I admit I got into the spelunking business for the treasure. The prospect of pulling gold and jewels from thousand-year-old crypts and temples always intrigued me. But I am, first and foremost, a man of morals, so I decided long ago to only take treasure from those less amiable, more evil ruins you tend to find in deep jungles and hot deserts. The temple I’m in at the moment is, in fact, mired in the steaming heart of South America. To my great pleasure, it was only recently inhabited by evil, so though I’ll be stealing from the kind of ancient spirit that really doesn’t deserve pretty things, the temple has otherwise maintained some semblance of cheerfulness.

I usually manage to get in, get the riches, and get out before any spirits have had the chance to take offense, but I ran into a spot of trouble this time around. It seems an ancient one-eyed monkey god thought it would be a grand idea to place a magical warding on the temple’s entrance. Sure enough, when I crossed the threshold, that warding popped my left eye right out of its socket and sent it careening off to this big monkey statue in the middle of the entrance hall, where it promptly snuck itself into the statue’s eye socket and got sealed away, contact lens and all.

I know the doorway out of here is somewhere close, but for the life of me, I just can’t find it—lack of depth perception, you see. So now I’m on the lookout for something a bit more important than treasure. I’ve got to find the three pieces of the monkey god’s idol that are scattered across the three levels of this place. If I can recombine them, I should be able to use the idol to summon that monkey statue in the main hall back to life and ask—quite politely, I assure you—for my eye back.

I found three passageways leading out of the entrance hall. One of them stays on this level and leads to a huge atrium. It’s your classic, large temple fare: a wide, expansive room; bright, moss-covered stone walls; a positive enigma of pathways and routes all about; and some thirst-quenching pools to keep things exciting. I’m hoping I’ll find a section of the idol somewhere near the top of all the winding pathways.

Beneath the main level lies another, more close and dank place I haven’t ventured too deeply into just yet. It’s a labyrinth of turns and angles and odd levers that will probably be ever-so helpful in guiding me around, if I could only manage to figure them out. The walls are decidedly damper than the atrium above, the moss a little more prominent, and the light a lot less cheery. I’ll have to make do with flickering torches if I’m to find my way through and retrieve the idol section I’m betting will be at the maze’s end.

Finally, a staircase climbing up from the entrance hall leads to a series of rafters, rope bridges, and thin walkways crisscrossing far above the temple’s atrium. Rotting wooden supports, ancient cobwebs, and a plethora of wide chasms and perilous falls separate me from the last piece of the idol, and my chance at getting my left eye back.

If anyone finds this journal without further entries, be a sweetheart and take it back to the university. Oh, and you’re welcome to any gold or jewels I managed to find and stuff into my pockets before I bit the proverbial “it.”

- Prof. H.G. Wellsington