Vessa: The Hisuian Girl Who Kept the 108th Soul

She stops you on your way home, and the game doesn't warn you to be wary. Vessa is a little girl from Jubilife Village, in the Hisui of Pokémon Legends: Arceus. She single-handedly carries the request "Eerie Apparitions in the Night," one of the longest in the game, and its ending turns everything she told the player to get it started on its head.

Contents

• The Stranger Who Stops You in Jubilife Village
• 107 Wisps, Plus One More
• A Reward Scale That Goes the Distance
• The Look into the Camera, the Anagram and Spiritomb
• Vessa at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

The Stranger Who Stops You in Jubilife Village

Vessa doesn't just turn up at random in the village: the game triggers her once the noble Kleavor has been quelled, just as the protagonist is about to head back to their quarters. She asks to talk, takes them aside, and announces right away that she has a secret to share.

Her story unfolds in three beats. A malevolent entity was sealed away centuries ago by a great power, the seal faded for no known reason, and the souls that made it up scattered to every corner of Hisui. She asks for help gathering them before the worst happens.

The detail that gives the character away lies in what happens if you refuse. The player can answer that they don't believe her: she insists, then forces the Odd Keystone into their hands — the item without which the wisps stay invisible, since only the person holding it can see them. Hisui has another voice that recites legends to the player, Cogita, keeper of the myths of Sinnoh's ancient people; the difference is that Vessa already knows her story isn't quite the one she's telling.

107 Wisps, Plus One More

The request then turns into a long-haul hunt, and Vessa settles in as its steward. She waits for the player near the Pastures, keeps count of the remaining wisps area by area, and points them toward untouched sectors when the hunt stalls. The number she gives is firm: a hundred and seven.

Once all hundred and seven have been brought back, she thanks the player and sets up a meeting somewhere other than the village: at the Shrouded Ruins, in the Crimson Mirelands, at the same time of day as their first meeting. It's there that she admits she lied. There were a hundred and eight, and she'd had the last one all along.

Before handing it over, she asks a question with no gameplay consequence whatsoever: what the player thinks of her. She then asks them to close their eyes; when they open them again, she's gone, and a purple flame floats where she stood. Once placed in the Odd Keystone, it makes her voice ring out, thanking the player for playing along with her "last bit of mischief" and hoping to be forgiven by "the traveler who used that strange magic." A wild Spiritomb appears shortly after.

👻 Hisui's spirits have their own section: check out the Pokémon figures.

A Reward Scale That Goes the Distance

Vessa doesn't pay per wisp but in tiers, and the first one comes very early to get the loop going. Five wisps are enough to earn an Oval Stone, ten a Rare Candy, twenty a Seed of Mastery: three evolution or progression items that are useful right away, at a point in the game when they're still rare.

The middle of the scale is aimed at optimization rather than discovery. Thirty wisps earn a Dusk Stone, forty an Exp. Candy L, fifty a Linking Cord, and sixty get you five Grit Pebbles — enough to fine-tune the stats of an established team and force trade evolutions without a trading partner.

The last tier assumes you'll only reach it late in the game. Seventy wisps bring a Reaper Cloth, eighty bring three Seeds of Mastery, ninety bring two Exp. Candy XL, and the hundred-wisp tier brings three Grit Rocks. The final reward is the biggest of the lot, which makes the wisp hunt one of the few projects in the game you complete after the main story.

The Look into the Camera, the Anagram and Spiritomb

Nothing is ever stated outright, but the character's profile lines up the clues in the same direction. Vessa may be one of the hundred and eight souls that make up Spiritomb — or even Spiritomb itself, borrowing a child's face to win the protagonist's trust. The total number of wisps and the species' number of souls match too neatly to be a coincidence.

The second clue is a matter of staging. During her dialogue, Vessa doesn't look at the protagonist: she stares into the camera and follows it with her eyes when it moves, which suggests that her pleas aren't aimed at the avatar but at the person holding the controller. Her final request — "What do you think of me?" — reads very differently in this light.

That leaves the name. Her French name, "Pitris," is an anagram of spirit, in English no less, and the other languages don't even try to cover their tracks: Vessa in English, Alma in Spanish, Spira in Italian. The character also appears on cards in the Trading Card Game.

Vessa at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• How do you trigger Vessa's request?
  She comes to find the player herself in Jubilife Village, after they've quelled Kleavor, just as they're about to head back to their quarters. Choosing to believe her or not changes nothing: she hands over the Odd Keystone either way.
• How many wisps are there to find?
  Vessa says 107, and that is indeed the number the player has to gather out in the field. At the Shrouded Ruins, she admits she kept one last wisp: the real total is 108.
• What does the wisp hunt reward you with?
  Tiered rewards, from 5 to 100 wisps: Oval Stone, Rare Candy, Seed of Mastery, Dusk Stone, Exp. Candy L, Linking Cord, Grit Pebbles, Reaper Cloth, then three Grit Rocks at the final tier.
• Is Vessa Spiritomb?
  The game never says so, but everything points that way: the species' 108 souls, the 108th wisp she was keeping, her vanishing into a purple flame, a wild Spiritomb appearing right after, and her French name, Pitris, an anagram of the English word spirit.
• Why does Vessa look at the camera?
  During her dialogue, she stares into the lens and follows it if it moves. It's a sign that her lines are aimed at the player behind the screen rather than at the protagonist, which her "last bit of mischief" ends up confirming.

In short

Vessa is a rare case in a Pokémon game: a character whose entire quest rests on a lie she ends up confessing herself. She doesn't battle, doesn't join anyone, and leaves nothing behind but a purple flame and a wild Spiritomb. Her real reward isn't on the scale: it's discovering, a hundred and seven wisps later, that you weren't talking to a little girl.