Rising Sun Valley the power of voodoo (discovery)

Set in an inconvenient basin fed by overflow from Duck Lake and Otatso Wetlands, Witch's Marsh is a permanently waterlogged grassland. Reeds and cattails grow abundantly at the edge of the water, and the only trees in sight are those belonging to the Wetlands. The soil is soggy and saturated, feeling unpleasant underfoot. Patches of tall grass conceal underlying channels, so wolves entering the area must tread carefully, lest they find themselves standing in stagnant water where they thought there was land. When night falls, the grass seems to eerily dance and move of its own accord and shadows seem to stalk the living, even when there's no wind or moonlight. Many a wolf has become lost in the maze of wild, overgrown vegetation and deceptively deep water, leading to a superstition that will-o-wisps in the marsh lead unsuspecting wolves to their deaths.

Jinx, so taken with leaving home as she was, had made her way awkwardly through the Wetlands in the direction of the lake. As a prospective Outrider, she sought to map and chart all lands and dangers surrounding Swiftcurrent Creek, that she could use her knowledge to derive strategies for the pack's defense. Say what they would about the pale Kesuk, but Jinx was thorough in completion of her duties, and had spent the whole day mapping out Otatso.

The warm weather, coupled with the swamp's natural mugginess, meant that not all of the water was frozen. Some of it was frigid and turbid with soil, whilst some of it harbored a thin layer of ice. It crackled underfoot, and once or twice Jinx unwittingly dunked her paw into the cold water. On these instances, she had recoiled with a furious hiss, shaking her paw in disgust.

But when she reached the far edge of the swamp, Jinx found something interesting that she had never noticed before. The land dipped subtly from the swamp's edge into a basin. From there, it looked like any other grassland covered in snow, and so Jinx proceeded boldly... But she came to a sharp halt when her foot broke through the thin cover of snow and ice and she found herself chest-deep in water.

She pulled back, practically shrieking, and coiled her tail agitatedly. What looked like a grassland was, in fact, an expansive marsh. In the summer, it would have been obvious, with wide swaths of grass broken by glimmers of permanent, silvery water... But in the winter, it was a deathtrap. One which, she realized, could be exploited as a trap for unsavoury rivals, given appropriate knowledge of its layout.