Deep within the Laeto rain forest, something was stirring. An old type of evil that had existed for generations. The madness of mortals. A mysterious cult had developed somewhere in the rain forest and the locals were terrified. Ever since the war ended, this cult had been growing stronger and stronger. The fear of what had been defeated still lingered on in the hearts and minds of many people. Then the disappearances began happening. Every village in Laeto was at least missing one person but a village called Mrig had half of their village missing. So the village had sent out a desperate call for heroes or anybody who was willing to try to take down these cultists before Mrig vanished completely. That is why Attie had decided to try to help the village and decided to bring along her friend Lixue.  It didn't take too long before they arrived at the village. There was a tall crudely made wooden gate and two villagers with spears were standing outside, keeping watch. One of them spotted Attie and Laeto and raised up her spear towards them. 

"Halt! Who goes there?!" The armed woman demanded. 

"Hi! I'm Attie and this is Lixue!" Attie said with a smile, "We're here to help with your cult problem."

She raised up the parchment that was requesting for assistance. These parchments were sent to almost every town, city, and village nearby. The guards lowered their spears and nodded to each other before opening the gate door. Inside the village were many small houses and homes that were all made out of the rain-forest wood. In the distance, many birds could be heard chirping and animals making noise. There were people going about their daily business, though they all seemed highly nervous. The area was lit up by torches and bits of sunlight peaking through the tree tops. In the middle of the village were two people arguing. One was an older man who seemed to be dressed well and had a short gray beard. The second was a middle-aged woman with brown hair tied up in a bun and a little boy who was standing behind her, waiting quietly for the two grown ups to finish arguing. 

"Miss Dyer, you can't be serious about moving the village out of the rain forest! This is our home and we can't abandon it because of some cultists!" The old man insisted. 

"Those cultists have kidnapped over half of this village!" Miss Dyer insisted, "Are you seriously suggesting that we stay here? What about our children? What about my son?! We cannot stay here and risk any of them getting hurt."

The two guards led Attie and Lixue towards the two arguing and made a coughing sound to get their attention. The old man and Miss Dyer quickly looked at the two, realizing that they were visitors. 

"I see that our request for help has been answered." The old man said with relief, "My name is Otten Depp. I'm the owner of this village. And this is Ameila Dyer, she's our local sorceress. Please let me know if there is anything that you two need!"

As if the near end of the world was not enough, a substantial part of the general populace had begun seeking other means of salvation. Cult activity was on the rise with one stealing tribals from the Laeto Rainforest to either bolster their numbers or to use as sacrifices for their own personal greed. Once Attie had brought such activity to light, Lixue decided to accompany her friend to save the tribes missing villagers and end any cult activity currently active within the Laeto Rainforest.

Trudging through the damp forest, the Undead was thankful for her unlife as the humidity had no effect on her physical. Unfortunately, the moisture still clung to her new dress and body making travelling through the forest quite uncomfortable. Looking around as the massive trees that surround the entire forest blocked out much of the sun's rays making it a prime area for predators to hunt unsuspecting prey. While she doubted the animals had a taste for the dead she still had to look out for her very lively friend.

Cutting through the thick woods they would reach their destination, well Lixue assumed they had as there are many small villages dotted the rainforest. With nothing signifying that it was the of Mrig she hoped that Attie was better versed than herself. As they approached the crude wooden gate one of the guards spotted the both of them raising a spear towards them with the usual guard rhetoric. Her friend took the initiative introducing both of them while raising the request. Looking to each other the guards nodded as if they agreed on the validity of the parchment lowing their spears and escorted the duo to their leader.

As they entered you could cut the tension in the village with a knife as everyone seemed on edge. Even with those that went about their daily lives, the village was quite empty from all of the cult's raids. While travelling further into the village the sounds of yelling grew louder as an older surprisingly well dressed man and a woman with her young boy behind her as they argued about the future of the village.

One of the guards got the attention of the two bickering villagers as the older man introduced himself as Otten Depp the owner of the villagers and the woman as Ameila Dyer the village sorceress. Finding it curious that the man was the owner of the village and not the leader was interesting, but the Priestess would keep her suspicions to herself.

Bowing to the two of them, "I am Cao Lixue and this is my friend Attie..". Pausing as she did not know her last name, but considering her past she doubted that her friend had a last name. Rising back up, "..Anyway you are correct we are here to help. What we require is information. How did this all start how are they taking people? Is there anyone that has escaped or been in contact with them? Who are the friends and family of the missing people? Also, we will have to search the homes of those who have gone missing". This was part and parcel for the Priestess as she had tracked down many a missing person at the hands of monsters and demons she already knew where to start and how to go about finding the lost persons alive or dead.

Both Ameila and Otten looked uneasy by the sudden amount of questions. Otten was about to open his mouth to respond but suddenly a villager came running up to him. The villager was a young man with brown hair and simple clothes.

"Sir Depp! There's an argument between two villagers that you need to sort out." The villager said, "It looks like its about to get bloody." 

"Again? Fine. I guess I'd better sort it out" Otten replied sounding exhausted and turned to Ameila, "Go ahead and take them to your shop and give them an explanation. I'll be joining you soon…hopefully."

Otten then rushed with the guard to address the issue of the villagers fighting. Ameila sighed and looked over to Lixue and Attie. The woman inspected them, trying to figure out if they would be up for the challenge of the cult. Then again, the village didn't exactly have any other good options. She then reached down and picked up her son, holding him gently in her arms before turning back to the adventurers. 

"Lets head to the shop. It's not safe to talk out in the open." Ameila said. 

As they walked, Attie kept her eye out for anything strange or unusual. The tension inside the village was thick and could not be ignored. None of the buildings seemed damaged and there was no sign of a break in. In fact, the village didn't seem like it had any issues besides the cultists and warm weather. Suspicion ran through Attie's mind at this reality. The sorceress stopped in front of a cute small shop and opened the door for the group of adventurers before entering herself. Inside the room was a large collection of magical items. Each wall held a display of potions, enchanted objects, and books. There was a counter for buying things but it was clear that it had been a while since it was used. The sorceress pushed to the back of the shop and opened another door that led to a warm kitchen. There was a fireplace, kitchen counter, table for food, and barrels of food and water. There was also a small set of stairs that led upwards towards the left wall and a door on the right that would lead to the garden outside. Ameila placed her son down on the kitchen floor and knelt down next to him to talk to him.
"Mamas going to need you to go upstairs, okay?" Ameila said with a soft smile.

"But mooooom I wanna hear the stuff too!" The boy whined. 

"Hmmm. Well if you stay here I suppose I'm going to have you do some chores…." The sorceress began. 

Before she could even finished, the boy began scrambling upstairs. It was clear that he didn't want any chore duties. With a small chuckle, Ameila stood up and headed over to her cabinets above the counter to bring out some plates. Guests were guests, no matter who or where they came from. The sorceress was clearly having a difficult time of trying to figure out where to start with the story. 

"I suppose I should start at the beginning." Ameila began, "It all started when we began receiving mysterious foods from an unknown organization. We never saw them and only received the boxes of food at the gate. The only clue was a symbol attached to each crate. Despite the strangeness of it, we accepted the food. Our trade routes with the Bohar Plains had been severed after the war….many of the villages and towns we used to trade with no longer exist anymore. The food was free, good, and we needed it if we were going to survive. But then the disappearances began happening. First it was John, a farmer. The strange thing was that there was no signs of struggle. He was just sleeping in his bed one night and gone the next. His wife didn't even realize what had happened until she woke up in the morning. The only thing that tipped us off that it was the cult was a parchment paper with the same symbol that the crates had. We still had to eat the food…even with all the dangers. We had been relying on the trades for food support for so long…its still hard to believe that most of the Bohar people are gone…" 

The woman took a pause and then went over to a magical box with never melting ice crystals. She took out a bowl of salad along with some steak for the visitors. She began dipping the food for Attie and Lixue then put the food away. She walked over to a chest near the stairs and opened it to take out a parchment paper. Ameila took the parchment paper and placed it on the table. On the parchment paper was one strange symbol drawn in ink. The symbol looked like one round circle with four tentacles on the upper left, upper right, bottom left, and bottom right sides.

"That's the symbol." Ameila explained, "Ever since then we have been dealing with more and more disappearances. There is at least one disappearance per night. We've upped the security, started patrols, and even have had ambushes planned. Nothing works. That's why Otten and I believe that there is a traitor among us. The cultists wouldn't know how to get past all these defenses unless they had somebody in the village spying on us."
The woman sat down at the table and put her face in her hands, exhaustion clearly on her face.
"I…I can't take this anymore." Ameila said, "Otten wants everybody to stay but at this point we are just sitting ducks. One of these nights its going to be me or worse, my son who will be taken. That's why we plan to leave as soon as possible. Otten doesn't know yet but I'm done. I'm done with the waiting and the patience and the plans. I'm not going to keep playing this death cult game anymore. We already have our bags packed and I'm planning to have us head out tonight. We're only bringing the necessities….I just can't do this anymore." 

Soft sobs were coming out of the woman's mouth as she covered her eyes. Attie, ignoring the food, went over to comfort the woman and wrapped her arms around the sorceress. The woman accepted the hug and returned it, still sobbing but it seemed that the embrace helped the situation. Attie looked over to Lixue and gave her a nod. 

Crossing her arms as the Priestess would not be patient with the two as both of them raised her suspicion, their discomfort with her questions only worsened their innocents in the Undead's eyes. As Otten was about to speak a villager cut the man off referring to Otten as a Sir signifying the man as a knight making it fairly probable that he was gifted the land for his service. While Lixue wished to gain answers to her questions she did not want to stop him from quelling a possible murder to get them.

With Otten gone with the guards, only Ameila and her son remained. Suggesting that they should talk in the shop Lixue began to follow Ameila while looking around the slowly dying town to see if anything interesting could be found. For a village with half of the town missing the homes looked no worse for wear. No damage or signs of forced entry from what the Undead could see. Meaning that either these cultists were adept in skullduggery or magic played a part in the disappearances.

Ameila stopped at a small storefront opening the door for both of them. Bowing to Ameila as she entered, the priestess was still surprised that such a small village had access to a sorceress as most prefer to live among members of court plying their trade for the upper class. Looking at the store's wares she doubted that the average villager could afford most of the items as most barely had enough for utensil let alone books and enchanted items. Following Ameila toward the living quarters, the Sorceress sent her son away with something every child fear… chores. Protesting the Socoresses hospitality as it would be wasted on her as she began to set the table. However, the Undead would not press the issue as she did not want to push the suspect further away as they were already on edge. With the table set Lixue would pull out a notebook with ink and quill as Ameila began to inform the two of them of how it all happened.

As Lixue took notes, she found it odd that a small village did not produce its own food and relied on trade. Stranger still was that the village did indeed have farmers, "If I may ask what does your village produce and what kinds of crops did John produce"? While poor leadership might not be important to the missing villagers, there was no doubt that it helped place the village into relying on these mysterious food shipments. Listening to more of Ameila's story lined up with the lack of damage towards the homes. Looking to the food the Priestess picked up a piece of it and cast a dispell on the morsel. When it produced no results it was likely that the food was completely fine meaning that the food was just a means to an end, and an end she did not like. Placing the food back on the plate, magical suggestion seemed to be at the helm of the disappearances. Plenty of monsters used suggestion to lead their prey away, but if that were the case it would be unlikely that they would find any survivors. “Where was the food found by the way"?

Continuing to jot down Ameila's words their personal attempts at catching there wayward villagers were all met with failure, and their idea that a traitor was among them was probably correct. "Who are the ones who would be aware of any plans or changes to the guard patrols"? If there was a traitor among them catching them would help to quickly end this investigation if they could be captured and questioned.

Lixue had her own theories on the matter, but no significant proof as of yet. As she finished taking her notes Ameila began to break down and revealed to the both of them that she wants to leave while Otten refuses to give up on his village. While the Priestess could feel for the woman, she did not let her emotions interfere with her work as she has been tricked by those playing the victim only for it to be found out later that they are the ones at the head of it all. Attie, however, comforted Ameila leaving the Undead with the difficult work. "I would advise against leaving at least until we clear you of suspicion". Standing up and giving a light bow to the woman, "I'll do my best to question all the others who may have been aware of the plan as fast as possible to quickly clear you from suspicions, but please do not do anything rash". Exiting the room Lixue would begin to make her way to the others as time was not on their side.

The woman looked up to Lixue, realizing that she was asking some questions. She dried off her tears and listened to the priestess. 

"We produce magical plants. Things like mushrooms, wasai, lapacho, cordoncillo, tawari trees, sodo, and a few other plants. Unlike some other foods, these are easy to grow in wild spaces. Our town mainly produces different forms of potions and magical items. And the food was found by the gate at the front. Otten and the head guard are the ones who knows about guard changes." Ameila explained quietly, pulling away from Attie's embrace. 

Attie watched as Lixue left the room and decided to follow her. She wondered what their next plan was and what exactly they were searching for. Attie knew they were looking for clues but what kind of clues? She noticed a man with a slightly shinier armor who was ordering some other guards around. Realizing that he might be the head guard, she headed towards him to ask him some questions. 

"Excuse me." Attie called out to him, "We'd like to ask you some questions. What's your name?" 

The head guard turned around to him, slightly surprised by the visitors. 

"Oh. You must be the people here to help us." He said, "I'm Edward Trancy. It's a pleasure to meet you! It'll be real good when you guys fix this mess. Lots of people are wanting to leave this place ever since the first disappearances." 

"So do you know any magic?" Attie asked, "And who can use magic in this town?"

It seemed likely that the person who did this had some form of magical ability. But if the town produced potions and magical items, then Ameila couldn't be the only person who used magic. Or at least, that is what Attie was theorizing. 

"Well Otten, Ameila, and myself can use magic." He explained, "So can John and Jennet. But Ameila is the best at magic. She was one of the top magic users that was helping with the cause against the void monsters back during the war, though she was focusing on mostly healing and figuring out what those things were. I fought in the war too! I was shooting fireballs and swinging my sword at those beasts…Even though the war is horrible at least it was a more straight-forwards problem to solve. Not like this vanishing bullshit these cultist assholes are pulling." 

Attie looked over to Lixue, to see how she was reacting to his words. Attie believed Lixue to be cleverer on figuring out mysteries and such, since she was older and had much more experience with the world. 

Unsure of what to make of everything as of yet, however, they had a few leads and while she would have liked to start off with Otten first the Head Guard was within sight. Unlike the last time, Attie seemed to be taking the helm when it came to questioning the guard as she asked his name and the known magic users within the village. While magic was at the forefront of the disappearances it was quite possible that there could be another magic user hidden among the villages, perhaps the spy that Ameila theorized. In any case by Edeard's words, it seems like the guard had completely given up on solving the disappearances themselves. With Attie's questions answered she looked to the stoic Priestess deep in thought.

"Oh excuse me my name is Lixue, like my friend here I'm looking into the disappearances as well. You said that lots of people want to leave, is there a reason they cannot leave as I've heard that Sir Depp wishes to stay is he forcing the villagers to stay"?

Taking out her journal once again she would write Edwards' response. "While I know you have probably already answered this question many times, can you please tell us how this started". Hopefully, the Captain's experiences may differ from Ameila and Otten as currently the two of them had nothing. "You as well as Sir Depp and Ameila are the ones who have planned countermeasures to catch the missing persons. However, none of your plans have succeeded. Have you noticed anything strange while on patrol or how the villagers and whatever is taking them somehow eludes your plans"? Making sure to not accuse or bring up any idea of a traitor within her questioning as causing in fighting or alert the possible traitor would ruin her future plan to suss out the traitor.

As she finished writing she looked over to Attie, "Do you have anything else you wish to ask him, as I'd like to check out the area where the food is delivered, before we go meet Otten for his input on the matter"? While she doubted that the cultists would be so foolish to leave tracks, leaving the village for a moment to speak and plan with Attie out of earshot is a must as her friend is the only one aside from herself that she knows is not part of the cult.

Edward looked towards Lixue with a bit of surprise, as he had assumed that Attie was in charge since she asked the questions first. He listened to her questions and began to think. 

"Well it's pretty hard to leave. Sir Depp isn't keeping anybody here but the only way to safely leave is if everybody leaves at once." Edward explained, "If people left individually, it would be extremely easy for cultists to just take them. But if everybody left at once, then it would be much safer. However, Sir Depp is refusing to lead a mass movement and won't let people use his horses or wagons for the movement. That's why people are still here to be honest. It would be impossible to get over to the next village in a large group without wagons or horses." 

Attie paused for a moment and thought about the situation. It seemed that Sir Depp really didn't want everybody to leave despite the danger. But Ameila was also suspicious since she used magic more than anybody else, or so it seemed. Then there was Edward who seemed nice but looked as though he had given up. He didn't appear to be half as stressed as the other two. 

"Besides the symbol on the parchment, well. It seems that they just up and vanished. But there was one time that there was a sign of struggle. There was one woman in the small cottage that had been taken and a chair had been knocked over. But it was towards the beginning of this whole disaster so we didn't believe it was kidnapping at first. We were assuming it was some elaborate prank that the villagers were pulling on us. It wasn't until a few more went missing that we actually took the case seriously." Edward admitted with an ashamed look. 

Suddenly, Lixue looked over to Attie and asked her if she had any more questions. Attie shook her head and began walking towards the gates of the village. There was only one, as they didn't have a back gate and Ameila had explained that was where the crates had been dropped off. As they arrived at the gate, there was a crate in front of the gate that was filled to the brim with food. From cabbages, to tomatoes, to carrots, to potatoes, and even some apples. The crate was large and heavy, too big for an average person to be able to carry. Attie walked towards the crate and began sniffing it. She circled the object and sniffed every part of it, looking for any scents coming from the village. Once she was done she walked over to Lixue. 

"I didn't find any scents that matched up with Ameila, Otten, Edward, or anybody else in the village." She explained, "These crates must be delivered by the cultists themselves. I would try to follow the scent but I could easily lose it in a rain forest. That would give the spy enough time to get away or to cause more damage."