Due to business at Cypress, the session didn't start until about 17:00. Everyone, however, was present: Chris (Pawnbroker), Mike (Messerbad), Bob (Yorden), Tim (Laerynthe) and Ray (Lukar).
Tolodio Abbas comes by with an invitation to meet with Lembey Abbas, at the Abbas Family compound. The characters are expecting him, as Lembey owes them an answer to their proposal to find a new trade route to Hegger. They meet Lembey over dinner. They also meet Pyalman Tsiba, a grossly fat senior member of the Veka Family, Ihrren Veka, a somewhat ratlike but tough junior Veka Family member, and Tolodio Abbas, a pragmatic moneychanger of the Abbas Family. Ihrren and Tolodio are to accompany the characters on the journey, Tolodio as far as the Yodai River settlement and Ihrren as far as Hegger.
Lembey, still looking worn and tired, accepted the characters' offer. He agreed to provide them with the following resources:
If the characters are able to find a successful trade route through the Yodai River, they will be paid two challock, four tebbit for every pascullo traveling through the Yodai River settlement (negotiated up from two challock by Yorden). Lembey Abbas estimates that the Veka and Abbas Families will send about twelve caravans per year through to Hegger, each with at least twenty pascullo. This should amount to an income of at least 1200 challock per year.
Lembey Abbas also paid the characters for their jaya. They had given him 250 kilograms to sell. He managed to sell it all at 26 challock per kilo. After his 10% cut was taken, the characters' share of the proceeds amounted to 5850 challock, which he gave to them in a locked coffer.
The characters elect to leave Paiden through the Turgosk Gate, where they had entered before. They did this because Tanbach Bosst, though he bears no love for them, already knows that they possess Maker weapons.
The folk intended to accompany the characters have been assembled at one of the Abbas Family plantations. The group sets out into the Yodai Forest early that morning. Along the way, Lukar attempts to sing to lighten the journey. He is quite successful, and his song is beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that the lobrun pick it up and sing it continually. Lukar eventually stops singing after one of the turgosk overseers cuffs him with a spear haft.
The first night of the journey, the turgosk put out five guards. Ihrren brings out some dice and plays Yorden and Tolodio (who is clearly a neophyte at gambling games). Yorden wins 20 challock from this.
Though the lobrun had largely forgotten Lukar's songs of the day before, he repeated his songs and the lobrun quickly remembered them. Later in the day, several of the characters spot Dellemoi Clan adapoi trailing the group.
The characters manage to challenge three of the Dellemoi. The Dellemoi are heavily armed and armored in gear made in Paiden, and ride upon huge masses of animated bush. Their leader is Agamoi, who speaks with Pawnbroker and Messerbad. They tell Agamoi that they wish to establish a settlement on the riverfront of the Yodai River. Agamoi mocks their choice of words for a bit, then tells them that he does not have the authority to make such a decision. He does agree to go and fetch the Dellemoi Speaker.
Speaker Engerei arrives some hours later, along with at least thirty other adapoi. He negotiates with the characters and Tolodio Abbas for a while, finally agreeing to the following:
The characters arrive at the settlement site, and the lobrun and turgosk immediately set to clearing the area. The turgosk boatwrights say that they can have the boat assembled in four days. Lukar teaches the lobrun workers a simple incantation and then uses them for a series of ritual Shape Earth and Earth to Stone castings to assemble a large pier out into the river. Messerbad first uses Wither Plant to set out the boundaries of the settlement for the benefit of the turgosk workers, then helps Lukar in his efforts by growing plants upon the pier to stabilize it. He also grows some fruit trees to provide a bit of interesting food on the coming journey.
Pawnbroker and Yorden spend most of their time observing the lead turgosk supervisor, Akatok. Akatok tells them how to control lobrun, and picks out eight to act as boat crew. All of the lobrun Akatok selects know Swimming, and a couple of them have Boating skill as well. One of them has something of an attitude problem, however, and Akatok warns them about him.
Some time into the characters' journey upriver, they spot a few houga on the riveside. Soon after, they see a small garden and a fishing boat. The boat is occupied by a demek and a deyrey neuter. The characters are somewhat perplexed, and speculate that this may be an outpost of Vlad's men. Then they see an adapoi tending a garden in front of a large, ramshackle stone building apparently built atop the ruins of another large stone building (etc.). At this point, Pawnbroker manages to spot the Abbatine sigil upon the demek's forehead, and the characters recognize that this is a community of Communicants. They give the place wide berth.
Soon after the characters bypass the Communicant settlement, the boat drags to a halt upon a series of whitish, sticky strands just beneath the water surface. The Weaver (which appears to be a sort of flattish, flexible crocodile with brown spines along its back) attacks then, sending its spines across the boat with a terrible thrushing sound. One lobrun is struck by two spines and topples off the edge of the boat to be consumed. The rest take cover, while the characters protect themselves with shields.
After several attempts, Messerbad casts Flaming Weapon upon Pawnbroker's axe. Pawnbroker then chops the strands apart. In the process, the other characters (notably Yorden, Laerynthe and Lukar) keep a watch for the Weaver, firing crossbows and stone missiles at it with unclear effect. There is a brief celebration when the last strands are cut through. Unfortunately, the celebration ends when the characters discover that the boat is still attached to something. Yorden uses ropes to determine that there is another strand anchored to the boat's keel.
The boat is finally liberated with a two-step plan. In the first part, Pawnbroker seeds one of the group's pascullo with essentially all of the poison the group possesses, and uses it as bait to (hopefully) kill the Weaver. At the very least, the poisonous pascullo manages to drive the thing away. Once the coast looks clear, Laerynthe strips down to his underwear and dives down to cut the strand loose.
Tandesh Hive is the first deyrey hive the characters pass after evading the Weaver. It is clearly a hive on the edge of disaster: the fields are studded with trees and overgrowth, there are no fishing boats out, and the few neuters working in the fields look visibly hungry. The hive mounds themselves are overgrown and partially tumbled-down. The hive doesn't even manage to send out a boat to intercept the characters.
Peerwon Hive is a fortress. The mounds are surrounded by stone buttresses clearly shaped out of the ground. The fields are dotted with burnt patches. The neuters working in the fields are all armed and look unusually vicious. Drones in heavy armor overfly the hive and its surrounding terrain. The characters speculate that the hive must be under constant assault by the local adapoi tribes.
Sarad Hive is the first "normal" hive the characters see. They are met by a delegation of deyrey in dugout canoes, lead by a drone in an ostentatious feathered cloak. The drone is impressed by the mummified deyrey hand given the characters by the elder drones of Mother's Hill, though he does attempt to work out some kind of side deal (he offers thirty neuters in exchange for the group's lobrun, and expresses great interest in Lukar, whom he considers very attractive). The characters give him a brush-off, and he doesn't press.
Ajan Hive is another normal-looking deyrey hive. However, unlike most hives, the representative of Ajan is not a flashily-dressed drone. Rather, a single catamaran sails out to meet the characters. It is crewed by a small group of neuters and a single, naked drone. The drone is clearly far from the deyrey ideal. He is unadorned, and appears to be suffering from some kind of degenerative disease. He makes much of the fact that the Ajan Queen is daughter to Mother, and attempts to use this to get the characters to deal with him using it. They don't bite, so he demands to be allowed onto the characters' boat. They refuse. The situation escalates, up to the point where Laerynthe shoots the drone in the foot with a crossbow.
The session ends with the characters on the verge of arriving at Mother's Hill. Each character gains four experience points.
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