This evening I went to visit the Karavan Communications Officer in the Karavan compound at the Ranger Camp. I had talked to her before, when I was investigating the Chlorogoos for ranger Chiang, and she had provided me speedy transport to the Teleporter near Shining Lake. Now, however, I had word that she had a task for which she was seeking an intrepid explorer. That would be me.

[More:]

The Karavan and Kami know little about the goo, a slowly advancing substance which affects all life with which it comes into contact. The Kami, who revere everything natural, are thus enraged by the very presence of this planet-wide illness which is killing Atys by slow increments. So they attack it head on, without trying to understand what it is, or how to best cure the planet of it. The Karavan are a bit more pragmatic. Like any illness, there must be a cure, and the only way to find the cure is to study the disease in depth.

So, she needed a sample; well, she needed 20 samples, and they could be obtained from infected creatures or harvested from the ground itself. I'm more capable of gathering from beasts, so that is how I approached the problem. So, along the southern edge of the Blight I found nauseous capryni, and thinned the herd of these infected beasts until I obtained 20 phials of the plain fresh goo residue.

Next, the Karavan Communications Officer wanted 20 phials of average fresh goo residue, the dry state of the goo. By comparing the two sets, she hopes that the Karavan can learn to induce the drying process on the goo, and begin to counter the planet's disease.

Finally, she asked for one phial of much better quality average fresh goo residue, that can only be obtained from the ocyx or a rare source in the blight. I found the ocyx near the northern part of the blight, after dodging lots of nauseous frippos. Note that if you venture too far out into the blight, you will start taking damage from just being in that much goo, so a hit and fade attack is needed to get the ocyx back to normal ground for your battle.

After obtaining that last sample, I returned to the Karavan Communications Officer, who gave me a reward of 15500 dapper and fame with the Karavan.