Quartermain (28 Dec 25)

Message:

We found the three last puzzles in the Pagoda. One was Eagle-Eye to see kite colors. One was flame patterns that needed Recall to memorize. Last one was a Horn that needed a certain Raconteur sense to play oompa-oompa correctly.

When we activated the five puzzle-traps, created by our secret cabals, the fountain flowed red, in a river torrent, washing everyone out of the city.

We had two deaths: IronMorrison and IronDave.

The Ruby Memory Stone was found by our Rival for Honor Q-Tiki.

Our second Rival for Profit Marcus, lost his Lancers and joined us as a soak-off for our next trip up the Amazon.

We started there with Backstory encounters:

IronJohn covered a bottomless well and was rewarded.

IronPax met a man who pounded nails into his skull. That guy offered the party a clue: Meet an anthropologist who studies the "Indians of the Dark Earth," saying these tribes still worship the Emu, especially the eggs. Emu eggs are large, thick-shelled, dark green, sometimes flecked with darker marks. Pretty things. They can weight up to two pounds. Such river folk once developed a social stratification that supported a population of 50,000 along the entire length. The primitives now, number under five thousand. They died out, simply, by over population, starvation. To maintain the higher level of development, the indigenous peoples of the rainforest would have needed to alter the forest's ecology by selective cultivation and the use of fire to cause the soil to become richer in nutrients. In case this clue is less obvious, the darker soil is ancient burn traces.

IronConrad found a mysterious metal ball on a table which swelled the Old Chestnut musket ball in his knee to triple size and resulted in a leg shattering death.

More next week on Amazon.


Yours,