Being in rough shape after crashing to the ground on the back of that damn dragon, I’m eager to do nothing aside from rest up at this hot springs. Momen flies us back up the mountain into the hot springs, and Tittlin does a quick spiel promoting the CCMB before ushering the bathers back in. We head inside and grab some free drinks from the bartender before settling in for a relaxing afternoon in the facilities. An incredible 5-course meal with an assortment of seafood is served to us in our room accompanied by an appropriate amount of alcohol, and we drift off for the night.
Extremely well-rested, we head out and sail the Wyvern up-river to Quickstrum to see a fletcher that Tittlin heard may know a thing or two about magic arrows. Pulling up to shore, we head directly to the shop Slings and Arrows. We’re greeted by a dwarf, Bargun Stoneaxe. He doesn’t carry magic arrows himself, but recommends Ecstasy Ozdemir, a tiefling who resides somewhere in Tunris. He warns us that Ecstasy is a rather eclectic individual who gets bored easily, so we’ll need to be prepared to keep him entertained, as well as that he’s quite the perfectionist.
With that tip, we head back down river to Ulstervale in an attempt to locate a fire elemental for Momen’s continued dragon research. We head into the temple with Momen leading the way, and are greeted by a half-elf. We ask him about fire elementals spotted in the area, and he points us directly south towards a lava patch a couple hours walk from town.
We make our way towards what appears to be a camp with a bunch of tents when suddenly Momen yelps from behind Tittlin and I. Spinning around, one of the cacti seems to have lashed out at Momen with a tendril and restrained him. I dash around the field of cacti to avoid any other potential imposters and take a large chunk out of it with my great sword. Tittlin finishes it off with a well-placed arrow and Momen shakes free from the tendril’s spikes, and we continue towards the tents.
Hopping into a tree, Tittlin observes that the tents appear to have been slashed open with many small claw marks. He also spots several areas of disturbed sand, marking each with an arrow. Momen peers into the slashed open side of the nearest tent, saying that he sees the bodies of a number of bandits all dead and torn to shreds. Curious as to what caused this, I toss a ration onto the nearest marked sand area. Immediately upon landing, a claw reaches out and snatches it. Thinking for a moment, Momen casts Mold Earth and simply moves all the sand out of the way, revealing a giant scorpion. It looks around and seems confused, skittering away and burying itself once again. We decide to just make our way towards the lava pit to the east, and find a large region of steam in between the lava and water. We notice a fire elemental just on the edge of the steam near the lava that appears to be fighting something. It dies and disperses into a cloud of steam, before yet another fire and water elemental appear from their respective pools and begin combat.
Momen flies over the oasis on Nyx and drops a freezing sphere onto the center of the water. A loud crash is followed by the steam cloud in front of me turning into a light dusting of snow. Surprisingly, the body of water doesn’t freeze at all, instead thrashing about angrily. I charge through the snow and promptly finish off the fire elemental, seeing what appears to be a core of molten lava drop from the flames as it dissipates. I face several water elementals as they close in on me as Momen swoops overhead and uses Mage Hand to pick up the core. Having gotten what we came for, we all agree to retreat.
Suddenly, the angry water gushes up over the shore and hits me directly in the face with a cloud of vapor. I choke as the intense moisture fills my lungs, and suddenly feel a sharp pain in my head and a great sense of turmoil. Eyes red, I spin around and charge at a… rat? In a confused rage, I punt the rat with all my might, splattering it across a rock. I take a deep breath and come to my senses as the weasel and badger at my feet attempt to bite at my ankles, but I shake them off and sprint away from the scene following Momen and Tittlin. Having fled, we select a jug that Tittlin was carrying for some reason as an appropriate vessel for the Fire Elemental Essence and make our way back to Ulstervale.
We hop back on the Wyvern and have an uneventful trip back to Cedar Combe, Momen giddy that we’ve acquired all the components required to raise a young dragon from the dead. We inform Merric of our successes and head to Momen’s Necromancy Lab in Atlanta to perform the ritual.