Session 3, 2007-07-28: Tracing Yuan-ti Spies

Session 3: wherein Flynn wears a manly pink badge, a fork attacks, and spies get jacked

Players (Characters)
Jeremy (Flynn Flamm)
Tony (Brother Jakob; Filthy Ike)
Rachel (Lotus)
Tom (Nathaniel Graythorne)
DM: Catherine

Mary gave the party a new mission: track some yuan-ti spies to their outpost. It was known that yuan-ti were intercepting tactical messages and copying them, so the party would give a yuan-ti spy access to a fake message and then track the spy using a custom Ranger's Compass. The drop would be made at a gate to the inner city, where only people with special access could approach. Mary also warned the party of the extremely strict laws inside Waecleft, and the danger of breaking them.

Nathaniel and Flynn went into town, but because Flynn was carrying a weapon, he was given a manly pink badge to signify he was allowed to be armed. Flynn pretended to be a poor minstrel while Nathaniel disguised himself as the very stuck-up "Nathaniel Garbanzo". The guards denied Mr. Garbanzo entry into the inner part of town, despite his insistence that he was important and his cries of "don't you know who I am?" Soon, the suspected spy Sirenza approached and said she'd be able to deliver a message to anyone inside. Nathaniel insisted "this message is very important" and said it needed to go to Aaron inside. While this was going on, Flynn tugged on Sirenza's cloak and activated the Ranger's Compass, while saying "pardon me, can you spare a few coppers for a poor musician?" Sirenza looked at him in disgust and then headed straight across the inner city to the opposite gate. Nate changed his disguise and he and Flynn circled around, following at a distance.

Sirenza went inside a nearby house. Nate knocked on the door, and when someone answered, he asked "is this where the card game is?" He glanced back to see Sirenza messing with the magically-encoded message as the doorman yelled "no, go away!" and slammed the door in his face. About an hour later, Sirenza left that house and delivered the original message to Aaron. Flynn followed her to her own house and then informed Mary and Aaron of the two locations the spies used. Mary gave the party a set of sending stones keyed to send to her, and said to follow Sirenza when she set out. Ike walked in to the outpost with several rats skewered on an arrow, asking where he could roast them. Luckily, Sirenza started moving a few minutes later. The party followed and discovered she'd turned around about a half-hour outside of town, so set up an ambush to take her out.

Nathaniel tried to charm Sirenza, and when that failed, also tried to make her laugh hideously. Ike jumped out from behind a tree and fired a pair of arrows. One hit the tree and the other hit Sirenza. Flynn started singing and Tara charged, but couldn't drag Sirenza down. She cast Darkness and hid. Jakob again ran through the darkness, which Lotus dispelled. Ike fired a pair of shots to drop her, and then Jakob stabilized her and picked her up. The party moved on to where she'd turned around and discovered a recently snuffed campfire. Careful placement of her body and modification of her wounds made it look like she'd been killed in a fight at this campsite. Ike began following a set of tracks and Lotus went into eagle form to try to find the next messenger. She discovered the cobra-headed man about an hour to the east, and the party pursued until he stopped near midnight. Ike snuck in to his camp to check on him a couple hours later, and the party easily handled a group of wolves that attacked while Jakob and Nate were on watch.

The next morning, Ike returned and led the party in tracking about a tenth of a mile behind the enemy, with Lotus tracking from the air. As they were walking, a troll came running at the party and poisoned Nathaniel. Nate put grease under the troll's feet to no effect. Jakob threw the troll in the air, and Lotus flew back to the party. Tara and Ike both failed to hit the troll. Flynn started singing. The troll stood up and got smacked by Jakob, missing him with its claw as he turned to hit it again. Tara finally dragged it to the ground and killed it, and Ike shot it an extra time just to make sure. Nathaniel barely resisted the secondary effects of the poison, mostly due to his rat Beauregard.

A short distance later, some wolves approached. Nate's hypnotic pattern froze two in place, Flynn sang, and Ike fired off two shots. Jakob threw one aside and hit another with a stone-bones strike. The two stepped forward to attack him and he whacked them again. Tara clawed one, and Nate's grease sent one to the ground. Ike shot one while Flynn cast Rage on Jakob. The fallen wolf stood and got clawed by Tara, while the others attacked and tripped Jakob. He rolled to his feet and smacked one, and Nate's grease brought two more to the ground. Ike's arrows killed one and Tara's bite wounded another. Flynn's glitterdust was ineffective, but the wolves panicked and fled. Tara and Jakob killed one as it stood, and Jakob chased down the one that had fled the farthest while Lotus killed the nearest one. Ike attacked the one Nate had hypnotized, and Jakob threw it to the ground to kill it.

As the party kept moving, Flynn realized we'd be passing by Nestull's Lair, a former hideout of a mage who built a lot of constructs. Soon, an animated chair came running past. At nightfall, Ike came across a recently vacated camp. Nate took hobgoblin form, Lotus spotted the snake-headed man hiding, and the party stepped away pretending not to have seen him. After the yuan-ti was sleeping, Flynn turned Ike invisible, and Ike snuck into the camp and activated the Ranger's Compass. The party rested, and those on watch noticed the occasional group of Wyverns in the night sky. Lotus noticed an animated fork approaching. Nate tried to distract it with some rations, but it ran right past and stabbed Lotus. She missed it with her scimitar and Nate's feeble kick completely missed. Flynn woke up, grabbed the fork, and handed it to Jakob, who snapped it in half.

The next morning, Nate disguised himself as a yuan-ti warrior. The tracking compass soon indicated that the messenger had turned around. Flynn turned Ike invisible and the party backed away. Ike saw the yuan-ti being chased by a clay golem, which eventually lost track of him and started pounding on a random tree. Once the golem wandered off, the party began tracking the yuan-ti again, not stopping to bother with the animated hat rack that ran past.

That afternoon, Lotus spotted a troll off in the distance, and heard its roar. Flynn started singing and Ike started shooting. Lotus entangled the troll, and Nathaniel tried to start a betting pool on how many arrows Ike would need for the kill. As the troll struggled through the entangling plants, Ike hit it with nine of his ten shots to finally kill it. It had been walking around with two scrolls of "scan golem". The night was mostly uneventful, though Nate finally recovered from his last bout with poison, and Ike reset the compass.

On the fourth day of travel, the party finally left the area where the constructs were roaming. A giant dire bear passed by in the distance, and Nate kept Ike distracted so he wouldn't provoke it. As the forest thinned out and the land became more hilly, Nate spotted a wyvern inbound. It swooped in and swung at Ike. Nate created a herd of illusory horses and Ike withdrew. Lotus cast Creeping Cold and Jakob unsuccessfully tried to throw the wyvern on the ground. Flynn's glitterdust didn't affect it, but it tried to attack one of the horses. Ike shot an arrow at it and Lotus added lightning to the cold. Flynn's glitterdust blinded the wyvern the second time, and Jakob jumped up and stunned it. The dead wyvern tumbled across the ground.

The party approached the rocky maze of Roakshi Kama. The yuan-ti messenger entered a cave that had a stone golem guarding its entrance and several tracks leading in and out. The party found a smaller cave nearby where they could set up camp and watch the yuan-ti outpost.