She sketches maps. She asks about swamp threats. She confirms will'o'wisp information. (Some of her notebook's pages have drawings of rather fantastical looking machines, but she skims past them pretty quickly.)

Presuming nothing interrupts... Meet back up with Belmarniss and on to the temple of Abadar?

Belmarniss has a new spell and is quite cheery about this. Temple of Abadar it is.

Fiducia Papinia is a plump middle aged woman with a key of Abadar on a necklace and gold-and-silver robes. She tells them when asked that she is only second circle, but that's sufficient to do some long buffs for them like Resist Energy, and follow up with healing if they'd like to split the bounty with her. She's got a crossbow but doesn't expect to be able to hit a will-o-wisp even if it holds still and glows at her the entire time.

"Would this be an even split between all three participants? Also, we might want to change some foreign coins for local ones depending on the rate. Also, I'd maybe be interested in an estimate of the value of my custom weapons, I'm curious."

"Certainly you might have some argument that it should not be evenly split, but that is the place to start from, unless you wish to separately purchase my time, the inconvenience of travel, the individual spells I prepare and an additional markup for those I actually cast, and my hazard pay all as separate line items. Which you might! It would work out somewhat more cheaply. But you would in that event still have to pay me even if you found no will-o-wisps and decided to give up. If I agree to work for a share of the bounty then I will still have agreed that even if it transpires the bounty is zero. May I see the foreign coins?"

She produces examples of each size.

"I had the faintly imagined plan that you would not proceed into the swamp with us, and thus face less danger. I might be under a mistaken impression of how long Resist Energy lasts."

"How long does Resist Energy last?" She asks Belmarniss. "-I should make rubber pants for you if swamps and water are going to be a thing. Also, tinted glasses."

"If she's second circle it's going to be half an hour, maybe a bit longer if she's near third. I don't know how confident we should be of finding a will-o-wisp within a half hour of tromping into the swamp. Is the point of rubber pants just to stay dry or do they work against the giant leeches too?"

"Mostly for water, but it might slow them down for a round? And keep near-miss lightning from spreading up the water into you. -I should make a salt bomb for the launcher."

"A salt bomb? Would that kill a leech, salt?"

"Giant leeches are specifically vulnerable to it, according to the Baron's brother. Probably not kill it, but definitely hurt it. Probably it violently dries them out."

Presumably the Fiducia is checking the coins while they chat?

Yup, she's humming to herself while she arranges them on balances and dunks them in a cup of water with lines drawn inside.

"Anyway, a salt bomb would be very specialized but all I'd need is the flash powder core and the shell, it'd probably cost - half as much in raw ingredients and three-fourths as much time? So a few hours. Might not even end up using it though."

"Would it be usable without the launcher so you could sell it to someone who has more chances to meet a giant leech?"

"Yeah, all my bombs are impact and timer fused. They go off in one round or when they hit something hard enough. You twist the cap off and pull the pin to arm them. The launcher pulls the pin when it fires, it was actually a little tricky to make them definitely not go off when launched."

"So it might be worth it to have a salt bomb if we're nervous about leeches but honestly I bet a leech goes down to a couple of my cracklebolts." This is what Belmarniss calls her sorcerous bloodline's arcane ray attack thing. "No, I'm being too generous to the cracklebolts, they're really only good for scaring random assholes and fishing, but still, I'm not that worried about leeches. Black dracolisk, that could ruin my day, I fucking hate acid."

"The petrification is even scarier, to me. Best shot against a black dracolisk is running. Or hitting it with everything we can as fast as possible."

"Yeah, I don't think we should try to fight a dracolisk if we can avoid it, but it's hard to run in a swamp. I could keep a Fly in reserve and pull the Bag of Holding down over you to fly off with you if we need to bail? Though if this lady's coming with it'd slow me down to have to do it twice."

"D'you think smoke stops a petrifying gaze? I could set off a smoke bomb if that happens, make a nice big obscuring cloud."

"...you know, I have no idea. I could throw a Darkness - no, dracolisks can see in the dark - hm."

"If there's a tavern where adventurers hang out in town we should ask there."

"I think if there were adventurers of dracolisk-slaying level around here, they would have gotten the job already."

"The other option is 'hope'." Sigh. "I'll pop smoke if we see one anyway."

"Nothing like contemplating turning into an acid-pitted statue and sinking to the bottom of a swamp to make me feel like will-o-wisps are pushovers."

"We can use Shroomy as a sacrificial mycelium shield. I want to make more guns, and a gas mask, and that powered armor I was talking about, and heat-goggles- Some snakes can see heat- And more clanks..."

"There's only so much gear you can wear at once before it cripples your ability to run."

"That's what the power armor is for."