Since it was the middle of the night, Rhenor decided to wait until next morning. He didn't want to waste time like this, of course, but what could he do? Break into people's houses to search them like the druid had been doing? He couldn't even open locks quietly, let alone search a building without getting caught.

He didn't feel like returning to the village, so he set up a campfire a little away from the forest and lay down next to it. It had been harder than usual to set fire to the slightly moist kindling, but he managed before his fingers went numb.

But now he was experiencing another issue—he couldn't fall asleep. His mind insisted on obsessing over what had just happened, as if that would somehow fix it. The only solution to this, as far as Rhenor could see, was to try to find this damned stone. This would be a great moment to have Kaz around. He would get excited over this, no doubt, and already have a dozen theories on what the stone was.

Rhenor sighed as he turned onto his side, staring into the flame. That wasn't the actual reason he wanted Kaz around. He used to prefer silence over anything else, but he already missed Kaz's chattering. Sure, it did get a bit too much at times, but with nothing at all now, there was a void that Rhen couldn't fill.

Huffing, he firmly squeezed his eyes shut. He needed to get some sleep, especially after all the running he'd done. With a rested mind, it would be easier to focus and get his task done as soon as possible. But he was far too tense to actually manage it, it seemed.

Rhenor sighed, this time sadly. He really hoped the druid wasn't planning on harming Kaz. He couldn't see why she would, but she'd also attacked them for no reason, so who knew what she would do. Safe to say that if she dared hurt him, he would do much worse to her, but he didn't want for Kaz to endure something like this in the first place.

Somehow, he eventually managed to fall asleep after a great deal of tossing and turning because the next time he opened his eyes it wasn't dark anymore. It wasn't quite sunrise yet, but it was later than he usually woke up. Clearly, it was time to move.

Rhen quickly grabbed his things and started heading back to the village. And the first person he was going to try to get information from was the butcher. That woman was the only semi-likeable person in the whole place in Rhenor's opinion, and she was a butcher, so she spoke with most of the people in Frostrun on a regular basis.

If she didn't know anything, Rhen supposed the tavern keeper might know something. Rhenor huffed. Talking to other people was always such a hassle, but he couldn't hope to figure this out on his own, unfortunately. Perhaps getting an ale at some point might make this more tolerable as well.

He adjusted his grip on the strap of his bag as he pushed the door to the butcher shop open. Hopefully, the butcher wouldn't expect him to bribe her for information because he really didn't have much money to waste like that.

"Oh, hello again!" she greeted him just as jovially as before. "Have you solved our cat burglar problem?"

She chuckled as Rhenor rolled his eyes. If he hated anything, it was this kind of humor.

"Not yet," Rhenor said with annoyance. "Although the attacks should stop for now."

The butcher raised her eyebrow at him, confused by what that was supposed to mean, but Rhenor didn't feel like explaining it.

"Do you happen to know if anyone has come into possession of something magical? Possibly recently?"

The woman leaned onto the counter, looking beyond curious. "Now, when you say magical, do you mean that metaphorically, or...?"

"No, I mean that it has something to do with magic." Rhenor should probably lower his voice. But then again, this was a small village, so anything he did would be known to everyone within an hour or two.

The butcher stared at him for a moment with suspicion and concern before speaking. "I can't say I've heard about anything like that, but I would ask at the tavern. A lot of rumors there."

Right, he probably should have headed there immediately, but he didn't feel like talking to those people. Even the tavern keeper had given Rhenor an uncomfortable feeling. These people didn't like strangers, which was fine—he didn't like them either—but now he was in the position of being the stranger, which meant that getting information from these people would prove difficult.

"Are you certain you know what you're doing?" she asked him, leaning in. She seemed genuinely concerned about him, which, while nice of her in princple, was very irritating. He could take care of himself.

"Not one bit."

And with that he walked out into the cold air again, before she could question him further. It was a good thing it was so early because the tavern would hopefully be empty, and therefore it would be easier to negotiate something with the tavern keeper.

Unfortunately, upon walking in, it quickly became obvious that the tavern keeper didn't know much about anything either, and he wasn't very willing to even listen once Rhenor had made it clear he wasn't interested in buying anything. Though Rhen most likely would be very interested in that soon. People were so hard to deal with.

He was about to leave the tavern and do his best never to return when he heard someone hiss from the corner. Frowning and turning around, Rhenor's eyes landed on a man in the back, waving him over. He didn't really look out of the ordinary in any way. In fact, Rhenor was almost sure that he'd seen this man when he and Kaz had been walking around the village, but since Rhenor hadn't cared enough to pay attention, he couldn't remember if the man had done anything odd then.

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With a lot suspicion, Rhenor headed over to the table, leaning onto it with his hands and scowling at the man who just smirked, apparently undeterred.

"Take a seat, friend," he said, still smirking. Rhenor was regretting this already, but he did as he was asked, letting out an aggravated sigh.

"What do you have to say?" Rhen asked, his mood somehow much worse than before. The man leaned in uncomfortably close, which made Rhenor want to move back. Unfortunately, since his chair was up against the wall, there was very little space for that.

"You're looking for a magical artifact?" the man whispered. "I might have an idea of who here might have one."

Automatically, Rhenor looked over at the tavern keeper, who had apparently been watching them. The man glared at him and turned away the next moment.

"Oh really? And who would that be?" Rhenor only then looked back at the man sitting opposite him. He was already prepared for this to lead nowhere, and for this person not to know anything, but he had no other leads, so he might as well hear him out.

"The chief," the man said, his voice as quiet as it could be. Rhenor frowned, this time in confusion. Although now that he thought about this possibility more, it was entirely possible that the richest person in Frostrun would be a part of this. The druid had said that the dragons would be involved, and they would either pay for this stone, whatever it was, or at the very least it would put the chief higher in the hierarchy of the kingdom.

"I saw him one night, right before the attacks started happening, walking out of the woods behind his house," the man continued, still whispering.

"How is that so strange?" Rhenor replied, keeping his voice down as well.

"He never goes to the woods. Says he hates 'em. And it was the middle of the night."

Rhenor hummed, mulling this over while the man kept talking. This was indeed strange.

"He didn't look like he'd gone that far either, but he was holding something, and whatever was in it, it looked small but heavy."

"You are being awfully helpful," Rhenor said, narrowing his eyes. "What do you want in exchange for this information?"

"Nothing." He glared at the table. "I just hate 'im. And would greatly enjoy it if someone ruined whatever it is he is doin'."

Ah, so this was a person spiteful towards the ruling class. Rhenor could respect that, being one of these people himself. Though this was still suspiciously convenient. But realistically, how probable was it that this was a trap? He'd only been here for over a day, and if he'd gotten any sort of impression from the locals, it was that they didn't care about him as long as he left as soon as possible.

"If this is a trick...." Rhenor began to threaten, but the man just shook his head, annoyed.

"It isn't."

Rhenor got up. This was about as much as he could hope for for now. He would go take a look at those woods and see if he could find anything suspicious or something that would confirm this was all related. He couldn't just break inside the chief's house and search for the stone, assuming he had it.

He would most likely be able to get inside with a little sweet talk with his wife, though. He found the very idea revolting, but it was the best he could do. He wasn't a thief, and he had no experience with any of the things related to thievery either.

Rhenor nodded at the man and left the tavern without another. After all this talking he welcomed the idea of walking through the woods for a while, though he really hoped this would lead to something useful. He didn't want to waste any time. Gods knew what that druid would do to Kaz if Rhenor wasn't quick enough. She hadn't given him a time limit, but who knew what she was capable of. She certainly hadn't seemed to have a problem with leaving Kaz to die.

Great, now Rhenor was even angrier. He needed to calm down and focus. He had almost reached the chief's house now, and he paused in the middle of the road to glare at it. He'd had a problem with it since he and Kaz had arrived here, and it seemed his intuition had been right.

Shaking his head, he ignored the few people around him giving him looks and finally made his way to the line of trees behind the large house. There was no way to tell which way Rhenor should go, but the mountain wasn't far from here, so hopefully there wouldn't be too much area to search. And if he found out that this was going to take too long, he would try to get some information out of the chief's wife instead. She seemed the type to share far too much.

He stepped into the shade of the forest, disappearing from curious eyes as he made his way directly to the mountain. The woods were silent, aside from the occasional birdsong, and the crunching of leaves and snow under Rhenor's feet.

It would be so strange to not see snow practically all year round once they went farther south, assuming Rhenor would manage to deal with this whole situation. Sigallah was still far too north to be considered a warm place, but everything was going to be warm to Rhenor after living in the Crystal Mountains for years.

Rhenor sighed. He'd better figure this out, or they'd never get there.

He kept looking around as he went, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary, but the forest continued being its normal self. At least Rhen hadn't come across any other invisible barriers because he didn't want to run into any more of those.

Once he reached the gray, rock wall of the mountain, he stopped and turned around to look at the forest as a whole. There was nothing except for an owl that was now watching him with what looked like severe irritation. Rhenor glared back at it.

Maybe this had all just been a joke, which would make perfect sense, even though the man from the tavern wouldn't get much from it except for maybe a good laugh. But Rhenor still had a lot of time. Deciding not to give up just yet he walked along the rock wall, looking out at the trees, hoping to find something.

And indeed, after a lot more walking, he did. But it wasn't in the forest, but rather the mountain instead. Rhenor almost didn't notice it since he hadn't been paying attention to the rock wall and he almost missed the opening in the rock wall. He immediately knew this was what he'd been looking for, judging by symbol he couldn't hope to understand carved right above it.

Wonderful. Another magical cave. Why did this keep happening to him? He'd lived most of his life without anything magical in his life and now it was suddenly a common occurrence.

Shaking his head, he looked inside the darkness of the cave. It looked small at least, unlike the last cave he'd entered, but that didn't mean he wanted to be anywhere close to this place.

Taking a deep breath, Rhenor walked inside, expecting to be cursed at that very moment. But nothing happened. Only then he realized how tense he was and forced himself to relax a little.

The cave was even smaller than he'd initially thought, which was good news because it meant he could look it over and leave very quickly. Seeing that there was something at the end of the cave, Rhenor made his way towards it, taking note of how suspiciously round the whole cave was. As if someone had made it to be this way. And when he touched the wall, it felt much smoother than it should.

He grimaced as he took a step back from it. He really didn't want to be here.

Thankfully the only thing in the cave was a circle slightly taller than him made from small, runed stones sticking out of the wall. Rhenor had no idea what the purpose of them could be, and frankly he didn't care because it didn't matter. The important thing was the empty space at the very top of the circle, as if one of the stones was missing.

It seemed it was time totalk to the chief's wife.