S11E05 - The Villa Job

The episode starts with Lyra, who has just been tied up to a horse’s back by an unknown man covered in scars and wearing a fur coat, after his mastiff dragged her out of the smoke cloud that the party had been engulfed by. As soon as Lyra was tied up, which took mere seconds, man, horse, and mastiff ran in different directions.

Soto, whose turn is next, runs after the horse and, luckily, reaches it but is unable to shove it to the ground. Gray throws a spear imbued with a Slow spell, hurting the animal and giving the party an advantage. However, that’s not needed because on Lyra’s turn, she wild shapes into a rat and jumps off the horse. Slightly hurt but free from the ropes, she runs away from the horse, which continues galloping without concern for its cargo.

The heroes have no idea what the hell just happened, and go instead to help put off the massive fire that is now destroying the outskirts of the city, where many of the town miners live.

After they are done helping, they are thanked profusely by the tired villagers. However, a guard recognizes Gray, who, when asked about his identity, replies, “Oh yes, I’m the one from the Wanted poster.” Combat ensues, and two other guards soon join the fray. Gray decapitates the first guard, and Nemo, who is the party rogue, tries to reduce the number of major crimes the group is committing by casting minor illusion to mimic a kid asking for help from a nearby street. The guards, distracted by the cries and eager to find an excuse to not face the psychopath paladin without reinforcements, give our heroes a clear opportunity to get away, which they take, sprinting out of town and back to Jinu’s farm.

As they walk through the forest, they start connecting the dots and realize that, most likely, the dragonborns are behind the fire that is destroying most of the miners’ houses, given their clear goal of poaching miners away from the town’s mining guild.

At the farm, the heroes find Ike, who had been practicing two more poison recipes from Jinu after coming back from meeting the warforged. One of the potions is, again, quickly taken out of the farm building and thrown out later, but Jinu gives the wooden doll encouraging words.

Gray brings back his and Ike’s quests to capture the magistrate and recover Ike’s missing wood piece at the magistrate’s house, and the rest of the party agrees to help them.

Once near the magistrate’s villa, Lyra wild shapes into a spider, jumps on Nemo’s shoulder and, together, climbs over the perimeter fence and dashes to the house while Ike, Soto, and Gray climb over the fence on a different part of the villa, and face the giant goats acting as guard dogs that defeated them the last time they were in the villa.

On the mansion walls, spider Lyra starts climbing the outer wall towards the second floor while, first Nemo, then Soto, enter the mansion through one of the bottom-floor windows.

Meanwhile, Gray and Ike fight and kill the first giant goat, attracting the attention of a kitchen servant and villa guards stationed throughout the house, who quickly overwhelm the two heroes, forcing them to climb over the fence and make a tactical retreat into the forest, Gray running with Ike tumbling behind him as if he were tied to a galloping horse.

Inside the villa, Nemo and Soto explore nearly all the rooms in the house, steal a few art pieces, rummage through the magistrate’s desk, grabbing incriminating documents in the process, and peek into what looks like a woman’s belongings. If trespassing on private property and stealing whatever they want wasn’t enough, Soto also knocks two maids into unconsciousness, in self-defense, after they threw a scary pot and a kitchen knife at him.

Trying to give Nemo, Soto, and Lyra a window of opportunity to escape, Gray and Ike return to the villa and distract the guards by clattering Gray’s sword against the fence. Unluckily, they grab the guards’ attention, who knock Ike unconscious. The paladin does one more tactical move, away from the villa, while carrying the unconscious doll.

The distraction, though, was enough to help Lyra, Soto, and Nemo escape the building through the opposite side of the villa undetected and return to Jinu’s farm.

Back at the farm, the party strongly considers dropping their mansion quest while Jinu comments on the worsening conditions for the townsfolk, especially those at the overcrowded “hospital for the poor” building that Azaernara set up soon after she first came into town.