Editing Drake's Company (section)

===The Devastation Orbs===
As the party returned to Drakkengarde, they encountered a half-orc druid named Sumac Briarden who had set out from [[Underbough Temple]] to conduct his own investigation into the elemental cults. Seeing as their goals aligned, he decided to join forces with Drake's Company.

Once in Drakkengarde, Drake went to the guard and demanded Bastian Thermandar's head. Bastian, however, was providing valuable information about the cults, including that the earth and fire cults were respectively led by [[Marlos Urnrayle]] (wielding the war pick ''[[Ironfang]]'') and [[Vanifer]] (wielding the dagger ''[[Tinderstrike]]''). Moreover, elemental disasters were now striking the region; Red Oak Village had been devastated by an earthquake, and [[Westford]] by a hurricane. They told Drake to eliminate the final two prophets to end the threat, and then maybe they would consider his request for Thermandar.

Meanwhile, Lafiel met with her broker to sell the treasures they had taken from the cult strongholds, including ''Drown.'' Her broker also provided her with a tip: a group called the [[Hand of Yalnos]] had acquired a magic orb said to be a powerful weapon of elemental fire, and planned to auction it in five days' time. The heroes decided that they should intercept it to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. That night, Lafiel's dreams were visited by a robed figure with a pulsing magic orb who warned that they had "offended the Elder Elemental Eye," and that as a consequence Drakkengarde would be destroyed at dawn.

Waking up in the middle of the night, she roused her companions. Ru Bae Ya cast a divination to try and determine where the attack would take place, and received a message "the storm will strike the ships at sunrise." Between the message and what Lafiel had seen in her dreams, they determined that the cultists were sailing down the strait to activate the orb in the harbor. They successfully intercepted the ship and slew the water cultists on board, but in the fight the magic chest housing the orb was destroyed. They quickly identified that when the the orb detonated it would create a powerful storm. That detonation would occur within a matter of minutes, or if the orb was broken, and with the chest destroyed there was no way to contain the blast. Thinking quickly, Lafiel picked up the orb and Drake struck her with a banishing smite, removing her and the orb to a small, empty demiplane. There the orb detonated harmlessly, and a thoroughly drenched Lafiel reappeared on the ship when Drake's spell ended a minute later. Now understanding what sort of magic might be unleashed by the orb in Yalnos, they grew more determined to stop the auction.

Drake's Company traveled to Yalnos and made contact with a representative of the Hand. Though they confirmed the chest containing the orb had been taken from fire cultists trying to smuggle it into the town of [[Boros]], they refused to elaborate further on how they got it. The auction was interrupted by an assassination attempt on the seller, who escaped in the chaos. Afterwards, they were contacted by another of the buyers: [[Prov Coren]] and [[Myra Brigg]] of the [[Brightstone Heroes]], who also intended to keep the orb out of the wrong hands and were previously acquainted with Qwynn. Joining forces, they followed the seller to their hideout in the cemetery. After fighting off the group of drow attempting to seize the orb for themselves, they secured it before repeating the Banishing Smite trick to safely detonate it within a demiplane. Myra then teleported all of them to Silverstone so they could spend a few days conducting further research on the elemental cults. There they learned of the four primordials known as archomentals: [[Yan-C-Bin]], [[Olhydra]], [[Ogrémoch]], and [[Imix]]. Imprisoned within the Elemental Plane, it would be disastrous for them to be set loose upon the Material. Armed with a new resolve, they had Myra teleport them back to Drakkengarde to continue their fight.