Working together, you find a switchback that allows you to, with caution, make it to the bottom safely.
At the bottom, you find yourselves beneath a dense canopy of tall jungle trees. Due to the limited sunlight that comes through the canopy, the jungle floor is largely devoid of undergrowth, save for extremely small and sparse vegetation. The majority of the jungle floor is made of massive root structures from the ancient trees and moss-covered rocks.
C1.
You can easily follow the trail of the kobolds and miners, who did not work to conceal their tracks once they got this far. The tracks lead you through the jungle to a flowered clearing 2 miles from the ridge.
The dense forestation of the valley jungle thins here, opening up enough to reveal the sky through the canopy. Beneath this opening, an ancient ruin consumed by the jungle is barely visible. Vines and leafy foliage encrust toppled blocks of quarried stone, tall grass grows up between derelict paving stones, and squat statues depicting dwarves in heavy armor stand crooked or fractured entirely from the infiltration of twisting roots. Among the more notable features here are the exotic flowers—tall,
pitcher-shaped, golden blooms with seven petals, the interior of each a deep red. The soothing fragrance of the flowers fills the valley, and motes of pollen drift lazily in the air.
Khan sees more bodies in the vegetation. At least 50 of varying races. This would explain why the heart-eater flowers are so prevalent here. That and the two xtabays. He also recognizes the sleep inducing xtabay pollen lazily drifting throughout the clearing.
There is a fresh kill near one xtabay.
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