"It seems so," Elra says gently. "I mean unless you were born as a shield..."

"Oh."  The voice goes quiet for a while.  "Why... do you keep saying shield?"

***The longer this goes the more we are probably getting ahead of the main timeline where Arvel/Grol has summoned Yeemik, etc.  I'm ok with that for a bit longer though, it's fun.  In an effort to be inclusive I'm also picturing Ethan standing there listening intently and nodding along with Elra as they talk to the shield and learn about him/it.***

"You... well I'm looking at a shield right now," Elra explains.

***Fair enough, I'm just bored and finished all my schoolwork***

Ethan studies the shield, as Elra talks to it, trying to build rapport and gather information.

Ethan half mumbles quietly to himself,

"Amazing...its like a mind copy, but the soul as been transferred as well, and it looks to be powering the magic..."

Ethan addresses the shield,

"You appear to have had your soul and mind transferred into a shield, its quite fascinating."

"Do you remember what happened? Could you describe it? I could possibly learn some interesting insights into intelligent device design from your situation."

Ethan doesn't appear to have realised that the situation might be traumatic for the shield person.

"Um.. Ethan," Elra says quietly. "This might not be the best time to ask a question like that."

Ethan looks at Elra,

"Hmm? Uh, oh, oh right, ah.."

Ethan turns back to the shield,

"..Um, yeah, sorry about that, uh, I hope your ok and all..."

Ethan looks a little embarrassed and a little ashamed.

Fae would snap out of her daze for a moment when Ethan would present her with a spellbook, "Oh. Thanks..." The wizard would hesitantly accept the spellbook a little surprised. "I wonder who it belonged too..." She would brush off the cover, her fingers tracing the crest on the front.

Again lost in her head, Fae was not expecting Arvel's shout in Grol's voice. It was so accurate, it startled her. Her heart practically leapt out of her chest thinking he came back to life. The scholar's eyes would side glance to Grol's body to double-check.

And then a shield starts shouting. Fae would jump a little bit to the other side, eyes wide. She'd fumble the spellbook a little before catching it and then clutching it to her chest as to not drop it. The wizard will simply blink and observe the exchange.

"A shield?  I'm in a shield?  No... wait, yes, A SHIELD!  ...maybe, oh, no, ...perhaps?  There was a battle, and I was afraid, so afraid....they were all dead, and I knew I was going to die..."

"...and I did."

"If only I could remember...yes, remember...I will try"

Tarja gives a side-eye to all of the metal weaponry and armor they're finding, and is further startled by the talking shield.

Fitting things to find in the stash of a brute like Grol. Can't see how you all can stand wearing that stuff...

I don't even much like the scimitar I have, I was thinking of getting rid of it anyway. Wonder if that elf one is worth changing my mind for.

She''s most intrigued by the marble elephant statuette and goggles that look like an owl-beak.

These look nice and well made. Wonder who he got these things from.

Everyone looks so busy trying to identify things, and Tarja would have no real approach to investigating this, when she'd hear the goblins approaching. She'd pop her head out by Zeke.

Hmm, those guys weren't so bad after all. We found Gundren.

Hey Yeemik! Do you know anything about this elephant and the goggles? Did these goggles have anything to do with the poor owlbear?

"Good," Elra smiles. "Why don't you try to remember. If you can we might be able to help you."

As Yeemik approaches the door where Zeke and Tarja await he answers "nah, all the fancy stuff comes from the main road to the west."  "We were with Klarg on the tougher road, mostly watchin' for that dwarf and collecting a few other things when we felt like it.  Ah, I suppose you already knew that, huh?"  As he draws close he looks nervous about what Grol has in for him.

The shield grows quieter but Ethan and Elra can hear him mumbling away to himself almost constantly.  "The battle, so many, afraid, so afraid...for so long.  A name?  What name?  When?  How long?..."  This goes on and on as he tries to figure things out.  "Afraid, afraid of what..."

Elra looks to Ethan, then back to Yeemik. "I'm... I didn't get a chance to check him... before Grol threw him in there with the beast... I'm sorry."

Apologies, I edited Yeemik's comment above to say the main road to the WEST, which you would know is the road you came south on along the coast to get to Phandalin before you took the Triboar Trail east.

Yeemik looks back at the owlbear door once again with a bit of uncertainty.  "Maybe we should check, after" he says before heading in to see what his fate is with King Grol.

Let's warp time a bit here as we RP various things and give Cubester time to play out his Grol impression.  Who would like to be Identifying things and how?  Elra has been busy in various aspects of the RP but for the sake of fun and progress feel free to pick 2 more items to Identify via ritual.  :)   Feel free to RP other things as well and we won't worry about the exact order & timing during a certain window here around dusk in our story.

Have I missed anything else that has been thrown out there?  Lots going on, and more to come.

Elra will identify the Lathander Amulet out of curiosity and the marble elephant per Tarja's request.

The amulet identifies as [Tooltip Not Found].  

The marble elephant statue identifies as Figurine of Wondrous Power (Marble Elephant).

Quote from BaconExpert982 >>

Sorry i feel like i made your job harder 

 Why?  By RP'ing stuff?  No worries, I was excited to give you guys all kinds of treasure, have you find Gundren, mess with the weirder items like the shield, etc.  No worries!  I do feel bad whenever we might put people too far behind in a 24 hour period, but many of these posts have been brief, a bit sill and fun so hopefully Cubester, etc. will enjoy catching up!

P.S.  Had some trouble linking the home brew item above so added a spoiler with the item's text.

"Oh Tarja, you might like this!" Elra holds up the Elephant. "It can turn into an Elephant! And this," she flips the amulet around in her hands, "it's blessed with Lathander's holy power. Helping with healing!" she smiles and sets it back down. "Maybe someone else could use it? I feel like if I held onto it I'd be cheating on Oghma for some reason..."

Ethan carefully lifts the shield out of the chest (if he can), and studies it, while the others work on other things.

"Hmmm, fascinating...yes, there is definitely signs of mind copy magic here, although it isn't exactly like what I was taught..."

"Mr Shield, are you able to see, or sense really, anything? I mean obviously you can hear and talk, but uh, can you sense any other way, like sight?"