The Weeds of Wisp
Wisp
...and on to the Outer Island of Wisp. Wisp is one of the smallest of the Islands, measuring perhaps 2 miles across at its widest. The Gate arch sits on a small flat plaza near one edge, with only a tiny Arcanist’s cottage and a little collection of local dwellings to keep it company. In the distance, near the center of the Island, are a set of low hills. In the dawn light, the party can see that they are all a bright yellow color, and they have winged creatures whirling about in the skies above. The gathered locals accost the party immediately, and in their garbled stories they tell of an invasion of both yellow weeds and flying demons. The farms near the hills have been attacked, and people have gone missing. All the people of the Island (some 150 or so) are gathered here at the Gate, hoping for help from the other side.
In an effort to get some distance from the Gate, from which inconvenient authorities may spill at any moment, the party agrees to the local’s request to confront this menace (and also to go look for the stash of Ancient Race bones supposedly in a small cave in the hills). They quickly march the short distance to the nearest hill, and find a sharp line where knee-high yellow flowers begin to carpet the landscape. Walking into them causes puffs of pollen to explode into the air, and the party proceeds in a cloud of fine yellow musty mist.
Climbing the hills, the party sees that the flying creatures are primarily circling in three areas. They pick one, and approach. Close up, the flying creatures are small, humanoid, muscular, with one eye and large tusks. They attack as the party approaches, spitting a green noxious poison and swooping by with claw and tooth. The party fights their way over a small ridge, with Mote contributing by bringing down some creatures with a sleep spell. There they find a single overgrown, fat, wingless creature attended to by humans - presumably the missing farmers - who have grown small yellow spouts from most of their visible skin. The humans stand and point at the party, making barely audible and unintelligible noises. The large creature also spits poison, and emits a shrieking cry that sometimes stuns those in range to hear it. The fight winds down with most of the creatures dead, and the few remaining flyers circling and darting off towards another grouping. The party, beaten up and exhausted, takes the sprouted farmers and leads them back to the Gate.
At the Gate the locals take charge of their missing people, and greet the party as heroes. The party is offered anything the poor people of Wisp can offer. The party sends Wispans with some coin to procure a cart and several half-barrels of water, preparing for their next foray into the hills. The Wispans return and also report that Vaaris will allow refugees, and that the Arcanists will be sending a team to help clear the Island of this invasion. No one else seems brave enough to come through, and indeed that evening when word of the infected locals gets to Vaaris, the authorities place a quarantine on anyone coming through from the Vaaris side. All refugees will be carefully checked, and only the Arcanist team will be allowed through.
Later that night, the locals try to remove some sprouts from one of their infected brethren, and the wound bleeds and the person cries in agony. Akissi feels that these people are corrupted, and tries to heal them. Her cleansing powers knock back the disease, withering sprouts and decreasing corruption, but are not able to remove it entirely.
In the middle of the night the party - and indeed the whole town - wake up with an uneasy feeling of being suddenly sick, or as if a massive headache they didn't know they had suddenly lifted. Following cries and whimpers near the gate, they find that a family member tired to take one of the "sprouted" humans through the Gate, and the Gate Guardian must have acted. There are only small pieces left of the poor corrupted Wispan.
Early the next morning, the party sets off with their cart towards the presumed location of the cave, over which more of the spitting creatures are circling. The composition of this group is similar to the last, with flying creatures around a single bloated flightless one and several infected farmers lingering about. The fat one sits near the entrance to a cave. The party engages, knowing more of what they can do, and attempts to outsmart them. Koros is made invisible and rushes towards the large creature in the center, only to suddenly have this magic revoked at the last second. He darts into the cave to avoid danger, and discovers that the interior is thick with the yellow weeds. The pollen cloud is palpable, and limits visibility even in the half-light near the cave entrance. Koros explores the cave while the rest of the party finish off the creatures. Everyone is injured and tired, and enters the thick air of the cave to collect the bones.
The bones are scattered in a central chamber, and the more fragmentary ones are positioned in a crude facsimile of a humanoid, all out of place and wrong. A few larger whole bones rest among the weeds - indeed they are the only thing in the cave the weeds do not appear to grow on. In the center is a hole seemingly dug straight down, from which a faint light pours up. The gouged entrance apparently runs straight to the bottom of the island, as if something had clawed its way into the cave.
The party collects the bones they can, loads them in the cart, and begins heading back to the Gate. In the distance, they can see the third group of flying creatures being burned out of the sky by jets of fire and other arcane energies - the newly arrived Arcanist team doing its work. They bring the infected farmers with them, and when they exit the carpet of weeds they use the water to wash themselves and their belongings as best they can. Nonetheless as they approach the Gate everyone’s lungs begin to itch, as if just on the cusp of a dry cough. Akissi is able to heal some of the party that evening, and the rest in the morning, and the itching recedes. But she also lets the party know that she can still sense a vague corruption on them, and that she may need to continue to heal them if the disease keeps coming back.
The party finds an abandoned hovel and holes up to rest, and the Arcanists come knocking that evening. The party delays greeting them until the morning, claiming the need to rest and recover from their wounds. In the morning, they talk to them in the street, leaving the bones inside. Introductions are made. The Arcanists introduce themselves as Talmad and Yesu, and the party represents itself as an adventuring group passing through. The Arcanists thank them for their help, and ask if they want to help further. The party declines, saying that none of them can cast the right magics. Yesu makes a laughing insinuation about how the party left Vaaris. Talmad takes a hard look at Mote. They invite the party to an evening meal for that night.
That day Ramach uses his dropper background to take the bones and hide them on the underside of the Island, securely tied to some under-hanging roots.
That evening, Mote stays back from the meal. The rest of the party passes a pleasant few hours with Talmad and Yesu, who claim to be from a more “troubleshooting” branch of the Arcanists. They say they were the only two of their branch available on Vaaris. They ask after the party - how long they've been together, where they are going, etc. Afterwards, Talmad takes Paetro aside to let him know as a courtesy - they appreciated the help with the beasties - that a contingent of Orn riders and soldiers are on the other side of the Gate, waiting for word that the infection has been cleared to come through and apprehend Paetro. He does not know why. He also asks a little about Mote, probing into his background and how long he has been with the party.
The party discusses this new development, and decides to ask (or bribe) the Arcanists for a favor. They’d like them to delay clearing the infection, or at least report a delay, until after the Gate closes. The next day when the Arcanists return from their work Paetro and Koros make the ask, and after some lively back and forth, the Arcanists agree for a single price: they would like the party to bring them Mote for questioning.
The party again regroups to discuss, both with and without Mote. They decide, with Mote’s reluctant agreement, to bring Mote to the Arcanists but not let them detain or harm him. First thing in the morning, Paetro and Koros bring him over. Talmad and Yesu are preparing for their day of clearing weeds, and approach for a closer look. Yesu tells Talmad that Mote “couldn’t be him, he’s too young.” Talamd says, “Maybe…” and then speaks a sentence to Mote in a strange language. Paetro and Koros hear Mote heave a big sigh, and then a short bright column of intense fire incinerates Talmad while Yesu is yanked as if on invisible ropes into the darkness towards the edge of the Island. Mote falls unconscious.
The surprised party brings Mote back to their borrowed hovel, and searches for Yesu. They find him, also unconscious, about 20 feet near the edge of the Island. They remove his dagger, which looks to Ramach’s arcane eye as having to do with abjuration, and hide it nearby. They leave him there and return to Mote. Before Akissi awakes him with a healing spell, Ramach’s arcane eye picks out an aura of necromancy and conjuration around Mote’s head. Upon waking, Mote is as surprised as everyone else, and seemingly just as confused and alarmed. The party decides that he truly doesn’t know what happened, that he is somehow controlled or booby trapped. They begin to treat him carefully and give him lots of space. When they return to Yesu, he is gone, although his dagger is still there. They launch a search, but he is not to be found.
The party finds itself stuck on Wisp with a missing and pissed off Arcanist, a hanging bag of Ancient Race bones, a mysterious Mote, patches of noxious yellow weeds still in the hillsides,a slight lingering dry cough, and a posse of Uldans raring to come through the Vaaris-Wisp Gate.