The first clash in the Filthy Swamp ended in just four hours.
Though the battle was fierce, it was actually small in scale. The gnolls had sent out over a thousand troops, and Transia had fielded about the same number, reinforcements included. Transia had won, but that wasn't enough to affect the gnolls' offensive, which had already gotten underway in the south.
However, the clash had also proven that Hugueson's attempt to dig a tunnel network underground had failed completely. Once they learned that the kobolds were digging tunnels all over the place, Transia's soldiers—already familiar with tunnel warfare—set out in all directions under the players' leadership. They tunneled their way to the kobolds' passages and launched surprise attacks, then blew the tunnels in and left behind booby traps or explosive runestones as gifts.
Over the following days, these covert clashes grew more frequent. The Silver Dwarves' earth priests, who had boldly taken the players' advice, joined in as well.
Earth Glide, once used merely for quick travel and hauling cargo, had become an "art of assassination."
The priests, made vicious by the Earth Mother's wrathful will, often carried large quantities of explosives. With a precisely executed Earth Glide, they'd slip into their target area, silently plant the explosives, then escape before they went off.
Or they'd scatter a big bag of nasty butterfly mines in an area the gnolls thought was safe, then hide nearby and watch with gleeful, mocking laughter as the bastards screamed amid the explosions.
These "Earth-Sun" style blasts, which struck without warning, made the gnolls even more paranoid. Meanwhile, snipers and sharpshooters, deployed in great numbers by Lord Qin, hunted them with potshots throughout the swamp.
The gnoll hunters far from their main camp were especially vulnerable. Though blessed by the Lord of the Hunt,