The creature emerges from the water, revealing a hydra. After a battle that goes surprisingly well for the party, it is defeated, Caravel appears to commend them for their victory before leaving once again, and exploration once again commences. Miri finds another plaque, this time reading, “All are now home.” Investigation into the chains on the statue reveals that pulling it in different directions opens the gates on the western and eastern sides of the room, but not both at once. Miri (with the help of The King and Nasr) wraps the chains around the statue to hold it open.
The party continues east. As they enter another room, there are statues of children, all of which have expressions of fear on their faces. Each statue is holding a shield, each with a gaudy painted image on them. There are cages hanging from the ceiling. Yet another plaque reads, “Lizards never roam.”
A loud horn blows, and the party begins preparations for whatever may be coming, including investigating and gathering the shields held by the statues. After a few more horns blow, armored creatures ride in on dog-like steeds and attack. While the battle rages, the party seems to be at an advantage. Nasr tries to explore his shield’s magical properties, but the attempt backfires and his mind is taken by a strange spirit. The King’s shield is broken by an attack that renders him unconscious, and it sends locusts to assault his attacker. Miri brings him back to his senses as Nasr misses an attack on The King and regains control over his mind. Queso gets pushed back as a huge amount of dogs pour out of the hallway, and his shield is released, causing his magical abilities to dampen for the rest of the encounter. Miri, seeing the potentially negative effects of the shields, drops hers. The party cleans up the remaining enemies and continues to explore the area.
Miri picks up her shield again. It has a picture of a door on it. She activates it, and quickly disappears. When The King freaks out about it, Queso supplies him with another door shield, and he disappears as well. As Queso and Nasr prepare to go after them, they hear Miri calling to them from one of the cages above. Through a series of events including more shield-warping and a bit of sword-throwing (along with some frog-transformation shenanigans involving The King giving mouth-to-mouth to Miri), they go through the cages in search of items, discovering only a bracelet that Miri finds in her cage, allowing her to warp next to her anything whose blood has been spilled upon it.
They enter the next room to the east, which contains a well with a similarly-sized hole high in the ceiling. The well is surrounded by scattered, stone bugs. Queso looks into the well and immediately turns to stone, having seen something like a Medusa in the well. Miri brings him back with the golden liquid. When she goes back to the crocodile to refill, Caravel shows up and ominously warns the golden liquid could have permanent side effects, but refuses to specify what. Attempts prove ineffective to damage her and a strange effect causes items to fall into the well and fall back down through the hole above.
The party continues west, ignoring the Medusa room, and come across their original entrance. They spend a while getting their bearings and furthering their understanding of the sewers’ layout before working their way backward to find a way toward the center, eventually returning to the circular room with the centipede footprints and following it the rest of the way. Miri lights one of the oil basins, and all the rest immediately flicker to life, lighting the whole place.
They follow the hallway into a well-lit amphitheater with four large crocodile heads (their mouths open and housing bright lights) in the corners, and another at the top (its mouth closed). The footprints go completely through the room into a hallway on the opposite sides. There are four statues in the center, in various states of disrepair; the northwest one is completely crumbled (but has wings), the southwest one’s features have been worn away (but scales can be made out), the northeast one is the only clear one as a frog, and the southeast one is an unblemished block (but seems to be started with a slitted eye).
As they search for the answer to this riddle, a rumble begins working its way toward them…