Episode 56

The party meets in the common room after running their own errands. They talk a bit about getting celestial bane antidotes and a job that Marisol desires to take. She mentions that Smith, specifically the corpse of Smith “that they brought back”, was from Blastenbell. Many feathers are also congregated in the area. The party discusses the other job options. K had talked to Finnigan, admiral of the Mobula Fleet, about a possible job offer. He did not mention details, however.

Marisol leaves to pay for the party’s celestial bane items. They decide to take up the Magma Snail job first. Lily announces that she’s going to the library before they go about doing their own things for the rest of the day. The party heads to the liceum the following morning. A crowd joins them with signs, drawings, and happy shouting. About halfway to the liceum they disperse. The new banners are displayed, showing the party in their court attire. They all look great.

The party is teleported to Velden City and are welcomed by an attendant. They exit out into a market. Colorful banners hang above them. Lily and Seipora introduce Marisol and Ingred to the wonders of Solar Sails. They head into the weapons district, the Green Cut district, to visit O’Malley’s Mallet. The sign above has a wooden mallet acting as the apostrophe to O’Malley’s name. The party sees various weapons on display as they enter. People in the back are busy with their work, hammering hot metal bricks into new weapons. Instead of a bell, a wooden mallet and metal shoulder guard rests on the front counter. A tan man walks up after Anthos hits the “bell”. He welcomes them. Anthos mentions that Alex referred him to O’Malleys, and the two men have a short chat about how she’s been doing recently. Anthos pulls out some sketches of a weapon and they talk about metals and enchantments. O’Malley says that it will take two weeks to make.

The party also stops by a store called The Bound Scroll. This magic shop is far more stocked than Alex’s. A fire genasi named Ifrit runs the front counter and helps the girls purchase some fire resistance pots. The party decides to take Solar Sails to their next destination. They follow Lily into a hollow tube and are shot up to the Sky Port. Various sky ships can be seen docked and coasting around the port as they arrive. They bob as if they are in water, but there is no water to be seen. The port is very busy and very windy. They approach some smaller ships with a single reddish-orange holographic sail. Captain Arthur stands on the docks eating fruit and talking to a cadette named Jay. Seipora greets him, and the captain floats down to greet them all. The party hands over 3000 gold to rent personal ships.

Captain Arthur attaches a red wagon to one of the ships for Kova to sit in and gives Marisol and Ingred a lecture on how to use a Solar Sail. One they get tethered, he pushed Marisol off her ship. She jumps off again on her own. And falls off again after giving the vehicle too much “gas”. He double checks the girls before sending them on their way. Ingred spits off the side of her ship and Lily takes the lead. They travel for three days, huddling the ships together during the night. The first day is smooth, the second is windy and cold. A heavy gust of air knocks them off kilter a bit. Ingred crashes into Anthos, knocking them both off their Solar Sails. The third day is also windy, but they arrive at their destination without issue. Lava pits can be seen in the land below. An encampment rests on the northern side of the pits, composed of a series of tents surrounded by a rickety, charred wall. The party ties down their boats and heads into the camp.

Marisol stops an older man and Lily asks where they can find Solana. He leads them to three tents that reside in the west side of camp. Lily walks into the main tent with the others and is greeted by an elven woman dressed in a leather lab coat. She introduces herself as Solana Datris and thanks them all for coming. Anthos asks how many snails there are, to which Solana responds with 5. At least, 5 as far as they know. Ingred asks her why they don’t want to relocate the snails instead of killing them. She says that they cannot live outside of magma and have been very aggressive towards the researchers. Some event created the pools and they want to look into it. Anthos asks what their reproductive system is like. Do they have a similar mating cycle to the common garden snail? She says yes. If they find eggs, she will give them a reward to obtain them. The snails aren’t endangered by any means.  According to Solana, the eggs need to be kept hot. The nest is about 100 feet beyond the previous camp which had been overrun. The camp was placed there before they knew about the snails. She requests that the party brings back the eye stalks to prove their kills.

As they approach the first encampment the party sees it burnt to the ground. The air gets hotter and hotter the closer they get to the nest. The grass here is surprisingly green; it appears that the lava pits and the snails have not damaged the foliage. The party finds no snails outside of the nest. They only appear after Lily shoots some eldritch blasts into the pits and Anthos makes some loud noise by banging on his shield. Ingred sketches the first snail after it emerges from a pit. It is fast to turn aggressive on her and another emerges to attack Seipora. Marisol creates water above one of the snails. It doesn’t like the moisture. The party is quick to defeat the snails. As the excitement dies down, Ingred splits off from the group. Anthos tries to convince her to stay close to the party, but she does not listen. Lily pulls an egg out of the lava pit before the group heads back to camp.