Episode 2: Welcome to the Jungle!

As the team headed inland, a terrible heat wave descended upon the jungle, making even the most routine tasks a case of suffering. A few days into the hot spell, a dire displacer beast twice the usual size darkened their trail. It played a game of cat and mouse with the adventurers, attacking them from odd angles and through the night, keeping them from resting.

Eventually, Ybus convinced everyone that soaking themselves in the cold mud of the riverbank would mask them from the displacer beast's infrared vision and sense of smell. They laid in wait, covered in mud, and sprang a trap on the monster. Erden and Baracus rigged a swinging log trap, and Ybus lured it into the trap with a foxy lady displacer beast illusion. They chased the creature into the forest and between javelin and magical fire, they took down the fearsome beast.

Traversing through the undergrowth of a steaming jungle, the party fought off blood-sucking insects, tiny poisonous frogs, and the lingering malaise of ennui. So it was that when they discovered the entrance to an ancient temple and faced the prospect of horrible death and destruction from whatever lay within, the entrepid trio leaped at the opportunity.

Pushing their way past the long woody vines that covered the cave entrance, they pressed on through a rain of normal and harmless tarantulas. Erden cautioned the group after noticing a clever trap, where a wall of sharp spikes would lash out when a shaft of sunlight was interrupted. Baracus overcame a bottomless pit by tossing the smaller folk across like a shotput, then taking an easy running leap to clear the obstacle himself.

They found themselves in a large chamber, and upon a stone altar lay a golden idol. However, what looked like an easy approach to treasure was actually guarded by loose stones in the floor; stepping on one would trigger poison darts to fly out of the walls. Instead of carefully figuring out which stones were to be avoided, Ybus sent his Unseen Servant across to retrieve the idol and bring it to his waiting Mage Hand.

The halfling's rash and impulsive act triggered the temple's final trap. The altar, now left without the weight of the idol, sank into the floor and the entire structure began to tremble and shake. Threatened with the possibility of a cave-in, the three reversed course and ran back for the entrance.

Baracus once again tossed Erden and Ybus over the bottomless pit, but nearly fell when the floor shifted underneath him as he jumped. He caught the edge of the chasm, and both gnome and halfling managed to pull him up. A stone door began to sink in an attempt to cut off their escape, but the adventurers managed to roll under just in time; Ybus nearly lost his hat, but quickly snatched it through before the door slammed shut.

Erden remembered the sunlight-triggered trap, but it seemed that Ybus's Unseen Servant did not; its invisible body was impaled and quite deceased, at least in the time it took before its magic dissipated (scholars would forever debate the plausibility of something invisible triggering a trap of light). Ducking through, the party seemed poised to escape with their treasure... until a loud rumble of a huge boulder signaled the arrival of rolling doom. Left with little recourse, the team dashed for their lives. Erden quickly escaped with a timely Misty Step spell, and Baracus's furious defiance of death gave him incredible speed to pick up the small Ybus and outrun the boulder.

However, as Baracus dove for the temple entrance to escape the crushing boulder, Ybus was knocked out of the half-orc's grip by a low overhang. Ybus recovered from the momentary daze just in time to see the boulder upon him, and by sheer luck managed to Eldritch Blast himself away from death and through the entrance.

Unfortunately, the impact was enough to knock the golden idol from Ybus' hand, and the momentum carried it through the air and into the river where it was washed downstream, proving once again that there is nothing the party can possess which fate cannot take away.

As the party continued deeper into the jungle, their ration supply dwindled down to nothing. Beset by hunger, they decided that there was no choice but to risk eating some of the local flora.

Looking about the area, Ybus came back with some odd-looking mushrooms. They were green and blue, with oddly shaped caps. After some poking at them, feeding some to Timear, and smelling them a bit, they could find nothing obviously wrong with them. Deciding to wait on it to see if they could find some sort of meat, the party had found nothing else after another 24 hours, and so decided to take their chances, lest they starve to death.

Upon the first bite, the mushrooms proved to be delicious, and the party, ravenous with hunger, consumed all that they had collected before collapsing into a contented sleep...

It seems like hours later when they wake, feeling refreshed and awake. The day is bright and temperatures are bearable. All traces of hunger are gone as they set out the next day. Looking into the sky when they get to a clearing, there's something strange about it. The moon is still out, but none of them have any issue seeing in the dark in full color as opposed to their normal darkvision.

Confused, but not worried, the band presses on. The night wears on and they begin to hear a strange music coming through the trees. Erden and the others look confusedly at eachother before heading toward the source of the music. As they enter a clearing, they spot a strange creature, huge and colorful. The elephant acts oddly (to say the least) as it prances about the clearing. Fascinated, the party watches quietly as it's joined by others of its kind - some striped, others in plaid.

They quiet suddenly as a weasel in a ringmaster's outfit steps into the clearing with a baton. He looks them over and nods before raising the baton and apparently directs their movements and performance. It's both disturbing and amazing to see, as the huge creatures move gracefully about the clearing. The weasel seems intent on his work, but looks to the party and winks at them at one point.

Eventually the dancing ends and the creatures file out of the clearing. The weasel turns to the party just before leaving, "Ta-ta, my friends, I hope the show was enjoyable," he says, bowing low before leaving.

The party sags in exhaustion now before setting up camp and going to sleep for the night.

When they wake the next morning, their clothing is soiled with excrement and their mouths taste like tree bark and vomit. They can't quite look each other in the eyes as they clean up and pack their things away, setting out once more.

Here you go!

In the heart of this lush jungle is a barren gorge. The reddish rocks that make up its pockmarked walls and floor are littered with rotten, half-eaten animal carcasses, crawling with vermin. It’s the middle of the day, and the stench wafting up is overpowering. There is a conspicuous absence of carrion birds. This gorge is marked on Sashvar's map as The Scar, and sitting in the bottom like a scabrous growth is the ruined temple of the Cult of the Rat. From your vantage point, lying on your stomachs on the lip of the gorge, you see no signs of recent activity. A dozen yards to your right there is an old, wooden ladder leading down but it is so rotten you doubt it’s still serviceable.

What do you do?

Baracus: The carcasses are in such bad shape there's no telling whether these creatures were slain here or if some predator killed them elsewhere before dragging them here to feed upon them. One thing is apparent: whether or not it was what killed them, these creatures clearly suffered from one disease or another, as evidenced by the blighted, pustulent flesh. At present the rotting flesh is being feasted on by swarms of diseased rats that hiss and snap at you as you climb past.

As you descend, you are eventually able to pick out a familiar sound above the rats' squeaking and scrabbling: sussurations identical to those made by the gibbering mass you fought in the sewers lap at the fringes of your consciousness, except this time the malevolent murmuring seems less intent on driving you mad and more bent on coaxing you deeper and deeper into the gorge, closer and closer to the temple.

When you finally reach the bottom you become aware of a low thrumming. It's definitely coming from within the temple ruin, beyond the dark, crumbling doorway before which you now stand.

What do you do?

Baracus waits for the invisible sweeper to finish. Then, he brandishes the first sword and heads to the entrance. He looks at the others.

"Rydler would look for traps, if he were here. What do you think?"

He gives it a once-over himself.

The doorway to the ruin stands gaping at you like a toothless maw. Baracus stares into its gullet but doesn't see anything untoward. Ybus' unseen servitor doesn't trigger any traps, and there don't appear to be guardians of any sort. The thrumming continues, and so does the gibbering. It raises the hairs on the backs of your necks but unlike down in the Pradeshi sewers the madness does not come for you. A loose pebble comes tumbling down the gorge but it's probably just the rat swarms gone back to their feasting.

Suddenly, a scream rends the air, floating up from the bowels of the temple. It is the sound of ultimate suffering. The sound your heart would make if a six-fingered man killed your father. The sound a man might make on a nightmarish torture-machine. What do you do?