Fae would almost freeze in place, only her eyes and hands moving as she'd pour over the pages with Elra over her shoulder. Her heart would start to pound, then race. She'd feel heat rise up, flushing her ears as she'd read through it the first time. Her eyes will dart as they jump around the pages for additional review.

Elra's encouraging pat on the back would pull her out of her daze. She'll pause for another moment to calm her excitement and slip a smile on her face before she'd turn around to face her friend. With full sincerity, she'll look to Elra, "Thank you for helping me. Should we catch up with the others?"

Elra smiles, "No worries, glad I could help. I should probably go check on Gundren though... um... I'll meet you there."

"Of course." She'll nod.

While Elra leaves to check on Grundren, Fae would take care in storing the found scroll safely in her pack. She'd consider putting away the journal too, but a part of her felt as though she should show it to Tarja to give her the opportunity to review it. She'll take one last glance around the room. She'll swallow, pushing down her discomfort before she's ready to leave the area.

Fae will make her way back to where the rest of the group was gathered in a discussion. She'll take a deep breath looking at each of them individually before moving herself closer to speak to them all. "We found something in a hidden compartment near the desecrated shrine." The wizard would then look to Tarja and present the aged book to the druid. "I wonder if this journal would be of some interest to you."

(Oh wait! Tarja's not in that room. She'll be with Gundren and now Elra lol)

(I think it's reasonable for Fae to go show Tarja the book.  We're not under any particular time restraints currently.)

Yeemik mostly shrugs regarding where to stay for the night.  "Wherever you want, I guess."  (There's certainly space in the dining hall, great room/shrine/library, Grol's room, the area between Grol's room and the SE tower were the owlbear was, near the front entrance, etc.  At best, most drip water here and there since the castle is in a very poor state, but it's mostly dry right now as it's a clear evening.)

Do I owe you guys any other responses or info on anything?  What next?

Elra checks to make sure Gundren's doing well, before turning her attentiom back to the braizer and continues to clean it up.

Zeke walks the perimeter of the throne room, quickly checking to make sure there are no unknown entrances or exits.

'Here.  We bed down in the throne room for tonight.  Easiest place to protect.  I'll take first watch.'

"Okay," Elra says, turning her focus from the braizer again to unroll her bedroll and try to get Gundren to lay down on it.

Elra, Tarja and the rest find Gundren asleep against a wall and hugging the sentient shield.

Zeke does not find anything particularly interesting, although the the castle walls and what once was the second floor are in such poor shape that any particularly good climbers could enter and exit in many places.

Tarja checks that Gundren is comfortable and safe, at least as comfortable and safe as he can be with the goblins as their allies. Seeing that he seems to have been ok while Arvel was off dealing with the dragon and through the hobgoblin arrival is very reassuring.

Prior to settling down for the night, she would take the form of a cat and climb as high as she could, to see the castle and the land from up above - and to have a moment to commune with the wind.

Ethan takes a corner and pulls out his leather work mat and starts unloading various tools, equipment and materials, before settling in for a night of crafting.

The first thing Ethan does is measure a few points and lines on the back plate of the half-plate armour and then starts to cut the back into sections.

Ethan makes two, 1 to 1 and 1/2 inch wide, slits down the back of the armour, where Zeke's wings would be positioned. He then takes the middle section between these slits, and attaches hinges to the top and straps to the bottom, so the section can be lifted up when putting the armour on, and strapped down once it is on.

After Ethan has cleaned up all the sharp edges and various under layers of leather and padding, Ethan stands and brings it to Zeke.

"Here, this was the easiest adaptation, I'll show you how to get into it and how to secure it once your inside."

Ethan shows Zeke, helping him put the torso part of the armour on.

"I believe you should be able to strap the mechanism you use for your shield, over the top of the armour, so we shouldn't need to modify that."

Ethan would help Zeke put the rest of the armour on, or take the torso section off, depending on what Zeke wants.

Elra wraps her blanket around Gundren, and takes some of the bedding from her bedroll and tucks it behind his head as a make-shift pillow. Once that's done, she turns her attention back to the braizer and keeps working on cleaning it up, eventually falling asleep.

When Tarja would exit Gundren’s room, Fae would try to catch her before she slinks off in the night as a cat. “Tarja, I wonder if this journal would be of some interest to you...” The wizard would offer the book for the Druid to take should she be interested in reading it. “It mentions Mr. Thunderheart and the Forge...”

Fae will then look to Zeke, she’d be shy to make the suggestion, but considering the side of the place, she figured she’d ask, “Would it be wise to pair up for watch tonight?” Sometime’s watch could be lonely too. The wizard will then glance around to the others who may already be settled for the evening, then look back to Zeke. “Otherwise, please feel free to come for me for second watch.” She’ll offer a smile.

Once discussions on watch were decided, Fae would approach Ethan’s crafting space. “Would you mind if I accompanied you in this space?” She would pull the spell book from her pack that was found earlier that day, feeling motivated by the creators enthusiasm to get to work ASAP. “I hope to study a spell or two to copy into my spell book before retiring for the night.” The scholar enjoyed sharing research space, though not everyone does.

Assuming she wouldn’t impede on the artificers work, the wizard would take a seat where she was sure to not be in his way, but close enough to watch him tinker away and test the armour on Zeke when she’d need a break from her studies. 

Tarja takes a quick glance and the journal and is about to return it until she catches a glimpse of the "Thunderheart" name. Her eyes go wide and she studies the rest of the journal reverently.

Falgrim Thunderheart was an ancestor of mine - there's so much we don't know about what happened to him. Those were better times, when the pact kept everyone living in harmony, and the cave connected us all to the land.

I have some old letters from him, but nobody never knew what caused the battle and the cave collapse that brought ruin to the project. Perhaps it was these orcs and red wizards mentioned in this journal!

Would it be okay if I looked this journal over more closely? Perhaps this knowledge will give me a closer connection to my heritage.

Amped from his performances from the day, Arvel has little need for sleep. Knowing that Ethan is deep in his work, Fae and Tarja are deep in research, and it's better not to bother Zeke when he's on guard, the charlatan puts his blanket over Elra's shoulders and continues to pace around the keep until his nervous energy finally dissipates.

"Oh of course Fae, feel free any time, its always great to have company."

Ethan make a little space on the work mat for Fae, if she wants it.

Ethan starts work on Zeke's mechanical blade, carefully disassembling the top parts, removing the blade from the handle, and then the folding cross-guard mechanism.

Ethan tinkers around inside handle, learning how the telescoping mechanism works, and what can be moved or rearranged.

"Hmm, fascinating, it seems there is a small magically enchanted clock-spring in the pommel."

"When you twist the handle, the magic flows into the spring, causing it to change into a helix, pushing the handle out to its full length"

"Then when you twist it back the spring collapses back down into a coil collapsing the handle back down."

"Each segment has a locking mechanism that keeps it rigid once extended, or collapsed."

Ethan continues to tinker around inside the handle, adding new mechanisms and changing the shape of the opening of the handle.

After some time, Ethan hold the handle up.

"There, I think that should do it."

Ethan stands and goes over to Zeke again,

"Here Zeke, I think I've got it worked out."

Ethan holds the handle out to show Zeke.

"First you remove this pin."

Ethan removes a tiny pin from the side of the handle, very near the top.

"Then you open this cover and pull the clamp leaver underneath."

Ethan pulls a band open, revealing a leaver underneath. Ethan pulls the leaver and it snaps open.

"Now the clamps inside are released and you can insert the sword."

Ethan takes the sword and inserts it into the handle, making sure the cross-guard fits into the notches on either sides of the handle.

"Then you close the lever to clamp the sword, and then close the cover and pin it into place."

Ethan pushes the leaver down, it gets harder and harder until it suddenly snaps closed. Ethan closes the cover and then inserts the pin to keep it closed.

Ethan shakes the handle to show there is no movement between the sword and the handle.

"There you go, give it a try, let me know if anything is wrong with it."

Ethan waves back at his work mat,

"Oh I also fitted the old blade with a basic handle and worked the parts of the folding cross-guard into a standard cross-guard for it."

"So you can keep the old blade, if it has sentimental value, or whatever."

Fae would smile, feeling her heart well up in joy for Tarja as shares her excitement about her ancestors and heritage, “Please.” She’ll encourage her to hold onto the journal for study. 

It is a cold night in the castle, but the party is fortunate not to endure a rainy evening in the porous structure.  As the sun rises in the morning the party hears the goblins slowly stirring.  Once up, they find Yeemik and a few of the others in the dining hall tossing scraps of meat to a rather ornery displacer beast.  The beast sits resting near one of the walls and growls deeply at anyone that comes too close, otherwise disinterested in the happenings of the castle unless food is involved.  Soon a couple more goblins join and Yeemik instructs them to start cleaning out the rubble in the dining hall.

(Feel free to RP anything from the evening before or in the morning as you like.)

---- The night before ----

After giving all of Zeke's equipment to him, Ethan goes back and starts to setup for the malfunctioning bag of holding.

First he takes the bag and carefully removes it from the stabilising cage he has it in and then he starts to reassemble the cage, with added parts into a new temporary structure.

Once the new structure is setup, Ethan places the bag into it, suspending it in the centre.

"See here Fae? This is where the damage has been done."

Ethan points out a small set of sigils embroiled into the rim of the opening of the bag.

"Whatever did this was powerful, most magic items are heavily resistant to mundane damage."

You can see that the sigils have been cut through and that very tiny magical sparks, like static shocks, sometimes appear at the sight of the damage.

"I'm going to see if I can temporally route around the damaged sigils and get the space inside the bag to stabilise."

"If I get it right, we can see what may still be inside the space inside the bag, and hopefully extract it."

"If I get it wrong, well I'm not entirely sure. Bag's of holding are playing with spatial and dimensional magic, um, I'm pretty sure we want be sucked into the astral plane, that's what the structure is for."

Ethan indicates the structure around the bag,

"But maybe I should be the only one to stand overly close to it while I'm tweaking it."

Ethan pulls out some threat and a needle and starts to very carefully attach thread between the sigils on either side of the damaged ones and the structure itself.

Once the threads are connected, Ethan takes out a metal scribe and traces sigils into the air just above the structure.

The sigils shrinks down and onto the structure fading away once in place.

"So, if I get this right, the power will stabilise and we can look into the bag."

"If it doesn't work, and doesn't collapse, I can try again. I have a few idea's about how to do it, but I may need to tweak it as I go."

Ethan takes a deep breath and lets it out, and then traces the last of the sigils for his first try.

There is a visible glow of magic briefly along the threads from the bag to the structure, and the sigils Ethan scribed all reappear and glow as well.

Ethan holds his breath, to see what happens.

"Next move, next move, next move. The dragon? No. Not yet. Let Yeemik tell the dragon the Spider decided to go behind their back and find the forge on their own. Gundren needs help, more than we can give him. Plus we've got those Redbrands waiting back in Phandelin for us. Need to put them off balance..."