The party is given a hand-drawn cart with an Aetherite (Bigger) on it. When the party reaches their destination, the Bloom is already very thick and is swirling around the ground. The villagers follow their previous jobs, though they are not mentally present. Some villagers appear to have protrusions growing out of their backs, covered in a metallic sheen. When the villagers get into the Aetherite's range, however, they instinctively follow it and break out of the charm as long as they are within the Aetherite's aura. As Alan tries to urge the villagers to seek the Aetherite's protection, he quickly realises the Bloom here is affected by the Plane of Order. Alan attempts to move their job destination into the crystal's affected area. Still, the villagers' hands grow rapidly to drag him deeper into the village while returning the baskets to their original spots. Rohan tried to help him escape the villagers' grip, but he was flung out of the Aetherite's protection range, too. Reggie stepped in, intending to shock the transformed villagers, but it struck Alan instead. Emit tries to cut the pole-like arm, but it bounced off harmlessly. Alan removes himself from the assailant's senses using an Arcana, causing their focus to shift to Reggie, who promptly deactivated them with a smash. Emit seeing that, quickly replicated to successful effect. Everyone quickly returned to the Aetherite's side while the Forgemaster made a quick examination of the transformed villagers. Then, rough sounds emerge from within the village's depths. There are approximately 5 giant war machines that resemble an amalgamation of cats, dogs, horses, and other farm animals. At their torsos are cages, with one cage holding a villager that is connected to the machine itself. The party quickly set up an ambush, and Rohan initiated the first strike as the giant war machine aimed to retrieve one of the deactivated villagers. With his magical abilities, he immediately crushes all four war machines with empty cages in that singular strike. The remaining one went over to the deactivated villagers and turned them into four new giant war machines, each of which detains a villager. Alan tries to make a run, but Rohan, controlled by the original order beasts, stops him in his tracks. Emit then tries to strike one of the order beasts, but it's barely effective. Reggie tries to follow up, barely succeeding as well. Rohan, after reclaiming himself, goes for another ram, causing some effect. Alan, after analysing the situation, sees himself out due to his existing injuries and lack of functioning arcana. Unbeknownst to Alan, Emit was able to cut a tube, finding it to be much more effective despite being difficult. The war machines retaliate, wounding Emit and Reggie as Rohan pushes forward and causes a Wild Surge. Dead birds dropping from the sky. Reggie slams the ground with his electrical gauntlet, damaging all of the War Machines, dropping one and damaging two. Emit continues his effort in trying to cut a war machine's tubing from the one imprisoned by it. He succeeded, and the party quickly left the place as they heard mechanical birds approach. The corruption from the Bloom was sticky, causing both Reggie and Rohan to be corrupted. However, the mission was a success overall.

Emit didn't want to travel with the group but was concerned so he followed. When the group was in trouble he waded in trying to cut the villager but failed. After some more scuffling Reggie's desperate attack gave them key information. They were some kind of automatons different from Aetherforged, more mechanical than magical. Forgecrafter William finds them fascinating and has not seen them before.

The group has a hard time trying to corral the villagers but does so. They hear metal on metal and Emit goes to investigate, he sees Five Horse/ Dog creatures with cages for torsos, villagers connected by tubes. They do their best to prepare for an ambush.

Rohan unleashes his chain and decimates four of the five horse creatures. Rohan was ensorcelled and stepped in front of Reggie taking the brunt of the damage but he uses the chains to protect himself. The creature ignores the group attacking it and spews some gas on the unconscious villagers who begin to change into four new horses who begin tubing the villagers.

They scuffle, Alan runs away from the fray, Emit attempts to cut the tubing and it seems severing the connection was a good way. The horse turned back into the villager and the villager lost the horn (button) on their back. Birds in the sky began plummeting, they continue to scuffle and they feel corruption around trying to take hold. They manage to dispatch the horse and have to try to transport the villagers. It's a difficult journey but they manage to make it back to Bastion.

"This time, the mission was to save people from the cursed miasma. The kind of mission I wanted.

Reggie was in the group, so it seemed like it would be easy if Alan's arcana didn't cause any surges.

The villagers seemed strange, not reacting to us, just going about their lives. Some were talking about following the Order. It reminded me of my Patron. Alan was attacked by one of the citizens and was being dragged away. I tried to help but suffered the same fate. They were strange, with metallic skin and arms that extended. Reggie saved Alan, and Emit, who appeared out of nowhere, saved me. The villagers fell and, with a click, seemed to deactivate like machines.

We then tried to rescue as many villagers as possible to the protection of the Aetherite, which brought them back to their senses.

A group of machine horses appeared, five of them empty and one with a villager inside a cage. With the power of Bloose, I destroyed the five empty ones. The remaining one turned some villagers into more horses with cages.

Alan decided to run away like a coward. They are not very reliable.

The first horse seemed to have control over me, making me protect it when Reggie was about to destroy it. I managed to absorb the impact without damage. The three of us then defeated the horses. Emit with precision, cutting the wires that connected to the trapped villagers. Reggie and I used brute force. But we discovered that brute force caused the eventual liquefaction and death of the villager. It's a shame.

After defeating the horses, we heard the noise of several metallic birds that appeared because of an surge caused by me.

After defeating the horses, we heard the noise of several metallic birds that appeared because of an outbreak caused by me. I'm ashamed of this, but I think my chain didn't react well to the static from Reggie's gauntlets.

We returned to Bastion, but not 100% okay. Reggie and I were affected by the miasma, corrupted.

I didn't gain any power or knowledge on this mission, Ætheraxis seems to be losing patience, and I feel like I'm about to be found by those who are hunting me.

But at least we saved some lives from the curse."

I saw some some people turn into god-damned metal men today. And not the clean, smooth aether kind, they had wires and gears like a fucking watch.

Has stuff like this always been happening?

I mean, here I am going toe to toe with human metal cage monsters shooting their god-damned bones at us when all I can do is side-step and jab, and not even because of some weird magic or artifact, but just because I learned to fight as a kid.

I don't know, man.

Anyway, we arrived in town with the crystal, and we're pretty much ignored by everyone living there. Doing their old jobs without thinking. Couldn't find any council or leadership, just work-work-work.

Turns out the plane of order was seeping in or something, so we had to disable as many beings and cage people as we could to take them back with us. It went alright, except that I spent too much time unprotected in the Bloom, and got what looks like a circuitry tattoo crawling up my neck. Not sure if I should embrace it, or hope it goes away. At any rate, I feel like a need a stiff drink after every single one of these.