The people in Trackenborn are suffering from some illness, called Brabak fever and the sick have been quarantined in the Peraine temple.
The goal was to have Mirio get the group in contact with his sister (one of the witches) and ask her about the plague and whether she could be of any help. Mirio suddenly awakes the group as it was sleeping in the inn and announces breakfast (Tengwar was not amused and tried blocking the door) and mentions that his sister had heeded his call and was in the dining hall waiting.
The group starts asking his sister about Madalea and the plan to have her magic burned out of her. She doesn't think it makes sense and actually she was planning to offer her training. On the fever she says that it can be healed but that would require a lot of magic energy. She thinks that the fever originates from the swamps since it is also called swamp fever. Before she leaves she mentions that if someone is close to dying from the fever she can be summoned but she can only save 1-2 persons.
In the meantime Huor had continued growing Donf plants which can heal people from the plague. Loki, Irion and Tul'achim intend to go to the Peraine temple to get the news (Tengwar doesn't dare to go outside). On the way Tul'achim suddenly sees a pack of wolves running towards him. He starts running for the temple and Irion and Loki follow. As it turns out he was hallucinating and had caught the fever. The total number of sick are thus eight. The first four had been the mayor, the leatherer (Alriq), the geese herder and the Peraine priest. Note that some of them did not have bite marks on them which is one of the hallmark indicators of the disease.
Loki offers his help and starts looking for more Donf with Huor while Irion goes to the castle to tell the Praios priest there the news. He thinks the curfew was a good idea and thinks we should just all wait for an Anconite (a healing mage). He also contemplates whether the illness is a curse of Praios, he has heard of such but dismisses it.
Next day there are four new cases, amongst them the bartender from the inn the group stays at, Hesintje from the castle library. Hurgol the Peraine priest and the geese herder should start gaining consciousness today.
Irion tries to calm people in the village down. Meanwhile Tengwar starts making amulets out of stone which he believes will prevent the disease. He manages to sell a few to inhabitants of the village. The rumor spreads and soon the townspeople are inquiring Irion about these amulets and where they can be obtained (he notes down who wants them and hands the list to Tengwar).
In the evening the guards start shouting that someone is coming. A handsome curly and brown haired guy in a green vest enters the town. He has scars in his face, one of his little fingers is missing, he has a staff and Loki recognizes him as an Anconite. He introduces himself as Andram Termoil from Albenhus. Irion realises that this is a dwarfen name even though Andram is a human but he doesn't think about it further. It is worth noting that we were also a bit surprised that he was alone and not with more healing mages.
Andram is escorted to the temple where he meets Wilja who is taking care of the sick. Then in the evening the priest and the geese herder wake up. They had had terrible dreams.
The next day we tried to figure out how they got infected, the priest had been in the woods the day beforee so it was not unlikely that he had been bitten. In the night three more got infected, one of them was Frederick the brother of Medalia. Loki tries to comfort Medalia because she doesn't want to leave Frederick. After listening to his advice she goes outside.
In a discussion with Andram he suggest emptying the swamps. Luckily Loki has some herbs which prevent any infection for two days. The group (now Irion, Loki and Tengwar) asks some strong men to help them (they find two) and they get permission from the Praios priest to leave town. Unfortunately there are many mosquitos which could be harmful to the unprotected ones. Therefore Loki opens his vial with the foul smelling plant and they all leave them alone. They dig for the whole day to make a sewer which should empty the swamps. When they return Pedora and Alrik have awakened. However Pedora is still not feeling well, Wilja thinks she didn't handle the disease well.
The next morning Wilja wakes the group up because in the night someone had destroyed her herb garden, which is just by the temple. She also announces that there are three new cases, all so far had been treated by Donf but the supplies if the group were running short and Huor could not make an infinite amount of it.
Tengwar was not in a good mood after the digging the day before and suggested burning down the swamp instead of emptying the water from it. He set a tree on fire (which the others did not belief would work) and it burned strongly. Surprisingly the fire did not go out of it, it did spread to nearby trees but there it was not sustainable, probably because the trees were so wet. Eventually the tree collapsed and it almost hit Tengwar, lighting is hand on fire in the progress which he could set out himself. The tree kept on burning after it collapsed but the fire didn't spread, it seemed to have killed a lot of mosquitos in the meantime as well.
The group finishes the ditch they had been digging. Now the water from the swamp flows into the river and pollutes it. This was maybe not what they wanted after all. The people of the town started needing to drink form a well there instead now. When they return from the woods they get the news that Tul'achim is recovering quickly but Wilja tells that her grandfather, the Peraine priest is relapsing. He is hallucinating and sees wolves and spiders. In general it seems to be the case that the dreams amplified their sufferers fears. Surprisingly a lot of the cured patients are relapsing, this was maybe not Brabak fever after all.
Surprised by these strange relapses Tul'achim decides to use breathe of magic to detect magic in the viscinity. The anconite steps out of his field of vision during the cast of the spell and was thus undetectable. The current hypothesis of the group was now that this might be demon's work and the anconite is a suspect.
The group consults with the Praios priest who simply thinks that the anchorite stepped away to prevent his aura from disturbing the spell. The Praios priest claimed to be able to detect demon forces but that would take him a lot of time. The group asks him about the ever burning tree and he does not seem to see a connection between it and the plague.
As a last resort Irion pretends to be sick to see if there is something strange going on in the temple. During the night the anchorite touches him and attempts to extract something from him and thus reveals himself. Since Irion wasn't sick from the right disease the anchorite leaves but Irion manages to get a glimpse of who was behind it all.
While Irion "suffers" Tul'achim discovers demonic particles in the river. He knows that a demon with these kind of particles can shapeshift. The group thinks that the water supply might be tainted.
Tengwar goes to check on Irion who tells him everything which happened. The others were fetching the Praios priest to inform him about the demon particles.
Suddenly things start happening quickly, Tengwar runs outside and tells the rest of the group the truth. Irion lights a torch an starts running around manically, pretending to be still sick. This attracts the attention of Andram who follows Irion outside and watches him run in circles. Brother Beardrye (the Praios priest) is there with the others, instead of using surprise he accuses Andram of being a demon.
Andram reveals himself and starts fighting. Everyone had applied weapon balm from Loki on their weapons. Andram has tentacles growing out of him.
There is a long fight and eventually Andram turns into dust.
After the group defeats Andram the Praios priest congratulates them. The whole town had been watching them. However the demon particles are still in the river.
The next day the group follows the river to its source. There they discover that everything has withered, it stinks and there is an unholy plant growing there devoted to Amazeroth, the opponent of Hesinde, the goddess of wisdom.
Tengwar starts chopping the head off the plant. He then starts digging up the roots and discovers a human finger. Suddenly then a spirit of a dwarf appears in the form of fire. His voice is like cracking fire. He reliefs Tul'achim from the guilt of invading his grave since he killed this demon. Tul'achim has a stone which contains the soul of the dwarf. The dwarf offers to separate his soul into a splinter of the stone which the group can dig under the unholy plant and plant a bloodelm there to vanquish the unholy magic (the bloodelm needs some source to grow from and this soul would suffice).
He also teaches Tul'achim how to use the stone. Huor manages to epically plant the bloodelm.
Everyone gets 250 AP and special experiences:
- Tengwar: axes, trade.
- Huor: cleverness, spell to let plants grow, plant lore.
- Tulachrem: analysis, plant lore.
- Irion: daggers.
- Loki: plant lore, treat illness.
- Everyone: arcane lore.
- Why did the fire not stop in the forest?
- Irion still needs to reveal his half spheres to the full moon.