The party, purchases done, departed the Grain District and crossed the New Bridge - a ricketty wooden affair spanning the western arm of the God River, and reached the Red Bank district. The district is full of petty Lamarakhi traders selling kojos stick and daggers, porters and crabmen ferry goods, street hawkers peddling matka tickets, frogs on a stick and discount opium. However, the crowd parts for you - an armed slugman and his retinue is one not worth impeding. Even your group however must make way for the Juggernaut, the enormous rolling temple of Lady Death, the Juggernaut - you have no desire to be ground beneath its bloody wheels.
As you push west, eventually, the area looks poorer, the building more disheveled, the people more ragged. Frog Froth is now the only slugman present. Soon, the city fails entirely, and the citizens vanish. This is the Old City - the edge of the Yellow City, abandoned to the jungle. It is place of ruins - building in various state of decay, planted tress now immense, vines choking structures, gardens turned into dense thickets. There are many birds here and they seem very happy to make a lot of noise. The smells of the city have been replaced with the essences of a thousand kinds of trees, fruits, flowers and all sorts of insects. You are following the Red Road, made of clay tiles anointed against wear with blood.
Eventually, the road leads to a darker area - the road ends, the buildings become sparse, and the canopy becomes thicker, the forest darker and far more quiet, the air thick with humidy and the smell of decay. Dubi Gan breaks the silence: "I wanted you to see it. Lahag, the Cursed Jungle If, gods forbid, something were to happen to me, I wanted you to know what it looked like. No matter what happens, do not enter Lahag!"
"Let's go a bit further from this place and head into the old city. I want to find that palace so you can get your reward and I can get my graduation".
After backing away perhaps a couple hundred yards, Dubi Dan stops and starts drawing a crude map in the dirt. "See this line? This is the red road. If we go south of it, we are too far south. This line to the right, that's the edge of the Yellow City proper - if we are back in town, we've gone too far east. This other wavy line on the top, that's a stream - if we reach it, we're too far north. And this last line to the left (he's drawn a crude square)… This is Lahag, the Jungle. Where the old city end and the real jungle begin. So all we have to do is explore this squarish area and find the Blue Palace. "
He stood up and adjusted his sword in his sash. "Let's do this!"