Meowlynn was not happy about being in a city that forbade her magic and essentially her. How was magic from the gods purer than magic handed down through years of dedication to a craft. The idea that Aliya was better than her disgusted the wizard. Not to mention that secret-keeping little wench was parading the group around the city as if she was the leader. Meowlynn would rather kill herself than ever let that masochist order her around.

One thing Meowlynn could really appreciate in all of this going from one place to another was that Cadamem was a gorgeous city. Sunlight bounced off of pristine surfaces and refracted light intertwined to allow many colours to dance in the air like they were inside a stained glass picture. Keeping the beauty of the city was a top priority so there were people cleaning the surfaces everywhere they went. Picturing the gnome in her hands and knees scrubbing the dirt from between the cobblestones brought a sense of joy to the wizard.

In front of the temple of the Shining Dragon was magnificent. It literally made the temples around it look insignificant. If the wizard had to follow a god, she was sure she’d pick a god like this one just so other religious nut-jobs knew that she was from a superior group.

The platinum dragon head shone like a lighthouse at night. Staring directly at the icon of the temple during the day threatened to blind all who gazed upon it, there was a reason the god was called the Shining Dragon. Polished marble walls only helped emphasize that fact by reflecting all of the light that hit the temple and the icon as if the very building demanded to make its presence known. A ginormous stained glass picture of a white dragon spreading its wings with the sun rising behind it rested above the door.

As the Jellybeans arrived, two of the priests opened the large wooden doors to let them into the main area of the church used for prayers and sermons. “The archbishop will be with you shortly,” one of the priests told the Jellybeans.

The inside of the was surprisingly minimalist. The front had a golden altar with two silver candlesticks on top of it. A bronze bowl rested in front of the altar with brass and copper pews placed rows to face it. Behind the altar, itself was another stained-glass picture of the white dragon resting with many balls of various under its claws like a horde of gold dragons were rumoured to have protected. On a blue and green ball was a map of the known world with a special marker on Cadamem. Meowlynn couldn’t identify what was on any of the other besides two more but that was because they were basically duplicates of the green and blue ball. One of the balls it Asmir on it was black, grey, and white while the other one had many vibrant colours with purple being very prominent.

Finally, a frail old man entered the room. He had a long white beard that went down to his hips. He was well groomed with a full head of white hair that was slicked back. His blue and white robes almost looked too big for him and he had a cane with the handle shaped like a dragon’s head.

“Finally, you have arrived.” The old man’s voice did not match his appearance. Instead of an aged and tired voice, the archbishop had a booming, proud, and strong voice, one that commanded authority.

“You knew we were coming? How?” Fern was left confused which was understandable since Meowlynn was as well.

“The great Shining Dragon knows all,” smirked the elderly man. “I know you have been cursed child and are here to remove it. Your timing could not have been better as there is a full moon tonight, the best for the cleansing ritual.”

“So you want us to come back tonight,” inquired the crooked-nosed cleric.

“Gods no,” chuckled the archbishop. “We need to start preparing him for the cleansing now, though I do need two ingredients for the ritual. First, I need ten pounds of sea salt from Cadamem’s shore and I also need about five pounds of menthyl leaves that grow on the plants just south-east of the city.”

“Menthyl leaves?” Blaine looked at Meowlynn as if they shared some secret about the mentioned leaves. “Aren’t those the leaves used to make healing potions?”

“You are well informed, my curse-blooded guest,” applauded the frail-looking man. “Sadly there is no way we can remove the curse that runs through your veins.”

“That’s alright,” assured the hemomancer. “I can figure it out myself.”

“I’m sure you can,” grinned the archbishop. “The gods love when mortals do things for themselves instead of always relying on divine intervention.”

Meowlynn stifled a laugh as she stared at Aliya bowing her head in shame. Even this man knew there was a limit to how much you could beg the gods to help you. At some point, the gods probably got tired of helping a person who always asked for help and just waited for them to die.

“Now, young man,” he pointed at Fern. “What is your name?”

“My name is Fern.”

“Your full name.”

“Fern Mertens.”

“Very good. You will come with me but I need the rest of you to collect the ingredients.” The old man started walking away and Fern followed him.

The Jellybeans left the temple in stood in the plaza, all eyes were on Gene.

“Okay, we’ll split into two teams,” he instructed. “Team One will go get the salt and Team Two will get the leaves.”

“Team Two will be Blaine because he knows what the leaves look like, Ciylia because I need someone who knows the forest but I need Kira’s strength and knowledge of the seaside to collect the salt, and Aliya because that team needs someone to watch them and she can help harvest herbs quickly.”

“Meowlynn and Kira, you are with me on Team One. I want everyone to be here before sunset.”

With a quick nod, everyone left to do as they were instructed, though Meowlynn wished she could have been with Blaine and Ciylia as they were more fun to be around. The wizard took some solace in the fact she wasn’t with Aliya.

~~~~~~~~~~

Kira was happy to enjoy the salty air, the waves that crashed against the shore were calming. The weather in Cadamem was much more agreeable with the halfling than in Erend, the further away she was from the Frosted Mountains, the better.

A relaxing breeze from the Stormclasp Ocean swept across the ranger’s braid trying to lift it up. As much as she wanted to just relax and absorb the nostalgia, she was here to do a job and she would not fail it.

The first thing to do was to look for the best spot to collect seawater. Kira jumped across some rocks higher up on the shore to look for a spot where the waves broke so that there wouldn’t be a lot of tidal movement. Gene would be the one collecting the water so the fewer problems he had the better. The last thing the Jellybeans needed was Gene being dragged out to the ocean.

About thirty minutes or so of searching led the halfling to a spot where two rocks broke the waves that would allow the monk to safely collect the water in large quantities.

The group had to purchase some special jugs that were designed for collecting saltwater over a few days. The idea was to collect water in the jug and allow it to rest in the sun for a few days. The jug had a special strainer that could easily hold and collect the dried salt that made the collection process easier and purified the salt so there weren’t other things mixed with it. This filter struggled with filtering out sand so that is why the group had to go into the fierce ocean itself.

“Over here,” yelled the halfling. Another reason they had to go looking for a spot was because it was outside of the city so Meowlynn could use her magic to evaporate the water so the group could harvest the salt as quickly as possible. There was a special sea salt collection spot in the city dedicated to some water god but since magic was forbidden with Cadamem’s walls it would have been too much of a hassle to move the water out of the gate every time they filled a jug.

Gene made his way over carrying the two jugs. Despite the containers being large and a bit heavy, the monk still gracefully made his way to Kira.

“Where would you like me to fetch the water?”

“Over there,” Kira pointed at the two rocks that were breaking waves.

"Be back soon," laughed the monk.

He made his way into the water. "It's very cold," he yelled. Both Kira and Meowlynn laughed. These were the moments that the ranger enjoyed the most.

Gene stood in the water and pushed the jugs under the waves. Air bubbles burst on the water's surface and when they quit appearing, Gene pulled the jugs up with great difficulty. He would then drag them to the shore and Meowlynn would heat the jugs to evaporate all the liquid inside. After that was done, Kira would gently shake the jug to sift the salt to the bottom of it through its special strainer. Finally, she would remove the salt through a removable compartment at the base of the jug and put it into a large haversack bag.

The process was long and took many hours to do but Kira enjoyed the labour and her leader didn't seem to mind much either. After they had collected the 10 pounds of salt, the group headed to the temple of the Shining Dragon.

~~~~~~~~~~

Blaine was slightly annoyed that he was stuck with Aliya and Ciylia. Aliya went out of her way to buy a scale and a five-pound object so that they could accurately measure the weight of the leaves and kept insisting they measure the weight at every chance they could. It was ludicrous, they should measure after two or three hours of collecting and not a moment before then. For some reason, the gnome seemed to think that the faster the herbs were collected the faster the curse would be cured. The problem with her logic was that the archbishop clearly stated that the ritual was going to be at night or else the comment about there being a full moon would have meant nothing.

Ciylia was also a bad partner for this task because the thief was completely useless at collecting herbs and didn't really feel the need to. It was very frustrating because Blaine wanted to perfect his harvesting technique so he could become better at making potions. The gods knew that the Jellybeans needed potions as Aliya could only do so much on the battlefield. Their skill in combat was a reason the hemomancer continued to travel with them. He needed strong allies so he could get more exotic materials for testing and trying to cleanse the curse that flowed within his veins and many others.

Of course, he knew there were curse-blooded people who were proud of who they were but Blaine wanted to make his cure available for those who weren't. The deeper they traveled into the forest the thicker the canopy got overhead. There were two reasons Blaine was actually excited to be assigned to collecting the menthyl leaves. The first was that it would allow him to practice brewing potions while they traveled, and the second was that the arachne was close to this location too. This meant he could scout the location ahead of time and possibly take a quick peek inside to get an idea of what the combat environment might be like.

Deeper into the forest, the trio reached a place where large gaps presented themselves in the canopy. Located under these holes were menthyl plants that were ripe for harvesting. This was Blaine's first time to see one growing in nature as the only ones he saw were in Percival's tent while he was teaching the cursed-blooded man about brewing healing potions.

The plant was easy to spot as it made star-shaped patterns with its leaves and did that all the way down the stem. The leaves themselves were shaped like the bowl of a spoon except that it was flat. Their texture was slightly fuzzy and all leaves were attached by a teal stem. The further down the stem the leaves grew, the bigger they were. This could also tell you how mature the plant was as well, the bigger the leaves the longer it had survived. Blaine wasn't aware of what things at menthyl plants but he didn't care enough to find out. Maybe if he made a garden for potion making after he was done searching for the cure, he would find out then.

Aliya actually helped Blaine harvest but was annoying by constantly measuring the leaves. Ciylia was being completely useless so the hemomancer decided to put her to work.

"Hey Ciylia," Blaine called out. "Could you do me a huge favour and located the cave that spider creature lives in. I expect a woman of your skill could easily find it in this forest."

"It will be easy," scoffed the forest elf. "Not to mention less boring than this. I'll meet up with you guys later." As soon as the excuse presented itself, Ciylia left without a moment's hesitation.

Now Blaine only had one more problem to deal with.

"Aliya, we need to talk," sighed Blaine. "How about we just harvest for about an hour and every hour we can weigh them. There is no rush because the ritual isn't until sometime at night and I would also like to collect extra herbs if possible."

"Why do you want extra leaves? They are useless to us."

"Useless? I can make healing potions with them!" Blaine's fiery temper boiled over. "Don't you think you do a lot of healing for the group? Wouldn't you also like it if they had healing potions with them so you could focus on the people with the gravest of injuries instead of splitting your effort which takes a huge toll on your body since you literally open yourself up to heal others! Even you could use healing potions! Instead of just buying them, I could make them!"

The gnomish cleric just sat on the ground speechless. Her eyes started to well up and she went back to harvesting the leaves, her body facing away from the hemomancer. "Okay," she croaked. Finally, everything was how he wanted it.

They finished harvesting a bit after noon when Ciylia returned. "I found the cave," announced the thief. "It's pitch black inside and a ton of webs but the cave itself is very short. I didn't venture too far in but I'm sure I saw the end of the cave."

With that information, Blaine didn't need to go look at the cave himself. He knew that it was going to a tough fight but since he had mastered how to ignite his blood and was practicing being able to make it radiant, he had the best combination of magic to fight that creature. Tomorrow he was going to prove he was worthy of the hunt so he could use the establishment as a place to rest and a way of getting unique samples for his studies.

Happy with the harvest and the information, Blaine was ready to go back and get this ritual business behind him so that he could try and convince the Jellybeans to keep hunting monsters to help him.