Water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink....

I never would have thought that in the middle of an island chain water would be such a problem. I was even thinking about drinking my own urine i was beginning to be so thirsty. Yuck!

We finally came upon the source of the water, in an almost mountainy area. Inside the source of the spring, a gigantic water elemental was lodged. He peered out of the crater a bit, but he seemed to be basically apathetic to the world around us, enjoying sucking up all the water. At first it appeared that the elemental was sucking up all the water, but then Leshrac detected a portal underneath the elemental. The elemental could have been summoned or could have just decided to come here -- it seemed to have little knowledge (though according to Edmund it seemed that he/she/it? had a bit of an obsession with Ren's chest... could have just been Edmund though, all the time in the woods alone might cause some weird fetishes). Anyways after a lot of prodding, Edmund was finally convinced to try to talk with the elemental. He very cautiously edged towards it which started some sort of 10 minute long conversation -- all in Aquan, which sounds a bit more like a bubbling bowl than a real language. That's when the Ren obsession started.

Then the bizarre really started. Whenever anyone tried to make water, it was like the water was sucked away (though if i remember correctly, Jimoko tried to see if he could create water without it being diverted -- it wasn't).

First, we tried to find another place that the water could be plugged at -- one we might be able to dig up another spot to let the water flow out. That pretty much failed, and we wound up coming upon some lizard men, who i wound up talking to. I really need to shore up my speaking skills though, I wasn't being too convincing. They were also trying to find the source of the drought. Not as if they'd really be able to, they didn't even understand what an elemental was.

Well - Ren had just figured out how to soften earth to mud. So - we figured that if you could soften away some of the earth, the water might flow out underneath the elemental. The first casting didn't do too much -- the area got pretty muddy but no water leaked out. Now after that, the elemental figured out what was going on and wasn't too happy about it -- but, 2 more castings and we've got water flowing again! And then the elemental flowed right out along with it. We managed to get away after some distracting castings, some not so effective weapons, Ren unconscious and Rabinus(sp?)'s guts spilt out on the valley floor. We pushed them back in, healed him up a little bit, and after 2 days they weren't quite good as new, but no major organs were missing.

We decided we needed to head to the city. Which city was a bit of a quarrel -- did we go back to the old one or on to Abel. Well, after a bit of a discussion (me, Ren, and Edmund walking towards Abel and the rest of the party realizing they wouldn't know where to go), the remaining members came to their senses and we headed down in the direction of Abel. Hopefully since the return of the water we will get a pleasant welcome.