Winter is ending not too far in the future, and whilst you prepare for the coming war on the island of Avalon - where various factions will collide - you venture into the elemental plane of fire to find (or rescue) the silver Elder Dragon and LorekeeperAmón. Your only hint is the word "Ashes", which Amon whispered into Drem's mind, distorted and in draconic. You sought the help of Zios, the green Elder Dragon, who guided you towards Mount Ashcloud, the lair of the red Elder Dragon Xander.
Passing various trials, you shifted into the realm of fire and met with the humanoid form of the red dragon Pyria, daughter of Xander, Queen of Ashes. She promised you an audience with the king, shalt you retrieve a painting from her "deranged brother" Othimarun, the Red Vulture. You are guided by Qizenya, seemingly one of the cultists of the Flameseekers, who tells you that although he was dream-recruited by Xander, his real reason to be here is because Bruri Ironbeard hired the mercenary to help scout for Amon. And while Bruri looks for some way to exit the plane in the City of Brass, your group and Qizenya venture through the Hellwasp Desert to the volcano known as the Ruins of Embrassil - an abandoned magical forge of the fire giants.
On your way, you encounter various environmental dangers and creatures. You use a very potent scroll of Imprisonment to immobilize some powerful sand creature and steal its giant ruby. You kill one of your striders and bring it back to life, then accidentally kill an unborn pheonix. You intimidate bandits and eventually end up in the Ruins of Embrassil. But Othimarun did not like you intruders, no. He cornered you and only through a wonderful performance of Egbert, he was willing to let you live by becoming his entertainment. Drem is able to explore the place undetected and finds a strange ring that can turn him invisible.
After a while, Othimarun gets tired of your performances and while you are just barely able to convince the ancient dragon not to eat you on the spot, you distract him long enough to enter his treasure room. You find the painting and collect some of the hoard, when the angry dragon find you and attacks.
A glorious fight ensures that leaves many of you singed. Flo is burned to ashes right before Happy deals the finishing blow to the foe. With the blessing of Zios and a collective of words, Flo can be revived - exhausted as fuck, but alive. But before you start looting, you decide to take a longer rest in Egberts magnificent mansion...
A long rest later, you emerge from the mansion to find a couple of magma dwarves that are in the process of looting the hoard of Othimarun. You engage with a spectacular illusion of the dead dragon rising in undeath, aiding you in intimidating the bandits into fleeing. Afterwards, you finish their job and spend a few hours ransacking anything valuable. You find a strange iron flask that is able to trap and seal creatures, a fake bag of holding that swallows anything put inside (like the hundreds of platinum pieces you stored inside). You also obtain the vandalized picture of Queen Pyria of Ashes. Meanwhile, Drem un-attunes from the Won Ring after learning it can potentially trap the wearer in the Deep Ethereal Plane - without the ring.
You get ready to teleport out of the active volcano, formulating plans how to proceed from the safety of Zeantis, but the teleportation fails, leaving you no other choice but to grind your way back through the Hellwasp Desert. Pleading to the Queen of Ashes through a sending spell also does not result in the immediate help you hoped for. In the end, you leave the cave on foot and contact the bandits you got rid of earlier, inviting them to a trade. They accept mistrustingly, but after some good arguments they could not deny, they left two of their drake-drawn rafts for you.
You start your journey back to Mount Ashcloud, leaving the ruins of Embrassil behind you. After you successfully survived another pit of quicksand, you later find the dried out corpses of the two travelling fey you have encountered on your way to Embrassil. You take a moment to inspect them and learn from speaking with their corpses, that they were ambushed by something stinging from behind. As you look around and eventually up, you see flying bone devils engaging the tasty prey staring up at them...