KHAZUUL

Day 8, Watch 1
Wilderness Action: Travel Action --> Hex 6
Location: Hex 2 (!)
Weather: Extreme: Add a Fatigue and add +1 watch

With the familiar torrential rains as companion, the company moves out into the jungle. Flint feels the effects of the weather especially harshly, given the lack of wilderness clothes (+1 fatigue for Flint!), and has to fight to keep up.

Along the way, Saffron realizes that her backpack closure has come loose and her bag is waterlogged. Doing a frantic inventory, she discovers 4 ration portions have spoiled. Annoyed and upset at herself, she tosses them away

Cutwell has taken the flute they found in the polyp-infested tree trunk. Like Sow and the Shrinking Sanctuary, he feels its constant presence, as though it wields a clandestine, formidable pull, not for weight but for thoughts. It is more enticing than unpleasant.

Day 8, Watch 2
Wilderness Action: Travel Action --> Hex 6
Location: Hex 2 (!)
Weather: Unpleasant: Add a Fatigue or add +1 watch

As the day grinds on, Khazuul's raging storm quiets. Thunder and lightning relent, the rains shift from a torrential to a steady downpour, and the wind slows. Given how bad the weather has been, this barely feels like an inconvenience, except for Flint who is drenched to the bone (Flint, add +1 fatigue!)



For the first time, the company is going deeper into the jungle, rather than staying close to Khazuul's massive cliffs. As the walls disappear from sight, navigation becomes more challenging.

Also, the company begins to notice changes in the jungle's flora. You begin to more and more fungus, which have laid siege to many a tree's trunk, swarming and nearly drowning them in bulbous, heavy toadstools. And, from time to time, you come across giant mushrooms. Some have woody roots or even branches extending from beneath them, which makes you wonder if a tree has been completely devoured underneath. Although unsettling, they provide excellent cover from the rain.



The soundscape of the jungle also shifts slowly over the course of the journey. The animal hoots and buzzing of bugs begin to thin, and it is joined by a sound both unsettling and uncanny—a noise that seems to blur the line between the cries of beasts and the murmurs of lost souls.

At first, it begins as a low, guttural moan, echoing through the twisted branches and tangled undergrowth like a lamentation of despair. Yet, as it crescendos, it morphs into something more disconcerting—a chant that rises and falls in haunting cadences, reminiscent of rituals performed by beings forgotten by time.

As night falls, the sound increasingly carries with it a sense of foreboding, as if the very air itself is pregnant with the weight of unseen forces. It is as if the forest itself has taken on a voice, weaving a tapestry of sound that speaks of secrets buried beneath the earth and whispers hidden within the shadows.

Day 8, Watch 3
Wilderness Action: Make Camp
Location: Hex 6
Weather: Unpleasant: Add a Fatigue or add +1 watch

Everyone piles into the stone building with the bronze hexagrams that Sow has summoned from its tiny form. The space is blessedly dry, and the fire is perfect for drying out clothes and skin alike (Flint's beautiful hair begins to go frizzy, however). Despite the warm weather, the heat of the fire is not unwelcome. It only feels inviting.

You pull out the dinosaur meat you harvested the day that Thorn died and share a well-earned meal. Although you've had nothing but tough Dino meat for days, hunger truly is the best spice.