The group watched as the Aztec medallion began to glow and grow very hot. Eleanor pulled it from around her neck and tossed it to the deck. It began to turn red hot, and the crew feared it would melt through the deck, but after a few seconds it began cooling, and soon was no longer glowing at all.

Perplexed, the group tried to figure out what would cause the medallion to suddenly exhibit such odd behavior. Penelope remembered seeing radio equipment that heated up under the right circumstances. She took the medallion from the floor and rushed off to the cockpit. With a little convincing, Malcolm gave her permission to tinker with the plane’s radio. Penelope made some quick modifications, connecting the medallion to the transmitter and finding it indeed reacted to radio frequencies.

With a little work, Penelope was able to use the medallion as a receiver element and created a means of tracking the signal it received. Using a bit of triangulation, Malcolm quickly determines that the only place along their current course that could be where the medallion’s signal originates is La Paz in Baja California. Eleanor quickly recalled that La Paz is also connected to Cortez, as the conquistador went there directly following the defeat of Montezuma.

The trip to La Paz will take several hours, so the group gets to know each other with some dice games. Penelope volunteered to cook, explaining that she used to do so on the ship where she grew up. They all share a meal and get to know their new passenger a bit when she shares stories of her adopted father’s crew. Penelope later settled into the machine room as her personal quarters, hanging a hammock between two bulkheads.

Archie, meanwhile, spent most of the flight studying the statue of Huitloxopetl. He discovered tiny hieroglyphs around the base of the figure and was able to glean some esoteric knowledge from translating the strange writing.

The plane landed at La Paz just past midnight, an incredibly graceful landing on the waters of the Bay of Cortes. Iris, the only member of the crew who speaks Spanish, met with the assistant dock-master and convinced him that their radio went out and needed repair. He told her that there is a radio shop (Cabana Radio) in town that will be open in the morning. He also directed the group to the Baja Rose Hotel, a place that won’t gouge them as tourists and has a staff that mostly speaks English.

Thanking the dock-master, they made their way to the hotel to get rooms, all except Penelope. She remained with the plane, preferring the enclosed space and gentle sway of the seaplane on the water. She also spent part of the night repairing the plane’s radio to perfect working order.

In the morning, the team regroups at the plane. After a quick breakfast at a small cafe, they made their way to the Cabana Radio. Inside, Penelope was fascinated by all of the parts and gizmos, and quickly picked out all of the pieces she would need to cobble together a portable signal tracker. Her small device had a needle attached to a dial – as the dial turned, the signal would get louder or softer, and whichever direction the arrow pointed when it was loudest would show the correct way to go.

The group followed the signal and soon realized it pointed northward across the bay toward the Isla Esperito Santo, or Holy Saint Island. Certain they needed to cross the water, they began to make plans for what all they would need. They spoke to a few locals about the island, finding out it is uninhabited but often visited by adventurous tourists.

Before embarking on their voyage, the team spent a little time at a hardware/sporting goods store and picked up flashlights, headlamps, rope, pitons, hammers, a prybar, canteens, clothing, rations, an extra battery for the radio signal finder, backpacks, and a first aid kit. They did not think to grab a shovel, but Malcolm resourcefully remembered to bring a collapsible shovel from the plane. They rented a motorboat and headed to the sandy shores of Isla Esperito Santo.

They beached the boat on the eastern side of the island and moved inland following the radio signal. After about 45 minutes of walking, they found the source of the signal, a partially collapsed entrance to some sort of sandstone ruins hidden deep on the island. They began to dig out the shallow cleft and soon revealed a passageway leading down to a round stone door. Examining the door, they were surprised to find that it looked like a giant version of the medallion – except the face in the center was not a skull as it was on the medallion. Archie identified the face as being very similar to the statue of Huitloxopetl. Malcolm found hidden latches in the eyes of the carving and the door rolled ominously open with a loud scraping sound.

Inside, Archie deftly and daftly lead the way, boldly hurrying ahead of the group. Not thinking to examine his surroundings, he stepped on a pressure plate and a huge stone slab slammed down on him, nearly crushing him. He survived, rolling out of the way at the last second with only minor abrasions. Penelope quickly used the first aid kit to bandage up Archie’s wounds, making sure to use extra iodine just to make sure he learned his lesson.

The group continued on, much more carefully now, disabling ancient traps as they went. Eleanor remembered that the medallion had a strange inscription on the back of it. She examined it and it seemed to be a map of the maze. They follow the map, avoiding more traps, but Eleanor slipped and fell down a steep pit. Fearing that she might have been seriously injured, Malcolm and Iris quickly abseil down on a rope, finding their friend bruised and a little battered, but alive, the majority of her injury to her pride. After helping her out of the pit, the team continues on to a central chamber.

Inside the chamber the team found a trapezoidal pedestal holding three black stone tablets and a golden bowl holding a human heart. The heart was strangely fresh looking, though it was clear that the chamber had not been disturbed in centuries. Archie began translating the tablets while the others investigated the room, looking for traps.

Archie, a lingual savant, was able to quickly assess the tablets, finding the language similar to Naacal and structured similarly to te reo, the Maori language. It was definitely not Aztec in origin. There were also carvings on the tablets – one had a heart, skull, and penis carved on it, another had the all seeing eye. With a bit of help from Penelope, who also seemed to have a knack for decoding symbols, he was able to make a very conjectural translation of the tablets:

• A black/unseen/hidden star will rise in place of the sun. It is up to humans/the people/the children to stop the war/violence/bloodshed.
• The lost/dead/missing demon/god/chieftain was torn apart/broken. Never allow it/him/us/you to come back/be found/return.
• At/in the top/roof/heaven of the world, his hat/crown is hidden in a snake/serpent/dragon.

Archie took one of the tablets from the pedestal to see if there was more writing on the back, assured by the others that it was perfectly safe. This set off a trap the group had missed. The chamber door slammed down and sea water began flooding into the room. It was clear they had only minutes before the whole room would be filled and they would all drown. Archie grabbed the other tablets, the bowl, and the heart, and placed them in his pack while the others looked for a way to disable the trap and open the door.

Several fruitless seconds passed, with the team knocking over the pedestal to reveal part of the trap’s mechanism. Penelope, however, could tell that there was no way to reset the trap from the inside. She wagered that the only way out was to force the incredibly heavy stone door up. Using the stone pedestal for leverage and Penelope’s huge wrench as a fulcrum, Malcolm and Penelope managed to force the door open enough for Archie to crawl underneath. He quickly located a hidden lever that locked the door open and they all escaped, closing the door after them to prevent the whole structure from flooding.

Having found what they assumed was the treasure of the maze, the team returned to the entrance. They were greeted by a squad of two dozen uniformed Nazi soldiers just outside. The commander of these German forces demanded they turn over the heart. They all notice he has a strange symbol on his uniform.

Archie reluctantly gives up the bowl and heart, but does not reveal that he has the tablets – the Nazi commander doesn’t ask about them, nor seems to know of their existence. As the commander turns to take his prize away, he casually says, “Töte sie. Töte sie alle.”

With that command, four “potato masher” grenades came flying towards the crew…