Spending the night out in a stinking swamp is seldom fun. Spending the night tied to a tree isn’t much fun either. The Glorious Trio of Chocolate Lovers experienced both these things at the same time. So it’s easy to understand that none of the three were in a particularly good mood at the moment. In fact, they all felt rather grumpy. Criff felt especially miserable, he had to put up with some uncomfortable glares from his two companions since it was mostly his fault that they were there. To make things worse he wasn’t sitting down and tied to the tree like his friends. Instead his hands had been tied to a branch of the tree. That wouldn’t be so bad if the branch wasn’t eight feet up from the ground.   

“So...” said Morgan, breaking the silence, “Anyone read any good books lately? Zamo?”
“Oh, yes!” answered Nomzamo, “I read a book called ‘The Idiot with the Ugly Cloak’. Astonishing book.”
“Hey! Leave my cloak out of this! It’s not ugly, it’s just well-worn!” yelled Criff.
“That sounds fascinating. What was it about?” said Morgan, completely ignoring Criff.
“It was about an idiot, as you’ve might have guessed, called Criff. He and his two handsome friends walked into a dark swamp with mysterious trees and magical beasts, and ended up being tied to a big oak tree for the night. All because of the idiot, of course.”
Criff cursed the fact that Nomzamo wasn’t within kicking range.
“Of course.” said Morgan, “Was there a moral to that story, maybe? Like: ‘Don’t insult strange monsters you encounter in even stranger swamps’?!”
“But they did look like walking frogs! That was meant as a bloody compliment!” yelled Criff, “Frogs are cute, damn it! Now knock it off. At least they let you two sit down.”
“Good point, it’s almost comfortably sitting down here in the mud with spiders laying eggs in your hair.” said Nomzamo bitterly. “What about you? Enjoying the view up there?” he inquired with a smirk.
“Not really, it’s kind of dark and I can only see a large tree and two annoying persons. I think my arms are longer than my legs by now too.”
“Well, it was nice of them to leave all our stuff behind.” said Morgan and gave his backpack, that was lying together with all their other stuff in a neat pile a few feet away, a sad look.
“Or maybe they just have a mean sense of humour leaving us with our food, water and tools for freeing ourselves within sight but out of reach.” muttered Nomzamo.
A gloomy silence fell over them and for a while no one spoke. Criff was the first to break the silence with a sad sigh:
“Man, I’m so hungry. I could kill for some biscuits right now.”
“I got some biscuits in my pocket.” said Morgan trying to be cheerful, “I’m a bit tied up right now though. Hang about and I might be able to get them for you later.”
“Oh, that was so funny that I forgot to laugh entirely.” said Criff sarcastically while Nomzamo only groaned at the joke. “You’re a very funny man, my friend.”
“Thanks, I do my best. Now then, any ideas for getting out of this muddy little mess?”
“Nope” said Nomzamo, “Unless you can stretch your neck and bite off the ropes.”
Criff didn’t answer at first. He looked like he was in deep thought. Then he shone up.
“I got an idea! Why didn’t I think of that before?” he exclaimed.
With an effort he started kicking with his legs and used the last strength in his arms in an attempt to get hold of the thick branch he was tied to with his legs. He failed badly, but he wasn’t the kind to give up easily; especially not when he needed to regain his dignity. He needed three more tries but he was finally able to get hold of the branch and wrapped his legs around it. He laughed triumphantly:
“Hah! Never count out Criff Gnollbuddy! The master of getting out of sticky situations!”
His companions gave him a tired look.
“So you’re now hugging the branch instead of hanging from it. Congratulations. You’re still tied to it though.” said Nomzamo.
“Ah, so it seems. But just you wait and see my glorious plan to freedom! Soon this rope will be off my wrists and I’ll be free and set you two free too!”
With those words Criff started scraping the rope against the branch in as fast pace as he could while holding up a rather big part of his weight with his arms. While doing this he had a most unsettling smile on his lips.
“Criff, that’s a branch, not a bleedin’ saw.” remarked Morgan.
Criff didn’t answer, he just kept scraping. But it seemed the rope was made of sturdier material than he thought, for nothing happened. He was getting irritated and started to yank in the rope and tried to snatch it off.
“You stupid, ugly rope, what the heck are you made of?!” he muttered. “Get off!” He kept yanking, scraping and cursing for a while, but the rope didn’t even look damaged. At this point he got really angry and became rather violent in his attempt to get it off.
“Damn you, blasted rope!! Get off me! I want to run free in the swamp! I want to eat biscuits! I want to be free, damn you!! GET OFF!!” he screamed hysterically and uncomfortably high-pitched.

Now something happened that surprised them all. Criff had been too busy screaming, and Nomzamo and Morgan too busy being fascinated by their friends’ hysteria, to notice the strange sounds coming from the branch. Even though the rope had gone through Criffs’ cruel treatment without the slightest sign of damage, the branch that had looked so heavy and sturdy hadn’t. Maybe it was a bit rotten inside, maybe it had already suffered from similar treatments a lot in the past, or maybe it was just feeling old. Whatever the reason it suddenly broke off with a loud crash and fell down together with Criff who let out a girly scream of terror. It hit the ground with a even louder crash, with Criff beneath it. For a moment everything fell silent. Nomzamo and Morgan wondered for a second if Criff was alive or if he’d gone to the Heaven of Embarrassing Deaths, but Criffs’ groans of pain proved that he was very much alive.
“Pain… hurts!” he whimpered with hoarse voice.
Nomzamo and Morgan started chuckling quietly. Soon they were laughing hysterically at poor Criff. With an effort he managed to get the heavy branch off him while feeling horribly unappreciated. He slipped the rope off where the branch had broken off and stood up. His lip, nose and a few other body parts were bleeding and he realized that by tomorrow he would have bruises in every imaginable colour, including octarine. His friends where still laughing.
“’Oh, look at my glorious plan to freedom! I’ll just… AARGH!!’” imitated Morgan with a giggle while Nomzamo roared with laughter.
“You know, normal people would’ve asked if I was alright before they started laughing.” said Criff bitterly, feeling that it hurt a bit more in his chest when he talked.
“Ah, but normal is boring.” said Nomzamo. “I’m sorry I’m laughing, but it’s always so amusing seeing you in pain.”
Criff ignored him and limped over to his backpack. His hands were relatively free since the rope had been long enough to reach around branch, so he got hold of his knife and started cutting the rope off. It proved to be quite sturdy even when attacked with a knife.
“If I ever meet those walking frogs again I’m going to ask them how they make these blasted ropes.” he muttered.
“If you ever meet them again I recommend that you don’t say anything at all.” commented Morgan. Criff pretended he didn’t hear.
After a few minutes he finally managed to cut off the rope and laughed triumphantly, discovering that laughing hurt even more than talking. He turned to his companions.
“’That will never work, Criff! Criff, that’s a stupid idea! Criff we’ll be here all night because of you!’” he imitated with a gleeful smile. “Well, in your face! Now I’m free, and you are not.”
“Okay, fine. Sorry we laughed. Your glorious plan worked.” said Nomzamo.
“Although I didn’t know it included him crushing his guts and nuts.” whispered Morgan.   Nomzamo did his best to not laugh, which resulted in him accidentally making a strange  snorting-like sound. Criff muttered annoyed and took out a piece of bread from his backpack  and started eating it. For a minute or two  he just sat there, eating and taking a sip of water, and relaxed after what had been one of the  most exhausting and painful incidents he had gone through.
“Uhm, if you’re going to take a break before freeing us could you remove the spiders from my hair first?” said Nomzamo.
“No.”
“Oh, come on! Why not?”
“Because you’ve been mean to me, and I’m going to use the little power I have over you right now. I’m just going to sit here and enjoy the moment.”
Nomzamo sighed and tried to ignore the spiders that apparently found his hair to be a perfect home. Now someone might wonder why he didn’t just shake his head to get them off. Well, he already tried that several times during the night without result. It seemed like the spiders were used to holding on to things.

After a while Criff stood up and went  over to the tree and started to cut off the ropes that were holding his companions.
“This might take a while.” he said.
“Then maybe you can remove the spiders now?” pleaded Nomzamo.
“Nope.”
“Aww, you’re such a bully.”
“Look who’s talking.”
It took a few minutes, and a lot of cursing, but Criff managed to cut off all the ropes (the froglike creatures had found it most amusing to tie them with several ropes instead of a single long one). Nomzamo and Morgan jumped up as fast as they could. Nomzamo brushed off as many spiders as he could find in his long hair, and some down his back. Morgan scratched himself on the back and found a couple of strange worms and bugs here and there. When he thought he had gotten rid of all unwelcome life forms (he hadn’t) he turned to Criff.
“Well, you got us into this mess, but you got us out of it too, so thanks a lot, mate. I’d give you a hug if your entire body wasn’t a big bruise.” he said. Criff was glad that someone finally showed some gratefulness.
“Yeah, thanks.” said Nomzamo. “Sorry for calling you an idiot. But that’s one of the reasons I like you: you make me feel so smart!”
“Very funny. Nice to see you’re grateful too.” snorted Criff.
“Oh, come on, as Morgan said: you got us into this, you got us out of it. I called you an idiot, you left me with spiders in my hair. We’re even.”
“Fine, whatever you say.” Criff, too tired to argue. “Let’s just get out of here.”
“Oooh… We forgot about that.” said Morgan in a ominous tone. “We don’t know we’re we are, right?”

In fact, they had no idea at all where they were. The Froglodytes, as Morgan later started calling them, had made sure of that. They have a rather twisted sense of humour you see. It took the Glorious Trio of Chocolate Lovers lots of effort and more uncomfortable incidents before they got out of that swamp; and into a strange forest instead.