"Yes, sounds like a good idea." He eyes the distance to where the scientist from earlier said scientist Quickk was, and traces a path via leylines in his head. "I believe this is one of the terrible times when I shall have to carry you in my arms again, princess."

"So terrible. Truly. My heart, it breaks." She casts the weight lightening enchantment and saunters over to him for pickup, smiling faintly.

He picks her up, walks over to a good vantage point, jumps, and activates his glider.

Up, up, and away!

Wheee!

She settles in for comfortable snuggles while he does all of the difficult 'gliding' and 'carrying her' business.

Yup. It doesn't look difficult, though; for all she can tell he was born in the air.

Eventually they reach the lip of the volcano again and he sets her down on her feet.

"Thank you, darling."

Then: off to see this 'Quickk' about putting the device together.

They find an asura, eventually.

    "Excellent, assistants arrive!" he says when he notices them from the corner of his eyes, looking up from the broken machine in front of himself. "I must remember to thank Taimi once we're out of here. Now, to buisness: what do you suppose this contraption is?"

"It's an ancient dwarven device built to release the magical pressure building up beneath the volcano and prevent an eruption," she says. "But it's broken. We picked up the pieces we could find, do you know if we found them all?"

She offers up the device pieces.

The scientist blinks at the pieces, then looks up at Vetareh. "Well, you're... surprisingly informed and proactive for an assistant. Let me see, let me see..." He takes the pieces and starts fiddling with the device. "...impressive. Very impressive. Yes, this is all of it! Tell Taimi I recommend you two get a raise."

"Thank you. We'll be sure to let her know," says Vetareh a little wryly, not pointing out that neither of them are actually getting paid at all. As far as she knows, anyway. "Do you need help repairing it? The Commander," it feels so weird to call him that instead of his name, "is carrying an item that will activate it once it's all in one piece."

    "I'll repair it in thirty-seven seconds," Quickk huffs. It takes him thirty-five, and he presents them with the inert-but-fixed device as well as a self-satisfied grin. James rolls his eyes but he's too hidden by the armour for this to be noticed. Instead, he taps the device with the dwarf's thumb, and it immediately lifts up off the ground and starts glowing and rotating. "Well, that was... anticlimactic," the scientist comments.

"There's still one more machine we must activate," says James. "Do you know where we can find it?"

    "We detected the signature of another one of these devices in the mursaat fortress. West of here, near the coast," Quickk explains, pointing west. From where they are, they can see... volcanoes, in the distance. No mursaat fortress is in evidence but it's probably far enough away that it wouldn't be. "We'd have investigated it already, but none of us have dared set a foot in that perilous place. Do be careful, Commander and...?"

Vetareh does not roll her eyes, because she's accustomed to hanging around self important nerds. Instead, she dutifully looks very impressed, like the good little assistant that she is.

"Vetareh," she clarifies, feeling like this is going to be a theme. "Thank you, we can hardly get any proper research done if we're dead."

She looks at James. "Lunch before we head out?"

"Wonderful idea," he agrees.

    "Yes, yes, good luck to you two, now I have this wonderful device to study," says Quickk, quickly engrossed in figuring the device out.

"We'll leave you to your work," she says, amused.

A picnicking location is acquired and a blanket unfurled for sitting while eating. They're within eyesight of the asura, so that if a lava wurm shows up, they can maybe help out before Quickk and his worried helper get toasted and eaten.

This seems like a fairly peaceful spot that Quickk has found. Doubtlessly the dwarves chose it for the device for this same reason. There are some embers and some more dangerous flying fire elementals in the distance, but there's no direct path from them to this spot and the sources of lava and fire are about as far from here as they can be from anywhere in these islands.

James and Vetareh can have their picnic in peace.

Oh good! That is the preferred way to have a picnic.

As they eat, she asks, "Are we getting paid? Because I got the impression that we were not getting paid."

"Only for collecting bounties here and there," he shrugs. "Not for helping various scientists with their pet projects."

"Ahuh. That's what I thought. Fortunately for me, I'm mooching off of you already."

"And I'm sure you will get your share of bounty rewards. Not to mention all the body parts of various monsters, those can be pretty profitable."

"Oh, that's true. I was thinking in terms of the scientific benefit more than the economic one. I suppose I'm not much of a mooch at all, am I."

"Not at all. And I am sure your books will sell for much."

"That's the plan! Though since I haven't written them yet, that's rather getting ahead of ourselves."

"I have full confidence in your abilities."

"Thank you, darling." And for that, he gets a kiss.

He returns it earnestly.

Eventually they're done eating.