It was late afternoon and although the sky was a blanket of dark clouds he knew the sun was dropping like a rock. He decided that he would be sleeping in a warm bed tonight and that was that. "This weather is crap," he thought to himself, "but the plains aren't too bad, kind of nice." The Plains of Alderon were a wondrous site sight to behold. Massive rolling hills strewn with moss covered boulders, broad white capped rivers, and numerous thermal vents that would blast giant clouds of steam into the air. These sights made up the general landscape of the area but it was the small forests scattered about the plains that attracted this man's attention. The trees were in their fall colors of copper, red and gold and the fallen leaves coated the forest floor, forming a magnificent carpet. Strong gusts of wind would find their way into the confines of the forest and the autumn leaves would dance endlessly, falling and rising on the trapped air currents. At times he would become almost mesmerized by their graceful minuets and he would have to laugh to himself. It would make a fantastic charm spell if one could make these leaves dance half as enchanting as they're dancing now. The beauty of the plains was misleading and this lone person knew it well. It was home to bandits, thieves, assassins and marauding groups of orcs and goblins. He had even been told through his teachings that the actual ruler of the plains was an evil god called Despair, which would easily explain the decaying state of the land. None of this really bothered him though, as he looked at life through the eyes of adventure and curiosity. Danger only interested him more and if it happened to be unexplained danger you couldn't keep this man away for the world. Yes, he was traveling in a very dangerous land where evil was all about, manifested in disgusting forms ready to attack the unwary. However this was no ordinary man and he was far from unwary.

With the sky turning deeper shades of grey he instinctively picked up the pace. He loved danger but was intelligent enough to realize that one should not be out on the plains in the present weather conditions with night fast approaching. Each foot he placed ahead of himself was eagerly engulfed by the mud in an outrush of bubbles and air, almost as if the mud was chuckling at it's capture of a new foreign object. When he went to withdraw his foot, the mud would cling to his boot for dear life, fight desperately to hold the foot in place, but would finally give way in an audible slurping sound, as if trying to suck his boot back into an invisible maw.