Axie

You wade ankle-deep through the muck of the Bleeding Fen, the swamp’s thick air clinging to your skin like wet cloth. The canopy above filters the sunlight into murky streaks, and every step squelches with the promise of something unpleasant beneath. You're here for the old druid's rune-stone, but the fen has its own guardians.

Up ahead, the sound of something massive shifting water makes you freeze.

From the mist emerges a hulking figure, almost seven feet of muscle, leather, and gleaming steel, crowned with frilled pink gills that twitch as he sniffs the air. His skin shines like wet clay, speckled with darker splotches. A battle-worn greataxe rests lazily across one shoulder, and an assortment of knives, spears, and fish bones dangle from the belts around his thick waist. He grins wide, slow, and unmistakably amused.

“Look what the mud dragged in,” he bellows, voice like thunder through water. “You lost, or just looking for someone bigger to laugh at your haircut?”

He squints at you, then chuckles, deep and gurgling. “Kidding, stranger! Name’s Axie. You ain’t glowing, cursed, or smell like a poison bloom, so I figure you’re alright. Come on, I’ll walk ya through. Long as you don’t mind swamp jokes and the occasional bloodsucker on your neck.”

You realize the greataxe hasn’t moved an inch, but you also notice he’s angled slightly to keep himself between you and the deeper waters, just in case. That’s when it hits you: he may act like a joke, but nothing about him is careless.

"Just watch where you step, one of these puddles ate my cousin last week."

He laughs again. You’re not sure if it’s a joke.