When discussing QuagmireSprings, one should be careful to distinguish whether the place under discussion is the Artesian spring that forms the source of the YellowRiver, or the eponymous Zaratec village located on the border of the Undulant Marshlands.
The purest water in all the sphere comes from the actual springs, whose offspring river is the single largest tributary of the inconstant Argent. Known throughout both Breakwater and Escutcheon, retrieving even a skinful of water from the source of the Yellow is a perilous task in the extreme, because the ever-shifting waterways of the Undulant Marshlands defy the nagigational abilities of any except the Zaratec (which in the Kotheloi tongue means "Swamp People"). The Zaratec appear to have an inborn ability to read the wind and water, allowing them to determine which channels lead to which areas and which will cause even their broad-beamed, shallow-drawing skiffs to run aground. None who have attempted to find the QuagmireSprings without a Zaratec guide have returned, although their boats have been known to float past the village, sometimes with bodies and sometimes without.
On those rare nights when an equinox or a solstice coincides with the night of either a full or new moon, those who have been led to the spring by a Zaratec guide can observe one of the few regularly recurring NocturnalIllusions. Assorted travelers and folklorists record a variety of legends as to her origin, containing few enough constant threads that your humble correspondent doubts any of them know the truth, and therefore refuses to waste the ink necessasry to set them to parchment.
-- MartenBlackstone, FESNS
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This is a Q entry in the BreakwaterLexicon