Having overcome the frogfolk ambush, the party turned toward the swamp's most fearsome resident. As they left the mud flats, Earnest repeated that it was "only a crocodile", causing the group to become wary. The approach to Thousand Teeth's Lair proved them right; whole stretches of swamp lay broken and flattened by something enormous. Kig took to the air with spectral dragon's wings and spotted a Giant Constrictor Snake hidden in low trees along the pond's northern edge. Mulokha, hoping to win the creature over before the real fight began, went ahead with Earnest while the others held back. Earnest turned invisible, though his idea of stealth still involved wading loudly through the swamp, and his attempt to hide ended with his scale mail scraping audibly against a large boulder.
The fight that followed was chaos from the first move. Ellenor put an arrow into the Snake, then narrowly dodged a badly aimed dagger from Kig, who had been throwing for the same target. Mulokha's attempt at peaceful communication ended with a bitten tongue and the snake wrapping itself around her instead; she muscled free only for the creature to turn on Earnest, crushing him hard enough to break his invisibility mid-stab. Left behind while the others crept ahead, Elkie charged in to help, only to be ambushed by a second constrictor snake lying above along Thousand Teeth's usual path. Kig and Ellenor abandoned their fight to reach Elkie, taking up position atop a massive, rotting fallen tree trunk to fire down at the approaching second snake. Mulokha eventually intimidated the first snake into releasing Earnest and fleeing, but by then the noise of the melee had done its damage: the Devourer had been alerted.
Emerging from the pond, Thousand Teeth lunged first for Mulokha, who fled, so she turned her attention to Earnest instead. He teleported clear, which sent the crocodile speeding across her lair toward Kig atop the fallen trunk. Ellenor struck it with her Dagger of Venom while Earnest hexed the beast and battered it with everything he had. The Devourer lived up to her legend, however, tearing past Kig and very nearly killing Ellenor with its jaws and tail, and the two fled along the fallen tree in retreat. Mulokha enlarged Elkie to a size which even a giant snake feared, and it fled its fight, instead pursuing Ellenor and Kig. It constricted the rogue at the tip of the fallen trunk and broke her with its crushing jaws, but Kig managed to cut through the creature and pull Elle back from the brink with his healing hands.
Thousand Teeth, meanwhile, lunged the other way after Earnest, weathering a string of hexes and knocking down the "paladin." Mulokha healed Earnest using a Spell Scroll, and from the floor, he used his new breath weapon to send the legendary crocodile crashing bodily into a nearby tree. As the two tried to fall back, the enlarged Elkie charged to trample Thousand Teeth but instead crashed straight through the rotten trunk, tumbling to the ground. The Devourer seized the opening and tore through Elkie, scattering the celestial spirit into mist, before turning her fury on Mulokha, who survived an attack only by the toughness of her Bronze Dragon scales. From the ground some sixty feet away, a wounded Ellenor put an arrow straight through Thousand Teeth's eye. Mulokha wildshaped into a crocodile herself and slammed into her flank, while Kig again sprouted wings and flew in an instant to rake the creature's other side. Ultimately, Earnest Lyschtager finished the fight, driving his sword through the her open mouth and ending her legend for good.
A following short rest passed undisturbed; every predator for miles had apparently learned to give Thousand Teeth's territory a wide berth. Dee taught Ellenor the basics of skinning, which she used to help Mulokha claim the pelt of the Devourer, a hide rare enough to be worth the effort. Kig, never one to leave a good trick unused, reached into his bag again and pulled Elkie back out, this time in the form of a Giant Badger. Trekking back through the mud flats, the party spotted a pair of frogfolk quietly gathering their dead from that morning's ambush, too busy croaking in Bullywug at the other to notice the party.
Staying low enough to avoid notice, Ellenor put the Helm of Comprehending Language to use and found she could understand the two frogfolk. The croaker mage Eurp and the warrior Gulpa-Goor were concerned with what their "Mud Queen" would do once she learned of the massacre. The rogue slipped back out of sight, but her companions found themselves divided on how to proceed: Ellenor wanted to pitch the frogfolk on a shared uprising against outsiders, Mulokha distrusted them but wanted the conflict over, Kig believed himself neutral, and Earnest saw little point in the conversation at all, noting flatly that they had just "killed eight of these fuckers." Eventually, Elle intuited that Eurp's natural magic would allow her to understand beast-speech, so the party decided to strike up a halting conversation.
With Mulokha relaying information through Elkie and Eurp through a summoned Squirrel, the groups found common ground. Gulpa-Goor had lost family to Thousand Teeth, whose severed head Earnest had intimidatingly approached with, and decided to trust the party. By passing the Helm to Gulpa-Goor temporarily, the party again laid the blame for the frogfolk's losses squarely on the Fold and convinced the two that they meant no further harm. Eurp mentioned her Mud Queen Rublups would likely be vengeful, but the party talked the pair into proposing a formal meeting between her and the Lizard King. In the course of it all, Kig learned that his master Edrin had recently sought out Rublups' aid, meaning his own search would now run through the frogfolk as well. After a long exchange where Gulpa-Goor kept bringing up different familial relations of his, the two sides worked out a way to send proper messengers, laying the groundwork for a meeting between the two powers.
Returning to the Caves of Jhirkorro, the party found the commoners easy to sway once Thousand Teeth's severed head was on display. Ihrtos hung it in his hall as a trophy and declared, without reservation, an end to the tribe's alliance with the Fold. The mission was a success, but it came with a cost none of them particularly wanted to pay: the group was set to split up. Mulokha needed to remain to integrate her kin into the tribe and take up her new role as Reverend Mother of the shamans. Kig remained as well, tasked with speaking to Rublups and finding his way to the Undermire in search of Edrin. The goodbyes were heartfelt, and every one of them hoped it would not be the last time they saw each other.
"Earnest's Others", meanwhile, took a Fold dinghy back out onto the open water, this time bound for Cliffsunder and a planned theft of Everard Lyschtager. Earnest insisted, as he always did, that he was a master sailor. Ellenor, predictably, did not believe him for a second, but sat back with a bottle of the Fold's wine as Earnest rowed them toward a gathering storm.