Earth Aspected Snake Attacks Horizon Caravans

The vast majority of work done by adventuring companies is routine. Protect Traveler A, Hunt Creature B, Recover Item C. Those missions are the bread and butter of the adventurer's lifestyle, and serve to keep them in enough gil to live fairly comfortable, particularly in Eorzea where adventurers seem to outnumber blades of grass sometimes.

One of these routine requests was taken up in the previous moon by one Ashra Aime, a young huntress from Abalathia's Spine. Aime was accompanied by several others, according to reports. They were sent to retrieve the boots owned by a merchant whose caravan was attacked by a giant snake. What her team of hunters found was far more dangerous than a request to find boots.

Reports given to the Adventurers' Guild by Aime's teammate Lilith Saerun detailed how the team found the merchant's wrecked wagon beside the bridge near Horizon. Aetherically active cloth showed signs of being eaten, as did crystals. Crystal banditry is a common problem in Eorzea, but typically not because snakes ate them, which prompted a more detailed investigation. Amie insisted the snake be hunted, and used by their mountain village.

Linus Nattar, a witness to the snake, described it as a gargantuan creature studded with crystals aspected to Earth, roaming Nophica's Wells. Nattar insisted that he had also encountered 'harbingers of death', spirits that surrounded him as the creature was intent on eating him.

"Vengeful, wrathful spirits were all around me!" Nattar told the Courier. "They were drawn to the damn snake! They threatened to take my soul, I tell you! They talked about that snake, like they were following in its wake collecting their fill of souls! I outsmarted them, though! See, I stole this flask from them, it was invisible like they were! Scariest moment of my life, it was."

According to Saerun's report, the 'wrathful spirits' were Aime's party, which she had turned invisible with illusion magic to better track the creature.

"We tried to explain that to the guy repeatedly, he just wasn't having any of it," Saerun explained when reached for comment. "He stole Cerise Maylithos' flask when she offered him something to calm his nerves. Honestly, he was probably the hardest part of the entire godsdmaned mission."

Aime's team was able to subdue the creature with a trap designed by one Ahki Roro and hidden by Saerun that proved to be instantly fatal to the serpent. Remains of crystals and a crystalized baby serpent were found in the creature's den. Saerun cautioned that more of this snake's kind may continue to exist in Thanalan.

"We can't rule out the possibility that either this one had eggs that successfully hatched or whatever process created it is creating others," she said in her report. "I have to urge extreme caution for those carrying highly aetheric items through the Nophica's Wells region."

As for the boots that brought Aime's team in on this issue to begin with, they had been recovered from the serpent's stomach, but drained of their enchantment. A friend of the Aime family was able to restore the enchantment, however, to meet the client's expectations upon completion of the request.