Nyrmentharyth chows down on tortoises' leg in the meantime and eats meat greedily.
<It's not often I can fill up completely. Is it time to go already?>
You harvest quite a bit of material from the colossal beast:
-Enough shell for, at a minimum, two suits of full plate (and considerably more for smaller armor, weapons, or other such things).
-Its stomach and lungs (useful as a fireproof, waterproof material)
-Its heart, valuable as a heat producing object, and which can be used to superheeat and magically seal heat into items
-Enough flesh to feed Nyr, and then some.
-Hide enough for plentiful leather items (from whips to armor to satchels). Leather items are masterwork quality.
You head back to Hyram, who simply takes a look at the items in hand and tied to your backpacks.
"Managed to slay the beast, I see? Damn good work. Just got word my cousin was coming up to visit in about a week, would have been a crying shame if the Forgeheart had interrupted that."
"Here's your reward. If you hurry, I'm sure one of the alchemists in the Craftsman's Quarter can do something with that material." he says as he hands over a sack with 3000 gold inside.
"What's the name of your crew again? I'll be sure to ask for you by name if I take out another contract. Not many out there that could dispatch a heartbroken Forgeheart that promptly, and with apparent ease."
"Winged Solutions, at your service."
Malagar gives Jagz a thumbs up before dividing the gold up between everyone. Then we go find a reputable alchemist to use these materials.
"Right well, we only have so much parts to go around. Jagz, you were clearly the greatest contribution against the Forgeheart. I think whatever we can make from the heart should go to you. I wasn't too sure about you two small folk, but I have to admit you get results."
"Titus, you did a great job as the bait. What would you like?"
Titus shrugs.
"Eh... I don't know what we can do with this. Prefer to use hands, anyway."
Tibbets shrugs. "Just give me whatever's leftover, it's not like I did a lick of help anyways. Still trying to figure out how a fire turtle didn't even blink at my frost bombs, the temperature drop alone should've played havoc with the structural integrity of his shell..."
"Well, an insulator stops any changes in temperature, not just heat. Maybe the turtle's flesh not only protected him from being burned by his own internal furnace, but also from being cooled by the environment. And that just happened to be a perfect defense against ice-based attacks."
"Guess that's evolution for ya."
"Sure, we can make whatever, as long as it's fire related. Mostly fire resistance and flame weapons, but we might be able to cook up something more...exotic if we work fast and you pay us a little extra. could make a pretty big bomb with this, for example."
"Hmm, flame weapons, eh? Would that work on these?"
He pulls out his pepperbox and a blunderbuss.
Titus returns to town and rents a room at a nearby inn.
"Can you do bows, as well? Heard there's a way to light the bow on fire without actually burning it."
That business settled, you go see the researcher that gave you the Karmic finagler contract, and through the magic of time warping you already know what he wants (see page 3).
"Ah, right, the luck-stealing things. Considering my weapon of choice, that could be...problematic. I saw something in the bounty about devices to help us find and capture the creatures? Maybe I should handle those instead of shooting, so I don't end up unluckily blowing my own hand off."
"That's a good idea, especially since we also just got weapons that are somehow always on fire...man, we really carry around a lot of volatile stuff, don't we? Only just occurred to me."
"Yeah, but at least we can turn the fire off whenever we want. Can't do that with gunpowder or bombs."
Jagz shrugs. "Maybe we're just a little crazy. But surely that's a plus when you hunt giant monsters for a living, isn't it?"
Tibbets chuckles. "True, I don't imagine there's many totally sane people doing this job. Although to be fair, I imagine after a few days on the job they're not totally sane either."
Assuming you go see Xylar, he waits impatiently as you debate the job.
"So? Are you ready to get started?"
"Of course."
"Aye. Let's hear the details."
He relays all the information : Karmic Finaglers are creatures of largely unknown Type (they are Incorporeal, but do not appear to be undead; this is part of what research needs to be done) that can manipulate luck in some way, stealing it from others for their own use somehow.
Xylar needs them "alive", captured by a special device he will provide. He needs at minimum three Karmic finaglers for his research, but will pay extra if you manage to catch more.
Rewards include whatever capture devices are left over (as well as the blueprint for making them; though he stresses they are a PROTOTYPE and therefore have some kinks that need to be worked out in later iterations) and some gold. The capture devices work well on any incorporeal or semi-solid creature (such as oozes), but are less useful for creatures with a fixed shape and form unless they are small enough to fit into the maximum expansion radius of the device.
They're kind of like a pokeball, actually, except it expands to the size of the opponent hit and then compresses down to it's original size.
They are ghost touch as well as airtight, but solid matter creatures can break out of them with a DC 10 Str check, and solid creatures Large or larger can do so as a Free action even when it's not their turn.
They can be reused once emptied, but if a creature breaks out they are rendered unusable.
"Tibs, Mal, you're both good at throwing. You should take some of these too."
Jagz distributes the devices among the three of them.
Tibbets lobs the device up and down gently. "Nice. I'll have to keep this far away from my bombs though...don't want to accidentally mix them up."
"I have a lead on a...nest of them, for lack of a better term. They tend to settle near congregations of people that they can reliably feed on. Gamblers, skilled artisans, entertainers, that sort of thing. People whose lives can be made or broken by a good or bad streak of luck."
"The theater downtown has been reporting an unusual spate of their actors having all sorts of accidents, flubbing their lines, set pieces being destroyed by "clumsy" stage hands, that sort of thing. My cursory look at the place backs up the idea. If you'll find them anywhere in the city, they'll be there."
"Hm, maybe we'll catch a show after the job's done."
"Now, shall we be off?"
"Sure... Why not?"