I'm at some sort of gathering on the bank of a middle-sized river. I seem to be camping nearby. There is a dock, and a dozen or so of my friends, including my brother Steve and Jayant from work, are just embarking on a many-pedal-powered boat. As they pull out from the dock, they suddenly start pelting us with eggs, as some sort of joke. They aren't too difficult to dodge, and many of them fall harmlessly into the water.

Then I think that we should get revenge, and I start to gather up the remaining eggs to throw at them when they return. It'll be a lot easier to hit them contained on the boat, than it was for them to hit us.

Then I see something gliding across the surface of the river, which I think at first is an alligator, but as I watch it, I see that it isn't. It's a hippopotamus-sized creature I call a 'balrog', which looks like a super-pig from the environmental horror move Okja, but lurks in the water. I see a number of them swimming together over toward an island. I'm pretty excited about seeing this rare creature.

But I have to hurry, because the boat will return any minute and I want to be ready to pelt them with eggs. For some reason I need something to contain them, so I go up the bank of the river to a flat area, where I seem to have a camping trailer, and dig through it for a white plastic garbage bag.

I go back to the dock, but it's too late, the boat has arrived, and everybody is disembarking. I try to take note of who all was on the boat, so I can plot some sort of trick on them later.

I ask them what they saw on their journey, and tell them about the balrogs we saw. Then while walking on the bank of the river under a bridge, typical of a road passing over, we see one small one. I tell my friends they aren't aggressive, but this one seems very antagonistic to us, and it looks dangerous, growling fiercely and looking like it will attack us. I say "yeah they do that, but they won't really attack you, they are shy, they will back off."

We try to get past it, along the riverbank, but it throws out some sort of appendage that sticks to you, like an eyeball on a long gooey tendril, and tries to pull me back. I manage to break free of it, remarking "and they're sticky!", but I retreat to the same side, so I still have to get past it. It throws it at me again, and this time it sticks even worse, and I'm not sure I can escape.