It's not like she talks that much about her family, either. (Dad's a fucking jerk who barely talks to mom. Mom's a hothouse farmer who tries her best. No siblings. She misses some of her crafting-assistants from home though, they were almost like friends.)

For travel, she builds, with the affordance to purchase materials actually fit for purpose, a small bevy of travelling gear- A cold box and camp stove, a powered rope spool and hook, several additional lights, motion detectors...

And weapons. She has a launcher that will throw hand-sized bombs with options designed for shrapnel, acid, sticky goo, smoke, and fire. (The ammunition is expensive to make.) She has another power saw and has been practicing with it. She makes a single shot pistol as a holdout weapon, if Belmarniss wants it. She has light chainmail and a sort of wire shroud that will zap hostiles that touch her. She upgrades Shroomy several times, mostly to improve the battery and armor him up a bit.

They can do a test camp, just barely past the farm belt, to make sure they don't realize they've forgotten something as soon as they've moved out of the workshop cave.

Then they can sell off the strawberry (etcetera) machinery to a farmer in exchange for a lot of dried mushrooms and some cash, though Belmarniss does manage to find a farmer she likes well enough that she feels obliged to mention that they'll break down without alchemical-barbarian maintenance and Waltana might not ever come back to the area.

And they can start going up.

The city is probably not more than a mile or two underground. But there isn't exactly a staircase. There are routes, but they're not widely distributed in map form. Belmarniss has a loose idea of what direction to start from and from there their main guide is gravity, stymied at every turn by inconvenient walls.

She gives the growzaps a two years, maybe three or four, as long as you carefully follow these cleaning instructions and use this handful of spares for the delicate forking prongs when they inevitably corrode.

Well, she has a rock-capable saw and a rope launcher if those come in handy? It's not like they have any particular deadline. Waltana still spends much of their limited downtime writing out the principles of engineering and industry as best she can remember, even a few days difference in the big spool up could matter a lot. Chemical science is going to be the biggest hurdle, most likely.

The thing is, there has to be a traversible route to the surface (or several), because the raiders get there and back; throwing a grappling hook across an impassable gap or cutting a hole in a wall might find them a shortcut but it might also not, and bearing patiently up-when-possible through walkable caves will eventually work. Belmarniss considers it a few times but usually doesn't judge it worthwhile, though sometimes she'll cast Light on a spare crossbow bolt and shoot it beyond the range of her darkvision to get a look at whatever they're passing up.

There are monsters. Belmarniss just about solos a rust monster, yelping at Waltana to get their metal things to safety; Belmarniss is wearing much less of the stuff. They have to dispatch a pack of slurks and it takes a while to Prestidigitate all the goop off afterwards, but they can eat one afterwards for variety. They find an injured and slowly starving cave fisher; they can put it out of its misery and collect the loot from its lair off all its prior prey, though none of it's that interesting, mostly just clothes and a few coins.

The slurk goo and cave fisher glands will make very good sticky grenades, actually! If it doesn't make sense to sell them later instead. Her tolerance for grossness goes way up when there is something useful to be gotten.

--These guys could have been her. But they weren't, and now she's armed, and- Well, that's the past.

It's cheering that the monster goop can be rendered useful! Belmarniss will help put things together if that's useful.

It takes them three weeks to find sunlight.

Sun!!!

-Don't let your guard down, not at the moment of triumph, nope. Launcher remains at the ready as she checks out the surface terrain.

"Oh gods, I hate it, how do you live like this," says Belmarniss, burrowing into her hood. "Penumbra. Oh that's better. I guess at least it's colorful??"

They have emerged onto a hillside. It's not even that bright, the sun is at a reasonable morning or possibly afternoon angle and there's trees.

"Oh, it's much worse when there's snow about. Endless white glare in all directions. This is pretty!"

She wouldn't know an oak from an aspen, the trees won't be much help... Any water visible, or roads?

Nothing obvious! Just woods and birds and such. Some of the trees are stumps, so somebody cuts wood here.

"Remind me to make you tinted glasses," she says, sketching the shape of several nearby hills so they can find the cave again if they ever want to. "If we go downhill we'll find a river, probably, and civilization's all about their rivers."

"Downhill it is."

Down down down. There's not actually a stream or anything right at the bottom of this particular hill.

Most plains aren't perfectly level. She'll make an untrained Navigate check choose the most verdant-looking or most stump'd direction?

"I'm not really an expert surface navigator, I should mention. But someone's around," she indicates a stump.

"This close to the aperture that could be drow, there are occasionally fancy things made of wood down there and they don't have to steal everything if that's not actually easier."

"...Other option if looking for water doesn't pan out in a couple hours, I did make a compass, we just go in one specific direction and find something eventually."

"I'd had the idea that you could just follow the sky fireball, does that not work?"

She waves a hand wafflingly. "It does. Compass is more reliable and precise... If Golarion has the same kind of magnetic poles as I'm used to, which isn't a given. Let's check both."

What direction is the sun in right now, she checks, westish or eastish?

According to her compass, westish.

"Sun's heading down right now, and west is over that way, unless I missed something big. Probably we want to clear the immediate surrounds of the cave."

"Clear them? You don't think we should strike out in some direction and go till we're tired?"

"-Sorry, weird turn of phrase, I meant get away from them. As in 'clearance of a part from its neighbors'."

"Oh, gotcha, sure. - if I recall correctly, Taldor has its coasts to the... southwest, and if we wind up going west enough to hit the next country we get Andoran, which is probably also fine. Does southwest look good to you from here?"

She examines that direction for mountains on the horizon.

"...Looks good to me, and sooner started sooner finished."

Off they go southwest. Belmarniss is casting her surefootedness cantrip and her anti-sunshine cantrip nigh-constantly.

She leads to pick the smoothest and flattest path and keep them on the correct general direction, in her slightly-more-familiar-with-the-surface way, and smushes down any grass or brush to make it easier on Belmarniss. And tries to remember to also glance around once in a while.

They spot a griffin, but it's a ways off and doesn't bother them. The woods give way to grassland eventually but it continues pretty hilly.

City Frostbound was highly vertical, built into hills and a mountainside. She picks paths that trend as flat as possible while maintaining the correct overall direction. It's faster than constantly going up and down.

Though perhaps they should hike to the very top of one and take a good look around at least once?

"It's weird being able to see this far. - Village, over there."

"Telescope, another thing I should have made- Not much use underground. I'm not thinking of any reason not to go to the village in five seconds..."

"I think it'll take us longer than that to get there. - you understand you have to do the talking, right, I am your wizardy adventuring companion and you vouch for me and I shut my mouth."

Eye-roll. "The thinking being five seconds. I'm a little nervous about that part and maybe want to go over what we know about Taldor and what's expected of random adventurers in Taldor again."

"You've got what I know of the language, the rest of it's more... stuff I picked up from novels and tall tales, you know? I think adventurers are probably the same - kind of weird - everywhere. Rich, foreign, wacky, violent but hopefully in a useful direction."

"Hi, Desna's cool, got any local menaces with bounties? In somewhat more words."

"Well, I mean, maybe get a look at the local church and see if we can figure out whose it is before we go announcing we love Desna rah rah. - it's probably safe to talk to them in Taldane and me in drow, act like I can't understand them."

"Yeah, she's the one I'd pick if someone presses me for some god, though. Okay, I think I can do this."

"Lead on, fearless party face."

She leads on, trying to look and feel like she knows where she is and is supposed to be there.

They reach the village around dusk. It's just a cluster of houses, and not a close cluster, but it does have a temple - "Erastil," Niss identifies, when they're closer - and a tavern.

Erastil... Farming and family? Humble and straightforward then?

She slings her launcher over her back. To the tavern they go. She says 'hello' politely to anyone within polite-greeting range on the way.

That'd be a lady sitting on her front stoop spinning with a dog lounging at her side, and a man on his way out of the tavern. Belmarniss gets double-takes when a hint of purple peeks out from her sleeves or her hood, but she shadows Waltana pretty closely and Waltana looks like an exotic but not fundamentally outlandish adventurer.

The tavern is very small and it has only three customers in it when they enter, all men, teasing the barmaid about how much she probably wants to sleep with them. (The barmaid is shrugging it off.) There's a shrine to Cayden Cailean in a corner; when she clears away the tankard of the fellow who just left she shakes a bit of the remaining foam into a little bowl on the shrine. When she notices the new entrants her eyes go quite wide.

"Hello there, miss! We're just passing through and looking for good food and a room for the night. And news."

Flash a saddle-shaped gold coin.

"- yes ma'am! We've got stew and I think there's a loaf of bread left, will that do ye?"

"After a while travelling, bread and stew sounds good."

She picks a table for both of them, and says in Drow to Belmarniss, "Making conversation to demonstrate the language barrier."

Nod nod.

Two bowls of stew (it's thick but the chunks in it are too small and cooked down to identify individually) and a loaf of bread for them appear. "We have one room to let to travelers, but if you're not accustomed to sharing I can give mine and find another - you lot shut up -" she adds warningly in the direction of the men. "For news, well, the baron's married, just last month, a lady from a bit north of here?"

"One room, I was figuring, so if anything happens I'm right there and you're not trying to explain yourself?"

"Good for them, I hope! We got a bit turned around in the mountains, which baron would this be? Oh, and might we get some water? From the well is fine, and thank you."

Barons are supposed to protect the locals with force, right, so they're sort of like static and very proud adventurers... Hmm...

"Yeah, one room sounds right," agrees Belmarniss. - oh WOW she likes bread. She has to pace herself a bit on the bread. (The bread is absolutely nothing special if you are accustomed to bread.)

"Our baron is the lord Gulian," says the barmaid, "of Velus."

"One room," she confirms.

Belmarniss can have most of the bread. She breaks hers into chunks and dips it in the stew. And thinks for a bit how to phrase it, composing things.

"Would you know if the lord Gulian or anyone else around would appreciate travelling adventurers to introduce themselves? It's only polite to make ourselves available and useful if we can."

"I can only imagine that he'd surely like to make your acquaintance, most particularly if you outclass his own wizard."

"We naturally don't mean any trouble. Do you know who to go to, for introductions?"

"It would be very suspicious for us not to speak to the lord Gulian. Nobles are like that about unknown elements but I think it's much less bad than the houses below."

"I'm afraid I've never moved in such circles, ma'am."

"I understand. Perhaps I'll ask the priest of Erastil, if they're in?"

"She isn't, she goes on circuit. We get her most Moondays."

Middle of nowhere, huh?

She gives a performative shrug. "If there are no troubles that would take a wizard and an alchemist to face, that's a blessing. Do you know how good a wizard the Baron's is? Is there a town in the barony? I imagine we'll want to pass through there back towards the coast."

"Am I missing anything important to probe for?"

"I've heard the baron's wizard's been seen doing a Fireball," says the barmaid.

"Doesn't mean he's actually third circle, could be a scroll or a wand if the baron's richer than he is pleasant to work for," Belmarniss says. "He easily might be third circle, though."

"And the town's called Fourchurches and it's six miles west," the barmaid goes on.

"One presumes that Fourchurches has, within it, four churches, but it might well easily be three or five." She smiles at her own joke.

"Good. We'll head there tomorrow, I think. Wider news, if you have any? From the city or further?"

"..the last time an adventurer party came through they were on the tail of a red dragon? But one lairing very far from here."

"-I hope they got it. Thank you."

"I'm thinking of giving her the whole coin and asking for whatever trail-worthy food or bread it can afford tomorrow morning. I think they'll only cheat us a little, if at all, and I'm not sure of the price of food up here without seeing a market."

"I think you'd be overpaying, but I'm not positive. The men are counting coppers, though."

"I'm pretty sure we would be, that's why I'd ask for bacon or biscuits or cheese or bread or the like for the bag. I could fuss with comparing the weight of the coin, I suppose, it'd be good to know that for the town."

"You could give her the gold coin purely because she's already seen it and might be expecting it, I just don't think you're going to get the full value back in breakfast at normal person prices. Though I might personally have gotten so accustomed to being rich that I would try cheese for a gold coin. It sounds fascinatingly bizarre."

"A bit of cheese won't be a whole gold goin... Probably. I've had cheese once. It's a little like... The difference between meat and mushrooms added to the difference between potatoes and mushrooms?"

"Miss? Do you have any cheese, or perhaps we can get that in the morning along with any bread or biscuits for the road?"

"I might, just a moment." She goes and comes back with a wedge of yellow cheese.

"Thank you! Here." She passes the gold coin over. "For the food, and the room, and for breakfast and more food for the road. More cheese or sausage or, eh, hard bread that will keep, maybe? Whatever it will buy."

She cuts the cheese roughly in half with a pocket knife and gives half to Belmarniss. Tries a little bite to see if it's good cheese.

It's the least interesting cheese of all time. Belmarniss loves it.

Yep. That's cheese. More for Belmarniss, then. Waltana steals some of her stew instead.

"Right to sleep and then up with the dawn and off, I think. It's quiet here- Good for them, bad for us."

"Yeah. Maybe I can trade spells with the baron's guy, I brought spare ink for that."

"There likely won't be any spellsilver in the town but maybe I can ask around there for - places a machine could be sold, or ideas for what to spark out on. Probably not worth trying to navigate selling prestidigitation here or - fixing a cart or something if one needs fixing."

"Possible we could get people to give us laundry to do but it would be very small change, and a cart's too big for Mending."

"As if I need Mending. Keeping the hands busy keeps the spark down too."

"Oh, in that case fix carts to your heart's content."

Well the first step to that is asking the barmaid if she knows anyone with small repairs that need doing, she's handy with tools and might as well fill the last hour of the day fixing something if it's convenient.

"The crank for the well in back squeaks, if that's the kind of thing you mean?"

"Yes. I'll look at it after eating."

"I don't feel good trying to charge. Maybe it'll make her feel generous with breakfast. Or maybe I'm justifying it to myself. Busy hands either way..."

"It's your spare time but if I yell come running."

"Definitely, yes. Take shroomy out of the bag in our room overnight and tell him to guard. He'll listen to you if you're holding the 'Friendly' badge I made."

"Aren't you going to sleep in the same place so you could tell him what to do? I thought you'd sleep at night."

"Yes? Just, I'm going to look at that well, so remember that you can do it too if you go up first."

"Sure. I don't think these folks want trouble, just, you know."

"Better safe than sorry, always double check your own air line in the mine, don't remove the guardrails, all that." She nods firmly.

So Belmarniss goes to hang out in their room. There's a bed that they can share, and she crashes in the windoward side of it.

She fixes the well crank. Just some cleaning and shaving down part of the wood that's swollen and banging a clampy bit back into place and a bit of grease. She shows the barmaid the result in the steadily darkening twilight, by electric light, still itching a bit to Make Something.

...To bed after that, probably, unless anything significant happens.

Belmarniss, an arcane caster, sleeps soundly. Shroomy is guarding.

Morning prep- She cleans and checks everything while Belmarniss does spell prep. Breakfast. Whatever else they decided a gold coin is worth for travel rations. Walking six miles west to Fourchurches.

The gold coin got them a pile of crackers full of sesame seeds and more cheese and a salami and some sort of local bread with ground up lentils in place of half the flour.

The road to Fourchurches is barely a dirt path till it joins up with another such path. There's a toll collector, another mile after that.

.......What? Why? She blinks in confusion at this.

"You don't know why there's an armed guard just standing in the middle of the road either, huh?"

"Maybe he's a scout of some kind? To watch for trouble?"

"I guess, but the middle of the road is a weird place. I guess we can just walk up to him slowly and see if he says something."

"Plan Walk Forward Confidently it is, then."

She walks forward confidently.

"Hey. Five silver for the use of the road kept safe by His Lordship's efforts."

Glance. Hum thoughtfully.

"I have no idea if that's normal or 'these two look rich'. I've... Heard of this before? It came up in a comedy sketch in The Heterodyne Boys and the Man Eating Bridge. Is five silver worth avoiding a lot of fuss and noise? Put like that probably yeah."

"Sort of depends on whether he's really with the baron or not. If he's not I suppose we can tell the baron about him and see if we get paid to swing back around and beat him up. And if he is, well, we were presumably hoping for more of a bounty off the baron if we're bothering to talk to him at all."

Here's five silver. They're weird silver but if he makes a fuss about that she will... Glare at him, she supposes.

He's kind of weirded out by the silver, yeah, and makes a bit of a production of inspecting the coinage. "What is this, drow money?"

"Yes, but it's still silver. We're looking to ask the lord Gulian's people if there is adventurer work around here so we can get something more local."

"Hunh. Go on then." He aims a thumb over his shoulder.

On to the town, slightly grumped, then. She'll sling the launcher around now, too, since they're ""in safe territory"" now.

"If one of the churches is Abadar's they might be able to exchange at least some of our money, by hearsay."

"There ought to be ways to verify weight and purity, though I don't actually know them."

"Yeah, me either, I just never took a coin that looked at all peculiar downstairs."

"Which is why they're standard, probably. Nobody has time for that unless it's their actual job. City Frostbound used stamps with unique numbers and they were going around slow enough anyone making fakes would definitely get caught sooner or later."

"With numbers? What, did they check them all against a registry or something?"

"Whenever they get redeemed for city services they get destroyed. Very centralized. If someone makes - ten fakes, pays for random meals with them, you might get away with it if you're lucky. A thousand, definitely not. It wasn't ideal, but they were light and compact, at least."

"That sounds so tedious but I guess maybe if you have a lot of very bored government employees it could make sense?"

They reach the city walls; the gate's open, and some guards register their existence and want their names.

"There were machines that did it. And lots of other bureaucratic tasks."

"-Waltana and Belmarniss. Adventurers here to introduce ourselves to the Baron or his men."

"Which one are you, Waltana or Belmarniss?"

"I'm Waltana."

This is just the bureaucracy at work, it's fine.

"The dark elf's a - wizard? What about you?"

"Yes. Alchemist- I make weapons, among other things."

"Alchemist Waltana, wizard dark elf Belmarniss. All right. In you go. Baronial castle's straight ahead if you're going to fly into the air but you've got to go around some stuff if you're not."

"Thank you for the directions. Good day."

"He didn't mention any special laws so common sense applies, I suppose. Straight to the castle?"

"Right behind you."

They go around some stuff. Houses, pubs, one of the four churches ("Aroden? He's dead! He's been dead since I was a baby!"), bridge over a stream, bordello, another church (Erastil again), tailor, chandler, blacksmith, stables - the stables are kind of attached to the castle, there's another round of guards here.

"Okay to mention your circle?"

"If they ask. I don't know about volunteering it."

Nod.

She stops a respectful ten feet or so away from the guards, or more if they seem twitchy, and starts, "Good afternoon. We're adventurers passing through the barony and thought to introduce ourselves at the castle, to offer courtesy and perhaps see if the lord Gulian-" She's been repeating it in her head, it's respectful to use the proper name. "-Or his representatives have any matters that could use the assistance of a wizard and alchemist."

"Hunh. I'll send in a runner," says one of the guards. He waves over a passing pageboy and sends the message up into the castle.

"Appearances conversation again." A nod and smile.

She does a 'calm neutral waiting' pose that's surprisingly easy to hold. It's different, being on duty as the party face.

"There'd be nearly this many layers of obstruction but they'd be different ones, I'm all off balance."

"This is surprisingly familiar to me. My city would be different too but the attitudes are the same. Down to the 'hunh'."

"Must be a human thing."

"Maybe a surface thing. Or a cities thing. I am pretty sure that different levels of food and resource availability have a really startling effect on the shape of society."

"I have no trouble believing that at all. Though your place has sparks so the resource situation should be different, right?"

"I'm not really sure about that... There's a lot more resources around but also a lot of ways to die? Lot of monsters wandering around, and the local baron can and will melt you into a puddle or crush you with a giant war clank or have his soldiers shoot you with launchers like mine or something if you're an obvious enemy or you offend him. Sparks are inherently kind of violent, I guess."

"Are there more monsters there than here?"

"Probably, yes. Three monster encounters in two weeks of travel through the wild... No, I think we'd have had to fight something every day, maybe twice, travelling north-eastern Europa. When I was so afraid the first few days, it was mostly- Being alone and in the dark, especially."

"I do think we got pretty lucky, and the route is probably traversed and cleared out by raiders on the regular too."

"Much like the nobles up here keep things clear, or that village would have NEEDED walls."

"Villages that size have walls where you're from? The farmhouses were pretty far out and they looked to be most of the residences associated with the place, and if something came by they'd have a job getting inside the walls in time to turtle up."

"They do. The houses are tight around a little square, no scattered farmhouses, and there's at least a palisade wall and a watchtower. I mean... I never actually SAW this, but the City Frostbound's outposts were fortified this way and were about that size, maybe a hundred people at most, and the books were pretty consistent on it, and so was the Encyclopedia of Paris..."

"How do they farm like that, do they just - walk all the way out to the field every time?"

"You know how steam or explosions can produce motive force? You can move a cart or a plow like that."

"Oh! That would definitely make it make sense, then, maybe everybody'll do that once you've gotten Golarion up to speed."

"It will be pretty great! It's going to be so, so staggeringly expensive! I think spellsilver refining is probably the best project on getting rich quickly, still."

"Absolutely, yeah. I don't know if Taldor's the place to do it, but getting oriented before we try to get on a boat is worthwhile."

"...They might make us wait to make us feel unimportant. Or genuinely be busy. If it's more than a few more minutes I'll ask if we should check back later."

"Yeah. We could find out what's up with the other two churches maybe."

But it's not much longer before the page comes running back and says that the baron's brother will see them in his study.

She makes sure to ask for the Baron's brother's name and title, to show the proper respect, of course.

"The lord Maro, ma'am."

The office is in the castle on the ground floor and has its own entrance onto a little veranda, though it looks like it'd be easy to bar if the castle were under attack. The baron's brother is pretty young, probably not even thirty, and dressed up nicely with a cloak and a ring that at least aren't obviously not magic. "Adventuresses!" he says. "What brings you through Fourchurches?"

She's not even thirty so she's not inclined to judge.

"Good afternoon, lord Maro. We did some hunting in the mountains and caves, and now we're a bit turned around-" It's not even a lie, just a creative presentation of events. "We're planning on heading to the coast eventually, but it's only polite to present ourselves. Not to mention- Five silver tolls will add up so it's also prudent to look for work on the way. Belmarniss also had a thought to trade spells with the Baron's wizard if it's convenient."

"Ask if the wizard speaks Draconic, it's a common academic language and won't wreck the illusion that I don't speak Taldane."

A nod to Belmarniss. "Very well." Smooth, confident, casual, unsurprised. That's who she needs to be right now, to talk to a noble.

"-My friend speaks Draconic, and is wondering if the wizard we've heard your house employs might as well."

"I believe he reads it, I suppose I don't know how his pronunciation is. I'll send someone to see if he wants to be introduced." He does that, calling over another page or possibly the same one, there seems to be a uniform. "As for work, the immediate environs are pretty clear, but we had been meaning to investigate rumors of will-o-wisps in the swamp out past Chillbriar, if that sort of thing would interest you."

"Perhaps... One moment."

"-Do you know much about will'o'wisps? I've heard of half a dozen variations. From actual ghosts to ambush predators. I can arrange my lights into a distinctive pattern to avoid tricks..."

"I haven't exactly met one socially. They feed on fear, and they've got spell resistance like crazy but it doesn't work on Magic Missile, if I recall right? And they fly around, they're probably hard to hit with anything short of it, so I'd want to go in with a lot of Missiles prepped. We can probably handle it but hopefully if they're a known hazard in the region we can get someone to corroborate what I've read."

"I'm having ideas about proximity fuses... Or timers for different ranges... Tricky." 

"That does sound like the sort of thing that interests us, possibly with a bit more prep or someone who knows the area to point us in the right direction. Are will'o'wisps historically a problem for Chillbriar?"

"They've got a swamp, but it varies how much of a nuisance any given sort of swamp creature is in any given year."

"So the goal would be to check if it's really will'o'wisps or something else, and nab a couple to prune the problem back?"

"Right, and they're bright enough that they'll lie low if they notice they're being picked off."

Nod, nod.

"I'm not necessarily happy about hunting these things if they're smart, but if they're murdering people... Any ideas on how to politely broach payment?"

"Ask what the bounty is... oh, and if wisps leave a corpse, and if they don't how they like to have them claimed."

"Right. I think we're going to take this on, lord Maro. What's the bounty for these will'o'wisps currently? Do wisps typically leave a corpse and how should we present proof if not?"

"They're invisible when they're not glowing, but they're not incorporeal. That said, the last time somebody brought one in they said they'd slain another and it sank into the swamp, and Fiducia Papinia just confirmed with a truthspell that they were sure they'd killed it and she only charged a small fraction of the bounty. I can authorize three hundred gold per successful wisp kill."

"Ah, so there is an Abadaran in town. That'll be handy. We came straight to the castle."

"Three hundred gold. That's a lot. It makes me - more worried, that this is seriously risking our lives, actually, maybe worse than the cave journey."

"Yes, the Abadaran church is right next to the stream if you go a bit south of here."

"It's a chunk of cash for sure. We should check with the Abadarans how much drow gold is worth against upstairs gold. It might just be - expensive to saddle up an expedition to go to the swamp, and they'd have to do it themselves if we don't do it for them? Also I do notice they're only offering the money for the wisps, and not for anything else we trip over looking for them and have to also kill, maybe they're amortizing over some expectation that we'll handle a dire crocodile or two."

"This- Literally this - is likely what the tolls are paying for, now that I think of it."

"Do you have any questions for us, sir? Or shall we wait for the runner?"

"Is it just the two of you? I usually see parties of three or four, even five."

"Just the two of us for now. I don't think we're necessarily averse to teaming up with more people, it would even be helpful if you have someone in mind we could talk to, but we two have got plans that line up well."

"-Someone who can heal would be very good to have along just in case, for example. Only need to trust them a little bit for a single job."

"I'm up for asking the Abadarans while we're there but if they don't have anybody third circle or better they'll probably not be a great fit for combat even if they're good to have for patching us up afterwards."

"I think we'll quote the Fiducia or another cleric about being on hand in Chillbriar in the case of our success but not perfect success."

"Might want some cleric buff spells too, I think wisps might have a lightning attack we could stand to go in Resist Energy'd for. I might be able to get the spell off the baron's wizard - don't have it yet - but I've only got so many slots."

"Or! Or! I could make a lightning cage, ooh- This isn't the time or place for Sparking, ahem-"

"Calm down, alchemical barbarian."

Says the lord, bemused by this foreign-language exchange, "I'm not sure how much another wizard would add to your party composition but I'd recommend you find a cleric, yes. Fiducia Papinia has gone on the occasional adventure, though I believe she's just second circle."

"Everything I've ever heard about Abadar makes me think she would be very professional, which sounds perfect. It's a solid option," she says to the lord. "We won't be troubling Fourchurches by possibly hiring away its Fiducia for a few days?"

"There's a lay banker who can handle routine matters and there's Sowers and Songbirds for healing, I shouldn't think it would be an issue."

"Good. I hope we can take care of these wisps and all shall be well. Should we wait for the runner here, or...? I wouldn't want to take up too much of your time."

"I haven't got another appointment and it shouldn't be too long, possibly he's going to come back with the wizard and - and I hear them now, yes."

In comes the wizard, complete with wizard robes and a headband. "Hello!" he says, but he says it in Draconic so this may be lost on Waltana.

"Hello! You're the wizard, I take it?"

"Well, there we go." She smiles at the lord. "I'll just wait a minute for them to talk."

Belmarniss and the wizard have what sounds like a cordial conversation; at one point she produces a redacted spellbook index for him to look at. Eventually they settle on some kind of trade, and she tells Waltana, "I'm going to go to his office and trade him Chimney for Rope Trick, I think we both believe we're getting the better deal but that's how it goes in the best case."

"Oh, they've got a deal, it seems."

"Want me to come along?"

"It'll be very boring but if you want to come supervise you can? Maybe after you've pestered this guy for maps and more intel and anything else he knows about wisps though."

"-Right. Sir, preparation is the start of good work and it would be remiss of me not to ask if you have maps to Chillbriar and the surrounds, or any information on will'o'wisps to confirm ours, or other common swamp threats. I can sketch, I'm not asking to borrow good maps, naturally. I'm sure we both want us to come back, having dispatched the threat, and not need to send another party in after something that's already gotten one?"

"Oh, no question," says Lord Maro. "If you'll come with me to my brother's study that's where he keeps all the maps. Most of the time the complaints run to the tune of mosquitoes, only occasionally dire, and both ordinary and giant leeches, but I wouldn't be too surprised to hear about a kelpie, or a black dracolisk, or a black pudding. Fortunately we have a sufficiently strict policy about appropriate burial of the dead that we do not have a swamp zombie problem."

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."

"I hope that works out but I don't know what to expect."

"It's going to be a seriously difficult challenge BUT I already know how to do it if I had all the tools and machines I had in City Frostbound! The miners all used power armor and carried two hundred pound drill arms and I literally helped make them! It's just, you know, requires some very high end machining capabilities and a lot of good chrome steel and a mile or so of insulated wire and a few hundred vacuum tubes and a few other things that will be hard to get."

"Is this among the things you can teach anybody to make?"

"...Ehhhh..." Handwobble. "The control systems are pretty Sparky. Maybe."

"Anyway, do you want to invite this lady along with us?"

"Probably yes, just on 'better safe than sorry' principle."

Fiducia Papinia can be ready to leave a couple hours after dawn, on the understanding that they will not charge instantly to the swamp once they arrive in Chillbriar and will instead be staying the night there so she doesn't need swampy spells tomorrow.

Yeah, overnight in Chillbriar, then swamp hunting. She mentions her Sparking state, eliding the details and just saying it's not something to worry TOO much about if she starts ranting.

Oh, do Belmarniss, or Fiducia Papinia as the apparently least-killy member of the party, want to borrow her single-shot pistol? Should hit harder than a crossbow bolt and it's a bit of a cone, too, so somewhat easier to aim. It's essentially disposable but using it is definitely preferable to dying.

"I'd be happy to carry it."

Here's how to aim and fire, it's a lot like a tiny crossbow- Here's how to arm it, just click that lever into place (she clicks it right back out)- Shall they meet up at the temple tomorrow, what time?

"I intend to pack tonight, so I can be ready an hour and a half after dawn."

Sure, that works.

"...Once we're more used to Taldor I probably want to rent a forge or some other workspace, keep building, I can feel the urge growing slowly," she mentions to Belmarniss, once everything is arranged and coins changed. "In the meantime, quiet, out of the way inn. Not a cheap place but not the fanciest either... If this town even has more than like two inns."

"Even if it has more than like two inns they might not all rent to me."

Well, they'll find out, won't they? She is quickly getting tired of being the face. It's kind of exhausting, but this must be the mirror of what Belmarniss had to do in the caves, while she could just - Spark out, after the first few days.

...Anyway, she will not hesitate to namedrop Chillbriar and its wisp problem, that they'll be leaving to go fix tomorrow, with Fiducia Papinia and the blessing of the Baron's brother.

The first place they try is in fact booked solid or "booked solid" but the second will take them.

She seems kind of antsy as she is cleaning and checking her equipment while they get ready for the night.

None of this is quite what she expected. Also, they're maybe going to die in two days. But 200 gold per wisp is more steel, more acid, more glassware. Maybe a water wheel, when they figure out where to try out industry...

They're pretty committed right now.

She sketches a lot, when she needs to calm down. Today: A grand view of City Frostbound's blast furnaces, tall and arched and with monumental smoke-stacks, complete with the elevated railway and neat lines of steam pipes and a minetrain hauling ore carts in.

60 tons a day of iron ore. 30 tons a day of coal, and the result: About 40 tons of steel, 42 on a good day. 7200 pounds of material every single hour. Two pounds per second. She imagines someone chucking rocks, constantly, forever, and watching them pile up.

"...I'm anxious. I'm not sure if there's anything useful to do about that."

"Is there something you usually do?"

"Build things... Listen to the scouts telling wild stories. Read adventure novels."

"I sold off my novels before we left but I remember some plots pretty well, if you'd like me to tell one."

"I don't want to put you out though."

"Does it look like I have exciting evening plans? I can summarize you Ilvaria and Arcavato."

"Yeah, point. Better than sitting here cleaning things for the third time in a row silently."

So Belmarniss summarizes Ilvaria and Arcavato.

"It's interestingly different from Heterodyne Boys stories... They're already epic level in all their stories, and it's usually a mystery or negotiation or stealth mission or something they have to solve to advance the plot, not 'kill the thing'."

"There's stealthier and mystery-er books out there, this just happens to be one I read recently."

"Mmhm..."

How about she tells a Heterodyne Boys story too- She always liked The Secret of the Flying Cathedral (the secret in question is that it's also an old Storm King armory with traps still occasionally murdering people)- And then they can try to sleep and be up fresh for the morning.

Zzzz.

Does Fiducia Papinia mind some questions about the state of finance, industry, and prices as they walk the next day? She'll even pay, if the fee is reasonable.

Fiducia Papinia would like no topic of conversation more! Except confectionery. She's got a weakness for confectionery. But she doesn't bring it up, she just doesn't claim that finance/industry/prices are literally her favorite topic bar none.

She doesn't stumble upon confectionery as a topic. She's thinking about building large machines that do the work of craftsmen, or parts of the work of craftsmen. Sewing machines that make hundreds of stitches a minute, waterwheel-powered looms, blast forges for steel, explosives or drills for mining, steam-powered carts...

These things all sound very exciting, though of course the important thing if you want to make a big difference to a lot of people rather than just to your own pocketbook is if you can train others to do the same things. It also sounds like a very scattered business plan. Papinia would recommend sticking to one thing to start with, something where they know what interests will be predictably opposed (for instance, anyone currently supplying slaves and convicts to mines, though not the mine owners themselves necessarily, would probably have something to say about drills and explosives with mining applications).

Yes, teaching other people is the problem. She's been trying to teach Belmarniss some of the principles... She thinks, having experienced doing it the long way recently, that sewing and weaving is probably a decent focus? Everyone wears clothes. A product with universal demand. The problem is the setup costs- A large building, waterwheel, a few tons of iron and wood and months of labor from her or hired smiths and carpenters to make them into machines, weeks or months of training people... And that's just at a guess. She probably needs to make more detailed plans and estimations when she can.

"Well, the bank of Abadar invests in worthy projects if we think they'll see a return, but the infrastructure for that is a little underdeveloped around here, you might get better rates in Osirion."

"A prototype and a sound plan is probably pretty convincing to lenders, compared to neither of those, too. Osirion is a good place to get loans?"

"- it has many other drawbacks, but it's Abadar's country. I suppose you might like to avoid it because they're very regressive on the sexism front and I've not the slightest idea if they have any systematic opinion about drow."

"Huh. I mean, drow have the opposite situation... Sort of. I think we'll have to learn more about Osirion from someone who'd know. At a port city, I s'pose."

"Yes, I've heard they're a baby-eating matriarchy," says Fiducia Papinia, probably only because she presently believes that Belmarniss can't understand her. "And you should, I've never been there and last spoke to someone who'd been more than ten years ago."

"Mmh. Can't be too hard to navigate or Abadar wouldn't work there... That's all for later, I guess."

"How are you holding up?" She asks Belmarniss.

"Craving succulent baby flesh, otherwise fine."

Snort.

"It seemed to be mostly mushrooms, actually. Fresh fruit sold for silvers. Supply and demand!"

She tries not to neglect Belmarniss too much during the trip, but a source of surface financial info is a valuable thing. It's really weird to her that steel is so expensive when iron is so cheap. It's not that hard to turn iron into steel... If you know what you're doing and have a probably-in-the-range-of-5000-gp-if-not-more specialist furnace...

Fiducia Papinia is actually really intrigued about fresh fruit selling for silvers - did this seem to vary with the surface season at all? What fruits were sold? Were they growing them themselves down there somehow or raiding, there are sometimes drow raids of caravans.

Most of the market was probably raid-supplied, any any seasonal variation was probably outshone completely by her own work- She grew small amounts of things fresh with her alchemical barbarian powers (making things that only she can maintain, more or less, though she also knows how to make things the non-cheating way) and thusly funded the construction of her new gear. The Fiducia can hear about the collapse of strawberry prices over time with a steady supply, though.

"The strawberries they grew downstairs, actually. It's trees they can't do for love or money."

"-Really? Gosh, I wonder what else I'm wrong about. I probably could have managed a tree. Be something to show off for someone important enough." Shrug.

She corrects herself to the Fiducia. Hopefully nothing ambushes them on the road, she tries to keep alert but walking is kind of boring. She ends up Mage Handing or Prestidigitating random pebbles and sticks after a while, fidget-like.

Cute.

They arrive in Chillbriar eventually. It's a smelly place. They export sphagnum, there's lots of it in the market dried and tied up into bundles.

-Would've been a lot more useful in the underdark, the stuff makes great fertilizer, but it's also decent portable fuel, and she needs that to keep the steam pressure up in the field. Sparkwork or not, her launcher doesn't stay pressurized for days at a time. The prestidigitation gloves can light fires fine but aren't really good enough to raise steam pressure. The smell doesn't particularly bother her. Belmarniss and her will ask around for rumors and information on the Wisps and look for a room to bunk together, will the Fiducia be with them or arrange separate lodging?

"I don't mind bunking with you as long as she's not going to eat me, ha ha!"

"Pass."

"-She's not gonna eat you. I'm pretty sure that'd be breach of contract and, you know, it's very sensational but it'd be logistically- Mmh, no, I'm shutting up. Let's find separate lodgings."

Papinia nods and goes off to get herself a room at the multi-shrine panfaith temple.

"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.

"It's a good time for lunch. Catch our breath and think about whether to keep looking. I have plenty of grenades but you only have so many spells... I wonder if covering it with flour or dye would also reveal it... Also, how badly do we need the money."

She stretches and feels at her previously burned skin, marveling.

"Faerie fire's technically a spell-like ability but that just means I don't even have the option of doing it again. Dye would probably work, though if you have some on you maybe test it on the corpse in case it doesn't stick well or something? I think we have enough money once we turn this in to get to a port and book passage on a ship, if we're not spendy, but if something comes up we might wind up needing to be spendy."

"And more money obviously means more equipment, spells... I'll try some dye on the body. Make a dye bomb instead of a salt bomb, heh."

"Time for lunch," she tells Papinia.

"Cheers," says Papinia, and she takes out hers, bread and cheese and pickles.

Food is fuel. If sometimes tasty fuel. 

She prestidigitates everything and stares at the sky for a while. It's nice to just be able to do that.

...As many as several chemicals in her pack are or can be reacted to create dye or sticky substances. Do any of them remain visible after being applied to a wisp body?

Yup. The wisp is quite smooth and, touching it, it's clear how it would avoid getting dust and grime on it sufficient to make it a visible smear in the air, it's nigh-on nonstick; but it doesn't make things that are applied to it invisible.

She gets a bit giggly as she sparks up a vivid red-orange glue bomb, unscrewing casings and replacing substances and fussing with glassware and powders on a stone cutting board. It takes about half an hour.

(Stop to think about whether they'll keep hunting wisps before making a cool weapon idea? What do you think she is, NOT a Spark?)

"So you're leaning pro on seeing if it had any friends, hm?"

"-Hm?" Blink. Frown. "Oh. Uh, that was the Spark seizing on an idea. But I suppose it will be useful for any future invisible enemies if we don't."

"I guess I can deprioritize getting Glitterdust in my book then."

"Mmhm. The breadth of things magic can do is fascinating. If I have a year to spare when trying to build industry some time I still want to try learning. As for more wisp hunting... Slightly leaning no? It leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth even knowing they kill villagers, to hunt down intelligent beings. And we can't get a loan and build a factory if we die."

"Intelligent creatures are the ones that can decide to suck less and as often as not don't do that, but I take your point. I think we've got enough to go to Osirion if we go to Osirion, people who aren't adventurers probably finagle it all the time."

"Probably confirm Osirion is where we want to go at a port city, but it sounds like it. I think I cam tolerate sexism, depending on the form it takes and if money makes some of the problems go away."

"Fiducia, we're possibly against trying to hunt another wisp. Are you fine either way?"

"If I wanted to insist that you bag more of them I would have specified that up front!"

Thoughtful nod.

To Belmarniss, "I am really not feeling like pushing my luck too much with some of your spells expended. I say no, we're done."

"Quitting while we're ahead is so valid. Let's get out of here."

Back to Chillbriar, with tales on the tongue of a dead wisp, slain by wizardry and blade!

Does it seem like there's enough time in the day to head back to Fourchurches?

"We can make it there before we're falling asleep on our feet but it will certainly be dark. Which is not so insurmountable a problem but does somewhat increase some risks."

Well, she has a light, but they just made one risk-avoidant decision so she's kind of inclined to another. Keep rolling dice and eventually you lose it all, and all. They're not in a huge hurry. Any objections? Belmarniss?

"I'm actually super in favor of doing some of our traveling when there isn't a sky fireball trying to burn me to a crisp but I am in the minority here."

"-Oh. Right. Fiducia, Belmarniss has a great point about how the dark disadvantages her a lot less than most people, so I'm inclined to continue on to Fourchurches now, actually. I suppose we don't necessarily have to stay together."

"It's safer together in the dark than separately in the day and I don't feel inclined to veto, if you want to head out now."

"-Yeah, let's go. Sooner started sooner finished. You still have my pistol- Mhm."

A couple more sanity checks and off they go.

It's a long walk. Belmarniss sings to herself a little bit sometimes.

It was just as long on the way over, and 100 gold each is worth a long walk in addition to moments of intense terror. She has a bright spotlight on a helmet when evening starts falling.

"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."

"Oh, it's a cantrip."

"It doesn't last very long, a higher circle version would probably work better, and having a cantrip slot to spare would be nice, but I'm not losing magic missiles over it."

"-Well, it's still bugging me, but I'll drop it for now."

"I do appreciate the thought."