Gyrda - First of Autumn - 1241
The old hag had appeared out of no where. I had been pulling my cart through a patch of especially stubborn sponge moss and was abruptly sunk ten feet below surface level in a perfectly circular pit. The wild strangeness of such a thing happening had cause me to freeze and panic all at once. The hag had peered over the edge of her handmade sinkhole and had cackled - actually laughed! I cursed her as the hole had begun to fill with putrid marsh waters. My boots and cloak will smell for days.
The swamp hag had begun to walk away, intent on leaving me there, but had turned back only when I spoke to her in the Tindory troll language. She eyed me curiously, deciding to slowly raise the circle of earth in which she had trapped me back to its rightful position. She asked me why I had ventured into her marshes, speaking to me in the common tongue. As if to let me know she was only bullying me by pretending to not be able to understand me.
I am settled outside of her hut now, which is so ramshackle I fear falling asleep near it. Simply turning over might bring the so called dwelling crashing down onto me. But I am also grateful, because if I were to say that I wasn't hopelessly lost I would be lying. Once deep into the swamp, it is easy to lose your sense of direction. There was no sight of the sky and my maps had been rendered useless.
The hag tells me her name is Mizula, though she'd had to tell me three times before I'd understood through her toothless common speech, laden heavily with the Tindory accent. Whether or not it is her true name, I can't say. But I have followed her through the swamp anyway, with much caution. My wariness of her being outweighed by my need to sleep, but also by my curiosity. Who is this troll woman with such great earthen powers doing in the middle of a swamp land alone? This elder troll had snuck up on me and commanded the very soil beneath my feet to drop. The happening of it all had been so quick and precise. It was earthen magic like I had never seen before, and I must know how!
