Area F - Kitchen

A pleasant blend of aromas greets you as you enter the kitchen. The smell of chocolate, coffee, and cinnamon - along with dozens of other scents - drifts through the smoke-filled air. The fragrances here aren't quite as oppressive as those in the garden, but it still takes some effort to keep your head clear.

Around the corner is a small, cluttered room, filled with bustling activity. At the left side of the kitchen is a brick oven, which is packed to the brim with dozens of different foodstuffs. On the right side is a massive stovetop with heavy pots and pans set haphazardly on top of it. In the middle of the room, and scattered randomly about, are huge piles of scorched cookware that reach up to the fairly low ceiling. You can barely make out a door, slightly ajar, past those piles on the opposite side of the room; that probably leads deeper inside.

A soft *fwoof* noise draws your attention back to the stove, where a strange scarlet creature has appeared. Her features are strikingly serpentine, especially her immense tail - it must be at least 3 or 4 yards long! The rest of her body is slender, and her thin waist has a blackened apron tied around it. Her limbs are similarly thin, but her hips are surprisingly broad and supple. From her snake-like features and prominently pointed ears, you infer that this must be a fire elemental.

She peers at each of the cooking pots with piercing pink eyes, occasionally dipping her finger in one and licking the sauce off with her sinuous tongue. Once she's satisfied with each, she puffs jets of fire under each pot to keep the fires going, then *fwoofs* away in a burst of flame to the oven.

You have a decently clear shot to banish the elemental using Strokmier, but it might be safer to create a distraction instead. A large pair of bellows sits in front of the oven, and just a few pumps would stoke the oven's flames enough to start burning the food. The same is true of the stove, where hefty valves control how much heat reaches the pots.