I led the rest to the shortest path around the lake; this was not one of the smarter things I've ever done. Several of us all started to feel drained, as if we were covered with leeches or several of the swamp's larger mosquitoes. But even though we felt it at the back of our necks, there wasn't anything there! After an abortive attempt to find out what was going on, we ran back to where we started from, to plan a different strategy. Leighla and Merf had decided that this sensation was probably due to some strange looking moss that extended for about a thirty yard patch along the path, and we were trying to think of ways to get by it without getting into any more trouble; as might be expected with this group, we couldn't agree on a way. Some wanted to run through, some wanted to climb over, some wanted to burn it (Merf in particular didn't like this idea, although I'm sure it wouldn't have worked anyway, this being a swamp and all). But before we could reach a consensus, several rather hungry looking crocodiles came charging up the path at us; our only way around was either through the lake or through the moss!

Acting on the assumption that we weren't really up to tackling eight crocs at once, and that the beasts wouldnt want to go through the patch of moss, I yelled at the others and told them to run for it. Alas, they didn't listen to me, except for Dogboy, but since he made it through without collapsing into a bloody heap on the ground, it seemed reasonable to me that so could the rest of us, and once I ran through it as well, the rest of the group followed. Of course, as I had predicted, the crocodiles were rather disconcerted and didn't follow us through, electing to find an easier meal elsewhere. Sometimes I'm so smart I even amaze myself!!

After a brief stop to do a little emergency repair work to people like yours truly, we continued along the path that had been marked on our little map. And a few hours later, we ran into what seemed to be a tribe of lizards. Haley and Merf and I saw them just before they attacked, but not in time to get a warning out. And what a devastating attack it was, too! They spit swamp water at us! I can't believe that even stupid lizards would willingly put that stuff in their mouths! Eventually, we drove them all off (there were an awful lot of the things, but they were really rather remarkably tiny, and not capable of doing any real damage to one as competent as me), and continued on our merry way. Yet another danger of the swamp, it seems. Why can't we go somewhere where the wildlife is friendly for once?

So now here we are at Julian's house; night has fallen, and the place is just totally creepy. I don't think I want to go in there, but since I wasted an entire day getting here, I guess we have to. I may have sad this once or twice before, but being an adventurer just doesn't pay!