2-7: Cannibals!

The gang travels deeper into the Cannibal Plains, looking for a small band of cannibals they could fight for some combat experience. They don't have to travel far. The sounds of battle alert them to a few cannibals scrapping with another faction that's new to the gang: Shrieking Bandits.

The shrieking bandits are a bunch of people who run around in their underwear, wielding cleavers and, well... shrieking. Usually, anyway. They seem to get focused when they're fighting for their lives. They don't seem hostile at first blush so the gang figures this'll be a perfect opportunity: Team up with the bandits and beat up some cannibals.

Unfortunately, the shrieking bandits decide not to cooperate. The battle quickly devolves into a three-way mêlée. The gang does prevail, but not without most of them getting knocked out. This is a problem—being unconscious in cannibal territory is a recipe for trouble. Sure enough, as Jam and Burn start patching up their friends, the cannibals who are still alive start waking up and kidnapping their unconscious foes. They start with the shrieking bandits.

The cannibals are nothing if not industrious. In short order, they capture Horse, Outlaw Farmer, and then Jam when the latter tries to defend their friends. Ells wakes up in short order, but wounded as he is, all he and Burn can really do is try to carry Knife and Riddly to safety.

While Ells and Burn are sweating trying to avoid cannibals and beak things on the way back to the Flotsam outpost, Jam and Horse wake up in cages in the cannibal village. They waste no time in picking their respective locks. Soon, Jam is ready to leave, but Horse's leg is too busted to outrun anyone and Outlaw Farmer is still sleeping off a horrible chest wound in her own cage.

The cannibals seem to eat pretty well out here—a disturbing statement in general but a lifeline for the gang, as it means the cannibals aren't particularly hungry right now. There might be some time before they start cooking people. Jam weighs their options and decides they'll just have to rely on having that time. They slip out of their cage and start running for help.

The Flotsam Ninjas at the outpost where Knife and Riddly are recuperating don't seem interested in running to the gang's rescue, so Jam's best bet is going to be a Cannibal Hunter camp they passed on the way up here.

Watching Jam disappear over the hill, hoping they're faster than the cannibals' hunger, Horse sits in his cage and does his best not to freak out.

His composure lasts until the second a cannibal looks at him hungrily. He hops out of his cage, screaming, even though with a broken leg and a broken arm he's in neither a state to flee nor fight. He gets beaten up and thrown back in the cage, but for weird videogame reasons, this seemingly poorly thought out action may actually have bought him more time.

I believe that if the cannibals select him to eat next, and he escapes and is thrown back in the cage, they don't technically remember that he's the one they were going to eat next. I am pretty sure the moment he escapes, they choose someone else, and when he gets recaptured they treat him like a new prisoner.

While I'm pulling back the curtain a bit, I'm not actually totally sure that they were about to eat him. I just saw him shouting and thought he might have been responding to them choosing him, so I had him pull that little stunt just in case.

Anyway, while Horse's physical and mental state are both taking some heavy blows, Jam reaches the Cannibal Hunters.

The cannibal hunters are following Jam now. I don't get to control them directly, but they'll go where Jam goes and fight anything hostile along the way. This does unfortunately mean they're liable to get into trouble if they should run into, say, a nest of beak things on the way to the cannibal village, so Jam will have to do their best to avoid getting bogged down in unnecessary fights.

Speaking of the beak things, they're starting to make a nuisance of themselves. Burn had tried to run back out to the cannibal village to pick up Horse and Outlaw Farmer, but ran into a group of cannibals on the way and had to retreat back to the Flotsam outpost. Burn, Ells and the Flotsam Ninjas killed the cannibals no problem, but now the beak things have caught wind of the scent of blood and have come to feed. Ells carries Riddly and Knife inside to safety, but the Flotsam Ninjas are struggling against three beak things at once. A lot of them are getting knocked out, a couple flat out killed.

The gang feels bad about it but their priority is still saving Horse and Outlaw Farmer. Jam is well on their way to the village with the Cannibal Hunters by now, so Burn takes another crack at helping. They can't sneak for shit so they decide the best thing to do is purposely piss off a bunch of the cannibals, then draw them away from the village to where the Cannibal Hunters can pick them off.

Burn gets a few more cannibals than they bargained for. While running away, they take off the armoured skirt they'd been wearing. It does make them look a bit like a robot Winnie the Pooh but low-grade armoured skirts nerf the Athletics skill slightly, which is enough to make the difference in whether or not Burn can outrun the cannibals.

Jam doesn't question it when a bottomless Burn comes sprinting over the hill with fifteen or so cannibals chasing them. Not out loud, anyway.

True to their purpose, the cannibal hunters take the cannibals apart efficiently using a combination of crossbows and martial arts. Burn and Jam stick around to help out at first, but when Jam finds little success attempting to take on a couple cannibals themself, they decide they'd be more help keeping themself intact and running into the village to free Horse. Horse does still have that busted leg after all—he'll need someone in good enough shape to carry him out.

This turns out to be a mistake. Jam is mostly in good condition except for their chest, which is still in bad shape from the wound that took them out the first time. As they run into the village, a cannibal gets in a lucky swing right in that exact same spot, crumpling Jam to the ground once again. The cannibals huck them back in a cage with quickness.

Then all hell breaks loose.