[PurpleXVI]

(OOC: Assuming that people are tired of sitting around and want to get going without further delay, have cleared this with most, but frankly, it's either that or things are never going to move.)

Anne, Balth, Bas, Lorath, Tamora

Both Jarval and Ulik appeared completely unresponsive to Lorath's attempts to wake them, and the elf stopped trying before resorting to physical harm.

Outside the tent, the rest of the adventurers were waiting for him, all of them but Evon had their equipment packed up and were ready to head out.

"Sorry," said the skinny man, "But these last few days have shown me that I'm not cut out for the adventuring life, I'm going to stay here until Jarval and Ulik recover, then let them know where you've headed and make my way back to Achen. I hope you all find what you're looking for."

Balth stepped forward next, "Despite the fact that you're not heading west, I'll come with you for a while yet, you may find something interesting."

Then, once the various wishes of good luck and farewells had been exchanged, the group set out, their destination the mountains to the east and the lands beyond.


Four days later

Tired and bug-bitten, with their equipment soaked, the group was still marching on through the unforgiving jungle, the trees towering far over their heads and almost blocking out the sun(though that did little to lessen the choking heat). In the mere span of four days, they'd suffered through a rainstorm, waded through a small swamp and repeatedly chased away a pack of nocturnal monkeys which insisted on attempting to rob their packs at night(thankfully the creatures had made off with no more than a few shiny metal things and some wet rations.).

They knew they were still heading east, and they had the trail they'd stomped and hacked through the jungle to follow back west, but they had no idea how much farther away the trail marked on their map was. According to what Lorath and Tamora could puzzle out, they should have hit the trail, if it was visible at all, a day earlier, so it was clearly not entirely accurate.

Grumbling had set in that morning, as Balth began to suggest the map was either false or old, or that perhaps the trail had grown over and was completely unfindable. Around noon, he began suggesting that they turn around, but it was only minutes later that their luck would turn around.

Still under the canopy of the towering trees, they were making slow progress through the dense undergrowth, bushes and smaller trees when they spotted what looked like a clearing up ahead. Or at least an area where the large trees were spaced far enough apart that the sun's light could get through.


A Brief Session of Hacking and Slashing at Defenseless Plants Later

Revitalized by the prospect of a break away from stinging plants and crawling things, the group redoubled their efforts to carve a way over to the clearing, but were quite surprised when they reached it.

When they got there, it turned out to be much larger than it had looked, in fact, it was large enough that they couldn't see where it ended.

The part they had seen, due to the sunlight breaching the canopy, was where one of the great trees had been cut down, clearly by intelligent hands with sharp objects, and moved out of the way. Towards the northwest and the southeast, the clearing continued, though as far as they could see in either direction it had only been hacked through the undergrowth. It was wide enough five, maybe six, men to walk abreast along it, and it looked like someone else already had. The plants which hadn't been cut down looked severely trampled. A large number of people, or animals, it was impossible to make out whether they were paw-prints or bootprints due to so many on top of each other, had passed along the cleared path towards the southeast recently.

"I'll be damned," said Balth, sounding impressed, as they walked out into the clearing, "There really was a route, this practically calls for a celebration, don't you all think?" He fished around in his pack for a while and eventually brought out a wineskin, "A specialty of my people," he said, as he handed it to Lorath, "It may be a bit harsh on your throats. Pass it around."