"There should be no need to straighten the story. The truth is a stick that breaks when twisted, not a rope that can be knotted as needed."
Watches-Shadow-Behind-You seems to listen to the fire for a few seconds.
"The Spirits like you, Garrick ir'Kraal," the shaman says when he turns back to him. He sits down cross-legged with his back to the fireplace. Smiling up at the big human, he clasps his hands. "Now tell how we straighten our stories."
@DM Mittean
Daxur nods at the discussion on the mysterious female boss of the three-armed goblin, piping up "Yes, yes that's interesting. The matter of the key that was taken...Lieutenant, is Master Ven responsible for anything important in town. The treasury, the grain storage....anything of value that would cause my distasteful cousins to go to such trouble?"
Once again, despite speaking about the razing of this very nice town, Engineer's voice holds no emotional tones. He remains flat and uninflecte in his timbre.
Watches-Shadow-Behind-You motions for his companions to sit next to him.
"About a full moon ago, my son and granddaughter did not return from bird-catching in the meadows. Despite the Chief saying I should wait, I left to join them instead. While I did not find them, I found their tracks which I followed. They led me to more tracks, some horses, some men. I saw evidence of a battle and then a march to The Metal-Beast-That-Runs-On-Spears, what your people call the "Lightning Rail." From there, I asked the people I encountered and followed clues to where many large boats wait to sail the seas. I was told that they sailed towards this camp, so I boarded the large boat and rode it."
Garrick sits on a chair and listens to the halfling's story intently.
"So it appeared to me. But I was somewhat injured at the time, and Vinder won't acknowledge that any such thing happened, so, we are at an impasse regarding that little mystery."
"While on the ship, I had a dream.
I sat under an overhang of tightly wrapped brier, my hands resting on my knees, my eyes closed, my breathing slow. The wind caressed me with memories.
I saw the land before me, my homeland; the Talenta Plains. The landscape is made of lines, like clay drawings on the caves of my mothers, near Wayambeh. They move with all colors and lengths to follow different paths. They are like writhing snakes.
Then the land breaths.
I sat at the fire, smoke curling up to the Wandjina (the gods of the dream in the sky). Then my Lath speaks up. I do not know this Lath, but as his calling is Lath, he tells me where to go.
'You seek Little shadow,' he said, 'Though the sun falls hard, you will not see her until you find your dinosaur family. Seek the curious Deinonychus. He wears a sleek coat, yet is covered in hand paintings not unlike our peoples. You must help him find his own memories at the roots of his tree, or loose all memories. The wounded skeleton of the Gorgosaurus, looses his anger upon the land, but it is not his land. He flees the true Tyrannosaur, and fears it. You must end their hunt. The fastidious Triceritops, his three horns glowing bright from the light from his mind, greater than all of the Lath's of our spoken history. He stands next to others just like him, that look nothing like him. You must dream with him. They travel with the Brontomerus, a broken slave collar still around his neck. He cannot read, yet eats only books. Though he is small, he leaves tracks as large as any sauropod. Read to him. Above them, believing he is separate, flies the Quetzalcoatlus, with its sharp mind, a silent, and deadly hunter, yet frightful when angered. You must find out what he needs. Your Little shadow is gone, but if you join your Shadow with theirs, your dreams will become as one, as your families. And whatever you do, do not, I repeat, do not -'
Then the dream ended when one of the crew knocked on the door."
"It was. I walked down to the wooden flat table built over the water by the boat. Then a boatman yelled 'Hey! Stop! Thief!' and a human boy with hair the color of summer grass ran past me. Then the 'crane' machine dropped the crates over a tall angry man in clothes the color of night and the patience of child."
I'm sorry," Satinder interjects, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, "but why are we talking about this? The mess with the crane was already dealt with, we don't need to get our stories straight about that!"
He leans forward, looking at Watches-Shadow-Behind-You intently. "What we need to straighten out is why you and I were on that boat when it exploded!"
Satinder gives an exasperated sigh.
"He's not telling us anything we didn't already know. I already told you and the Lieutenant about the blonde boy and the sailor, remember?"
He turns back to the halfling.
"Did you actually see what made the crane give way? Because if you don't, then this line of discussion is pointless, and our time is limited. Why did you run back onto the boat when there was a monster on the loose, and what was that thing you brought off with you?"
"Oh! That was because I missed something on the boat."
"An Egg-of-the-Mist," the small shaman said as he pulled out the object from his shirt, "Your people call them 'Kyber Crystals.'"
"No, I had no idea it was there. I only knew that I missed something."
Daxur shakes his head, "The idoits blew themselves and the wagon to smithereens....the fireworks for the celebrations."
He holds up a finger, "You make a very astute observation, Lieutenant. What indeed, would be so important? So important, that Master Ven, would conceal the theft of the key, so as to prevent any embarassment?"
"Yes. A little bird spirit told me." Watches-Shadow-Behind-You, said. Shadow, hidden in the folds of his shirt, moved a little.
You are laughing at us, aren't you? He thought.
"There was a stove belowdecks that got knocked over," Satinder interjects, "when the monster was chasing us. At least, that's what it looked like."
He turns back to Watches-Shadow-Behind-You.
"So, a spirit told you to go back onto the boat," he asks, and there is a hint of exasperation in his tone, "and it told you to take that Kyber Crystal?"
"No, the spirit made me realize something important was missed," Watches-Shadow-Behind-You said, "I decided to go back and found this there. I assumed it was this Egg so took it after I realized that I could not stop the fire."
Daxur snaps his fingers, remembering something... "That's right, those ruffians did abscond with some crates of materiel!" he exclaims, "Perhaps you should question Master Venice about that. "
Just thoughts here, and not necessarily all of these are eberron canon
But you know what Keith Baker said about canon
redd-ish orange, ...............corundum, mined exclusively in the Mror Holds and valuable, though it also has ceremonial significance to Mror dwarves
Gold-ish (darker), ..................electrum
Gold-ish (oranger), .................aurum
Gold-ish, ...........................gold
Silver-ish, .........................silver or argentum
Silver-ish (more grey-white), .......mithral
steel-grey...........................darksteel