After stopping for lunch, the Squad continued poling their way through the High Bayou. They were plagued by biting bugs, to the point that Gruul had to take a rest while Mireya poled the boat.
As they passed one of the areas where the trees were festooned with spider webs, the Squad was attacked by giant spiders, including bleak spiders that were able to disappear and move through the Bleak Gate. However, they dispatched the spiders easily and continued on their way.
Unfortunately, Malachai had mis-read Xambria Meredith’s map, so the group reached a dead end in the swamp and would have to spend much of the next day backtracking.
The Squad made camp, sleeping in a tiny hut conjured by Mireya, and the night passed uneventfully.
The next morning, Malachai judged that the pig carcasses were ripe enough to be an acceptable offering to the Voice of Rot. He pushed the meatboat into the water and improvised a prayer. After a couple minutes, two giant crocodiles appeared from under the water and started devouring the pigs. One of them chomped a hunk out of the punt itself, rendering it useless. Then they dragged the rotting carcasses into the water and swam off.
The Squad set off in the remaining two punts, with Uraesco pleased to not to be sharing a boat with a pile of rotting meat. He spotted some swamp ropers, camouflaged in the trees and with vine-like tentacles, but the ropers showed no interest as the boats passed them. The bugs seemed to be biting less fiercely too, but even so most of the Squad was badly bitten and exhausted by the end of the day.
After spending another night in the tiny hut, and with Aleric helping Malachai to navigate, the Squad got back on track and, on the afternoon of 8 Autumn, reached the place where they were to leave the punts and continue on foot.
Following a trail blazed with ribbons tied to trees, the Squad trekked over slightly drier ground until the trees gave way to a partly-flooded plain. In the distance they could see a large ziggurat, the target of Xambria’s expedition.
Approaching the ziggurat, the constables felt various types of psychic disturbance. Gruul had a full-on flashback, or vision, of his time as a soldier. The Skyseers felt as if something was crawling in their heads when they looked at the sky. Everyone had vertigo when they looked at the ziggurat, which seemed to be both near and far at the same time.
The Squad pressed on to a campsite near the ziggurat, where they found the decomposing bodies of three of Xambria’s team members. Upon investigation, it seemed that the bodies and campsite had been searched. Papers were strewn about, but Xambria’s dig journal, which she had left there, was not to be found.
It was now late in the day, so the Squad retreated from the ziggurat until their mental discomfort abated, and made camp. The next day they would enter the building’s large open doorway and investigate its interior.