"The young dragonoid had been wandering through the marsh wastelands for what felt like an eternity, but in reality had been only a couple of days. His feet were aching and he felt like collapsing altogether. He was lucky if he could have a good nights rest this day as finding a suitable spot to rest that was well covered and out of the wet ground was rare. Thoughts of regret inevitably began to bubble in his mind, what was he thinking leaving on this arduous journey? Just thinking about taking another step in this wet and moist land was unpleasant, feeling the cold water beneath gush around his boots and make his feet cold again. Not to mention the things he had been eating for the past few days, berries and herbs that tasted nice at first quickly became grating as he found himself craving for something salty to eat for a change, the fish his mother used to prepare would taste fantastic right now. Discontent, he took another step forward towards his invisible goal as the ground swallowed his foot yet again into the cold, wet swamp.

Then, in the distance, he could see something, a group of something moving and a rising thicket too! Giving tell tale signs that finally dry land was close and company too! He had not seen anything in the swamps in days apart from the swaying stunted trees and plants that he occasionally mistook for people, so seeing something that he could possibly talk to filled him with joy. He ran through the marsh towards the figures, stumbling a few times on his feet and almost falling into the swamp, but he managed to recover each time as he began yelling and waving at the figures.

Once he was closer he could notice that there was three of them, two smaller and one larger, the larger one walking on all fours and the two smaller ones seeming to be leading the bigger one. He could not tell what these things were as none of them looked like his kind or anything he had heard of. A growing sense of dread began to settle at the bottom of his stomach, as he quit yelling and waving his hand did the figures stop and turn towards him. Standing still he could hear the figures exchange a few words after which he could hear the distinctive sound of metal scraping against a scabbard.

The figures drew their weapons and began yelling at him, before he could react or respond the biggest of the forms took into a sprint towards him, the things it was carrying falling off of it next to the two other figures who also began to move his way. A cold tingle jolted through his spine and down to his tail as he came to the realization what was going on. They wanted to kill him, or at the very least mug him. Quickly, he turned towards the thicket that was opposite to the quickly closing beast and began to run. Despite his will to run as fast as he could, the ground that was all too eager to hinder his escape snagged his feet onto an underground root all too often, causing him to stumble and waste precious time. He could hear a large splash behind him as the beast jumped into the small pond between them and began to swim towards him. Adrenaline pumping and his ears ringing he continued to make the best effort to get to the thicket where he could hopefully be able to find someplace to hide.

Not a moment too soon he pushed away the first branches of the thicket, leading him into the dark and damp pine spinney. The beast was right on his tail, loud splashes that became crunches and thuds once the beast rammed into the thicket. The thickly grown spinney thankfully proving much easier for him to navigate than the large beasts frame as its heavy deep winded breath started to fall behind. He wasn't sure how far behind it was however as the ringing in his ears and the sound of his own panicked gasping drowned out any other noises that were around him. He could hear the occasional loud ripping crash behind him rise above any other noise, as he could only assume that the beast was ripping through the weak trees to get to him. He ran and ran, his backpack occasionally snagging onto a branch here and his foot stumping against a root there. As all other sounds except his own became silent he stopped. Out of breath and heaving for air he looked back to see only impenetrable trees and no sign of the beast. In fact there was nothing but trees all around him, it was almost pitch black here. What looked like a spinney was in fact the beginning of a much larger forest. Exhausted and lost he tried to balance his shaking body against a tree after which he slouched upon its roots and passed out, clutching the stone pendant on his chest. He did not know however that while running he had attracted the attention of some of the snakes of the forest."