Continued adventure log, July 8, 2009 by Jennifer Nau, explorer and thrower of flaming objects

The guy in the tower is done for. Termites are swarming all around various bad guys. Edward Saunders [Luke’s character] runs up to the walls of the town. A mother and two children come out of a nearby hut. Bima [Josh’s character] comes across the river towards the town. I run into a nearby hut with a bit of tower wreckage and light it on fire.

Chicuacen looks into the pit, seeing Mr. Obsidian Teeth and jumps onto his shoulders. His knees rupture and a little spray (of pus, what else?) comes up at Chicuacen as his shoulders also rupture, forming four bone spikes coming up at Chicuacen. She barely manages to dodge the spray and spikes. Richard moves to take guard. The guy with termite armor sends a stream of termites flying at Chi’ich, who manages to shake them off.

Chi’ich runs behind the tower wreckage and gets a burning ember from another hut. I grab a pot of cooking oil, then step out and throw it and my torch at the termite guy such that they both reach him at the same time. [Pazi: “A flaming molé bomb!”] Many termites pop with burning oil and a chunk of his armor burns off. Normal, but mottled, skin shows beneath his armor.

Richard runs with the woman and kids to slightly safer ground. Chicuacen grabs the arm bones of Mr. Obsidian Teeth and uses them to climb the walls of the pit. The termite guy sends a stream of termites at me, but they get hit by a few burning embers in mid-air and come raining down as ashes. Chi’ich’s owl flies past the termites guy, getting to face Chi’ich, who throws a spear at him. The termite guy barely dodges. Edward jumps from rooftop to rooftop to jump onto Mr. Termite; Edward’s dagger sinks into his back, and Edward lands on top of him.

I grab some straw from a roof and light it on fire. Richard leads the woman and kids further away. Bima yells at Chi’ich some kind of esoteric warning. Chicuacen comes out of the pit and yells “He’s in the tree!” The termite shaman raises his hand, which contains a small hive of termites, and he calls out to the Ceiba tree. The tree emits a wave of termites towards Edward. Edward and the shaman are surrounded by termites.

Chi’ich swabs some thatch on his arrow and lights it on fire, then shoots at the termite shaman, but misses. Edward pulls his dagger out of the shaman and stabs him. Or rather, sees a termite on his own thigh and tries to stab it. Ow! I run with my handfuls of burning thatch through the cloud of termites. Bima runs up and stabs the shaman with his spear. It is a titanic stab, but somehow the guy shakes it off. Richard continues guiding survivors towards a snakeless gate. The shaman attacks Edward with more termites, but Edward, in pain, squirms out of the way.

Chi’ich gathers a ball of flammable stuff. Edward tries to stab the shaman again. Richard looks into a hut and sees several chopped-up bodies and a figure menacing a small child. Richard stabs the guy, who explodes in a torrent of pus. These guys are like goo balloons, it seems. Bima stabs the shaman again with his spear. Chicuacen runs up to the shaman and tries to cut his head off—and succeeds! The shaman’s head rolls around and becomes a hive of termites, which quickly begin spreading out across the ground.

The termites move toward the two hives. Chicuacen whacks the one that formed out of the shaman’s head.

Chi’ich tries to heal Edward. Chicuacen tries to clean herself off in the stream, but is unsuccessful. Instead, she gains a mark of fear: she has taken up smoking and drinking. I watch the civilians.

Chi’ich has a key that can keep the gate to Xibalba closed if it’s close to the shaman’s hut. Richard goes into the shaman’s hut and discovers that the center of the floor sounds hollow. There are planks covering a hole. Chicuacen gathers wood and fire, then transforms into a coyote and drops the tinder at the base of the infested Ceiba tree while trotting past. In the shaman’s hut, Chi’ich and Richard see no priestly supplies, only a scene of carnage and the hole leading into the ground. Chicuacen returns to wash her clothes in the stream and sees a large, not very hungry constrictor.

I take the civilians around, asking why there are so many pits here. They say they were looking for a gateway and some other things. They wanted to find a gateway into the temple, and in it, a lightning axe (which is apparently an important artifact of Chac). Richard and Chi’ich bury the bodies. Some of the huts shows signs of recent use by Aztecs (remember, this is a Mayan village).

Night is coming. Where should we spend it?

Chicuacen goes to the temple and sees many sacrificed bodies on the far side of it. There is a freshly-used sacrificial obsidian blade, which she takes. Sacrifice is normal as beans for Chicuacen, who’s Aztec. The temple is devoted to Tlaloc.

The Ceiba tree hasn’t caught fire yet.

The villages want to wash in the stream. We certainly let them. We set up camp in the nearby clearing. We put dry brush in a wide circle all the way around the camp as a means of alert. Chicuacen sees some canoes go down the stream.

Our alarm system crunches…