Perilous Crossing
Somewhere on the Surface
The party emerges next to an arcane circle inside a small ancient ruin. Large by human standards, it is a single room under a dome with one high window. After a moment ensuring nothing is attacking them, they clamor up to the window and peer out. The horizon looks odd, and the landscape is covered in thick jungle. It is hot and humid, and with a sinking sick realization the party comes to understand that they have been transported to the surface. Dawn is underway, from which they also infer that they have come some distance from Uldrath.
Before deciding on how to approach this dreadful predicament, the party decides on a long rest. They set watches and sleep as far from the arcane circle as possible. Near sunset, the circle flashes blue and a figure emerges. Dressed for a fight, covered in blood and burns, armored and laden with gear and a heavy pack, Aidra Bredini greets the party and apologizes for being late to the games. She claims to have bribed her way across to the Hold, fought a few groups of Habri, set off a few wards, and followed the path of destruction to the circle. She says she found Helkala's personal chambers, robbed them of their more potent items (she shows off a longsword with a faint glow) and set his papers and records aflame. When told that she is on the surface, she becomes sober and nervous, and cleaves nearer to the party.
By the falling light of day, the party examines the landscape. A few smaller ancient ruins rise up above the jungle canopy. They all seem to surround a larger ruin atop a small plateau perhaps 10 miles distant. Those with good eyes can make out a camp on the plateau at the base of the larger ancient ruin, and people moving about between groups of tents. The vegetation on one side of the plateau is a markedly different color, a yellow-green the party associates with the corruption that Akissi and Aidra can sense. Lacking any knowledge of where they are or where the nearest gate is, and with only a few days of food from Orosh's dry rations and Aidra's pack, the party descends into the jungle to make the perilous crossing to the mysterious camp.
Ramach's knowledge of the surface comes in handy, providing edible plants and somewhat limiting the damage of bushwhacking through dense vegetation. Nonetheless the surface jungle proves to be constantly dangerous - small animals and insects charge and bite the party, thorns pierce through armor and skin, poisonous leaves and pollen cause coughs and rashes, roots trip them and sometimes certain plants animate and smack with vegetative violence. Every hour spent trekking through this wilderness causes damage.
Crossing a small clearing the ground erupts and an large armored monstrosity burrows its way to the surface and attacks.
The thing's scythe-like arms go through armor like paper, and when the thing hunkers down there is no getting through it's outer carapace. The party alternately goads it to attack and waits out the moments when it hides under its seemingly invulnerable shell. After much bloodshed, the thing is defeated. Akissi pries off a bit of the carapace to take with her.
Later in the depths of the vicious and viscous undergrowth, the party notices a thick fog descending though the trees. They tie themselves in a line, predicting some kind of blinding lack of visibility. The party notices that tendrils of the fog begin to move towards noise, and attempt to remain silent. Aidra whispers a question, and the tendrils surround her. She begins shaking and then passes out. The party cuts her loose and lets her fall, and Akissi attempts to attend to her, making noise herself. The tendrils grab at Akissi, and she too begins to shake and soon passes out.
Akissi finds herself in a sort of foggy echo of the jungle, standing alone. Out of the mist a creature appears, beckoning her forward...
Akissi powers up her sword and swings, and the creature sheiks off into the fog, whereupon Akissi wakes up amid the party. Soon Aidra wakes as well, and describes the same experience. She swung Helkala's sword at the creature, and it also released her. The fog is slowly leaving the area, and soon the party is on its way again.
They soon encounter a different kind of vegetation, and Aidra informs them that this is boundary of the corruption. They begin to steer well clear, taking a longer route around, and something follows them away from the boundary. As it crashes through the trees and come closer, Koros and Paetro climb into trees to get a better vantage. The creature shows itself, and Aidra and Akissi shiver in recognition of a corrupt creature.
Orosh rushes in to fight the creature, who with a wiggle of its root-like limbs causes the tree that Koros has climbed to wrap itself around him and begin constricting. Paetro quickly jumps down form his tree, and the party fights the creature as best they can, with some getting caught be powerful constricting tree roots and branches. Koros passes out, and the rest of the party is near death, when the thing finally collapses and seems to fall apart into a pile of tree limbs. After some healing, the party quycky moves on, and realizes that Aidra did not [participate in the fight and is now missing. Orosh tracks her away from the encounter - she seems to be headed towards the plateau, and left the party behind.
After 11 hours in the deadly surface jungle, the party crawls up to the edge of the vegetation line at the bottom of the rock scree leading up to the plateau. Beaten, exhausted, and with fading daylight, they find a small cave and hunker down for a long night's rest.