S11E03 - Mail Interceptors

The woman that Lyra is talking to reveals her name, Azaernara. She’s the woman that Ike saw making love to the Magistrate when the party tried to infiltrate the house hours earlier.

In response to Lyra’s requests to learn how to communicate with animals, Azaernara hands her a small crystal container with a deep blue liquid. Lyra notices a force compelling her to drink it right there, but she resists it and saves it for later.

Azaernara then offers Lyra that she and the rest of the party inspect all main coming into Ironwound from the kingdom’s capital, Kingspire and intercept any mail address to the leader of the town’s guard, Sister Gloria. Azaernara shares that she’s working undercover for a secret organization that believes the killer nun is involved with dangerous draconic forces. Lyra is non-committal about the mission and, after the raven leaves Azaernara’s arm, apparently on her command, the two women part ways.

Back at the farm, Lyra asks Jinu, who’s still reading a necromancy book to Ike, if she knows anything about Azaernara, but the name doesn’t ring a bell.

The next morning the party wakes up as Jinu is back at the farm from buying food. He asks them about their activities because there are now “Wanted” posters about most of the party throughout town. The heroes are evasive and ambiguous but Jinu doesn’t press the issue.

Jinu also shares news about another sabotage attack that happened over night. Someone has thrown dead animals into several water wells rendering them unusable for days. There are rumors that the massive warforged that recently arrived to town is behind them.

After eating breakfast, the heroes discuss their options and end up accepting Azaernara’s mission because Gray and Ike still really need to get into Kragthar’s house.

Once on the eastern road, they find a ambush good spot and hide waiting for incoming carriages.

The first one is led by a man accompanied by two mastiffs. The heroes simulate being attacked by Lyra, a monstruous humanoid. Ike and Gray jump on the road running towards the cart for help with Lyra running behind them. While the distraction is running, Nemo enters the cart from behind, finds and grabs the bag of letters, and then leaves unseen.

On the front, the merchant, instead of panicking or running away, he grabs a quarterstaff, jumps out of the cart and, along with his dogs, attacks Lyra, knocking her unconscious and throwing her off the cliff side. Gray shouts “I will finish her!” and slides down the cliff after her before the unsconscious druid dies from more fall damage. As the paladin secretly stabilizes her instead of finishing her, the merchant happy with the secured area, leaves.

The heroes regroup, give Lyra some energy bars, and get back to their hiding spots. While waiting for the next cart, the heroes read the mail and find a letter addressed to a certain M with incriminating talk of illegally traded metals but no Ironwound names. The heroes suspect it’s addressed to Kragthar.

A few hours later another merchant chart arrives. As the cart approaches, Lyra also spots a group of goblins slowly descending down the mountain near the heroes. The goblins don’t see them and, once the male merchant driving the cart is within reach of their bows, they fire at him nearly killing him on the spot.

The heroes switch to attacking the goblins while the one-hit-away-from-dying merchant switches on his panic mode and kicks his horse’s flanks to speed up and get out of danger. Sadly for the merchant, Ike prioritizes their mission and shoots one of his three magic missiles at the driver killing him. The horse, startled by everything that’s going on, sprints too close to the cliffside, slips on the edge and flies straight down the cliff.

Meanwhile the goblins who’re returning the heroes’s attacks, knock Gray and Lyra unconscious. Nemo and Ike, are luckier and kill most of the goblins saving the day. After estabilizing Gray and Lyra, Nemo and Gray go inspect the cart debris and find some mail but nothing for Sister Gloria.

While Lyra is unconscious, Ike gets bored, braids her, and swaps her dirty, ragged clothes with the merchant’s clothes. Nemo and Gray, on their part, loot the dead goblins, pile their corpses blocking the road, and then loot the destroyed cart but other than one bottle of wine that miraculously survived the fall, they don’t find anything of value, including any letters.

After the sun sets without any other carts, the heroes return to Jinu’s farm tire from a hard day of highway robbery work.

During dinner, Ike drinks a sip from Azaernara’s potion which makes him feel tingling sensations. After dinner, Jinu offers the heroes to receive a massage from Uncle Bob, the farm’s masseur, but they politely refuse. Then Ike and Jinu continue reading the necromancy book about raising strong zombies, and once they’re done, Jinu who had flirted with Nemo since they got back, disappear with the gnome leavig any details obscured by the darkness of night.

Also that night, Ike dreams, not about wood and trees, but about a deep, gutural voice that tells him: “I know your hunger for the world’s secrets. Let me feed it.” Ike thinks an innocent and curious “Ok” response back.

The next day, the heroes the merchant that Ike had finished with a magic missile, working the farmland. The party asks no questions and walks back to the previous day’s ambus spot on the eastern road to intercept more merchant carts.

The first cart to arrive is driven by a happy-looking female halfling and her daughter. Ike jumps on the road and stays still, looking like a puppet. The little girl, whm her mom calls nana, grabs Ike and the cart continues moving. With the unnerving and sudden realization that they didnt have a fully baked plan, Ike improvises. He first successfully charms the mother. Then he asks her to stop to enjoy the scenery for a moment, which she agrees to. Then Ike tries to persuade her to give him the mule’s reigns, but she refuses.

While this is going on in the front, Nemo steathily crawls underneath the cart, then into the cart, and then starts looking for the mail.

Gray casts Sacred Flame on one of the front wheels, heavily damaging it, to give the gnome more time. The mother notices that, grabs some tools from the front of the cart and gets to work on the wheel. Lyra tries to help too and howls like a wolf while Gray mimicks bandits talking. The mother, the daughter, and the mule get scared, with the mule’s nerves starting to fail.

Nemo eventually finds the mail bag, grabs it, notifies the party with a bird song signal they had agreed to, and then abandons the cart.

From their hiding place, Lyra and Gray simulate wolf and bandit voices. Eventually the mule gets so scared he starts off and, because of the limited space, trips and falls over the cliff bringing the cart with it. Ike, who was with Nana on the front of the cart, manages to jump off in time, but the little halfling girl doesn’t and falls off the cliff-side.

Gray, feeling a pang of guilt, jumps off the cliff side at great risk of personal harm and reaches the bottom of the valley dangerously fast and hurting himself almost enough to knock himself unconscious. When he arrives to the crash site, he quickly estabilizes the girl but then they get attacked by a viper they rattled and Gray gets knocked unconscious and starts dying as Lyra arrives to help. They scare the snake away and estabilize Gray.

Up on the road, the mother goes into full panic mode and push Ike off the cliff side but fails. Eventually they calm her enough, help her hide her goods until she can get a new cart and pick them up from that roadless area at the bottom of the valley and, with somewhat mixed feelings, they go back to Jinu’s house, with the letter they were after, and leave the stranded mother and daughter behind.