We rewind a bit..
Brashek awoke at the camp to find two of his companions missing. He discovers tracks made by the two heading north, he decides to follow them. It appeared that they weren’t attempting to hide their tracks so they were quite easy to follow, especially since Talus was so heavy.
After two days about mid-morning he sees a very large numenera device fly up into the sky and head to the northwest. About the same time loud sounds of clattering wood and voices can be heard. He moves forward to see what’s happening and discovers a village in panic, people running around and picking up pieces of buildings. He also notices Ripley and Talus having a heated discussing with a couple of people, one of whom has the bridle gallen firmly in hand. As he approaches he can tell they are haggling over a price of something.
Brashek announces himself and Talus and Ripley act not unfriendly towards him ( so apparently they didn’t run from him ). He is involved in the tail end of a negotiation for the group of now three people to track the Shadewalker and return to the village with news of the new location and any threats in the new area. Parl informs them that in that direction hurath can be found and and are a good source of meat. Hurath are snakelike creatures with vestigial limbs. He also tells them that a trader/trapper may be in the area too, his name is Balvo. Parl says that Balvo is a good guy, he just prefers his solitude and comes into the village once in a while to trade.
The group ends up agreeing to 21 shins as payment and refuse the young gallen, they viewed it as just another mouth to feed. They request partial payment prior to heading out. Parl counters saying that if they die then they will have just lost their shins for nothing, if the group doesn’t trust the village then he will give them 2/3rds when they arrive and the last 7 shins after the group gives them the information they request.
The group agrees with the arrangement and heads off after the Shadewalker which they insist on calling the Shademover now. The group finds the first place where the device landed about half a mile from the village. They see the divots caused by the legs landing as well as some curious seemingly random holes drilled in the ground. The holes, about 1.5 fee in diameter appear to go straight down, a test with some rope and a torch show that they descend about fifty feet, all of them do this. The holes don’t appear to be in any pattern but they do seem to be where the edge of the device would have been based on the impressions left by the “legs”.
The group travels onward and about another 15 minutes later they find a similar situation, though the holes don’t seem to be in the same relative place and there are a couple less of them. They see that from here the Shadewalker actually walked, still making a straight line away from the village. The group follows from point to point more holes, the device mostly walking sometimes flying, this goes on for about 4 hours when they come upon a high ridge. Near the ridge attempting to hide behind some shrubbery is a man in animal skins, he’s sitting on the ground with his legs sprawled out.
The group easily sees him and move toward him, as they ask him who he is and what he’s doing they are interrupted by him shushing them and asking them to be quiet. He whispers he’s Balvo and there are some Margr in the area and he doesn’t want them to hear him. He is in some obvious discomfort and his right leg is twisted at a strange angle. Balvo asks if any of them are able to splint his leg. Ripley offers to give it a try, while she’s doing that the group asks Balvo questions about the Shademover. Balvo had been up the high ridge watching for Margr when he saw the device fly over his head. This startled him as he recognized the thing but had never seen it fly before. He tumbled down the ridge and broke his leg.
Ripley is able to splint the leg and Balvo thanks her, he offers 8 arrows and some hurath jerky as payment and starts working on carving out some simple crutches. The group readily takes the proffered rewards and asks if he would like to travel with them. Balvo refuses saying he prefers to be alone, and now that his leg is properly splinted he should be fine.
The group leaves him and and discusses climbing the ridge, they decide to have Talus and Brashek work together as they seem to work well together and both of them are familiar with climbing. The two of them climb up with a slight misstep by Brashek, but he avoids tumbling down. Once at the top they hoist Ripley up with little effort. At the narrow top they can see that the ridge is a long treacherous slope on the other side but the Shadewalker is visible from here. They start finding their way downward making a trail side to side, Talus and Brashek’s climbing skills definitely put to use, but their experience make the trip trivial.
They reach the bottom of the slope and head off into the underbrush towards where they saw the Shadewalker, based on the distance Brashek thinks it’s about 2 more hours away. The group keeps trekking through the sparsely forested area until out of the darkness three spears come flying out at them. In the dim light provided by Telus’ neverending candle they see the goat muzzles of some Margr. The group moves up to engage and 5 other Margr join the fight from the forests each leading with a spear. A spear or two hit Telus but his well armored body and shield help deflect the attacks, Ripley on the other hand is very poor at avoiding attacks and is hit many times by spears and axes. Brashek is able to avoid being hit at all. At one point in the fight Telus managed to divert the enemy’s attention to him hoping to protect Ripley.