Before looking at the shrine itself, Boosey walks round the pond to look at the Monolith that is still standing, the pair of monuments seemingly creating a gateway to the shrine. 

He notices that oddly, the collapsed pillar lines up with one of the entrance pillars, but the one still standing is offset by about 10ft.  He looks between the two entranceways and wonders.

"There is a rusted key in the frog statue's mouth," Nenne mentions, pointing casually. "Knowing these temples, that might become significant." 

She finishes her scan of the pond before doing a double take. She holds out a cautionary hand to the party. "Something is watching us. West of the statue - see the eyestalks? I do not think it regards us as foes just now, but be wary."

Eku drops low into a crouch and says, "It looks as if no one has been here in ages."

Boosey finds nothing on the monolith.

Orvex scribbles happily.

Dunk is guided to work on the promise of ferns. She seems to be getting along well with the soliders.

"Do we think these eyestalk mean anything good or do we start shooting? Maybe Lemon has a trick up his sleeve to find out what that is."

"I don't see the need to rush to violence," Nenne comments, vigilant yet calm. "If it wanted to attack us, it has had ample opportunity." She plucks a few blades of grass and holds them in her fist, eyeing the creature. "Though I wonder how territorial it is." 

Eku backs Nenne's statement up with her reply, "I have wondered the same, though I suspect we won't find out until we 'poke the bear' so to speak. I say we keep a watchful eye on the...?thing?, give it a wide berth, and investigate this shrine. Did you find cubes at all the shrines so far?"

"Yes, each held a cube," Sthara says, "And I expect that this one will as well. Though, with any luck it will be less deadly of a place. We should proceed inside. We can't know the nature of the shrine's puzzle without seeing it."

Sthara walks to the door, through it if able.

Allister still aims at the eyestalk, waiting for a reaction of the creature.

As the party makes their way around the lake, the eyestalks remain more or less motionless. They occasionally swivel to look at one of the newcomers, but it's not a steady track. The gates into the shrine are swung all the way in to reveal steps descending to a ledge overlooking a pit of sharpened stakes. An alcove on the far wall holds a pedestal with a stone cube resting on it. A relief carved into the back of the alcove shows a monstrous frog with tentacles fighting a crane. Cuneiform writing is above the door and under the relief carving. Wooden beams radiate from the walls at floor height, with four-foot gaps between them. Carved frog heads extrude from the walls above the beams.

After a moment, Orvex claims that the inscription above the door says, "Kubazan urges us to tread without fear and to give back as much as we take."

"Friend scribe, can you decipher the writings?"

Nenne casts Light on a rock and holds it in her partially clasped hand like a hooded lantern, aiming the light toward the relief.

Orvex comes as close as he dares down the stairs. He tries for a while and eventually shakes his head saying, "Not from h-" Eku cuts him off with, "It says: When evening came, a wily eblis stepped from his reed hut. He didn’t like the Omuans, but without them he’d have no one to play his tricks on. The eblis sent a marsh frog to reason with Ubtao, but the frog was angry and decided to wrestle the god instead. This amused Ubtao, so he gave the frog tentacles to make it stronger. When Kubazan the froghemoth returned to Papazotl the eblis, he chased Papazotl into the swamp with his new tentacles." She shrugs at Orvex apologetically 

"These 'er temples really do be havin' a lot of history." Lemon said as he gazed from the walls to Ovrex. Then mumbled mainly to himself, "Most of which me mind doesn't know, nor care to..."

Lemon walked about carefully. Grazing the moss and looking at the plants themselves. "Ye things been 'er a long time eh?" He gives them a pat, knowing he cannot exactly speak to them as of yet. He looks to the group, "Why don't we just do what we do best?" He looks to the cube and smiles. "I call dibs first! Me hands can't wait!"

Boosey considers the words on the temple.  "When we take this cube we should leave something on the pedestal in return.  Something of value, perhaps?  Possibly even that key that Nenne spotted, though that will mean braving whatever is in the pond."

Nenne smiles at Eku, but her expression quickly turns to puzzlement. "I do not understand the religions in this city," she says. "Why build temples to betrayers and enemies of Ubtao? And half these stories are of creatures who acted against the Omuans. Why would people venerate a creature that hated them?"

Shaking her head, the cleric throws the lit pebble into middle of the temple to better illuminate the spikes. "A trickster, a wrestler, and a chasm of spikes between us and our prize," she sighs. "This will be a challenge."

Great bubbles break the surface of the pond near the eyestalks and the entire pond explodes into motion. Tentacles flail from a monsterous frog-like creature as it rises out of the muck. The thing lurches forward, easily pushing through the water. It bellows out a reverberating croak that is sure to be heard far from the shrine.

//roll initiative\\

Boosey turns from looking at the temple just in time to see a monster appear from the water like a Kraken.  "Oh sh...." his exclamation is cut short and he moves forward enough to cast dissonant whispers, planting the call of a Heron repeating over and over in an attempt to scare the creature.  Once he cast the spell, he moves back to where he started, and says "that thing is incredible.  Look at the size of it!" 11 damage (half on DC 14 Wisdom save)

The creature tucks its tentacles in and backs to the far side of the pond as it croaks out again. The creature is so loud dirt shakes loose from above the entryway into the shrine.

Eyes trained on the beast and panic rising from her last experience at one of these temples, Sthara acts immediately, pushing her way forward and firing a chromatic orb of flame at it using the new focus that Eku provided (cast at third level, 11 for 30 fire damage).

Then, realizing that she's still not in the best shape, she pushes her way back towards the entrance to the temple, returning to where she stood.

The creature throws itself back into the pond and throws its weight against the frog mouth statue. Its tentacles lash out at Allister. The fighter ducks under the first and tries to push the second down and away, but the creature's strength is unrivaled. The grasping coil of its tentacle wraps the fighter tightly, squeezing him (17 damage) while it carries him towards the creature's awaiting mouth.

Faster than anyone expects, the creature's tongue whips out, wraps around Lemon and plops him into the water beside it. The creature gnashes down on him and swallows the dwarf whole (29 damage).