Jessop peered at the two girls with wide eyes, then nodded slowly.
"Sure," he said. "I said I was looking for new adventures. This sounds about as crazy an escapade as any."
"Okay," Tara said. "Let's build a fire a few hundred feet upstream, then we can boil some water and add the potions to create an intoxicating vapor. Hopefully when the dragon inhales it, it'll be enough to put him to sleep."
"What will we use to boil the water?" Clover said. "We don't have any kind of pot to place over the fire."
"Don't worry about that right now," Tara said. "I've done this sort of thing before. Let's get upriver where it will be safer to build a fire."
Tara led them to an area with some large gray rocks by the riverbank, then she kneeled down and picked one up that was about a foot in diameter.
"This is soft shale," she said. "I'll get started chipping it into a makeshift bowl if you guys can get started making a fire."
"I don't know how to make a fire," Clover said, shaking her head. "I usually use matches or a lighter back home."
"A what?" Tara said, looking at her with a wrinkled forehead.
"Right, sorry," Clover said, shaking her head. "I forgot you guys are stuck in the stone ages."
"What about you, Jessop?" Tara said, peering at their new friend. "Did your father teach you any other useful survival skills?"
"No problem," he said. "It might take me a while, but I should be able to scare one up in twenty minutes or so."
While Jessop went to find some dry sticks and a dowel to make a fire, Clover knelt down beside Tara watching her chip away at the soft shale rock with a harder granite stone. The rock began to splinter into shears, and as she swept away the broken pieces, the large round rock slowly began to form a hollow in the middle. Within a half hour or so, she'd created large bowl shape in the stone.
She peered over at Jessop rubbing his hands together over a stick resting on a dry piece of wood, and after a short while, some tendrils of smoke began rising off the surface. Jessop threw some dry moss over the smoke then knelt down to blow on it and it erupted into a small flame. He threw some larger sticks onto the pile, then nodded toward Tara who was grinding the finishing touches on her stone bowl.
"Jesus," Clover sighed, kneeling down in front of them as they constructed a firepit from some larger logs to boil the water. "You really know what you're doing out here in the wilderness. I feel like such a lightweight around you guys."
"You're useful for one or two things when the need arises," Tara said, smiling at Clover. "Who else would have dreamed up the idea of saving an injured dragon?"
Tara placed some river water in the bowl, then poured in the bag of spices she'd taken from the warlock's house and stirred it gently in the stone pot until it came to a bowl.
"Let's hope this'll do the trick," she said, blowing the steam away from their noses. "When we get close enough to the dragon, one of you will need to use some kind of flap to fan the steam in the dragon's direction."
"Flap?" Clover said.
"Like a piece of clothing. You've got the largest piece with your one-piece bodysuit. Jessop will just have to look in the other direction while you flap your sheepskin in the buff."
The two girls glanced up at Jessop with a raised eyebrow, and he peered back at them like a kid who'd just been caught fishing around his sister's underwear drawer.
"Sure," he smiled, glancing at Clover's spilling bosom. "Whatever it takes to help the cause."
The trio tiptoed to within a safe distance of the panting dragon then knelt down in the long grass. The dragon had its eyes closed, groaning in obvious pain.
"We going to have to do this fast, before the steam disappears," Tara said. "It's now or never."
Clover removed her bodysuit while Jessop turned his head in the other direction, then the two girls raised themselves as high above the grass as they dared while Clover flapped the steam from the pot in the dragon's direction. The vapor wafted downwind, and the dragon slowly began to breathe more softly until his body fell limp.
"Do you think the potion was strong enough to put him to sleep?" Clover said, peering at dragon more carefully.
"I guess we're about to find out," she said, pulling her knife out of her holster. "I'm going to need you two to provide a distraction if he wakes up while I'm trying to remove the spear. Let's keep our fingers crossed that this works."
"And every other body part," Clover said, trying to protect her modesty standing in the tall grass totally naked.
As Tara crept closer to the dragon, Clover and Jessop watched her with wide eyes, holding their breath hoping the creature wouldn't awaken. Clover didn't even bother to put her clothes back on as she held Jessop's hand tightly, feeling the sheath of his rigid sword pressing against her bare hips.
When Tara got within arm's length of the dragon, she reached out to delicately touch the side of its flanks, and it didn't stir. Nodding back in the direction of her friends, she began to climb over its injured wing, squatting in front of the thick spear embedded in its wing. Fortunately, the point hadn't sunk too deep into its flesh, just far enough to keep the barb embedded under its thick scaly skin, making it impossible to fly.