14. I'm on Observation Duty

6th Eyre, 999 YK

Rested and inventory managed, they venture into the Ironlands and begin heading back.
With Runmae's new, stronger back gained overnight (from levelling up), they gather up some more bits.
There's is a momentary crisis as Warren ceases to be a shifter (because his player deleted his ancestry) and we have to recover it.
More inventory management, they get some silver chunks.
They follow Warren's example and proceed stealthily through the Kech Shaarat territory.
They decide to proceed stealthily for the first day, they're carrying a lot of stuff.
They spook some hares, and the momentary distraction causes Valaari to step in a metallic puddle. It adheres to their boot and begins climbing their leg, though it doesn't hurt.
Valaari tries to shake it off, to no avail. It's adhered. It seems to be reaching for their axe.
Valaari identifies it as some kind of ooze, but doesn't know more than that.
Bhaltair goes to find a large chunk of metal to distract the ooze.
The ooze goes for the metal, and they move away.
Runmae examines Valaari's shoe. She isn't sure what the ooze was or did, but the metal on the shoe has changed and is now brittle and crumbles at the slightest touch.
They repurpose some of the steel bark they got on their previous visit, tying it to the bottom of the shoe so that Valaari can still walk (albeit uncomfortably).
Runmae wants to work with the metal a bit, but Valaari is worried about noise, so they don't.
They continue stealthily for the rest of the day.
Runmae manages to find them a secluded-ish place to camp. No fires, they don't have the materials anyway.
They sleep blissfully, with nothing interrupting their rest (nice).

7th Eyre, 999 YK

Runmae ponders how long they've been out of Maruk Dar for. They left on the 28th of Therendor, so it's been 8 days.
They continue to be sneaky today.
In the early afternoon, they come across a strange mechanical creature. It's a spherical being, with little mechanical wings and two arms with "lego hands". It is watching a sapling intently.
They watch it for a bit. Warren asks if it's a bug.
They don't think it's a bug. The bugs here don't look mechanical.
Valaari thinks it may be from Khorvaire. They look around for anyone else.
Bhaltair thinks back and remembers some of their education. They think this is an Aeon from Daanvi known as an Arbiter. Like a little scientist doing field research. It's watching a tree grow.
They have a lengthy discussion about what to do with it, if anything. Warren wants to say hi, but most of the others don't want to bother it. Leave it to its work.
Valaari asks if there could be a portal to Daanvi nearby? Bhaltair tries to sense a portal and senses quite a few, one fairly close to them. They don't know where it goes, though.
They then discuss whether to check it out. Valaari wants to check it out, a portal to a new plane is significant!
Nobody speaks out against this, so they go to check it out.
They decide to send in Bhaltair's Mask familiar first, they'll only get am empathic response from it but that's a general gist, right?
They move towards the portal, following Bhaltair's lead.
As they move away, one of them gets too close and gets its attention. It spins around, and declares that it is on a very important mission and distractions should be kept to a minimum. If they would like to lodge a complaint, they should report to the Infinite Archive, it's identifier is OBSRV-763409381903.
Naze goes to speak to it but they stop him, the lil guy has a job to do.
They go on for ten minutes, to a little hill with a tunnel going down. This is the portal Bhaltair senses.
Bhaltair imbues their familiar with the power of speech, and sends it into the tunnel to scout.
Bhaltair instructs the mask to go into the tunnel, and then come back and tell them what it saw.
The Mask goes into the portal, returns, throws up a little bit but wipes it away immediately so there's no evidence, and then flies back.
The Mask describes a little meadow in some woods with a log cabin reminiscent of rural Karrnath, a chicken coop, and some vegetable patches.
A portal to Karrnath? They can't bring their corruption there.
Valaari requests Warren add this portal to their map.
Bhaltair wants to take more of a look. Valaari compromises by allowing The Mask to go back in for a longer look.
The Mask returns, having smelled fresh bread. They describe chickens also being in the log cabin, and a single man who looks like a farmer. The Mask disapproves of chickens being allowed on the kitchen counters.
They are too suspicious of this, they have too much stuff to risk checking it out. They decide to leave it alone. They can plan to come back, but not now.
Bhaltair struggles to walk away from this, there's flowers and stuff!
Valaari puts their foot down, they're not risking the stuff they've collected.
They walk away, and think about the arbiter they saw. They wanna check on it later, to see the progress of the tree. How do metal trees grow?
This leads to a discussion of Bhaltair's lack of a childhood, as they walked out of Oalian fully formed as an adult Bhaltair.
They sneak for the rest of the day. They can't find a secluded place to rest, so they have to just settle down where they are and keep watch.
In the early hours of the morning, Bhaltair hears a battle happening to the north east, a couple miles away. They send The Mask to check it out.
Zaphkiel walks to a nearby hill to watch the battle.
The Mask returns and reports two large groups of Barbazu killing each other, with nothing visually to determine the sides.
By this point, it's been a couple hours since the start of the conflict and its dying down (as are all of the combatants).
The rest of the night passes without incident.

8th Eyre, 999 YK

In the morning, Bhaltair informs the others of the battle. Valaari thinks this is usual for the Ironlands, worth investigating but they have other concerns right now.
Bhaltair removes The Mask's ability to fly and speak, restoring the abilities it had before yesterday.
Warren marks, roughly, where the battle site was.
Bhaltair wonders about the factions, Valaari explains they have identified different ornaments before on Barbazu corpses, different armbands, beard ornaments, etc.
They don't have the time to investigate, they move on.
They decide to move at a normal pace today, as it means they can get out of the Ironlands today rather than tomorrow.
This results in them being noticed! Later in the day, they are ambushed by Barbazu.
Naze really ruins one of their days with Holy Light, wow
The Barbazu attack with their wicked glaives and also with their wriggly beards. Fun!
Warren shifts for the first time ever! Naze is like "wait he's a shifter?"
They manage to kill both Barbazu with relatively minimal damage, though both Naze and Warren are injured and bleeding out.
Naze manages to stop his own bleeding, and Runmae stops Warren's!
We end the session before looting, to save the inventory management for next session as we're running over a bit.

OBSRV-763409381903

Just off of your path is a small, spherical, mechanical creature. It's like a sphere with two mechanical wings, which are beating furiously, two arms that end in hands that only have two "fingers" and are more like tongs, and a single mechanical lense emerging from the "front" of it, like a spyglass.

It's hovering in place, watching a silver tree sapling intently.

The sphere turns quickly to look at you, it's telescopic eye retracting briefly and then emerging once more, as if it needed to get you into focus.

"Greetings denizens, this Documentation Unit has a very important task, and would appreciate that distractions are kept to a minimum."

The sphere turns back to the tree and refocuses it's eye.