The party moved closer still to where Gilbred's phoenix familiar told them they should find the Fieldhall of the Valley Rangers Guild. Gilbred kept twitching, looking around in every direction, even straight into the sky and down in the ground. He knew they were being watched by something. Zenith knew he knew.

They were only around a kilometer away now. They had slowed their progress at first, but when what they called both a "phoenix" and a "familiar" spotted the Fieldhall, they resumed the previous pace. The extra time had not been wasted entirely, but Zenith didn't appreciate delaying its previously planned informational session with Morval and his companions.

They were all still on edge, especially since none of the Rangers approached them. That was unusual for a nomadic Guild, a group licensed solely for their own protection from other adventuring groups and cities under the Adventure Society. There was clearly activity, but... the group feared they might be running into remnants. There was a Blood Moon not even half a day before, and these nomads were far from the beaten path.

But they were both here for the same thing. That fallen star, a prisoner sent from the heavens, a blessing of power waiting to be taken... whatever some of the more fanatical religions would call it. The party was just here because a quest had been made to retrieve samples of whatever had fallen. They didn't doubt that many more had been made across every city to witness the event, by mages and sculptors and priests who wanted some of that sweet, sweet useless rock. Well, not useless. Usually it had unique properties, but rarely was it better than specially treated items. It was hard to refine the materials that came falling from the sky.

"There's a group of them coming." whispered Gilbred. They halted, the largest of them producing a hollow clang as their heavy armor's momentum was stopped. "Four of them."

Despite this, Gilbred still couldn't help but look around almost wildly. He knew the four ahead weren't the ones with ill intent, nor did he think they would be a threat if they were. His party was one of the elites among the surrounding cities, and on the continental scale were far from the weakest, though they rarely had need to branch out from their home. He was confident that they outleveled and outskilled the hunter-gatherers before them.

The party as a whole took up a peaceful but ready stance, similar to the one taken earlier when surrounding the flinching Gilbred earlier but without the drawn weapons. The four approaching figures made themselves known quickly.

"Friendly!" came the shout through the thickest area of the Spears of Stone, presumably from that party's ranger... err... they were all Valley Rangers, so technically...

"Friendly." Sigmund returned. "Are you well?"

"Yes. We'd be willing to welcome you into the camp, with limits of course, but we can't provide much help with that fallen star."

"Ah. If it's no problem, we're fine setting our own tents, but we would be glad to join you over a meal or the like. We don't wish to force your help."

So it was said. The tense party of adventurers continued towards the Fieldhall, and upon seeing the unwounded, and hardly even tired-looking Morval of the current generation, eased their stance a little.

Something was still watching them. Innumerable. It felt like it was getting closer, but Gilbred couldn't be sure if that was just his mind playing tricks on him. He definitely wasn't the youngest ranger around; he was pretty sure he was near twice the age of the Morval and Itval walking alongside his party, as well as what was likely their primary hunter and Seeks. He kept his Phoenix flying.

Meanwhile, Zenith was not approaching at all, and had decided, on short conversation with Morval, to completely eradicate any trace of its previous vessel. The longer Morval kept them away, the more time Zenith had. Though Zenith didn't need much more time.

It observed the phoenix in the sky curiously. It seemed the bird bled off small amounts of the fourth set frequency, providing a minor amount of heat to the area around it. The "heatstones" were similar, but seemed designed to hold this specific radiation in and release it with the guidance of the first set frequency.

Zenith would need more information to name these energies better. Their attributes were not appropriate for this kind of naming scheme, at least without further testing of the frequencies in-between.

"You are here for the Fallen Star, right? What Quest brings a price worth your kind?" said Itval, their equipment clearly a few grades above their own.

"One Archmage a ways away wants a piece of this star. She catalogues the types of metal that fall, usually accompanied by a sample." said Sigmund. "You seem too relaxed. Can you not feel us being watched?"

"We believe that is related to the Star, but how exactly we aren't sure." replied Lan. "When we got here, and we got here fast... the only thing left was a crater. Multiple, actually."

"Stick around here long enough and it seems that whatever it is around here will lose its interest in you." said Morval. "The only wounds we have recieved so far are from the Bloodlight."

"How many did you lose?" asked Gilbred. "If I may ask, that is."

"Three. We were away from town, but otherwise prepared. They will be remembered." said the Morval.

Sigmund didn't really like this group. He'd run into them a few times before, and they were clearly acting... odd.

The first was the blatant carelessness about being watched. The second was being so far from their beaten path, especially on a Blood Moon.

The third was clearly lying about the Fallen Star being gone when they arrived. He could tell something was up, but he wasn't quite sure about their game plan, or even if they had any.

The Valley Rangers Guild, being the nomadic group they were, tended to accept exiles from settlements. Between the inherent dangers of not living within established borders, their numbers were always in flux. Sigmund's party would be unable to confirm whether the death toll they presented was true, but could maybe do something about that feeling of being watched to the point where Gilbred, the oldest and most trustworthy of their group, didn't trust his own Skills.

Maybe it was time to get rid of the barbaric nomads. The duty of a Noble was to lead the path for society to better futures, and if the Valley Rangers didn't prove themselves here today, Sigmund would do just that. Even if he had to retreat from his Quest and call a minor crusade.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

For now, Sigmund would see if a good morning lunch helped to calm Gilbred. And if the Guild would confess anything... or if they were hiding much more under the surface.

The bear to his right sniffled, briefly interrupting the conversation between the Itval and Gilbred. With their party's beastmaster actually being a ranger, both of his tamed creatures had excellent senses, even if they were lacking in raw strength.

Even the bear could smell something was off.

----------------------------------------

With its former shell as disappeared as Zenith could make it (the fore-left section was still completely unaccounted for, possibly burned to dust in entry), Zenith was left only to observe the new humans... and make a decision.

This "party" of "adventurers" were still wary. They looked prepare for a fight at any moment. Morval seemed interested in pleasing them as much as possible without outright giving up Zenith's presence. The loyalty he was showing to Zenith, even if a strange kind of bond, was uncomfortably familiar.

What would Annabelle have me do?

The adventurers could potentially wipe out the entirety of the Valley Rangers Guild in mere moments, according to Lan. However, Lan and Morval had told Zenith it had... unique qualities with its observation, at least insofar as it interacted with their Skills.

When observing them prior to their introduction, or from Zenith's point of view, prior to Zenith's decision to help them, Zenith's constant watch was an unnerving distraction to any with detection and counter-detection Skills. That would explain a good deal of that Gilbred human's reaction, however Zenith found it unfortunate that the others were not as vulnerable. They were still on edge, in their own way, but Gilbred was distracted from judging Zenith's charges too harshly... for now.

Projections based on average human behaviour put Gilbred's growing instability as a potential threat to Morval, should he ever be given sufficient reason to distrust him. There was a very fine line being played here.

The best part about Zenith's advantage, however, was not that it would cause distress for those who were found to be its focus. It was one step before that, in fact.

Zenith's observation could not be traced back to it or any of its constructs. This made imperfect stealth an easy objective for Zenith, though Zenith figured "perfect" stealth would be out of its bounds. It couldn't find a way to "access" the System like the humans could. Without it, Zenith would likely never develop the abilities to perfectly counter detection abilities.

Time would tell. There was much more information to be found.

The decision at hand, then, was what to do about these new humans.

What. Would. Annabelle. Have me do?

Simulations were unclear. With an incomplete grasp of the social, political, and power dynamics at play, Zenith would leave most of the business to its biological charges. The exception was a coded message.

"We saw Magefire." That was it. If Morval, Itval, Lan, or Cade spoke those words, Zenith would intervene... though whether it would be a directly violent way was yet to be seen. Zenith had no preference for either. Kill them, possibly angering other powers in the world, or introduce itself, eliminating its own stealth, and... well. The adventurers wanted a piece of Zenith. It could present them with various trickeries if they were pushy, or choose to kill them then, but at that point it would become much more difficult.

As it was, the new humans were not so much unwelcome as they were unfortunately timed. They were eating now, from their own stock (not that Morval would have them poisoned, but they were clearly the cautious sort - Zenith understood that) and conversing with Morval, Itval, and Cade about the Fallen Star. Well, it was mostly this Sigmund individual who was doing the talking on the adventurer's part. He didn't sound razer-focused on his task so much as he did a member of hegemony that found the Valley Rangers beneath him. Two hours of useful data accumulated. Running additional simulation sets.

Results were unclear. Again. Though, Zenith calculated within 80% chance that the belief of superiority came from the Valley Rangers' reputation as a nomadic group that would take in exiles from "proper establishments". The man also kept referring to Morval and Itval with "the" before their name.

More questions for them later. It was highly possible that knowledge of the social situation would be more important than the System, in the short term. Likeliness was that Morval and Itval were titles of sorts rather than names, however considering they referred to each other with said supposed titles, abandonment of prior names was an additional factor.

Though they had a reputation for taking in exiles, groups that abandoned names for titles also tended to keep said names abandoned, even if the titles were stripped as well, such as on exile.

Zenith again found itself in a situation that it had great experience in unraveling all the details of, but too little data to come to the important conclusions. Scans of the adventurers' equipment were inconclusive. Seemingly normal items, made of expected materials, though in patterns and formations incongruous with Zenith's previous advancement rating for this world's society. Most had patterns carved into them, ranging from exaggeratedly basic to intricate beyond projected cost efficiencies.

Some of these carvings served, and were serving, visible purposes insofar as Zenith would temporarily classify them as "Enchantments". They had these strange subspace radiations contained within, sometimes flowing through the carving in specific patterns and/or having a direction connection to the internal generation of energy within the humans wearing said equipment. For the largest human's part, whose observed oddities, likely genetic, created the appearance not unlike deep core gas giant variants, with extra access points for the lungs along the sides of the chest area and a vascular structure which was much more receptive to oxygen. This made them extremely vulnerable to airborne poisons and infectants, though Zenith would not likely find developing these countermeasures as a viable alternative to simply flooding their particles with subspace radiation.

That human's armor had several pieces with similarly-styled carvings, each of which had subspatial radiation approximately matching to the second set frequency. These pieces seemed to serve as nodes for a network which created an imperfect but practical bubble of second set radiation that mostly fit itself to the form of the wearer, with exceptions in areas such as the bottom of his boots, palm-sides of the hands, and majority of the head.

The web of radiation was slightly but noticeably weaker at the core of these nodes. Possibly an exploitable weakness.

An example of seemingly useless carvings was exemplified by what Zenith believed to be a crest of sorts, either for this group in particular or for a larger organization. The design was extremely complicated, and while Sigmund wore it on his treated-leather chestpiece the others simply had it on their vambraces or equivalent arm coverings. On some pieces, it was a minor structural weakness, but nothing else about it was notable. It was overcomplicated, its purpose could easily be subsumed by a slip of paper - which Zenith knew these humans had - and yet it was being treated like a requirement. Perhaps it was.

That was a thoroughly illogical requirement, if that was the truth.

The pseudo-energy shielding from the largest human's Enchantment(s) were easily bypassed by using the aforementioned uncovered regions, however Zenith's spybots were having interesting results climbing up and down the shield as though it were a perfect replica of the material it covered. The shield itself seemed weak, and wasn't likely to be much of a problem, but Zenith didn't potentially provoke hostilities by testing the effect of damaging the shield to the material underneath.

Yet.

It would have Cade teach Zenith as much as she could about this kind of Enchantment later. Though it had an exploitable weakness, it was a System-accessible manner of protecting its vessel, or charges. If Zenith could replicate the effect, or improve it, the additional protection could pay dividends.

But then that brought Zenith back to Directives 3 and 4. If Zenith chose to outfit the humans with equipment, would they grow? Would they be crushed attempting something they couldn't truly accomplish?

The bear-creature sniffed again, like it was following a trail without really moving. An observable flow of energies similar to Zenith's "connection" to Morval passed from it to the human Gilbred. That behaviour would have to be analyzed.

And possibly replicated.

Zenith would try to keep this Gilbred alive, should it come to fighting.