We get off to rather a slow start, but a well-attended one: basically everybody shows up, including Paul (Thorn Spinner), Bruce (Belwin Linnet), Chris (Elias Sang'aree), Chuck (Erac Taslo Moragan), and Tim (Kraid Naiben). As an added bonus, Paul brings in Barry as a potential new addition.
The characters, at least those that are still conscious, find themselves staggering across the smoking aftermath of their battle with the House k'Tenshin slavers. Several of them manage to make the slightly stomach-turning discovery that severed t'skrang tails (and other body parts) twitch just like severed lizard bits. Of the group, both Belwin Linnet and Kraid Naiben are only barely able to walk, while Elias Sang'aree and Thorn Spinner are in comparatively robust health. To compound the situation, it is raining. Heavily. Everyone is miserable. The characters make several Recovery Tests anyway.
With the immediate requirements of first aid taken care of, the group turns it's attention to the activities of the surviving slavers. The characters watch as the slavers return to their ships and mill about. Thorn Spinner (still pleased by the fact that he sucked up a surprisingly small amount of damage in the conflict) acts as a scout, and keeps a careful watch upon them. It is clear that they have not abandoned their slaving efforts, though they are scrupulously avoiding the region the characters are camped in (downriver). By following one of the slaver parties at a safe distance he is able to determine that they range fairly far into the jungle.
The characters decide to paddle to the other side of the river to find a more secure camp location. Later that evening, the two k'Tenshin ships cast off and head downriver.
The characters stay camped in the jungle for three days while everybody heals their wounds. Though the characters see a lot of parrots and sloths and whatnot, they don't see any more Cathan tribesmen. Erac Moragan spends his time fishing and hunting, hoping to find things to enliven his diet.
The one major distraction during this interlude is the little magical sprite-thing that had been serving as the characters' guide. It very characteristically cannot bear to stay in one place for any length of time, and acts desperately impatient at every possible opportunity. Elias Sang'aree does his best to engage the creature in conversation, but only for his own amusement. He acts completely incapable of understanding anything the sprite says. This behaviour only serves to increase the creature's frustration.
The last night in camp, Belwin has a sleepwalking incident. Elias catches him and wakes him up. Neither of them are able to explain what happened.
The characters resume their journey up the river. About a day past the ruined t'skrang Citadel, the sprite-thing makes motions suggesting that the characters should dock and head into the jungle. The group complies. Some distance into the jungle, the sprite starts to behave in a rather nervous manner and refuses to continue on. The area appears to be very similar to the miserable, rain-soaked, overgrown jungle the characters have become quite used to over the last several days, but the characters conclude that there might be something different about it based upon the sprite-thing's agitation. After a bit of investigation, several characters are able to either hear the crackling of a fire or smell wood smoke.
Thorn Spinner immediately takes action (as if there were any other way) and flies in the direction of the fire. He finds a crude village consisting of several low bungalows arranged around a cave. A small stream flows into the village, disappearing into the cave mouth. Several huge, hulking, monstrous lizard-creatures festooned with fangs, loincloths, and spears loiter around the settlement. Several more of the creatures hover around a huge cooking fire. Thorn Spinner is unable to help noticing that the carcass strapped over the fire looks very much like it once was one of the locals. He is deeply impressed with the depth and beauty of the creatures' society. Thorn-Spinner flies back to report, and forgets to mention that the creatures are armed with spears until seriously prompted by the other characters ("Did they have any weapons? Are you sure?").
Elias Sang'aree convinces Thorn Spinner to cast Water Wings upon himself and swim down the river to take a look at the interior of the cave. This proves to be only partially successful, as the lizard-things spot him when he is still about a hundred meters out. He does spot a total of eleven of the lizard-things hanging around the clearing, and additional smaller lizard-things waiting inside the bungalows. Based upon the fear that gushes through his vitals, he is able to estimate that the larger creatures are at least ten feet tall. The lizard-things in the bungalows appear to be smaller than the ones outside, but not so much so as to reassure him. He is even less reassured when the larger lizard-things decide that their erstwhile comrade has finished cooking and descend into a feeding frenzy that leaves the carcass a torn and rent ruin. He suspects that the smaller creatures are waiting for the larger creatures to finish eating.
Belwin sneaks up to the edge of the village to observe the lizard-things' eating habits. He notices that once each lizard-thing gets its portion of the food, it scampers off into a corner to eat. All of the lizard-things stare at each other with hateful, suspicious glares while they eat. Their smaller cousins sometimes make rushes out to grab a scrap of food, then run back quickly. From what he can tell, the creatures are able to work together fairly well, but become very savage when it comes to food. Belwin returns to the rest of the characters to explain what he has learned, and to suggest that the characters throw a couple of dead animals into the village clearing to distract them and break up their organization when the characters attack. Elias agrees that this sounds reasonable, but suggests that the plan needs some work, considering that the creatures where willing to wait patiently for their comrade to cook before getting involved in the feeding frenzy.
The characters debate several plans relating to distracting the lizard-things with food. Kraid Naiben makes the important point that because the group needs to kill them all, the best distraction is one that draws a few of the lizard-things off into a remote location where they can be easily slain. Elias suggests that the creatures are smart enough that simply throwing food at them is unlikely to motivate them. The characters finally decide to have one character who is fleet of foot run through the village carrying a dead animal. Any lizard-things who follow the decoy will run into a deadfall made from a tree trunk, and then get peppered with arrows from those characters equipped with bows (who are perched in trees).
Elias happens to be skilled in siegecraft, and takes charge of the manufacture of the deadfall. Kraid Naiben, who obviously studied with the Viet Cong in his youth, suggests making small holes in the ground and lining them with (downward-pointing) punji sticks. He points out that he is also uniquely qualified to serve as the decoy, as he has Air Dance and will be able to easily avoid this trap. Unfortunately, the referee puts a hole in his plan by pointing out that Air Dance only works in combat, and can't be used to simply run without touching the surface of the ground. The compromise solution is to place some straight sticks on the ground to point out where Kraid should step. The lizard-things will have a hard time spotting them because he will knock them out of place when he runs over them.
The deadfall trap is made from a log set to swing down between two trees, attacking with Elias' Siegecraft skill (step 7) and inflicting damage step 14. The punji sticks attack at step 6 and inflict only step 4 damage.
With the traps in place, Belwin positions himself to fire down upon the lizard-things with a crossbow, while Elias and Erac hide in the underbrush to attack in melee. Thorn Spinner remains in the background with the idea of casting spells. Kraid Naiben pulls on his running shoes.
The characters are in the midst of their planning when Thorn Spinner flies up very excitedly, claiming that he has found another windling. "He's really sneaky, and he's a good windling!" The new windling turns out to be a Thief Adept. His name is Saffron, and the characters welcome him into their midst when he agrees to help kill horrible lizard things, even though they suspect that he might be a touch sociopathic.
While the remaining characters get into position, Kraid Naiben hefts his dead pig and walks into the edge of the lizard-things' camp. He stops, makes a very convincing yell of surprise and fear, and ineffectually throws a spear into the midst of the lizard-things. Five of them respond to his behaviour. He runs, then slows down when he notices that he is easily outdistancing the lumbering beasts. To help them keep up with him, he drops into a melodramatic, injured run punctuated by occasional screams of apparent fear.
The pursuing lizard-things throw occasional rocks and spears at Kraid, but they don't have very good depth perception and rarely come very close. They get really tuckered out by the run, forcing Kraid to "stumble and fall" to let them rest up for a bit.
Kraid finally makes it to the punji stick traps with the lizard-things lumbering along after him. Four of them get caught in the punji sticks before they stop, though the punji sticks all snap underneath the creatures' ponderous weight. Sensing that the moment is nigh, Elias lets the log trap go, knocking one down and annoying a second one. It turns out that a lizard-thing has a physical defense of 11.
At this point, the rest of the group gets into the fray. Belwin opens up with his crossbow, injuring one of the lizard-things touched by the log trap. Kraid and Saffron rush out with knives and knife-sized swords to land mighty blows that substantially irritate two more. Thorn Spinner lets fly with an Entangling Vines spell, quickly wrapping up another lizard-thing in a leafy prison that quickly proves to be like tissue paper. Elias and Erac swing at the creatures, but are so intimidated by the things' terrible size that they don't even manage to hit.
Thorn Spinner manages to provide some hope in the early part of the conflict by casting Combat Fury upon Belwin, who drops out of his tree and slaughters a lizard-thing with two mighty blows. Unfortunately, this is one of the few bright points, as both Kraid and Saffron suffer wounds, and Elias and Erac take very substantial hits and are hard-pressed by the lizard-things facing them. Things look even bleaker when Erac is struck by a massive (27-point) armor-defeating hit and falls to the ground. Though he remains conscious, he decides to refrain from tempting fate even more than he already has and feigns death.
Elias stands as the one untouchable figure on the group's flank, emitting Battle Shouts and effortlessly shrugging off hits that would have skewered other characters. For all of his stolidity, however, he doesn't manage to push the tide of the battle back into the characters' favor.
While Erac staggers back to his feet only to find himself closely engaged by a nearly-unwounded lizard-thing, Kraid and Belwin work themselves into a battle frenzy (in Belwin's case, still aided by Thorn Spinner's magic) and hurl themselves at a particularly tough-looking lizard-thing. They make continual aggressive attacks against the thing, not even stopping when it lashes out and knocks Belwin off his feet. While Belwin recovers, Kraid wounds the thing, pushing it back far enough to allow the two of them to savage it permanently in the next round.
Their comrade Erac is less fortunate. He struggles back to his feet only to be put on the defensive by the same creature that had originally knocked him down. While he does manage to hit the thing several times, his blows are not strong enough to defeat it. The lizard-thing's luck is better: it hisses savagely, then stabs him through the left lung, leaving him only four wound points away from death. Once again, Erac collapses to the ground.
Most of the characters are far too busy to realize that one of their number has been felled, most particularly Thorn Spinner. The windling magician concludes that his Mind Daggers are managing little more than to annoy the lizard-creatures, and compensates by placing Combat Fury upon Elias. Thus fortified, Elias manages a staggeringly impressive armor-defeating hit, doing 23 points of damage against one of his foes, wounding and knocking down the creature. Saffron leaps upon the fallen lizard-thing like a rabid chihuahua, stabbing it for seven points of damage and killing the creature.
The characters look up from the carnage to recognize that there is only one surviving lizard-thing, and that it is dragging Erac's body back towards the village (and the cooking fire). The lizard-thing doesn't last long after that. Elias Battle Shouts it, then inflicts 48 points of damage in a single, massive hit that pretty much fells the thing. Saffron deals out another hit, followed by Thorn Spinner (who is reduced to kicking the thing in the head). Kraid delivers the coup de grace.
Saffron goes about the battlefield, ensuring that none of the lizards remains alive and confirming his somewhat sociopathic reputation with the rest of the group. Everyone recovers, particularly the nearly-disemboweled Erac. Once everyone is again able to walk, the group crawls back into the jungle, moaning about how these five lizard-things weren't the only ones in the tribe.
The characters decide that whatever their next ambush plan is, it needs to involve damage inflicted by fast objects with a lot of mass behind them. Practically everyone notes that the punji sticks, though a nifty-sounding idea, really weren't any more effective against ten-foot lizard-things than uncut grass. Thorn Spinner suggests setting their houses on fire, but Kraid nixes that suggestion, considering that it doesn't involve either speed or mass. He then amends his words, suggesting using meteors to set the fires. Once again, Saffron demonstrates that he needs the sort of drugs that only 20th century pharmaceutical companies will be able to produce by suggesting that the character try kidnapping one of the lizard-thing children, then slitting it's throat in front of the parents. Elias comments to Thorn Spinner, "I can see why your new little friend was wandering around in the jungle, ALONE."
The session ends with the characters deep inside the jungle, encamped no more than three or four kilometers from the lizard-things' village. Dan promises that he will calculate the Legend Awards for the session at the beginning of the next game.