On the shrieking ship of Shriekpot...
Scott, hardly able to contain his excitement, beams at everyone present on deck!
"I have flammamamamables! Now I just need a flint and steel..."
While he beams like a miniature sun, he notices a rather sad-looking Kevin. Poor Kevin. Scott goes up to him and gives the spiky abomination a hug.
Oh, look, Kevin's giant, funny face seems to be mouthing something! 'Change me back', Scott thinks he's saying. How quaint.
At a fire pit next to the Yaleson house...
Sigmund looks at the rather large mushroom. Hm, interesting.
"It was made of rubber, right? It seems that that material can melt. Interesting..."
He then looks for a non-hateful stick for the speedy removal of the mushroom. Unfortunately, having a broken pelvis hardly helps matters any, so he is left wanting in this respect.
"You think the smoke might've affected it, good Sir Sigmund? And yes, it is made out of rubber if what good Mage Erin says was true."
"Grab something to help you, you don't want to touch this, not if it has grown recently. It can eat your arm, remember what happened to Mark, and he was made of metal."
"Hm... agreed, good Sir Sigmund."
Morton also takes up the search, prodded by the physically-challenged Sigmund. He finds that none of the locally available branches he wouldn't have to climb up a tree for are more than a single meter in length. Whether this is good enough remains to be seen.
In the streets of Shriekpot...
Wandering through the mean streets, Mark does a double check on that whole ritual thing. He concludes that he's got all he needs for now to conduct a ritual save for an actual victim. Those really shouldn't be that hard to find, he thinks. After all, there's a victim of a horrible ritualistic slaying born every minute, as the saying goes.
At the gate of a hilltop fort...
Darren, somewhat glad that the guy can see reason, still sees the need for a question.
"No, no, there's no need. Why the 'cripes' though? People come through here for this sort of thing often?"
As he approaches closer, the man lowers his voice.
"Velusian quests are trouble as far as I know - never seen anything good come of them. And the Crown-a-Flowers is much the same thing - tons of adventurers have died in the process of finding the thing."
Darren, passing through the gate effortlessly, finds himself in an austere and, to be frank, quite a backwater of a village. There's several hovels and what looks like a rudimentary town hall in here, but little else.
"You should probably go to the town hall and speak with the elder. He'll want to meet a spirit, particularly a spirit adventurer."