We start the session as the heroes are about to go to sleep in the forest.
Once Lyra is meditating, Ike uses mage hand to rummage through Lyra’s belongings, searching for the vial of the drug that Azaernara had given her, but he doesn’t find it because Nemo has it now.
Beyond Ike’s addiction-driven search, the heroes hear a deep booming sound coming from Ironwound {TODO: edit previous synopsis to move that event here}.
During the night, Jinu wakes Nemo and asks him to help find Uncle Bob, one of the farmer zombies who escaped the farm when Sister Gloria and her guards razed it. Nemo agrees and they go together while Ike keeps watch. On the way there, Jinu apologizes on behalf of the group for causing him to lose his farm and his zombies, and the two stay keenly alert to the guard search parties scouring the forest.
Jinu and Nemo arrive at the top of the ravine where Uncle Bob tends to hide when he wants time alone. On the ravine’s ledge, several meters below, they spot three guards who are investigating the source of the moans. Nemo casts a spell to trigger an illusory voice on the west side of the ravine simulating one of the guards they have met, and killed before. The guards recognize the voice as one of their friends, Jared, and go track it. Meanwhile Jinu clambers down the steep slope, injuring himself on the way. When the guards are about to return, Nemo deceives them again with more voices and the guards leave the ravine allowing Jinu and Nemo to safely rescue the troubled zombie.
On their way back to the camp, the heroes find a stray pony belonging to a halfling, tied to a nearby tree and half-eaten by wolves. Nemo names it Little Sebastian and brings it to the camp.
During her night meditation, Lyra has a vision of a barren land progressively falling into decay and destruction. And after Ike stops his watch and goes to rest, he hears again the demonic voice in his head inviting him to free himself from all restraints.
The next morning, the heroes discover that Gray has left the camp {TODO: move description from the previous session}.
After packing, the heroes, including Jinu, Uncle Bob, and Little Sebastian, head north towards the Wicked Whiskey Wharf in search of information about the draconic activities the party has learned about in previous sessions, and also in search of XV-7, the leader of the local Severance Protocol, whom Soto is searching for and who likely has a permanent base around there. Ike shares with the party more details about XV-7 and Lyra also shares details about her wealthy family’s past.
During the first day of travel, the heroes find Brand, a human male with an enormous warhammer who recently became a paladin and is still learning the ropes. They find him casually cleaning his weapon while he stands over the corpses of three goblins, and invite him to join the group since he’s heading in the same direction, towards the Wicked Whiskey Wharf, because he has something to do further north.
A few days of travel later, the heroes sleep at the farm of Thormund, a male human who explains the lands in this kingdom have been progressively dying over the last two or three years. Uncle Bob starts farming, Brand helps the farmer with the chores that need doing, Jinu shows Ike some field observations about poisonous substances that are growing naturally in the area while the rest of the party rests.
Before sunset of the next day, a cultist arrives at the farm and politely invites Nemo, through Lyra, to talk outside. The cultist informs Nemo that the soul now inhabiting him belongs, by contract, to Asmodeus, lord of the Nine Hells, and that he must either come now voluntarily and be killed through a very painful ritual to extract the guest soul, or come by force, causing his friends to die needlessly and then suffer the same painful ritual that will lead him to his death. Nemo decides to send a message back to Asmodeus by killing the cultist and looting his body with a psychic spell.
A couple of days later, the heroes meet a married goblin couple with eleven kids. The wife, who’s enraged with the husband for sleeping with another goblin, is verbally abusing him and, as soon as she sees the party, comes and throws two of the youngest goblin kids at Lyra’s feet. She returns them to the father twice, but after the party leaves the area, they realize the goblin kids have followed them hidden behind Uncle Bob who’s riding Little Sebastian.
Soto agrees to take care of the two, calls them Klik and Klak, and starts training them in his monk ways, starting with teaching them the common language.
Two days of travel later, the heroes meet a traveling merchant also heading to the Wicked Whiskey Wharf, whom they allow to join the party. He swindles Ike, then Brand, with a dice game, but proves somewhat helpful by giving the heroes information about the pirate town they’re heading into. Ike also gets the merchant to promise him that he will help him buy a wife at the town’s market. Other than a worsening landscape, a razed hamlet, and a group they see in the distance but don’t approach, the heroes arrive at the pirate town a day later. It is as lawless and eccentric as they expected. Neither the zombie riding a pony, the goblin kids, nor Ike appear to attract much attention, but Brand, who looks like a knight, does attract undesired attention, so he hurries to muddy his already tattered cape and clothes.
The party first visits the Laughing Keel, the town’s main tavern and inn where they order a mix of very interesting drinks while they decide what to do. The episode ends as an orc raises an axe because Klik and Klak have angered him. At that moment, the tavern’s door opens, revealing XV-7 and his party.