As they approached Wistimere along the forest road, the Vermin found Valant Vainglory locked in single combat with the same troll they had previously spared. He was close to death when Vesper intervened with healing magic, buying time for Lola and Auberon to scour the troll with fire and for Luana to escape into the woods. As before, flame halted her regeneration, but she acted mindlessly and shambled without purpose. After Valori ended the fight with a clean beheading, the troll's corpse revealed a grim truth: she had risen as undead.
Lola determined that she had been infected with Zombie Rot during their first encounter. When they reduced her to near-death in their prior combat, the disease had taken hold as she fled, killing and reanimating her. Lola further realized that Valant had likely been infected in the present battle and was nearing death. She chose not to tell him; if informed, he might have cured himself through his divine gifts. Instead, the party followed Valant's idea to get some money from the undead troll's strange biology. Auberon contacted the town watch, and convinced them to bring a cart and eight guards, who transported the corpse to Perceval LaPall for examination.
Inside the mayor’s presence, Auberon publicly demonstrated the troll’s strange resistance and reaction to various forms of evocation, prolonging the meeting while Vesper slipped away to snoop. She uncovered ledgers showing numerous animals recently sold and receipts documenting cage transfers to LaPall’s private manor. When she returned, the alchemist had already paid Vainglory and the Vermin a total of twenty gold for the corpse, and the guards were already preparing to move the troll’s body for burning. During the negotiation, Lola mentioned weretiger fur, and LaPall fixated on the subject. Stumbling over his words, he offered 500 gold for the tiger brought back alive; his obsession clearly outweighed his concern for the undead elves.
Vesper stopped at Ebbek’s Mercantile to buy a cloak, and nearly made another enemy by asking to take the silvered sword on Valant’s behalf, which the dwarf interpreted as theft. The group regrouped at the Striped Spot and their carriage, where Luana had successfully snuck into. They resolved to rob LaPall’s manor that night, gather proof, and kill him if necessary. While they waited for darkness, Auberon disguised himself as Valant and purchased the silvered Masterwork longsword for 100gp to give to Valori; while doing so, he learned the paladin was already hours late to collect it.
The manor was heavily secured, but with only two guards outside; Auberon and Vesper distracted one guard with a false claim of a wounded daughter. He charmed the guard by the front door into searching the woods, where Lola, Valori, and Luana ambushed and killed her. The second guard doing the rounds fell soon after, paralyzed by Lola and finished by the others. With keys secured, the Vermin slipped inside and snooped around. Notable among their findings were a parlor filled with unsent contracts to adventuring guilds, and a hidden compartment in an office containing a decade of Perceval LaPall's Research Conclusions outlining his findings. The evidence within was damning: in his quest to bring gold to Wistimere and play the hero, the mayor was undeniably responsible for the undead plague.
Exploring further, they nearly killed another guard who happened upon them entering a locked taxidermy den, but Lola managed to spare her. Inside, Vesper unlocked a glass box containing a longbow fitted with a Kinetic Bowstring, taking only the string to conceal the theft. They made their way below the kitchen into the cellar, where Lola detected discovered a butcher room, where Pig blood concealed signs of elven slaughter. After subduing a cook who unfortunately stumbled upon them, they descended through animal cages into a tunneled-out underground cavern. There they found Valant imprisoned, having succumbed to his Zombie Rot and been claimed by LaPall.
In the cavern, LaPall worked over an elven corpse surrounded by cages of restrained zombies. The Vermin ambushed the alchemist, and Lola attempted to paralyze him, but he resisted. Luana and Valori pressed the attack, deeply wounding LaPall before he revealed that he had created a Waxing Moonstone, forcing Luana into her weretiger form. She lost control and savaged Valori; the fighter fought back with Valant's sword but was overwhelmed, knocked down, and infected with lycanthropy. Under magical compulsion from Auberon, LaPall confessed aloud before releasing zombies into the chamber and attempting escape. Auberon blocked a blow and flew up and away from the mayor, who unleashed alchemical devices such as grease, flash powder, and lightning, severely wounding the party and dropping Valori.
As he fled, Vesper drove a devastating shot through his chest, and LaPall freed the undead Valant as a final obstacle. Before the zombie paladin could intervene, Auberon took to the air above the paladin, flew beyond him to LaPall, and bathed the alchemist in draconic flame. As the mayor died to dragonfire, the party destroyed Valant as well, burning his remains and taking his weapons and armor. In the aftermath, Valori survived, but bore both lycanthropy and a permanent cardiac injury from LaPall's lightning. With the mayor's body and magically compelled confession presented to both the human council and Quira's elves, the truth of Wistimere’s crisis came to light.
Though the architect of the plague was dead, Wistimere remained fragile, with a dead economy and despondent population. The Vermin, too, were shaken despite their triumph; Valori's new lycanthropy made their future as a group uncertain. They left the town behind them after receiving their reward, bringing Luana with them back to the Umlian Church. The regretful weretiger believed she owed a great debt to the party, and was officially invited to become a new sister of the Vermin.