Baron Sangépine rides into the swamp on his monstrous steed, each step sounding like the crunch of shattered shells and the squelching of rotting mud. The searing mist swirls around him, concealing his massive figure until light glints off his spiked armor. In his hand rests a gruesome weapon—a three-tailed flail, each chain ending in a rusted, spiked ball crusted with dried blood.
Before him looms a ruined watchtower. Its crumbling walls, overgrown with fungi, emit a damp stench mingled with the decay of the swamp. Sangépine halts, slowly turning his helm with narrow slits for eyes, which seem to glow with a dark, insatiable light.
A soft thud echoes from the mist. Sangépine freezes, then slowly tilts his head downward. At his feet lies a potato, freshly flung from the fog, its skin smeared with swamp muck. Another potato follows, sailing out of the haze and bouncing off his shield with a dull clunk.
"An insult?" he says, his hollow voice dripping with disdain. "Or a death wish?"
Before he can move, a figure bursts out of the mist—a wiry figure in tattered rags wielding a rusted ladle like a lance. With a feral scream, the attacker charges forward, slipping and stumbling but never stopping.
Sangépine watches silently, unmoving, as the enemy approaches. Only at the last moment does he raise his flail. The chains rattle, like awakening metal serpents. The attacker lunges desperately, swinging the ladle, but the flail strikes first.
One chain coils around the ladle, wrenching it from the attacker’s grasp. Another crashes into their chest with a dull crunch, hurling the figure into the mud. The swamp falls silent again, broken only by the wet squelching of the figure’s body sinking into the mire.
