Blazing a…trail…through four kinds of foliage

Having eluded the pursuit, the group plots in the darkest of the jungle thickets. Plans are made and rejected, but finally a spot of triangulation indicates a general direction to follow. With birds up top and Naima out front, the jungle journey is largely uneventful until a trail of destruction crosses the party path. It looks like a massive and heavily loaded wagon plowed through the jungle in a more or less straight line. Deciding that the path already cleared is easiest to travel, the group veers onto the swath of destruction. A few days later the birds report that there are damaged buildings in an obviously cleared area, about 2 miles off of the ‘beaten’ path. Detour is made and the birds scout for a day.

‘Tis revealed that there are hyena-men on patrol in the area and burly lizardfolk in the nearby swamp. Waiting until after the patrol leaves, the group rushes out of concealment and down a long and slowly sloping set of ceremonial stairs. The deeper they go, the more guano they see until they enter a large room that reeks of the stuff – with thousands of bats lining the ceiling. Moving slowly, the group takes the first available path and detours around the gallery of guano.

Into a hallway and all is uneventful until Reza takes two large sharpened spears in the back, then an arrow in the side and then a nice smash from a halberd for his troubles. Ambushed, the group rallies and fights back, apparently having caught a concealed guardpost at the shift change. Die hyena-dudes, die. And so they do.
Moving further down the hallway, the group is halted by Barada, who stares intently at the grout lines. Secret door found, opened and promptly closed, for the scene beyond is millipede madness as lizardfolk and texas millipedes battle for supremacy. One ‘pede tries to impede Barada’s ability to breed by incisoring the naughtly bits off of him, but to no avail. Pausing to slam the door and kill the hapless lizardfolk that exited the struggle, the hallway is taken as the less pointy option.

A little while later, it is more wall staring and more secret doors, but this time they lead into a massive hall, complete with flame-roaring demon statues and floor lighting. The room reeks faintly of death and a large chasm splits the room. No obvious swag is seen, the demon shaft is examined but rejected – so back into the long hallway. Then another long descent into a large cavern where the group comes under arrow fire. Dalliance fires up the Reverse Arrows spell and advances. Once the ffects of the magic are realized, the ambushing hyena-men fall back onto a large blue square in front of a statue of a goddess – and vanish.

Never one for the obvious, Barada resumes his examination of the masonry and soon finds another hidden door that leads underneath the temple-statue. Down they go, uncovering old and strange weapons as well as a large and angry lizard. Lizard is pummeled, swag is plundered. A quick pause for breath and then onwards…