The Plague has been open since Episode 5, when the town of Nyr needed a Tlaxan shaman and a cure, and Basket dropped it in Episode 6 because of the mobs. This time Basket goes back with Johnfal_92, who has done the quest before. The shaman turns out to be the easy part.
C'Taz
They take one boat across the water and follow the quest compass past a village and an abandoned tunnel. In a jungle hut stands a figure with a skull for a face. The quest line reads "Nyr is infected with a mysterious illness! Only a Tlaxan Shaman can help save the town."
The shaman is C'Taz. "The plague has come again. I can make the medicine you seek." First, twelve golden stones "darkened with fear," which the quest log calls dark amber, hidden within a massive tree.
The fortress in the tree
The massive tree is easy to spot, and it has a whole fortress built up its sides: walkways, ladders, houses in the branches, and spawners everywhere. Creepers drop out of the leaves. There are guys with two swords who hit hard, an archer with a punch bow, and Hawk Skirmishers, which are fast and tough enough that one of them guesses they wear projectile protection. Before each chest, the lucky helmet goes on.
Then it goes wrong for both of them in about a minute. Basket retreats from a creeper, finds the edge of a cliff the hard way, and chat reads "BasketMC fell from a high place." Right after that comes "johnfal_92 was slain by Hawk Skirmisher." Basket's gear is somewhere at the bottom of the tree, in the dark, with mobs still around it. Basket gets most of it back on half a heart, with no idea how that worked. A few minutes later Johnfal_92 falls from a high place too.
Witches and a spawner in the room
Higher up there's a gazebo with witch spawners and a creeper spawner on a wooden pedestal. The witches throw potions from far away, and they also drop them, which helps a little. One hit brings slowness. Later they hole up in a chest room, and it takes a while to work out why things keep coming: there was a spawner inside that room the whole time.
They end up with plenty of amber. One of them counts 13 and suggests heading back, or clearing more since they're already there. They clear more.
Exactly twelve
C'Taz says "exactly" for a reason. Basket has 16 dark amber, and the turn-in doesn't take. Four go to Johnfal_92, and the next try works. "Perfect. Dark Amber, to be ground into a powder as fine as the smoothest sand." Next: exactly sixteen Spirit Flowers from an island deep in the jungle.
Spirit Flowers
One of them knows the way: a lake behind the tree, full of small islands, with a gas spawner on the middle one and creeper spawners around. The flowers come out of little droppers on the islands. They grab apples, kill spawners, and find a chest that only shows up after a creeper blows a hole in the ground. One of them picks up a better chest plate there.
The count stops at 15, one short. With one more passed over, they reach 16. The exact count has frustrated other players too; one of them mentions there has been more than one bug report about it.
C'Taz calls the flowers "pungent and rich." One ingredient is left: exactly ten pieces of Haunted Earth, "reclaimed from my people's ancient home to the north. Then they shall live."
