SummerCamp entry: Great "Orphan" Sentry

The "Orphan" machines are one of the most impressive types of ancient automatons that made their way to the surface, a big step above the other standard units we encountered before both in stature and in physical strengths. Contrary to the other sentinels, these machines do not share our own size, and are instead a few leagues above our stature, depending on the region they are found in, possibly hinting at their role in Ancient's perfect society, that we suspect being frontline or defence military units, able to protect the walls of their cities from the Great Fire or from other treats, or the core of the Ancient temples, if necessary. Their body features and proportions from outside, like many machines, seems to be replicating real life animals, that still exist to this day, but the Orphan seems to be different, in fact its chassis, even if approximately the same height of a ferret, seems to be completely alien to any of the fauna yet discovered by us, that was extinct at the time of the ancients, or, as many theorise, its a specie that lives in the obscure territories outside Ironglint, if thats the case, I find the research of these machines to be of extreme importance, in case of any possible invasions from these creatures, as many other did before them.   The Orphan, just like all machines, is covered head to toe whit reinforced sheets of armoured metal, that is then covered by what look like pelts of thick organic fur, that have long deteriorated whit time, leaving some of the shell of the machine exposed, revealing its completely mechanical form. It stands bipedal, most of the time, but there have been reports of Orphan units going "feral" and charging attackers whit agility and speed on all fours when they are badly damaged, attaching foes whit their large retractable claws, that are not visible when the machine wields any weapon, the most common being a rusted two handed sword. Even given their supreme strengths and speed for their size, the Orphan's greatest weapon is not either their swords or their claws, but its their unnatural and terrifying ability to fill the hearts of those they stare into whit the deepest fear of death, effect that seems to be derivative of their eyes, that are large and round, like the ones of an owl, and, as hunters report, glow bright red when they noticed their next prey, before they screech loudly and charge into battle, a sight that most times seems to activate one our most primal natural defences, the uncontrollable instinct to run away and hide, which most times leads to a surely death when facing these heartless machines, that do not feel neither pain, fear, or pity. Thanks to research whit a machine that we were able to capture alive, after the unfortunate sacrifice of many brave citizens of the Grey Tower, and a lot of experimentation, we were able to ascertain that the fear caused is not activated by natural means, but instead by a mysterious device situated inside the head of the guardian, but I do not fully grasp the nature of how it functions yet.

Just like many of the machines created in the previous era by the Ancients, before the Great Fire, the Orphan does not see things like we do, testing on Rowald, the unit we captured, named so originally by my partner in the laboratory, indicate that the machines see us by detecting Gears when they are activated, even through walls. The theory that the Gears created some kind of invisible field around them when activated as already been confirmed, in fact, its already being tested by another department: yet again, the ancients demonstrate an affinity whit the use of Gears that we cannot even imagine, they are always one step ahead of us it seems.   But why would the ancients create a guardian that can only see gears? We suspect that a large part of the Ancient's society had Gear enhanced limbs, like us, but much more complicated, maybe the Orphans and the other machines were not designed to combat natural enemies, makes sense, our strongest weaponry and the only one that can defeat a machine are mostly gear powered. Countermeasures against this system of vision its already in development, that will definitely give us an edge over machines.   Some Orphans have been reported using wire like weaponry, that sticks to a target and allows the unit to track it down and reveal his location too all troops in the area, rendering them immune to the system we are just now developing. We believe the machines are learning from our tricks somehow and are developing counter measures, we think Rowald is still communicating whit his temple, bringing him here was a mistake, he needs to be terminated immidiately after testing is finished, before the machines somehow dig out all of our secrets to use them against us.