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Message: <blockquote data-quote="der_kluge" data-source="post: 1211588" data-attributes="member: 945">13 – This seems to be the southwestern corner of the continent.  From here, it continues eastward.  The land here is decidedly flat, but yet still overgrown with thick vegetation, and tall jungle trees.14 – Small sandy shores dot the beaches, but otherwise it is nearly identical to area 13.  The land here is slowly curving northward.15 – At this location, we observe a major tributary.  Here there is a large river that flows from the inland.  We have decided to pursue this waterway inland to see where it leads.  Traveling this should not prove to be very difficult, as it is several miles wide.16 – The river forks here.  We have not observed anything highly unusual about the river or its surroundings.  It very much appears to be similar to the oceanfront.  There are dense forests all along the river here, and the occasional beach.  We did observe some unusual stones that were on one such beach.  Though there was much debate and speculation by all, we felt that they weren’t quite indigenous to the native rock, and some appeared to have a man-made touch to them.  For instance, some appeared to be more rounded than what a naturally occurring rock should look like.  We all agreed that if they were man-made, whatever structure they were a part of is long since gone, or at least possibly within the dark confines of the forests near here.    We have decided to take the left fork.  The clerical divinations did not indicate woe with either path, so a coin flip has decided our fate.17 – This path has taken us into a huge lake, stretching for several miles.  Indeed it has taken us several days just to map the extent of its size.  From here, the river continues northward.18 – The river forks here yet again.  It has become increasingly narrower over the course of the past few days.  We have decided to forge up the left fork, since that has proven successful thus far.  Eventually, we decided to turn around, since we don’t want to risk running aground.  The area here is choked with vegetation, and practically envelops the river at times with overhanging branches from tall jungle trees.19 – Heading back up to the fork, we proceed up the right fork, and encounter much of the same terrain as the left fork presented.  The lush vegetation of this valley makes mapping anything but the immediate surroundings all but impossible.  A few flying spells here and there from our wizard, and we are able to see (once we surpass the trees) that this is indeed an enormous valley that stretches on for miles in every direction.  Eventually, we are forced to turn around.20 – Proceeding all the way back to the original fork, we find another huge lake inland.  Following the left-most shoreline (left has been fairly good to us so far), we map a large island, with a large rocky beach on its northern shore.  The cleric, wizard and I were discussing the land, and we all agreed that it was unusual that we hadn’t encountered any sizable living creatures at all.  We had been seeing birds of all colors amidst the trees, and at night it is a glorious sound of birds and insects, and bats were known to swarm around our crow’s nest.  The crew had even caught several fish in their nets in the lakes here.  However, nothing of intelligence had yet been spotted.  If there are civilizations here, they are surely all nestled deep inland, as we’ve not seen any real indication of any yet.21 – This enormous lake is easily twice the size of the lake in area 17.  In fact, if the water wasn’t fresh water, we’d have all swore that we had come back into the ocean, since it stretches all the way to the horizon.  There is another river that pours into this body of water that connects to the northeast corner.  The entrance is rocky, and we decide it best not to risk it.22 – Only after circling back southward from the lake area 21, do we realize that we’d mapped the western side of an island.  The island itself is ordinary, and covered in the same dense vegetation that the surrounding countryside is covered with.  On this date, however, we spotted some spotted leopards near the shore, drinking from the lake.  We observe them through the spyglasses.  And they were only visible for a short period of time.23 – Having made our way out of the river system that started at area 15, we have come back into the ocean, and are continuing down the shore eastward.  The crew is all very tired, and the natural rations were all gone weeks ago.  The cleric even commented to me that he was sick of asking his god for the same food-making spell over and over again.  The crew knows that this work is important, and indeed the information that we have gleaned is invaluable.  We eventually make our way here to another river, and decided to forge inward.  24 – Traveling up the river for a solid week, it eventually turns very mountainous, and the river cuts a fjord through some mountain formations.  After some time, we are traveling at the base a huge crevasse and the light from the sun is only visible to us for maybe 2-3 hours at a time before going back behind the mountain wall.  Eventually this path becomes fairly narrow, and we decide to turn around.  It was a sight to behold, nonetheless.</blockquote>

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