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From the Court Records of the Kingdom of Belfonte:

What follows is the partial testimony of Sir Gregory Stalhein, a knight of the Order of Bren. The testimony concerns the disappearance of a young countess; who will here remain unnamed; a person that Sir Gregory had been hired to escort between the kingdoms of Misantia and Belfonte.

The knight is reported to have been found on the kingdom's periphery, stripped bare and in a state of visible confusion. The young countess was not with him. Despite these claims of mental disorientation, the Court notes that Sir Gregory has given his official account is a manner that was lucid and, by all appearances, free of ill-influence. Nevertheless, the knight's seemingly sane state contrasts sharply with the fantastic explanation he gives for the Countess's disappearance.

This area described in Sir Gregory's account is a large expanse of swampland which is adjacent the kingdom and traditionally held to be contingent with the Orcish territories to the south. Sir Gregory claims to have traveled with his charge by means of a roadway which bisects the swampland However, no such roadway is present on official maps.

The excerpt from Sir Gregory's testimony begins below.

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Your Honor, my first thought is to the lady, my employer. I was charged with bringing her through the swampland south of the Nouirr River, and to the city of Belfonte. In that regard, I will admit to failure; for she is in that swampland still. However, I cannot admit to sacrificing her safety for my own. My failures were not a result of my lacking commitment to the duty prescribed to me, but to extraordinary circumstances which my skills as a knight were not able to overcome. I left the Countess only after it was clear to me that more good could be done for the girl's position while I was again in the city than in my vain attempts to persuade her from the grotto where we found ourselves both captive.

She had been a worthy woman all the time I have known her. Impulsive, yes, as often follows the restlessness of youth, but a noble all the same, bearing always the mold of the line which is her heritage. All this is to premise that she is blameless to the foul fate which befell her; no more guilty than the rabbit whose foot finds the hidden snare of the trapper. If blame should fall upon any, let it be myself, for it was my duty to see her safely through; and the incompletion of this task weighs heavily on my soul.

The swamp lies within Oricsh territory, and can be found if one were to venture between the stony hills at the divergence of the Nouirr. A sardonic joke on the part of Nature, that the same river, which smooths the flood plains and makes the fertile land at the foot of the city, leeches also beneath ground and feeds the tepid swamps in that barbarous land.

This land is uncharted by any civilized country so, it is difficult to know its true span. The town of Hingestop, towards the Orcish domain's southern terminus, is said to be about a weeks ride due south from Belfonte; which may give some indication as to the dimensions of the area. However, the portion across which we attempted to make our crossing was but a peninsula of the larger territory, with a clear albeit little used highway which should have brought us near the villages to the west of Belfonte.

The Countess had been en route from Malcenia, and in that city experienced a delay which put the Lady off schedule by a several days. Eager to make up this time, [The Countess] desired to take the shortcut via the swampland route. I advised against this, but she insisted. The Lady's stubbornness, and the addition of the driver attesting to the horse's competence across boggy terrain, stayed my tongue from further contradictions against my employer.

At the time, I had not believed that Orcs even habituated the swampland. Further to the south within this country lie a castle ruins, and in such ruins the Orcs are known to have their primary population centers, making use of the hollowed out stone structures to supplement their own crude building techniques. In contrast to such places, the area our hapless party ventured was a wilds even unto these wild people. As such, my hesitation to this passage was inspired more by the unknown terrain and the possibility of bandits, as opposed to any potential for interaction with Orcish persons.

What I would find was, and instance of creatures so depraved as to be even excluded from the society of their already savage brethren. Many in the city have grown complacent and are not stirred by the knowledge of this brutish neighbor. For whatever designs the stars have charted, the Orcs in the south have not been heard from in over a century, and this lack of observable activity most certainly creates the illusion that the Orcish lands are some impossibly distant place, and that the few inhabitants therein have little power to molest the general population. But this is not the truth. The place of my nightmare is a mere two days ride from the city. I have seen the Orcs in their natural state of being, and I can only image the calamity should their rudimentary society revert to its primitive origins.

I have described already the particulars of our journey into the swampland: of the primeval nature of the place, how the pair of giants came suddenly upon us from the mists, one male and one female, and how and the coward coachmen fled his position.

I made to stand against the monsters but was quickly subdued. My weapon was lost early in the encounter and I could not resist the beasts unarmed for their sheer size. The entire episode lasted only a moment.

Being thus detained, the Countess and I suffered the first of many outrages at the hands of our captors.

I have mentioned before how Orcish architecture; if, indeed, it can be termed that; consists of adding onto existing, more permanent structures, but the dwelling we were taken to possessed not even these crude innovations. Instead, deep in the swamp, this pair had discovered an outcrop which rose from the mire and formed something of an island of more solid earth among the treacherous stew of wasteland. Even in a bewildered state, my senses dampened by exhaustion, I was able to marvel that the giants were so able to swiftly encounter this particular spot among the fog-dense and labyrinthine wilds; never pausing once or giving evidence that they were unsure of the way.

Within the outcrop was a passage, large but no so large that the Orcs still had need to stoop in order to enter. This led to a sizable cavern. In the corner of the chamber was a bed of yellow coals, on top of which was a tripod cauldron. Sparse billows of smoke rose and were pulled suddenly into a dark corner of the ceiling, signaling the presence of some narrow shaft that served as a natural chimney.

This den was surprisingly warm for the chill climate of the swampland. The only other sign of habitation were a great many animal skins that lay in a heap. There were deer skins, but also those taken from more ferocious hunts: boar, and bear. These were focused in one end of the chamber almost as a huge nest and bore the impressions of where the massive lovers slept.

The Countess was thrown roughly to the bed of skins. I was handled with little more grace by the Orcish female. Then, we were both made to drink a fermented concoction which was drawn from the cauldron and served to us in the hollow of a skull; the victim being of indeterminate species. One could say we were drugged, but the word fails to capture the numerous and subtle changes that the brew began to enact upon the mind and body. Unlike a languid stupor, the onset of which I was bracing for, neither my acuity of senses nor my consciousness left me. If anything, my sense of things was heightened, albeit to a state which was wholly alien to my past experiences and such that, while these enhancements in perception occurred, they were sufficiently disorientating that I did not know myself.

That potion-craft in any form was practiced by the Orcs was a shock to me, although I do suspect that the drought we were given did not require a very complicated process to produce. It was likely a simple rendering into liquid form of material whose properties had come to be known by the swamp-dwellers. It is said that the land of the Ran'tuck Horde is rich in exotic materials that the Orcs have too little industry to harvest. So, it is my assumption that, what was forced upon us was a concentrated form of one such regional substance. But even without the effect of the drought, the air of the place was already poisonous to the mind. I had felt it even upon the road. One felt feverishly warm in the otherwise dank forest. Certain sensations were heightened: hearing, touch, color; while at the same time common sense seemed to elude oneself, like the false courage that accompanies strong drink. And if I can account for such impact on my own bodily constitution, I can only imagine the wicked magic that was being worked upon the Countess.

Even before the first encounter with the Orcs, the girl's face had become flush and she grew visibly agitated the more we ventured down the swampland trail. Not of fear, mind you, for recall that she had stubbornly insisted on the course of action herself. No, her restlessness was growing from something else entirely: that demoniac spell of the whole damned place.

It's hard to say what exactly where the changes this wilderness brought about in one's mind. As I mentioned before, it was unlike a sedation but more so a disorientating transformation to unnaturally heightened sense.

There were the occasions when I would spring free from my Orcish guard and, despite my near-blindness in that ubiquitous fog, I managed to avoid the swampland's many snares underfoot. When my bare feet pressed into the soggy earth, I found that by the smallest degrees of squelching wetness or odor that my heavy footfalls drew, I was able to divine twisting paths free of sudden quicksoil and continue for some time in my flight. Still, these precious few footpaths where labyrinthine in their course, and I estimate that I was never more than an hundred yards from the mouth of the grotto at any time. And always, a short while after, the Orc-woman, who must have known the place well and possessed the physical gait that allowed her passage in places that I was made to avoid, would find me; her dark body appearing like a black tower as it came through the outlandish fog.

I would then be taken back to the feverish nightmare I had left. In the dim light of the grotto, the ivory-white limbs of The Countess were almost luminous. I would see her on her back, legs splayed wide and urging every inch that her body could manage of that foul he-Orc into her. I have said before and I say it still, that the Countess was innocent in the whole episode. The acts I witnessed could not have arisen from appetites native to her spirit; nor indeed, that of any woman's. The poor girl was undoubtedly bewitched. Otherwise, how could she have so enthusiastically invited such defilement? The lustful craft of the Orcs were cast strongly upon her, and possessing a mental fortress meeker than my own, she fell beneath their powerful lusts with ease.

In any other circumstances, behavior such as the girl displayed would have been wanton, shameless. In the dim light and the heat of the Orc's grotto, she was was barely ten feet from me, naked, and uncaring as to her shame within my presence. The sounds that the he-Orc was able to wring from her maidenly voice were surely not a thing that pure carnality was capable of summoning. A young lady simply does not sound the way she did. And her cries never failed to rouse the Orc's companion, and the monster would take me into her embrace and hold me fast. It shames me to say, but I could not control the responses of my body during such times. The sweat of the she-Orc was like a drug, and my wriggling within her iron grip only caused my engorged self to slip from one side of the beast's warm mound to the other, until, eventually, it pushed apart her moist halves and sunk, inch by inch, into the she-Orc's belly.

The demoness seemed to revel in this gradual process: of my resistance, of my body's unwilling response, and of the eventual intercourse between us. And all the while through my struggle she burned me with the lurid gaze of her half-lidded, yellow eyes.

I remember marveling as the snugness of the beast-woman; her sex seemed almost virginal upon every encounter. I had thought that, as... exaggerated as were the proportions on the Orcish male, his mate would be a physical compliment in the respective area. But it seemed not to be so. The musk of that perfumed den and the hot breath of the giantess was intoxicating. She consumed me in that embrace; bent my body into her with her eager grasp. I had to option but to fall upon her tremendous breasts and eventually obliged my captor. But there was no relief. No matter how often I spent myself, and no matter how much my revulsion to the act, my manhood never seemed to slacken and the beast continued to use me. It was only when my captor and I were both exhausted to the point of delirium did I experience mercy, and the black pall of sleep overtook me.

In the hush of one early morning I felt a more delicate touch upon my jaw, now shaggy with the growth of several weeks. It was the Countess! Her once glossy curls were now matted and hung limp, for the Orcs only bathed us in chill water every other day. Her bottom, covered in red welts from the he-Orc's rough handling. Despite this, there was still a contrary robustness about the girl; hesitate to call it "health"; something I attribute to the enchanted perfume of the grotto and surrounding bog-land.

The outrageous acts she was recipient to, I had now seen her increasingly begin to initiate. This bestial lovemaking should have rent her delicate form apart, yet, there was no sign of hesitation in the girl's forwardness towards the monster she defiled herself with. I had noticed changes in myself as well, and despite being confined to that dwelling, my lungs felt as to take in more air and my limbs, to become iron-strong. It was all so unlike the picture of the prisoner who wastes away in their bondage.

This sense of vigor caused me, on more than one occasion, to resist the Orc-woman when she came to collect me during my aforementioned flights. Although, these attempts I would quickly regret, as the grappling of our nude bodies in the open air seemed only to entice her all the more and lead to a more vigorous and longer round of torment.

So it was, that when the Countess woke me that morning, I sat up eagerly, thinking that the time had come to make our escape and that we could flee the bog-land while the pair of devils were still slumbering. But my hopes were dashed when the Countess then crawled upon me and I saw the lurid glint in her eye. The hot air in the cave smelled of the sex of all of us. She took my hand in hers, but instead of making to flee the place, moved my fingers to the damp space between her thighs. I noticed then, in horror, that despite the ungroomed appearance elsewhere about her body, her intimate areas were completely smooth. It can only be concluded that she had made effort to maintain her womanhood shaved bare, keeping herself always prepared for her Orcish lover. She reached between my own thighs and my manhood sprung up, in spite of myself. But I pushed the girl off and did not allow her to touch me again.

From that point onward, I knew that there would be no convincing the girl to leave. She had no intention of leaving, but had given herself over completely to that pit of constant and barbarous sex. Neither would I be able to slay the Orcs without a weapon, even in their sleep. The only thing to do was to escape on my own with the knowledge of the Countess's whereabouts in the hopes of summoning a rescue party at some late point.

My chance came during one of those moments when I had escaped the attentions of the she-Orc and was venturing away from the cave. At this point, I had developed a vague orientation of the land immediately surrounding the dwelling. In a soggy patch of earth between dense rows of cypress; which I had often seen her make use of while in pursuit of me; I sunk a number of branches whose wood was still green and that I had sharpened to the degree of javelins on an earlier occasion. I was able to lure her along this path and when she stumbled into the trap. I saw the sudden look of surprise on her face as her foot was pierced; and still having the momentum of her forward gait, her body continued even as her ankle was fixed in the trap. I heard her howl in pain as her leg twisted and she was forced to an unnatural position. But her cries went unheard by her mate, who must have been occupied with the girl.

After much exasperated wandering, I found the road. The sun's position at this late hour indicated the way eastward, and by morning light, I had found myself at the edge of a farmstead, denuded and delirious from my experience. I was the perfect picture of a madman, but the laborer who first encountered me was well-familiar with the Orcish presence along that forsaken highway and was able to make sense of my tale.

It is thus that I stand before the Court, that same tale to tell; to speak on my own behalf for lack of ill intent, but more-so to beseech the Crown Her resources in the recovery of the lost girl. I maintain faith that she will again be found, although I cannot say in what state... But please, remember always the Countess's steadfast loyalty to the kingdom and try to understand the evil magic of the swamps; a place in which the hanging quietude belies a frenzy of lust and depravity. No man or woman would escape such temptations untarnished. It is the maw of hell, and the Orcs we there encountered were nothing less than demons trying to claim a pair of human souls.

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Thus concludes the relevant segment of Sir Gregory's testimony.

The general consensus of this hearing is that Sir Gregory did, indeed, stray from the main highways and venture the swampland with the Countess. However, it is thought that the more fantastical portions of the narrative can be accounted for by certain environmental factors of the swampland: namely the disorientating effect of the profoundly dense wilderness, and the drug-like effects of swamp gasses and yet-categorized vegetal life. Nevertheless, it can be deduced that, if the Countess is to be recovered, it is in this swath of territory where she is most likely to be found.

To the ends of this recovery, a party is to be dispatched into the area. Among these, the Court recommend the inclusion of persons who may be able to document and sample the aforementioned botanical variety of this locale, as Sir Gregory's account suggests a high possibility of potent and hitherto uncultivated species. The obvious candidate to lead such a venture is Sister Marieu, the head Potionsmaker of the Sisters of Sylflora Order.

Sister Marieu has already been made aware of the venture and has selected a handful of the assistants from the Order who are eagerly awaiting the mission.