....on Tarancalim 6th [DOY 175] just before Beat 30 (a bit after 2 PM) they see a caravan of orcish slavers, following the willow path, with some captured humans being walked along behind a small covered wagon pulled by two horses. The leader of this group, Dregvark the Hollow, was a studied master of the katana, and was joined by five orcs of about seventeen to twenty five years, aspirants to whatever the greater group that Dregvark had joined. Also present were Irrend Young Fist, a martial artist, and Lugla Oxdaughter, a cleric of Rynathemat. These orcs were obviously not from the same clan or tribe originally. In any event, they were busy taking slaves, so the player characters killed them all.
They did have on-call pterytons, as one does. The party fought a lot harder than their enemies, who didn't last all that long. Continuing to push, they arrived at Flenala again- but they couldn't stay long. The next day, they were ambushed by a green dragon, who was on the hunt seeking riches. By combining an invisibility spell, a good stealth roll, and a pretty solidly above average breath weapon result, he was able to bully the PCs out of a minor magic item. Feeding dragons magic items creates a dependent population!
The players continued to press through to Talesmi, where they arrived on the 9th. This city had a pretty big flow of people moving in from the rest of the Neck of Aykaiton- many who hoped to stay there for the duration of the invasion to the east, and many who were fleeing via boat or even airship to less threatened parts of Isai Memory- or further. Booking airship passage to Precious Metal was pretty easy (the reverse path being the more sought-after direction), and barring a bit of airship experience, quickly ended up in Precious Metal (the airship left on the 12th and arrived on the 14th).

From the air, the different sections of Precious Metal were visible- a series of metal structures, scaffolding, and docks extruded above the water made up a bustling trade area, with narrow walkways into the denser and more populous heart of the city, structures of of wood and stone with roofs and fronts adorned with thin metallic facades, a very large undeveloped section full of tents outside of that (but still within the large outer walls),a relatively large stone spire visible in the north, a city clearly grown over the years and never reshaped.
With Saint waiting at the Armored Bull, the party is accosted by a would-be pickpocket, who fails at pick pocketing fails at staying undetected fails at negotiating and is brought to a guard, who knows him as an occasional thief and severs his hand as punishment. The party then finds Saint at the Armored Bull and definitely tells her none of this.

The party leaves at first light, taking over two hours just to leave the city and its environs. Without incident they make their way to the Wyvern clan's western safehouse, first dodging the two guards (with Wyverns!), and arrive at two small wooded structures, somewhat camoflauged from the sides (very much so from the air), and connected by a small bridge over a pleasant stream. Geddreng opens the door a tiny amount, is able to see Eyetons standing guard, and opens it more, alerting a familiar ninja.

It's the 16th of Tarancalim, the remnants of a warm and windy day slowly fading in the pleasant night.