I was awoken by a horrific scent choking the stale air from my lungs. As I desperately covered my mouth with the strip of cloth from before, making the mask, I looked up the steps to see a wall of dust billowing about at the entrance to the sunken city. The wind had changed, catching the entrance and kicking up all the dust that had settled. It was sunny when I had gone to sleep, and I could feel the strange way the air caught my feathers, even indoors. It was cool, with a faint dampness to it.

"A storm. Great. I better set out now. I don't know the local weather patterns. I can't wait it out, it might last for a whole season. Gotta try and beat the storm." If I had both wings, I could just fly up above the clouds, maybe grab a couple to take a break on as I flew, but once again the 'flight' option was denied. Coughing as I left the relative safety of my enclosure, I saw the rolling black clouds off on the horizon, with a hazy miasma of swamp gasses hanging over the ground, the sunlight came through muted and dull. I hadn't had any sort of schedule for the time I was in the underworld, so I was at least grateful to have some manner of telling time properly. I stood for several minutes and watched as the sun suddenly shifted about 15 degrees to the left, like a clock hand ticking, which meant I was facing north, which meant that given the landscape telling me I was most likely in the Black Marsh, was the direction I needed to go. That's also where the storm was. Most likely they were unruly clouds on the Equestrian border under watch by the weather patrol, but not under orders for dissipation.

If I was to get home, I'd have to go through the storm. Granted that didn't seem like the best idea, but I didn't really have any other options. I could run out of food if I tried waiting, and I didn't fancy my chances of finding something edible in the toxic muck. I walked to the bottom step of the temple structure and took a tentative step into the gunk. If this goop was in such a state that a whole city could sink into it, I'd have to be careful. I think that was my final reason for apprehension. I knew how to survive in a tundra, or a desert, or a jungle, but I knew next to nothing about swamp living other than, 'See dis ere gayta? We gonna cook em, an we gonna eet em'. Seeing as how I lost my gun back in the hell hive, and it didn't have much ammo anyways, I wasn't liking my chances of going toe to toe with a croc, much less a hydra, something I knew for a fact lived here.

Gently I stepped onto the muddy earth, my claws sinking into the ground, I stepped slowly to see how far I'd go. Thankfully, there was some solid ground underneath, so I could walk out. I spent maybe five minutes carefully walking through the marsh to make sure I didn't sink into it, and got all of twenty paces from the stone steps.

"This is taking way too long." On that note, I decided that the swamp, while liquid enough to sink an entire stone city over the course of several hundred, if not thousand, years, it was solid enough to hold the weight of one griffin, so I took off in a run. Of course, it was at that exact moment that I came across a spot where it was particularly deep, and plunged into the disgusting filth.

"Shiii-*sploosh*" Despite the fact that this was a deep hole filled with water, because of the fog and the slimy film atop the surface, it looked just like any other ground I was crossing. I swam to the edge and gripped the muddy ground to try and pull myself up, but it just gave way as I put my whole body weight on those points to try and lift. That, and it was quickly congealing around me, much like quicksand with a bit too much water in it. At least I knew how to handle quicksand.

Laying myself out flat, I used my wing, which was mostly free of the goop, as an oar to paddle myself to the edge and kind of roll out of the muck rather than lift myself out. That worked much better. I had already spent twenty minutes, and I wasn't more than a stone's throw from the temple. I briefly though of turning back, but the storm on the horizon destroyed any possibility of that. If the ground was this hard to traverse in this condition, it would be downright impossible after a storm. Making it through the swamp would mostly be a matter of luck in not coming across any deep spots. Well, either luck or divine intervention, which Hades had pointed out I would no longer being enjoying the benefits of. That really sucks because this would be one time that I could REALLY use some otherworldly assistance. So, my third option was intelligence. I knew next to nothing about swamps in general, but maybe I could figure some things out along the way.

As I spent the next hour or so walking to the edge of the half sunken city I made sure to vary my path. Walk near the buildings, walk far from them, walk a kind of middle distance, and at varying paces. From this, I noticed three things. The first was that those deep watery pits tended to be mostly right next to the sunken buildings. Makes sense. The heavy weight pushes the land down, which then fills with water during a downpour. If I stayed away from the buildings, it was mostly solid. Secondly, even staying away from the water pits, the solid ground still had a layer of thick mud which made my paws and claws sink into it, which required significant effort to pull myself out of, like a rubber boot stuck in the mud. Third, swamps have bugs. A LOT of bugs. Like, mosquitoes as big as my head. I had to dive into one of those disgusting pools just to avoid being exsanguinated by a swarm of the things. This had some surprising benefits. Firstly, if I coated myself in the same gross film, the bugs couldn't bite me, though it did smell terrible and being covered in mud made me significantly heavier, so combined with the strength sapping effect of having my legs stuck in the mud I was left exhausted by the time I reached the exit.

One other thing. Despite being covered in mud making it impossible for the bugs to bite me, that certainly didn't stop them from trying. Wherever I went I had a swarm of the damn things just waiting for me to dry out so the muck would fall of and they could drink me dry/give me AIDS/lay their eggs in my carcass. Now, just because I know these disease ridden things were waiting to kill me doesn't mean I flailed about like a maniac, shouting, trying to swat them. No, it was the incessant buzzing that caused that.

They kept swirling and swarming around me. One landed on my eye, causing me to wince as the delicate orb was trodden on by insect feet. They crawled all over me, buzzing around me ears, crawling into the nostrils in my beak, trying everything they could to get at the yummy griffin caked in mud. I dove into a deep pool, but when I rose, they were still there, just waiting for me.

"Stupid bugs, FUCK OFF!" And suddenly, silence. When I opened my eyes, there was not a mosquito to be found, and the ground was scorched for at least a couple hundred feet. The wet mud had dried, and there were little wisps of smoke rising here and there. "What the... I didn't cast a spell. Why am I... so... zzzzzz." I passed out right there, buried up to my chest in a hole of dried mud.

I was awoken by raindrops splashing off my beak. I blinked my bleary eyes as I tried to remember what happened, when a crack of thunder off in the distance snapped me out of it. "Uh... wha?" The edge of the storm had just reached the city. "I must have fallen asleep. Gotta... grr." Luckily, my arms weren't buried that deep in the mud, so I was able to pull them free rather easily. Unluckily, talons are not meant for digging, so I had to spend another hour trying to get my lower half free enough that I could climb out of the hole. Even though I had just woken up, I was already exhausted from my efforts, so I took to opening the second last jar of honey I had in my sack and downed it. Of course, considering my beak was full of mud, the honey tasted like dirt. I didn't have any cereal left, because the swamp had completely ruined the boxes, so all I had to go on were the sealed jars. Even more reason to get moving.

I took off to the north as quickly as my feet would carry me. Over the scorched swamp land it was easy, but all too soon I reached the edge of the burnt patch. Continuing on from that point had me spending a ridiculous amount of energy just trying to pull my feet up to take the next step. The storm drew nearer still as the downpour became heavier, the little pools filling with rain water as it came down. I took the opportunity to crane my head to the sky and open my mouth, letting the clear water wash the dirt and filth out from inside, followed by taking a proper drink as well. I couldn't trust the water down in the muck, so rain would have to do. It began to wash me off as well, relieving me of the earthen burden I carried caked to my fur and feathers. That's when I heard a groan.

My eyes scanned the terrain, searching for what made the noise, when I spotted a small bubble a little ways away. Then it grew, and grew some more. The bubble kept rising and rising until it popped, showing that it contained a hydra head within. It thrashed about erratically before I realized something. The hydra was dead. The motion came from the multitude of rats that were busy stripping the flesh from it's skull. Soon after, the rest of it's body came to the surface, performing a similar motion as it was shredded by the ravenous rodents.

The rats themselves squealed and shrieked in delight as they had their fill, then in terror as various other bog creatures came to have their piece of the kill, and ripped off chunks of the larger animal, rats and all, and swallowed them whole. Alligators, some kind of large toothed fish, vultures, all mashed together in some kind of twisted feeding frenzy where everything was a meal and everything fed on one another, leaving a mess of blood, bone, shredded meat, mangled feathers torn hides.

I stood there simply mesmerized for quite some time, part of me wanting nothing to do with that fustercluck of feeding, while the other, hungry half wanting to get in there and be a part of it. At the very end, once all the predatory animals had been torn apart, the scavengers came in. Vultures, who let their braver brethren enter the fray first, swooped down to pick at the remains, a snake or two came by and swallowed some of the smaller corpses whole, then swam off, content to wait out the storm. Finally, as all those who remained had their fill and left, I realized that the trifle I had eaten earlier wasn't nearly enough to satiate myself. That, and the fact that I had just watched several dozen animals eat their fill had, in some primal way, made me feel hungry as well.

I slowly approached the corpse, finding that a good chunk of hydra neck was left untouched. Glancing around to be sure that nothing was waiting for me to look away before pouncing, I crept up to the beast and ripped a chunk of flesh off in my beak. Trying to disregard the horrible slimy texture, the fact that it wasn't cooked and was probably disease ridden given the landscape and just how many things had bitten into it, I swallowed the bits whole, noting the lump in my throat as they went down. Taking a few more bites, I continued northward, just as I heard the howling wind of the storm.

A griffin stood with his talons wrapped around a particularly venomous snake, keeping its toxic fangs away from him as he ripped it in half, swallowing the latter bit whole. He had not slept in a very long time. How long, he couldn't remember. It's not that he wasn't tired, but he knew the moment he laid down to rest in this god forsaken swamp would be the moment some predator came upon him. He couldn't allow that to happen. He had a task of great importance to complete. He had to keep going north.

Even as the thick mud sapped his strength, he watched the other animals that were better suited to that environment. The snakes, crocodiles, hydras, lizards and the like. They slithered on their bellies. He did not. He sank in the muck, they did not. Soon, he came to slither along just as they did, paying no mind to the filth he was wallowing in, how it seeped into every crevice, in between every feather and hair. He was so coated in the muck that even the endless swarms of bugs no longer seemed to bother him. The frogs were coated in mud too. When the bugs came near the frogs, the frogs would snap them up. So he began to snap at the bugs when they came near. It was a free meal, one that took next to no effort, and let him continue on his journey, ever north.

As he walked, his eyes constantly jumped too and fro, hunting for any sign of danger, or his next meal. Shadows danced in his vision. He kept telling himself 'They're hallucinations brought on by a lack of sleep. My subconscious mind is trying to process what's around me through dreams, but it can't because I don't sleep, so it's freaking out and making me hallucinate, that's all it is, thats all it'... ooh, mosquito *chomp*." Eventually, he just stopped talking all together. Seemed like a waste of energy since there was no one else to talk to, and any noise he made simply alerted any predators or prey to his presence. The only things his mind had room for were 'I can eat that', 'That can eat me', and Go north'. Never mind remembering how to tell which way north was. Several times he got hopelessly lost, or maybe he was heading the right way all along. The swamp all looked the same.

A couple of ponies were enjoying a nice lunch outside as they watched the leaves fall. It was nowhere near Ponyville, so they had unicorns change the season instead of some backwards tradition of a several mile long race. No, Stillwater was a forward thinking town, if a little quiet. They had none of the crime of Stalliongrad, none of the hustle and bustle of Canterlot, the shazam of Bitsburg, or the country bumbkins of Ponyville. No, it was a nice place to eat a nice lunch of carrots and beans.

"Flora, do you hear something? Like a kind of growling?" Asked the stallion.

"No Honey, I don't." Honey Cruller was the stallion's name, though she called him honey because she thought he was sweet. "Maybe it's your stomach. Stars know you've only been eating doughnuts lately." She giggled.

"You're right. Well, I did agree to eat healthier, so, lets dig in before these steamed veggies get cold."

Without so much as a single word of warning, the table and chairs went flying, separating the pony couple. The one let out a terrible shriek of fear, while the mare rolled to her hooves, trying to find what dared interrupt her date with her stallion. The table top had broken off, their food had spilled on the ground, and some mud covered creature was busy gorging itself on HER steamed vegetables.

"Back! Get out of here you brute!" It didn't happen often, but on occasion a wild animal would wander out of the swamp or adjacent jungle, though they never got this far in town due to the superb guard presence. How this one had managed to make it to the city's heart was a mystery, though she knew what to do about it.

Thinking quickly, she swiftly bucked the creature in what she believed to be it's head, only to fall flat on her back as it didn't budge. The thing turned, dripping muck all over the ground as it positioned itself atop her, opened it's... beak? and roared in her face. Spittle flew as she got a clear look down it's throat, chunks of half dissolved meat and greens stuck in it's teeth and a maniac look in it's eye, before it turned back to eating.

The guards showed up quickly and began using stun spells on the beast, though they seemed to have no effect. "It's protected from the shocks by the mud! Hose it off!" The commander ordered. Immediately there was a spray of water on the beast, drenching it, making the layers of gunk melt away and revealing the horrible beast underneath to be... a griffin. Horribly malnourished, despite the fact that it seemed to eat it's own weight in food every day, the guards hit it again with the stun spells, this time finally bringing it... him... down.