Jess listened to the report with unconcealed skepticism. She had brought the thief with her for two reasons, one - she wanted to keep an eye on him and two - it was pretty clear he would be useless for the task of heaving around heavy water butts in the hot sun. She scratched behind her ear and shrugged, shifting the bandau of black silk that was her customary garb in hot weather. Wherever they were it was much hotter than it should have been given the seas they had been in just last night, and she was more than a little nervous about what star sights might reveal once the sun went down.

"Snake men, or eel men, or whatever, they can keep the stinking island so long as we can take some bearings from it," she snapped and turned and continued through the jungle. They followed a... trail was the wrong word, it was probably a water course that collected rain from the high ground during tropical storms, but for now it was dry enough to make for easy walking. Jess was glad enough for a clear path, the jungle was lush and dense and filled with strange sounds and perfumes. Once, long ago, she had been to the Green Land south of Lhsoutu where the rainforest stretched for thousands of leagues. Men died in their hundreds attempting to pass those jungles, whether by wild life, poisonous plants, or the innumerable diseases that seemed to haunt the tropic latitudes.  As they climbed the jungle began to clear and they passed through a landscape of shrubs and low rocky outcropping. Sleek black bird like things lay on the rocks, apparently sunning themselves, casting lazy unconcerned eyes at the intruders as they trudged towards the mountain peak. 

As they cleared the shrub line and reached the even more rocky pinnacle the sea stretched away before them.  Far below the bay in which they had come to anchor spread out in a semicircle, from this distance, the Weather Witch looked like a child's toy floating on a distant ultramarine pond. Jess wiped the sweat from her brow and took a canteen of leather wrapped glass from her belt. She unstopped it and took a long drink. Galt gave her an imploring look, and she sighed and passed the canteen to him. He took a swing and then gasped.

"I thought it was water!" he gasped. 

"Cut one third with rum and lime juice," Jess told him, plucking the bottle from his hands and restoppering it. There was an old sailors superstition that if you mixed rum and juice with water there were less cases of the flux. Jess had never felt there was a particular need to invent reasons to drink rum, but she partook in the old superstition none the less. Across the distant sea Jess could make out the green shadows of other islands. She took her glass from its leather sheath and unsnapped it, taking bearings to the various points with the aid of a battered brass compass.

"Jess!" Galt called from behind her, she ignored him as she took another bearing, memorizing it rather than writing it down like a lubber.

"Jess!" Galt called again more urgent than before.

"It is Captain..." Jess turned to snarl at the thief but froze in her tracks as she saw that he had climbed higher and moved a was around the peak. She trotted up to join him and saw at once what had captured his attention. Off in the jungle was a vast stone ziggurat. It was small from this distance, but must have been as large as the largest temples in Jess' native Bettony. A great road of black green stone lead from its stairs to the base of the mountain on which they stood. Tiny figures were marching out of it. Jess lifted her glass for a moment but lowered it without putting it to her eye. Even at this range she could tell by the strange almost serpentine sway of the column, that they were not human.