The Mage Blight

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On the road to Fimburg, the nearest town to the edge of the Mage Blight, the party encounters Hilda again. Hilda warns them that the airborne blight dust has a necrotic effect and says that, to her knowledge, only one person regularly enters the Blight zone.

Townsfolk in Fimburg direct the party to a hut south of the settlement. Here they meet an elf named Tabitha Willowthorn, Thrice Honored Mage of the House of Panacea. Tabitha is a researcher specializing in blight zones and the sole custodian of the Mage Blight, tasked with monitoring it.

Tabitha explains that the pillars along the perimeter of the zone contain the spread of the Mage Blight. The capacity of the pillars was pushed from 50% to 90% when the Ripple occurred ten years ago. More recently, the pillars have been at 102% capacity, causing the Blight to "leak". She notes this coincides with the arrival of a lunar primordian.

Lunar (or null) primordians are a rare mutation of primordian born with a non-elemental affinity. They are immune to all magic and also unable to wield any magic of their own.

The party supplies Tabitha with money and materials to craft them individual full-coverage suits and respirators, preparing to enter the zone. In this time, Uusi gifts Tabitha the boggle and learns Acid Arrow and Invisibility from her in exchange.

Ida experiences a strange dream the night before they depart. An entity within the dream instructs her to plant a seed at the center of the Mage Blight. She wakes with the seed in hand.

The party, sans Glob, boards Tabitha's blight skimmer the following morning and enters the zone. The first day of travel is full of strange incidents, but none endanger the adventurers: they encounter a wisp, fight off a swarm of skeletal rats attempting to board the skimmer and witness a horde of skeletons locked in eternal battle in a gorge. They seek shelter overnight in the cellar of a ruined castle. A frightened poltergeist attacks them but Stavroula pacifies it.

The second day of travel proves more difficult. The party is caught in a dust storm and forced to seek shelter. When the storm clears, they are soon ambushed by a pack of dolgrim in an unraveling magic zone. A chaotic battle ensues, each spell producing unpredictable effects. Tabitha is spontaneously granted one Wish and uses it to make her Unseen Servant at her hut into a real man, magically depleting herself in the process.

Late in the day, they reach the obelisk marking the center of the Mage Blight. A lunar primordian with hair like flowing ink is loitering at the base of the construct.

The man introduces himself as Zilch (probably a nickname, possibly self-appointed) and appears to be in love with the Mage Blight itself, referring to the zone as his 'queen' and 'lady'. He seems untroubled by the party until they begin demanding he leave the Mage Blight and show him Ida's seed, which he is repulsed by. Ida and Uusi ignore Zilch's protests as they rush to plant the seed against his wishes. Meanwhile, Stavroula tries to touch the obelisk and ends up falling through it.

Stavroula finds herself landing in Mobius, the afterlife, where she is met by the god she serves, Denizen. Denizen is not one of the primeval gods and was once an ordinary mortal. The obelisks his people constructed throughout the world were thought to be "bridges" between Mobius and the material plane. Denizen confesses to being the one to figure out they could be detonated and made into weapons of mass destruction, naming himself as the cause of the Mage Blight (and other Blight zones throughout Glade). He makes Stavroula into his champion, granting her a soulbound flail, Blind Justice.

Stavroula re-emerges into the material world to find Zilch, Ida and Uusi on the verge of conflict. Ida buries the seed as Uusi and Stavroula mortally wound Zilch, with Stavroula sparing him at the last moment.

Ida ties up the unconscious Zilch and the party drag him down a hatch they'd spotted nearby. Exploring the bunker beneath the hatch turns up Zilch's journal and a skull that Stavroula is able to identify as the remains of a half-elf woman. Zilch wakes up after experiencing violent nightmares and speaks with the party. He reveals that he came to the Mage Blight two years ago with a woman named Cassandra. The Blight awakened magical abilities in him, thought to be impossible for a lunar primordian, and warped his sense of reality and time. The party and Zilch believe that Cassandra died at some point while he was "possessed". Zilch is distraught by this revelation and weeps.

The party takes Zilch (still restrained) onto Tabitha's skimmer and sets out the following morning. They encounter another dust storm and weather it out in a cave. The party discovers another ruin and enters the basement, looting a variety of odd magical items (a figurine that summons a small giraffe, a 'helpful orb' that can answer yes or no questions and a quill containing infinite, permanent ink). Nearby, they find a large ruin guarded by ogre skeletons. Uusi recognizes part of the structure as an Arcane Alliance gate and uses her gate key to pass through as Stavroula, Ida and Tabitha fight the skeletons.

Uusi emerges onto a beach in Raktesh, finding Chancellor Phillip relaxing. He shares a drink with her as Uusi debriefs on recent events. Phillip thanks her for apprehending Zilch and promises to dispatch Arcane Agents to recover him from Tabitha's hut. Uusi returns to her companions and refuses to elaborate on where she'd been. They don't pry.

Their progress is blocked by a group of ghouls and ghasts demanding the "return of the new moon", referring to Zilch. All are dispatched but one.

The party decides to investigate a tower, surprised to find a structure still standing (rather than the foundations and basements they've been finding throughout the zone). The tower is inhabited by a sorrowful banshee, unaware of her own death or the devastation of the land. The banshee is unable to move on and the party is forced to leave. They make camp in another cave.

They are faced with yet another dust storm as they near the edge of the Blight. Instead of waiting, the party decides to surge through the hazard, ramping off a dune and crash landing outside the Blight near Tabitha's hut. Glob heals them and Rolim (Tabitha's Unseen Servant made into a real man by her wish spell) prepares baths for everyone.

Two Arcane Alliance agents, Hitch (a male goliath) and Spree (a female catfolk) arrive the next day and take Zilch into their custody. Uusi leaves Zilch a letter to further explain the situation and promises he will be kept safe.

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