S11E02 - The Farming Dead

The episode starts at night, with the heroes in the forest near the magistrate’s house discussing where to go next. After breaking into the town’s prison, freeing Nemo and a dozen other prisoners, killing a guard, and failing to capture the magistrate, they’re queasy about returning to their inn.

While the rest are discussing, Lyra notices a rotten smell and tracks it. As she tracks it down, she hears squeaky sounds. A few meters deeper into the forest, she sees a zombie in farming clothes gathering dead branches. She hurries back to the group and, always happy to postpone difficult decisions, they decide to observe the zombie and follow it once it finishes gathering branches.

After a short walk, they reach a terraced farm where three other zombies are plowing a patch of land in the moonlight, surrounded by patches of lettuce and red peppers.

Nemo surveys the area and the house. He peeks through a window and sees a tiefling sleeping on a rocking chair with a book on his lap. He gets back to the group, and after several minutes of increasingly loud whispering, the tiefling quietly joins them and invites them to have a hot tea.

They don’t see reason to refuse and join him. The kind and hot host is a necromancer called Jinu. He shares some of his past while they all drink a purple tea that he made for them out of the rare bluefoot mushroom that grows around the area. He got into necromancy trying to revive his long-dead wife and son, but he hasn’t succeeded yet. He did get enough skills to raise zombies and skeletons, and, after finding out that many elders from Ironwound found their death at the end of unfulfilling lives in the mining town, he realized he could help them find fulfillment after death while he levels up for this final goal.

After the tea, the party goes to sleep except for Ike, who prefers to take a foot bath sitting on a windowsill while Jinu reads the necromancy book “Whispers of the Gravewind” to him.

Later in the night, Lyra, who’s sleeping on a nearby tree, gets awakened by raven caws. She follows the sounds and finds the raven that has been following her for several weeks perched on the arm of a beautiful woman, the two of them looking into each other’s eyes.

When Lyra approaches, the woman tells her that she can help her learn to speak with animals and help the party in the mess they’ve got themselves into in exchange for a little favor.