The Aldani Basin
Three days of hot, wet, insect-infested travel passed without incident. The Sticks and their companions made a decent go of it, passing fifty miles of swamp in that time. The rafts were slow-moving and tended to tip, but the water was shallow enough that they rarely could not reach ground with their poles, and so they travelled steadily along. At one point, Qawasha mistakenly led them along a waterway that twisted in the wrong direction, split-off from the deeper water by an impassible grassy ridge thick with poisonous bramble. They had gone over an hour in that direction when the nameless man who had been called Harb suggested that they must go back. The group was reluctant to retrace their path, but in the end it saved them more time than it cost.
On the third day, Weed thumped his chest and squeaked, and Ukee the flying monkey began to chitter and point. It was hard to tell if she had seen it herself, or if she was just mimicking the vegepygmy, but when the Sticks investigated, they found that she was pointing to an enormous carved head mostly submerged in the mucky water.
"It is in the image of Ubtao," said Qawasha, "We should not pass it without asking for His blessing."
Kasqa and Hup'lo agreed.
As they poled over to the sunken statue, suddenly a small grassy island began to shift and slide through the water toward the rafts...