The rag tag band left port and somehow ended up in a tangled mess trying to ascend a temple
The temple revealed itself reluctantly, half swallowed by the jungle that pressed in from all sides. Thick vines crawled over its first steps like grasping fingers, and ancient stone peeked through layers of moss and rot. By the time the party found it, the afternoon light was already failing. Clouds choking the sky as dusk bled into night. Rain fell in heavy sheets, drumming against stone and leaf alike, turning the air into a roaring curtain of sound and shadow. Sight was limited, every detail blurred by the downpour.
The stairway climbed steeply, leading to a smaller structure perched high above the jungle floor. Whatever waited at the top was difficult to make out through the rain, but its presence felt deliberate and guarded.
When Alona, Snuffles and mouse attempted to climb, the temple answered.
The vines stirred.
What had seemed like harmless growth suddenly tightened, twisting around limbs, biting into flesh with thorn and tendril. Progress became agony; no one made it more than a few feet before the temple itself rejected them.
It was Morgul, hanging back at the base, who noticed something strange.
A small figure was ascending the steps with ease.
The creature was no taller than a forearm, lean and slight, its face hidden behind a carved wooden mask. Rain slicked over its form, yet it never slipped. In one hand, it carried a small flower, held casually, as though the ensorcelled vines were nothing more than decoration.
Alona, ever watchful, noticed the key. The flower, tucked carefully into the creature's belongings. Its properties resonated with the magic woven into the stairs.
A trade was made. One gold piece was exchanged for the flower.
The creature cheered happily and descended the steps without hesitation.
It happened again.
As the rain worsened and the stone beneath their feet began to crumble into dust, another offering was required. This time, a feather. Its lightness countering the treacherous footing. Again, the masked creature accepted the trade and departed.
The final ascent demanded something stranger still.
A third creature appeared, guiding Alona forward. It offered a snake, lifting it to its own mouth and swallowing it whole before gesturing upward. The meaning was clear enough. Alona followed, reluctantly mirroring the creature's actions. As her body twisted and contorted allowing her safe passage to slither up the remaining stairs.
She reached the top.
From below, Morgul and the others could no longer see them. Rain and stone swallowed her forms as they vanished into the upper shrine. For now, no one else dared follow.
Above, Alona stepped into the shrine.
Warm light glowed from hanging lamps, their flames steady despite the storm outside. Incense burners filled the chamber with exotic scents, smoke curling lazily through the air. Cushions and reed mats softened the floor, and pots of blooming flowers lined the plastered walls. Singing birds flitted from plant to plant, their voices calm and melodic. An impossible serenity after the chaos below.
Opposite the doorway, atop a heap of cushions, something immense stirred.
A serpent with iridescent scales rose slowly, unfolding to a height of five feet. Its movements were deliberate, unhurried. Its face was remarkably human-like, eyes intelligent and piercing. A forked tongue flicked once, tasting the air, before it spoke.
"My name is Saja N'bazar, what do you seek in this ancient place?"
Its gaze never wavered.
"Speak truly," it continued softly,
"for I hear your heart."
Her pulse thundered in her ears, but her face remained composed as she inclined her head to the serpent. When she spoke, her voice was steady. Far steadier than she felt.
"Greetings," she said. "My friends and I seek knowledge of this place. We were sent by a benefactor to investigate what lies here, to understand what is happening, and to learn all that may be learned." She paused, choosing her words carefully. "We seek knowledge. We seek wisdom. We have come from afar for this purpose."
The immense serpent regarded her in silence, scales catching the lamplight as it shifted. When it finally spoke, its voice was calm, resonant, and heavy with age.
"The place you seek has been condemned by the land itself," it said. "Swallowed to be shielded from the sun. This temple was dedicated to Zotzilaha, god of the underworld."
Its tongue flicked once.
"It is a fearsome place you seek."
Alona swallowed, then bowed her head slightly. "I am grateful for the warning. And yet, my friends and I will attempt it." She gestured faintly toward the rain-shrouded stairs below. "My companions remain beneath us. May they be permitted to join us without harm."
The serpent's gaze sharpened.
"Only those who possess the wisdom to follow the guidance of those beneath them are admitted here."
As the words settled, movement caught Alona's eye.
One of the wide arches framing the shrine darkened as a familiar figure stepped through. The guide, the quiet woman who had led them part of the way. Rain slid from her shoulders as she entered, untroubled, and took her place beside the serpent.
Alona couldn't help herself. "That's… not creepy at all."
The woman offered a shy smile and a small nod, then moved to tend the incense burners, reigniting those that had begun to fade. When she finished, she bowed deeply, hands raised in a respectful, almost ceremonial gesture toward the serpent. The creature returned the gesture with a slight sideways nod and something that might have been a smile.
"Salida!" Alona said, exhaling slowly, "but this is an unexpected surprise—seeing you here."
"This was where my god gave me the vision of," the woman replied softly. "I did not know you would find this place. It does not exist on any map."
"And yet you escaped the vines," Alona said, studying her. "When the others did not. How?"
"I have been here before, it's a test!," the woman answered. "I had to pass it once."
Alona nodded, understanding dawning. "Then our problem was not the test itself only a lack of materials with which to attempt it."
The woman's lips curved faintly. "The creatures are part of the trial. If you recognize them. If you do not mistreat them. If you understand their intention." She glanced toward the serpent. "It is a lesson in humility."
She stepped forward, lowering herself respectfully. "My Lady Saja N'Basa," she said. "I have traveled with these people. The great god Seth himself charged me to guide them here, and his will has come to pass."
She bowed her head.
"I ask that you grant them a generous reading."
The serpent inclined its head, slow and deliberate.
"I am nothing if not faithful to our shared Lord," Saja N'Basa said. "You truly wish to seek this place and all of its dangers."
Alona nodded. She did not trust her voice.
"In that case…"
The serpent's slitted eyes rolled back, the pupils vanishing as a dim, eerie glow welled up from beneath its lower lids. The air grew heavy, as though the shrine itself were holding its breath.
Flame bloomed in Alona's vision, volcanic fire, sudden and violent then vanished just as quickly.
"The place you seek lies betwixt two volcanoes," the serpent intoned. "The quarreling gods of this land. Ati'ali and Coyo."
The names carried weight, echoing faintly through the chamber.
"The jungle lies thick there. The city itself is but a ruin. Strike true, and you may yet reach it by the next day."
Alona frowned faintly, already piecing it together. One path between twin giants of stone and fire. One already walked, one yet untouched.
Grateful, she bowed. "What will we find there? What became of this temple?"
Saja N'Basa's glow dimmed. Its gaze sharpened once more.
"My eyes cannot pierce its darkness. It was buried for a reason. In my true belief…" The serpent's tongue flicked. "You will find death."
Alona exhaled slowly. "Then we will bring a very large lamp."
Something like amusement crossed the serpent's face.
"I hope to see you well once more," it said. "I will cast my gaze your way."
With that, the presence receded—not physically, but existentially, as though the shrine itself were gently exhaling her out of the moment.
Alona stepped back through the archway.
Rain crashed over her in an instant.
The silence of the shrine shattered into roaring downpour, the scent of incense replaced by wet earth and crushed leaves. When she turned to look back…
The shrine was gone.
No serpent. No lamps. No incense. Only empty pots, some shattered, others overturned, the stone bare and lifeless as though it had never been inhabited at all. The steps before her were solid. The vines had retreated to the periphery, no longer grasping, no longer hostile.
No snakes.
She descended easily.
Below, Mouse and Snuffles watched in stunned disbelief.
From their perspective, Alona was walking through a writhing sea of serpents and thorned vines, treading across steps that crumbled into dust beneath her feet. Yet she emerged untouched. No blood. No wounds. Not even mud on her boots.
"Oh my gosh, you guys," Alona said brightly. "That was not what I thought it was going to be."
They stared.
"There were snakes," she added thoughtfully. "That was… interesting. But they're gone now. It's fine."
Behind her, the jungle still writhed.
"What did you do?" Snuffles demanded. "Where have you been? And very important, did you eat or drink anything strange?"
"Well," Alona said, counting on her fingers, "there was a flower. That helped with the vines. Then a feather, because the stairs were collapsing. Then snakes. Many snakes. I may have become a snake briefly. Then I met a bigger snake."
She gestured vaguely toward the horizon, where distant blue silhouettes rose against the storm clouds.
"The snake god thing says the place we're looking for is between two volcanoes. That direction."
She paused, glancing at their expressions. "…You're telling me you're still seeing everything, aren't you?"
They were. The thorns, snakes and stares that miraculously did not collapse.
"But you're alive…at least." Snuffles retorts
Alona bound down shouting in her wake "last one down cooks dinner."
With the vines still snapping and writhing, Mouse made an executive decision to get down herself and Snuffles down unharmed…somewhat.
There was no warning. No count of three. Snuffles was airborne before anyone had time to object, he launched downward like an offering to gravity.
"—YES, YEAH—" Alona shouted, far too late.
Snuffles pinwheeled through the rain, narrowly missing a clutch of vines, and disappeared from view. A half-second later came the unmistakable sound of a body colliding with something solid.
"Ow." Alona huffs as she is pinned face down sat on by the gnome.
From below, Snuffles added helpfully, "You could've warned her first."
The vines continued to writhe, unimpressed.
Mouse flexed, still vibrating with the aftershocks of rage.
This was, apparently, all the planning required.
There was a pause.
She backed up a step, cracked her neck, and launched herself forward. Not falling so much as performing. There was a squat, a leap, a brief and unnecessary midair flourish, and then a full-bodied plunge through the vines like a very angry acrobat.
Mouse sailed straight through, untouched by thorns, rage carrying her safely past what had earlier seemed lethal.
She did, however, land.
The catch was less a catch and more a collective failure of physics. Snuffles, Alona, and Steve forming a tangled, shrieking heap at the bottom of the stairs as Mouse crashed into them like a living boulder.
Silence.
Then "Everyone alive?"
A groan. "Define alive."
But somehow, miraculously, they were all still breathing.
No blood. No broken bones.
Just dignity damage.
Night fell soon after.
Being stranded in a murderous jungle, the group reached the kind of consensus only exhaustion can produce.
"…Little snooze?" Alona offered.
"A quick cat nap," Mouse replied.
"Yeah, sure." Snuffles.
And just like that strategic survival planning concluded.
They made camp within sight of the temple's ruins, and as darkness settled, blue tulips bloomed silently around their perimeter. Unnaturally beautiful, glowing faintly in the night.
Somewhere in the dark, the jungle breathed.
And far away, between two quarreling gods of fire and stone, something waited…
The party decided to take watches. One each, short and sensible, so everyone could still get some rest. Snuffles volunteered to go first, mostly because no one else objected fast enough.
Night in the jungle was loud.
Not hostile, exactly but busy. Chirps, rustles, distant calls that sounded ominous until Snuffles remembered everything out here sounded ominous. Eventually, reason won out over imagination, and the watch passed without incident.
Then came Alona's turn.
She sat upright, doing her best to stay alert.
She failed.
Sleep crept in slowly, politely, and then all at once.
What woke her was not a roar, or a scream, or the feeling of imminent death.
It was tugging.
Persistent, insistent tugging.
Her eyes snapped open.
She was hog-tied.
Hands. Legs. Rope everywhere.
Surrounding her was a group of tiny, bipedal frog-like creatures. More than half a dozen of them staring down at her with wide eyes. As soon as they realized she was awake, they erupted into a chorus of startled croaks, hopping back and forth in alarm like they hadn't actually expected this part of the plan to work.
This was, objectively, unfortunate.
She assessed the situation quickly: restrained, disarmed, surrounded by panicking frog-people, and profoundly awake now.
"…Right," she muttered.
The jungle hummed around them, the blue tulips glowing softly, utterly unconcerned as the night took a sharp turn from peaceful rest to unexpected amphibian hostage situation.
Alona quickly discovered that her sword was, technically, still with her.
It was also extremely inaccessible.
Bound hand-to-hand, foot-to-foot, and hand-to-foot in what could only be described as a premium hog-tie, she wriggled experimentally and came to a swift conclusion: whoever had done this had practice.
"Well," she muttered, "I thought I'd have to pay extra for that."
The frog-people watched her efforts with growing interest, tiny spears wobbling as they croaked nervously to one another. Encouraged by her complete lack of success, Alona inhaled deeply and did the only thing left to her.
She bellowed.
It was not a dignified sound. It was the kind of yell born of panic, indignation, and rope burn.
Snuffles' eyes snapped open at the exact moment some latent instinct kicked in, aided by a last-second surge of "wait, something is wrong." He sat bolt upright, heart pounding, just in time to hear unmistakable shouting coming from the fire.
Alona, meanwhile, was still tied up, still yelling, and now slithering along the ground with what could generously be called snake-adjacent determination.
"STEVE?" she shouted hopefully.
Steve, the enormous constrictor, did absolutely nothing.
Somewhere nearby, Steve continued being a lazy, self-centered snake.
Combat erupted in the least cinematic way possible.
Frog-people panicked.
Snuffles staggered out of his tent, half-awake, took in the scene hog-tied Alona, a ring of tiny spear-wielding amphibians and visibly experienced a moment of existential confusion.
"Oh no," croaked the frogs.
"Oh no," croaked Snuffles, louder.
With no time to reposition and no desire to overthink, Snuffles did what any reasonable adventurer would do when faced with a bizarre nighttime kidnapping.
He opened fire.
The first eldritch blast went wide, screaming past the frogs and narrowly missing everything of importance.
The tent behind them, however, was deeply offended.
Alona lay on the ground, still tied up, staring at the sky as chaos unfolded above her.
"This," she announced to absolutely no one in particular, "is going very well."
Snuffles squinted, recalculated, muttered something unrepeatable, and tried again.
This time, the blast hit.
A crack of eldritch energy slammed into one of the frog-creatures, sending it tumbling backward in a surprisingly dramatic arc for something barely knee-high.
The frogs immediately reassessed the situation.
Two of them darted toward a nearby tent, clearly deciding that new victims might be less loud and less magical. They burst inside…
and immediately froze.
Mouse, who had been sleeping peacefully moments before, woke just in time to be hog-tied by professionals. One frog worked the rope while another assisted with the efficiency of someone who had done this far too often.
Morgul, on the other hand, was the recipient of a very optimistic frog who attempted the same maneuver, tripped over his own spear, and failed entirely.
This was the frog's only contribution to the fight.
Back at the fire, Alona was still prone, restrained, and deeply regretting her life choices when several frog-creatures converged on her at once.
"Of course," she muttered. "Why wouldn't there be more."
The frogs jabbed and lunged, tiny spears darting in with far more confidence than accuracy. One missed entirely. Another came very close. A third turned its attention back toward Snuffles, clearly recognizing the true source of its problems.
Snuffles, unfortunately, was not wearing armor.
The spear connected.
"Is that… poison?" Snuffles asked, far too calmly.
Yes.
Yes it was.
Pain flared as the toxin burned through him nothing lethal, but deeply rude. The frogs croaked excitedly, encouraged by the fact that stabbing someone had, in fact, worked.
Alona watched this unfold from the ground, tied up, surrounded, and under attack.
"This camp," she said aloud, "was a mistake."
Snuffles took the hit like a champion. Piercing pain, followed immediately by the deeply personal insult of poison flooding his system. He gritted his teeth, shook it off, and stayed standing through sheer spite.
Meanwhile, Mouse woke up.
She woke up fast.
One moment she was dreaming. The next, she was staring down two slimy, two-foot-tall frog people inside her tent, one of whom had just finished tightening the knot.
That did it.
Rage ignited instantly.
The ropes snapped like they'd been waiting for an excuse. Vines shredded, fibers burst, and the frogs barely had time to process what they were witnessing before Mouse surged upright inside the tent, suddenly filling far more space than they were emotionally prepared for.
They stared.
She stared back.
No one moved.
Outside, Morgul attempted subtlety.
He tried to pretend he was still asleep.
The frog did not believe him.
The frog was, however, deeply unimpressed.
Morgul sighed, stabbed it anyway, and followed up with a second, slightly less enthusiastic stab. It wasn't elegant, but it was effective enough to make the frog regret several recent life choices.
Alona, finally free of the ropes, wasted no time.
She surged to her feet, sword flashing, and brought it down in a clean, decisive arc. One frog did not survive the experience.
Snuffles, having fully committed to the "no mercy" approach, whispered an incantation and unleashed another blast of eldritch energy.
One frog exploded.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Another blast followed—less dramatic, but no less final.
The remaining frog-people looked around.
They had lost friends. One had detonated. Several very large, very angry adventurers were now fully awake.
The jig, as they say, was up.
Some of the frogs ran.
They did not run well.
Alona struck one down mid-escape with the kind of efficiency that suggested she was done being tied up for the evening. Snuffles clipped another as it fled, leaving it badly wounded but fast enough to vanish into the jungle with a panicked croak.
One frog, however, made a different choice.
It stayed.
It stabbed Morgul.
The poison worked immediately.
Morgul's eyes rolled back, his body stiffened, and he collapsed face-first into the dirt like someone who had just failed a very important saving throw.
"Well," the universe seemed to say. "That happened."
The jungle fell quiet