"We turned bodies into fertilizer. It's just a couple extra steps. The babies thing is not great, but like, that's the murder more than the eating them in my opinion."

A different room at the temple, if it's available, or maybe at a tavern?

"Yeah, that's where I land too, murder is bad, wasting calories doesn't improve the situation any."

They're not priests so the temple is not an inn for them. They can get a room above a tavern.

Acceptable.

The next morning they can go over plans on what to do if they encounter various likely Swamp Things, perhaps?

Waltana has become mediocrely passable in melee and, with chainmail and her lightning-shroud- (some quick modifications to make it less trigger-happy in the water)- Is probably best suited to the frontline of those present. Her general plan for herself is to launch one grenade, trying to hit two or three of whatever the threat is, and then ready her power saw rather than spend two rounds reloading and firing again.

Papinia's intention is to park somewhere relatively stable within the swamp with an exit path she can run along, and be available for the other two to come to her for healing and spells between forays in the swampier bits.

Belmarniss's plan is to run for it if they see a dracolisk but she's willing to stand and fight most other things they've heard to be likely.

Eh, the Fiducia did say that she wasn't really a fighter. The healing will be very handy anyway.

"I have my smoke bomb ready if we see a dracolisk. Smoke and run, yeah."

She still wants to talk over the possibilities one more time, and tell everyone about the common threats again. She knows it's boring, but proper preparation prevents poor performance. She tests tromping through some sections of softer ground well within sight of the village, and then they can finally be off.

Into the swamp, watching for nasties.

They should ask locals who gather things from the swamp if they can tell them about where there are paths and pitfalls, too - then yep in they go, with a Prestidigitation up so if her scroll case gets soaked she can clean it off right away and all that jazz.

Wisps? Crocodiles? Anything else?

They encounter leeches first. Also a lot of mosquitoes but none of them are dire. Belmarniss trips and falls into the swamp and needs to stop to clean off her gear before they can keep going; she's more assiduous about casting Root on herself constantly after that. They see what might be a kelpie in the distance but it decides not to bother them. Belmarniss casts Darkvision on Waltana come nightfall "but I should take point, mine's twice as far". And then finally they find a wisp, glowing in the twilight.

-And freeze and has it noticed them and where is Papinia relative to them and where are the paths away from this section and-

Whisper, "I think I can hit it if it's unaware. Fragmenting bomb loaded."

It's hard to tell if a glowball has noticed you or not. Belmarniss nods and crouches out of her way.

Adjust range timer, adjust sights, pull the charge lever to prime the main chamber to 400 kPa, deep breath and...

There's a tinny TOOMP and a fist-sized object flies forward in a low arc at about a hundred feet per second.

That's slower than an arrow, and the target is small, but it looks like it didn't in fact notice them; it hits, if not quite bullseye.

The grenade explodes with considerable force. Even on a miss it would have hurt anything in a ten or fifteen foot radius. On a hit, most of the fragments have a body to go into.

She slings the launcher over her back and readies the power sword, and moves to be between it and Belmarniss.

The wisp turns invisible, but Belmarniss promptly hits it with a Faerie Fire so they can still see it.

She charges as best she can through the muck, bracing for pain.

Getting electrocuted hurts a lot less when you've got resist energy up but it's still not great. Niss summons a celestial giant frog, which starts trying to seize the wisp in its tongue.

Ugh, she needs a lightning gun of her own, or power armor, or at least a grounding system...

It'd just dodge another grenade. She tries to apply her Sparky POWER SAW instead. "Taste the bite of STEAM-POWERED SHARP STEEL!"

The wisp gets away from her but it doesn't get away from the frog. The frog presents the struggling wisp to its summoner where they can efficiently slice it to death.

She gets zapped again. Heart pounding, Spark up and roiling -

-There's nothing to work with here, she's terrible at biological systems. This isn't a workshop. Spark back down.

She looks at her saw's blades. Prestidigitation.

"...Well, there we go. One village-snacker gone. To a solid spot and take a break? Though I wonder if anything in there would make a useful material."

Niss takes the invisible wisp corpse and bags it. "Yeah, let's head back to Papinia and decide from there whether to look for a second one or not. Anything in... the wisp corpse? I have no idea what they're made of apart from it being invisible."

"Yeah. Invisible to certain spectra at least. I wonder if they absorb infrared or ultraviolet? Or if the invisibility stays or decays away. I'm not used to magic, still."

"Well, I think they only want the corpse as proof we killed it, not for themselves, so if you want to tote around a rotting wisp and study it I shan't stop you."

"Mmh... Not the whole thing probably."

Tromp tromp. Ow, lightning burns.

Papinia heals them both when they arrive and applauds lightly when she hears they got a wisp.