Family Business
In the baking heat of Osirion, it is hard to ignore the presence of the sun, and as such, it is no wonder that despite the land's more traditional customs, worshippers of The Dawnflower can be found in abundance there. One such devotee is Willapur, a kind and matronly Grippli with a honed skill in medical alchemy. The swamp fields she cultivates along the Junira river are most often quiet, peaceful places, but that peace was shattered when the Chirurgeon saw a tall Garundi man steal her prized statuette of Sarenrae and escape into the desert with it.
Distressed by the theft, Willapur leveraged an old debt, and summoned the drifter Irwin Yona to her house by letter. Meanwhile, her nomadic middle son Iopo happened to be the area, and stopped by to check on his mother. After a pot of tea, Willapur introduced the two wanderers to each other and tasked them with tracking the Garundi man towards the Footprints of Rovagug. The pair agreed, so with a packed lunch and some elixirs, they were set off on the first day of Erastus 4722AR.
Hunting a Thief
The unlikely pair tracked the thief towards the Footprints of Rovagug, following his trail easily enough through the wetlands. As the ground started drying out, the prints were harder to follow, though Iopo and Irwin still tracked their quarry into a canyon. In there, they set off an alarm snare, and were attacked by a hatchet-wielding bandit. Despite giving the pious pair a good hiding, the bandit eventually surrendered, fearing for his life; their assailant was revealed to be a 14 year-old boy named Kito. He explained under duress that he had been adopted by the thief, named Ephraim, and trained in the ways of the desert. Recently, however, Ephraim had become erratic, taking to locking himself into his room at night and emerging the next morning with ragged clothes and destroyed furniture. Furthermore, Kito's boss was spending much of his time at a creepy temple to an unknown god that was located in the centre of a corrupted oasis. When offered the chance at redemption, Kito took the chance eagerly, surrendering his weapons to the hunters, and he gratefully gave them directions to the temple in exchange for a chance to be looked after by Willapur.
Irwin and Iopo followed Kito's directions easily enough despite the heat, and soon found the temple in the oasis. The ziggurat was constructed of strange black stone, and where the door should be there was only a bone handle and small keyhole. After checking the perimiter, Iopo tried the handle, which aggravated a diseased crocodile that had been hiding in the moat's depths. After the croc was defeated, Irwin dissected it to check if the key had been swallowed by the beast, but had no such luck. Iopo searched the bottom of the now safe moat, and found the small silver key submerged in the muck at the bottom.
Inside the temple, Iriwn and Iopo found Ephraim praying at a dark altar with the statuette of Sarenrae in hand. They attempted to approach quietly, but a stray rock caught by Irwin's boot alerted the theif to their presence. Enraged, Ephraim transformed into a bipedal crocodile monster, and attacked his pursuers. After a hard fight, in which Iopo was nearly drowned, the monster was subdued. Iopo gave Ephraim a chance to repent and commit to The Everlight, though he swiftly executed the thief when the latter refused redemption.
With the statuette of Sarenrae retrieved, Irwin and Iopo took the chance to search the temple, finding a small amount of loot, as well as some heretical carvings of the liberation of Rovagug and the destruction thereafter. Iopo destroyed the carvings and the heretical altar, and the pair returned to Willapur's house.
That evening, they found both Willapur and Kito alive and well - the former was happy to have the statuette back, but was a little confused when she saw the excellent condition it had been left in by the thief. The odd group shared a meal that night, and Willapur offered bed and board to the boys for as long as they needed, though she warned them that there was something strange going on with the cattle in the area dying.
Going Shopping
A few weeks after Iopo and Irwin's retrieval of her statuette, Willapur asked her three boys to head to the nearby city of Lamasara to fetch a large set of groceries. After some mild bickering, the boys set off on the two hour journey through the marshlands. On the way, whilst Iriwn stumbled through an explanation of crocodile reproduction on Kito's behalf, Iopo was robbed by a small fey creature, which had brought two comrades. The two trios fought briefly, and the fey were swiftly subdued by the boys, who tied up the smaller creatures and took them with them so they could be left in a safe place. Whilst looking for a tree to leave the fey in, the boys were approached by a water spirit of some sort. She took the fey, which she called Hanivers, and explained that the blight that had afflicted Willapur's cows had been driving the local fey from the marshes to their deaths into the desert. She gave Irwin a vial of marsh water, and requested that the boys take the water to an alchemist in Lamasara to be analysed, offering a blessing of the marshes in exchange. The boys agreed, and carried on their journey.
An hour later, the trio arrrived in Lamasara, where they rented a cart and started with Willapur's shopping list. By lunch, the list was complete, and after a hearty packed lunch, they started to look for a reputable alchemist. Kito found a lead from an old human woman, who recommended her son, Neramin. They tracked down Neramin's shop, and comissioned him to investigate the marsh water. After only twenty minutes, the alchemist started to present his conclusions, but was struck in the shoulder by an arrow that had flown through the window. A thug leapt in through the window to finish the job, but was knocked out by Iopo after a brief skirmish. Neramin, whilst being treated by Iopo, explained that the marsh water had been corrupted by shadow essence, an expensive and dangerous poison. Under interrogation, the thug confessed that he had been hired by cultists of Zon-Kuthon to follow the boys and attack whoever was shot at by an assassin colleague.
The bandit took the boys to a meeting spot where the assassin would be meeting somebody in around twenty minutes. The trio took him, unarmed, to the temple of the Dawnflower, as the thug had promised to repent, and also left their cart of shopping there. Back at the meeting spot, the boys observed from cover a meeting between a cultist priestess and an imposing assassin. The two women discussed "Willapur's problems" and called the boys "raggedy-looking", though the assassin assured the cultist that they had been dealt with. They vowed to move onto the corruption of the rivers full-time. The assassin left shortly after, though once she did, the cultist turned to the hiding Irwin, and revealed that she had know he was there the whole time. They talked briefly, but once Iopo noticed the defaced symbol of Sarenrae that she was wearing, he attacked her, and was nearly slain in ensuing skirmish. Nontheless, the boys emerged triumphant, with Irwin decapitating the priestess.
Battered and bruised, the boys hobbled back to the Everlight temple to spend the evening resting, healing, and cleaning weapons. The next morning, after a hearty breakfast provided by Sister Eloma at the temple, the trio set off for the marshes once more, with Kito and Iopo pulling the cart between them. Conversation on the way was a little morose and not very productive, though Kito did mention that his mother was an assassin, which made Iopo and Irwin twig that the assassin from Lamasara and the boy looked very similar.
Stopping by the water spirit's tree again, the boys informed her, now calling herself the Fey Queen of the Marshes, that the corrupting aspect in her waters was shadow essence. The Queen was worried greatly by this, and lamented that the could do nothing without a pure sample of shadow essence. She asked the boys to see if Willapur could extract a more pure sample from the swamp waters.
Back at Willapur's house, she was in frantic anxiety as to where her boys were; she berated the trio over their lateness and the fact they had put themselves in clear and present danger. Nontheless, the matronly grippli was glad to see her boys safe, and getting along so well at that. She promised she would try and distill some shadow essence, but it may take a while.
Meeting a Smuggler
Over the next month, Willapur spent some time attempting to distill pure shadow essence from the swamp waters, but was ultimately unsuccessful, and alchemists in Lamasara either shunned the task or didn't know where to start. In the meanwhile, the swamps were atrophying further: black tendrils snaked through the water, and crocodiles died in equal measure to Willapur's cattle. On one bleak morning, a gnomish postman arrived, with a letter for Willapur. She explained to her boys that an old friend called Zikkig had managed to smuggle some pure shadow essence into Lamasara for them, and asked them to go and meet the smuggler to collect the essence. Packed lunches and elixirs in hand, the boys set off to meet a strix on the northern docks of Lamasara.
After a short journey through the increasingly desolate swamplands, the boys met the shifty strix Zikking on the northern docks of Lamasara. The smuggler was initially suspicous of the group, though relaxed onced they explained in detail who they were and who sent them. She handed over the essence to the party, but as the exchange happened, the group was attacked by a skeleton warrior. Despite a hard fight, the skeleton warrior was eventually defeated, and the party searched its belongings. On its person it had a heretical symbol of an undead god, its weapons and armour, and a letter detailing Zikkig's exact location and description - the smuggler had been sold out by somebody. Sister Eloma, who had arrived after the fight, explained to Iopo that the symbol from Ephraim's temple had been seen painted in blood all over town. She asked Willapur's associates to look into the symbols and update her that night at the temple.
Kito set about gathering information, and eventually found out that the symbols led to the western outskirts of the city, and there were a fair amount of abandoned buildings out there. The gang followed the symbols, and eventually found a boarded-up house with the symbols painted such that the entire wall was covered. After checking the perimiter, Zikkig tried to pick the lock on the door, but was electrocuted by some sort of trap. Irwin managed to disable the trap, and using Zikkig's picks, finished the lockbreaking. Inside, the house was dark, but there was a strange chitnous creature covered in glowing runes. It attacked the party as soon as it noticed them, and after blinding them all, slew Irwin with one mighty blow. The creature disappeared into nothingness, and Kito ran off as soon as Iopo confirmed that Irwin had died.
Zikkig helped Iopo return Iriwn's corpse to the Everlight temple. Sister Eloma was deeply shocked by Irwin's death, as she had had visions of the group's success. She offered to embalm the pirate's corpse, and take care of it until the swamps could be cleansed for a proper burial. Iopo left the temple under Zikkig's watchful eye, and went out into the city to search for Kito. After a few hours, he returned, exhausted and defeated, without the boy. That next day, Iopo and Zikkig picked up Kito's trail and followed him back towards Willapur's house. Eventually, they found the boy curled up in the Fey Queen's arms, safe and sound. She carried Kito back to Willapur's house alongside Iopo and Zikkig.
At the house, Iopo did his best to explain to his mother what had happened, but she was furious that her boys had taken on so much danger unnecessarily. She accused Iopo of letting his piety make him cold, and instructed him not to come back to the swamps for some time after Irwin's funeral. Iopo had little more to say, but asked Zikkig to care for his mother in her time of grief. He returned to the temple of Sarenrae in Lamasara immediately after.
