Never get out of the boat

 

The Jungle Burned. 

"At least it kept the thunderlizards off them" Ricmo thought cynically. Much too busy trying to not die in a fire to interfere with the party. And fortunately the prevailing winds were blowing the fire and the stampede of beasts trying to escape it away from the river where the companions were desperately making their way back,  

The river journey had started off well enough. Freddy had cast his glamour and the entire camp had disappeared, looking for all the world like empty sea. It had been impressive  illusion, and seemed to work splendidly at discouraging the various creatures of the island from interfering with the resupply operations the industrious sailors had begun. 

Resupply was moving along nicely, the only thing that had been missing was sugarcane for the rum, so early one fine tropical morning Freddy, Whisperleaf and their new companion Vincent had loaded up with spells that bewitched the mind and overthrew the senses, and the entire party had boarded the jollyboat and headed upriver.

At first their plan had worked splendidly, while several of the huge lizards had shown interest in eating the party for breakfast, Vincent had been correct that their minds were putty, and the magic workers had the huge beasts literally eating out of their hand.

Dakhir had to argue strongly with Whisperleaf who had wanted to keep them as pets.

Their luck had changed dramatically when they ran into the Swamp Basilisk. That had been unexpected. The creature was not only resistant to the spells of mental control that had worked so well on the less magical beasts, but it had wielded potent sorceries of it's own, sorceries the party had barely managed to overcome.

Ricmo shuddered briefly at the memory of the sickly green glow that had emanated from under the hood of that beast, the feeling of his joints calcifying, his heart slowing as his body slowly turning to stone.

They had slain the beast in the end but only just barely.

The basilisk hadn't been the worst of it though. It had been the plants that had almost gotten them.

"Never get out of the boat" Ricmo heard Dakhir muttered to himself.  

"Absolutely goddamn right." Ricmo thought. “Unless you were going all the way." Dakhir had gotten off the boat. It hadn't gone well.

Ricmo hadn't even noticed the large flowering plant blooming the side of the river, Later Whisperleaf had theorized that since it fed on magic, workers of magic were most susceptible to it's song.  Perhaps The Sturg and he had shrugged it off due to their complete lack of magical talent.

Whisperleaf has said the plant sang to him. Dakhir wouldn't talk about it. All Ricmo had noticed was most of the party suddenly piling out of the boat and wading to the shore like zombies while a large plant had started to glow with an eldritch light. 

He had blown that plant hell.

And almost killed everyone in the group. He hadn't expected the fireball of energy his pistol shots had unleashed, but it had been ferocious, knocking down the nearby trees and blasting his friends twenty feet back into the river as the plant exploded.

They had licked their wounds and continued up the river. Further away from the sanity of the clean ocean and into this tropical hellhole.

On the bluffs to northwest the temple complex that Whisperleaf and Vincent had reported earlier gradually came into view. A large, winged creature could be clearly seen circling it. Whisperleaf paled. The same type of winged creature that had almost killed him the day before. Only larger.

Keen eyed Merus reported from her position in the prow of the jollyboat. "She has a nest on that outcropping, and chicks. I doubt she will attack unless we come near."

Ricmo gazed at the overgrown temple. His palms itched, the way they always did when treasure was near. 

"Stay on the boat" Dakhir muttered. 

They continued their journey toward the intersection of the two rivers. Where the two mighty torrents collided, the water had spilled it's bank to east, spreading out into a huge, fetid swamp. Narrow brackish channels, low islands, the water was slicked over in places with what appeared to be tar. In some spots entire pools of the foul tarry stuff pooled in place. The hum of mosquitos and other insects was incessant. Not inviting. 

The far corner of the swamp was where Whisperleaf had spotted the cane fields during his brief aerial reconnaissance. 

Huge reptiles, the largest any of them had ever seen grazed peacefully on the plants and trees that grew in the muck,

Whisperleaf gazed at them contemplatively.  "Herbivories I believe, likely not dangerous, the biggest risk is they crush us without noticing".

Carefully they navigated the boggy channels of the swamp, working their way inward. Even Merus' sense for the land wasn't enough to keep them from running aground occasionally but the Sturg's mighty muscles always wrestled them off again.

Eventually they reached the cane field.

Several of the huge lizards were grazing on the cane, Vincent stood up and threw several firebolts on the ground in their direction. The great beasts moaned and withdrew.

"Like any beast, they fear fire" she announced.

As they harvested the cane, the beasts were mostly kept at bay by the occasional demonstration of flame. The exception was the giant turtle that didn't seem bothered by fire at all. He quietly chewed his cud and watched the party with unblinking eyes.

Tello tried to communicate with him in Tortle-speak, at first without much result, but finally the elder turtle responded, speaking slowly, so slowly that each word took minutes..

"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare: crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor and surviving." the turtle remarked.

Tello nodded gravely.

"What advice for us, old one?" he replied.

"Do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life?" replied the Turtle, so slowly that it took five minutes to complete the sentence.

The Turtle contemplated Tello for a moment, then slowly, ponderously turned to gaze at the temple, loaming above the swamp land far to the west.

"You are going to the worst place in the world and you don't even know it yet" the old one responded, eyes on the temple. "There you will find the thing that you are searching for, but it will not be as you expect it."

Tello gazed at temple. Part of him was afraid of what he would find and what he would do when he got there. He knew the risks, or imagined he knew. But the thing he felt the most, much stronger than fear, was the desire to confront it.

Harvesting the cane was tough, brutal work in the heat and humidity. After they filled the jollyboat to the brim, they were reduced to bundling the stalks up into rafts, tying them to the rear of the boat. 

Hot, dirty work. Which was why no one noticed at first when Tello wandered off.

Tello's people were sea turtles, but still he was amphibious and much more at home in this environment then the rest of his companions. So when the beguiling scent hit his nostrils, it was easy enough for him to quietly slip off into the water to investigate. Normally  he'd never just wander off by himself like this but something about the smell was making his brain fuzzy. He had to get near it.

It was a trap of course.

The spore cloud had almost had him, but Tello's cloak had saved him, teleporting him free of the entangling vines. The rest of the party had taken awhile to mobilize to the threat and even longer to trudge through the swamp, but Vincent had been closest and once she was within range she had wasted little time, hurling a gigantic ball of fire into the huge sporecloud.

The results had been incredible, the entire huge plant and nest of vines had exploded into flame.

Whisperleaf had followed up the observed vulnerability to fire by summoning an avatar of flame itself. The fire elemental had wreck havoc on the spore cloud, burning everything it touched. The swamp burned surprisingly well, given how damp and humid it was. Later Whisperleaf reasoned it was probably the tar they had noticed, that the plants probably took some of the tar up into them, making them highly flammable. 

Dakhir was muttering to himself. He'd had enough

He grabbed Whisperleaf and pointed to the treeline behind the now fiercely burning spore cloud, where other sporeclouds could be seen.

"Goddamit I want that treeline flamed" he hissed, pointing at the elemental and gesturing toward the nearby line of trees..

Whisperleaf had also had enough. He was hot, sweaty, injured and had almost died three time this day. "This place is cursed. Unnatural. It must be purified.".

"Burn it back into the stone age" Dakhir agreed.

"Get your head down this is gonna be a big one" Whisperleaf said grimly.

He motioned to his elemental, who surged toward the trees. Wherever it passed, it left fire in it's wake. When it reached the edge of the treeline it turned parallel and picked up speed. The jungle burst into flame in it's wake.

“Outstanding!” said Dakhir 

He took  a deep breath.

"I love the smell of fire in the morning." he commented. "Smells like...Victory".

And so the jungle burned.