The Beast

[Brian]

As Kevin and his own entourage clear the small area behind the keep where the forge is kept, they encounter a group of armed guards being led by Radagast, Phil, Parthipan, and Ekim.

Both groups halt momentarily to take this into account.

South of where everyone is standing, the entire valley (or pass, if you prefer) is filled with keep guardsmen and Storm-rider tents.  The center lane is left open for wagons to get through.  Far to the south, past the furthest of the tents, a supply caravan is barely visible in the moonlight.  In front of the caravan, something huge and shiny is lumbering around, pacing back and forth.  Just past the edges of the tents, nearly a thousand Storm-rider bowmen and pikemen have already formed a defensive wall.

Phil: To your eyes, the creature ... monster ... thing glows red and yellow, but it's too far away to really make out any details.

[Dracos]

"Bjorn, Lord Kevin.  I take it you've also heard of our uninvited guest?  We're heading to check it out right now."

Dracos gestures to continue any conversing while leading the group of guardsmen closer to the wall of pikesman and the beast beyond them.

Dracos

[Bjorn]

"What is it?" Bjorn wonders, continuing to move closer.

[Dracos]

"Hell if I know.  Just heard about it when I was talking with the loremasters and headed over here with the guards.  Let's get closer and see, shall we?"

Dracos

[Ginrai]

Ginrai looks to see if Radagast, Serril and Ekim are also following them.

[Brian]

Radagast, Ekim, and about four hundred guardsmen armed with spears are following the group.

As you walk through the tents, a lot of the camp attendants look up and watch where you're going -- some of the Storm-rider women and children, others that have presumably come with their keep-defending bretheren.

By the time you reach the end of the tents, and reach the defensive line of the Storm-rider pikemen and bowmen, the ranks of the army behind you have swelled to nearly five thousand armed men.

The 'monster', now that you can see it, is at the head of a caravan.  It's pacing back and forth before one wagon particularly.  This wagon has two men on it, one of whom is holding something in his hand (possibly a glass phial), and the other of which has his hands in his lap.  They both look like men, though one of them is wearing a hat an awful lot like Radagast's.

The monster itself is a strange amalgamation of a stone golem, and random bits of metal in constant motion, forced into a roughly human shape.  The main body is shaped somewhat like a pear, the smaller end towards the bottom, but a good third of this pear shape is simply missing, filled with gears, cogs, spinning shafts, and rods.  The arms, which are also stone, are the same, sometimes entire segments of them being either just whirling metal, and sometimes just solid stone.  The arms, which hang out at the side could probably reach all the way to the ground, though it moves at a good clip considering how stubby its legs are.

It stands about four meters tall, and is about three meters wide.  From here, you can hear the resonating thud of its footsteps, along with a rythmic, almost heart-beat-like noise of metal sliding on metal somewhere within the machine-looking half of the thing.  Its head is just another boulder, with a machined jaw and shining gear-like teeth below a pair of metal orbs.

These orbs are fashioned to look like eyes, in some manner, and the stone eyebrows above it are oddly expressive.  Right now the creature looks frustrated, though it pauses its march to glance up at the newly approached defenders before resuming its anxious pacing.

[Bjorn]

"This is odd," Bjorn says, frowning thoughtfully.  "Whatever it is, it doesn't seem very threatening at the moment.   Did we expect a supply caravan today?"

[Ginrai]

Turning to Radagast, Ginrai asks, "Do you know either of those two?"

[Brian]

"There's been a caravan every day," Kevin says, nodding.  "That's how we maintain the keep."

Radagast shakes his head, glancing at Kevin and frowning.  "I'm not certain what is going on here ... but Bjorn is right.  It doesn't seem very threatening."

[Dracos]

Dracos looks over the caravan and the 'monster', examining for magic and for armed troops or signs of hostility or nervousness anywhere he can see along it.  Particularly he examines the people in the wagon behind the monster.

"Shall we go out to greet them then?" Dracos cautiously questions.  "It's certainly an odd guard for an expected common caravan."

Dracos

[Brian]

Phil: Both of the people behind the wagon have an odd aura that it takes you a moment to figure out.  Everything snaps into place in your frame of reference -- the aura of both of the people in the front wagon is identical (in respects) to the aura you've seen on Nathan, Parthipan, Durant, and Bjorn.  Even Lindsey, Liandral, and Serril have it.

Those two are not from this world, at least, not originally.

As far as the magic on the golem, from what you can discern, most of the magic is to keep it going, and to protect it from other magic, though you can see that there's a thread going between the golem and the man who's wearing no hat (who is also the one who is not holding a glass phial of ... something).

You do not see a hidden army anywhere among the caravan.

[Bjorn]

"I don't know that all of us should go," Bjorn says cautiously.  "Perhaps Sir Shuker and myself?  I don't know that anyone else here should put themselves at risk."

[Dracos]

~Bjorn, they are like us.  Not of this world.~

Dracos

[Bjorn]

Bjorn does not outwardly respond to Philip's mental intrustion, though the non-mindboard contact, his first ever, is extremely disturbing.  A few second's focus brings up the mindboard, and then he quickly merges the smuges of Philip, Nathan, and Parthipan.

If they're not of this world, he writes, then odds are they're the other two Pax Arcana agents.

[Brian]

"If it's all the same," Kevin says slowly, "I think ... we could probably send someone else."

Radagast makes a thoughtful noise.  "Perhaps Ekim and myself?" he asks.