Hess has spent most of his very long life in libraries. The Zephyr's Oath is the first interesting thing to happen to him in decades, and he intends to document every moment of it in exhaustive detail.
Hess was a respected arcanist at the Vel'Shar archive until he calculated that field research would expand the body of arcane knowledge faster than another century of index work. He was correct, which annoys him.
He keeps three running journals: one for observations, one for corrections to existing scholarship, and one for things he saw that he cannot yet explain. The third is the thickest.