While the adventurer was falling back into sleep, Bared and Haylir shared a berry juice and talked. “His head didn’t take any damage, if that’s what you’re thinking…” The healer didn’t have enough sleep and was in no condition to be nice. Bared understood, but still couldn’t believe that Gründ had found what he said he’d found.

“Look, he’s been obsessed with ideas of flying for so long, couldn’t he have dreamt it? Like a… a vision of his hopes, because of the elation of the flight?” He had to ask. It was unfair, but he had to. If there was the slightest chance that Gründ had been hallucinating, he wouldn’t send an entire hunting party into danger.

“Bared… He hasn’t lost his mind. You know he isn’t as stupid as everyone thinks, just very stubborn. If he tells you he’s found something, and that it’s important, you’d better listen to him. He knows more about the Ancients than even I do, and he wouldn’t have been so careless on the way back if he wasn’t greatly disturbed. By the Core, Bared! He’s one of our best hunters! Do you really think he would’ve fallen into a krunskuver’s trap that easily?”

Haylir was frustrated. Not only was Gründ, her best friend, badly wounded, but he was also considered a liar by the one Töskr he admired most. How could she make the grumpy old shaman understand?

Bared was on his paws before she could say any more, and without a word went back to Gründ’s side. He shook the sleeping Töskr awake without any tenderness, and straight up started talking.

“Look at me, lad. I’m angry at you. Very, very cross. You were right in krunskuver territory, looking around on your own, completely unsafe--” If he had hoped to get a full sentence out because of Gründ’s sleepiness, he didn’t know the hunter well.

“I didn’t go there on purpose! I LANDED there, I wanted to stay closer to home too!” Gründ felt affronted. He had done nothing wrong! “Well maybe you should be more careful from now on! You and your flying only cause trouble!” There. He had said it. Bared had said the one thing he was really thinking. But that wouldn’t change Gründ’s mind, if anything it made him even more stubborn, apparently.

“... But you know what kind of strange machines the Ancient ones made! They wanted to walk Kurr, leave Druss behind and see the other continents! I saw it, I’m telling you! There was an old house, like ours only older, and empty, and there were these runes on the inside… And it was all written down!”

“Leave Druss? Fly away to another continent? You’re speaking nonsense, that krunskuver really did some damage… “ Haylir’s paw on his shoulder stopped him mid-sentence. She looked furious.

“Don’t you dare finish that thought, elder. I already told you that his head was fine. He has taken great risks to bring that information back to you, you know… He could have waited for a new pulse in these ruins, be safe on his way back, but he chose to run and tell YOU all this, despite the wound, and…” Tears were forming in the gruff healer’s eyes. She had been so scared!

“Oh please just believe me Bared, PLEASE!” Gründ’s voice was almost as broken as Haylir’s. Bared couldn’t help but sigh: these two would be the end of him if he didn’t agree. “Fine” he said. “But only one trip. When you’re back on your paws. And Gründ… if there’s nothing there, you know the consequences. You too, Haylir. This is too serious to be taken lightly.”