How to Get Lightning in a Bottle in Spiritfarer

Bottles do not usually contain a high-voltage discharge of electricity from dark, heavy clouds. But in Spiritfarer, you can experience braving thunderstorms to catch and enclose Lightning inside a bottle!

Lightning in a Bottle is a material you will need to construct or upgrade buildings in Spiritfarer. In this uniquely relaxing management game, you control Stella (and her companion, Daffodil), a cheerful lass who commands a boat that carries spirits to the great beyond. 

As a Spiritfarer, you have to comply with the spirits’ requests while they are on board. Some requests will require you to build stations such as the Garden or the Kitchen to recreate a home-like atmosphere for the passengers. In this case, you will need these stations to prepare and cook what the spirits call ‘comfort food.’ One of the materials used to build a Garden is Lightning in the Bottle. However, obtaining it is not as easy as navigating the sea on a calm day.

Trapping Lightning in a Bottle

Lightning in a Bottle is a rare item you can not purchase anywhere early in the game, which means you will not find it in Theodore’s stock in his Racoon Inc. shop. Furthermore, even if you try looking for them in places with abandoned crates, you will likely only salvage seeds, ores, and various common materials.

To get Lightning in a Bottle, you must first trigger an event you can only encounter if you have acquired all the things you need.

What You Will Need

Here are what you need to collect before you sail ahead to where thunderstorms are commonly seen.

Empty Bottles: They are initially obtained by destroying crates in shipwrecked areas. You will obtain an Empty Bottle after reading the message tucked inside it. Once you meet the Wandering Merchant, Francis, you can purchase Empty Bottles for the price of 20 Glims each. At times when fishing, you may also find Messages in Bottles.

Atul: A lost spirit you will run into as you progress through the game. Atul is a very upbeat and friendly fellow who claims to find pleasure and happiness in everything! Even as you charge your boat through a storm, hypothetically and literally — He will gleefully teach you how to make the most out of this situation.

Where You Will Need To Go

If you are getting used to the calming sounds of waves gently rocking your boat hotel, you might have to prepare your ears for the loud claps of thunder when you get to the location where you can catch bolts of Lightning.

Thunderstorm: An area in the sea that is constantly covered in dense clouds and fierce, heavy rain. You can navigate your boat on coordinates labeled as ‘Thunderstorms’ on the map, but you can not do anything here unless you have Atul as a passenger.

What You Must Do

Events based on specific locations can only be encountered when a spirit introduces the relevance of these circumstances in this world. In this particular event, you will have Atul letting you know the resources you can obtain from facing the storm head-on.

1. The boat will stop on cue once you go near a location with thunderstorms. Atul will gleefully hop towards you, and he will coax you into taking up a challenge. The challenge involves gathering Lightning in a Bottle while you let yourself get hit with bolts of electricity, of course. He will then play the flute as his method of attracting jolts of lightning that you can trap inside your bottles.
2. Jump up the roof and stand to where a circle of spark will appear since this is where lightning will directly strike. Lightning in Bottles (as well as Glims!) will continuously drop if you follow the sparks that will appear on random areas on the boat.
3. The event will eventually halt once you run out of empty bottles. After that, Atul will be grateful for letting him witness this spectacle, and he will also commend you for your bravery.

Stations that Require Lightning in a Bottle

Garden

A station where you can plant vegetable, odd, and mysterious crops. You will need 10 Maple Logs and 5 Lightning in Bottles to build your first Garden.

Kitchen Upgrade

The Kitchen is where you can cook food for the starving passengers. A Kitchen improvement will cost you 5 Bright Jellies, 8 Lightning in Bottles, and 12 Linen Fabrics.

Foundry Upgrade

A building where you can smelt items to make refined materials. You can upgrade this station after gathering 12 Nebula Fabrics, 8 Lightning in Bottles, 7 Bright Jellies, and 510 Glims.

Sawmill Upgrade

This is where you can make wooden planks from cutting logs. You must first have 8 Aluminum Ingots, 18 Maple Planks, 12 Lightning in Bottles, and 285 Glims to upgrade this building. 

Lightning in a Bottle is just one of those materials that you can gather in rather unconventional ways in the game. As you meet and get to know more spirits, you will come across more requests that will require items that are a little hard to come by. But just like Stella’s boat, you will have to go with the flow, continue expanding and improving your roving hotel for the dead, and keep them satiated until they cross over to the other side.