"I'm going to go on ahead a bit so you don't spoil my darkvision."

"-Mmh. It feels wrong to split up even by, like, a hundred feet or something. Thoughts about doing that or just shutting off the light?"

"If you'd rather turn off the light you can, but it's not letting me see any better. Between the three of us we'll see more if I'm outside its range."

She shuts off the light and mutters something about infrared.

Eventually they get back to Fourchurches. Papinia agrees to hold onto the wisp corpse in the temple of Abadar for safekeeping.

And inn negotiations and-

"I don't like the idea of doing that kind of thing on a regular basis, even if it did make the Spark sing. I mean... Not forever, anyway."

"It's the only real way to keep circling up, but if that weren't the case I certainly wouldn't do it recreationally."

"I wonder if Sparks work the same way, or if it more scales off... Quality and quantity of available materials. I suppose I have no reason to think we don't circle up..."

"Pretty much everybody does? Even people without circles get stronger the same way. But you might be weird, how would I know."

"Stories I heard back home don't touch much on how a Spark gets stronger aside from - looting a defeated enemy's lab for interesting things, or learning new things from doing that, but I have no idea how that bears out to reality. It would be pretty hard to test. So... Probably not worth worrying about."

"Defeating the enemy so as to be able to loot their lab counts!"

"Mhm! But I have never heard of a spark who was, say... Discovered as a talent young, didn't get into many fights at all, got swept up by Wulfenbach or someone and protected and given everything they ask for to make their designs, and then became a mighty powerhouse. Doesn't mean it's impossible, but... Mmh."

"That sounds like you circle up. You can get a ways into it by just practicing on your own, I've heard of wizards getting as far as third on that alone, but you have to be really incredibly clever to do it."

"...Worst fight I ever got into before popping out in Noctimar was my breakthrough and the, uh, accidental murder. And I do feel like I was still progressing, as a Spark, but- Slowly. So yeah, it sounds like we circle up."

"But yeah, almost nobody likes adventuring, the people who do mostly die doing it, you pick a circle to plateau at if fortune doesn't pick it for you. If what you've got now is enough to build those things you mentioned then this is a fine place to stop."

It's never going to be okay that she killed him. Those stupid self-justifying thoughts can go die in the forge fires. She's just going to keep trying to - outweigh it in the end.

She's no longer in a chatty mood now, though.

The next morning they can meet the fiducia again and present the body to the castle.

That sure is an invisible spherical corpse. Here's a bunch of gold about it.

And the Fiducia's share dispersed and some drow gold changed over and directions to a port city and supplies for the road- Maybe all adds up to another night in Fourchurches.

"You could set out now but if you wait till tomorrow and make good time you could potentially get all the way to Whitefalls in one day, and it will have a better selection of inns than any of the villages you could make it to today."

She will see if Belmarniss needs anything and get her input on the decision (leaning 'one more day in Fourchurches' and Waltana has an idea about renting a forge and making tinted goggles, it's been bugging her since she had the idea-).

"What are the goggles going to be for?"

"To reduce glare for you during the day?"

"I do have a spell for it, I'm not sure this is worth materials."

"This is - fairly small and simple? And spells are also limited resources. But if you insist, I won't."

"Cantrips aren't very limited resources. I don't mean to insist, just, if you don't wanna do more adventuring we need to stretch the money till we get funding."