They follow the path in the dirt sunk by the footprints and tentacle-like imprints. As they follow, they come across a large corrugation in the ground where the footprints end. All that's left in front of them are flecks of iron scattered within the grooves of the dirt. Riona tilts her head in confusion, wondering how iron could’ve gotten this high up from the planet's crust. Iron is a liquified substance usually found underground or in caves, though the planet has an abundance of the substance it isn’t easily harvested. Hence the high price of steel. And as far as she knew they weren’t near a cave, so this boggled her.

Riona stops in front of the large depression in the ground, “Seems the tracks stop here. What the heck happened, can this thing burrow or something? Ugh, whatever, it’s probably safe to assume this thing’s somewhere beyond the Fairground Forest.”

Cass agrees and they continue to walk. The fog from the deep woods clogs their vision as they get closer to the heart of the forest, home to the elves and dwellers of the floral trees. Within the heart lies a fountain of naturally luminescent water that gives life to all the surrounding vegetation. Legends tell of the fountain giving cognitive thought to the bark and growth of the greenery near the fountain. People claim to hear the trees speak to them and the flowers echo the voices of people who pass through the trail. Hence the existence of Forest Dwellers; creatures made entirely of tree bark and purple leaves similar to the ones that grow on the trees. These creatures don’t appreciate being disturbed during their time of rest and will take any valuables and bury them somewhere within the forest if anyone were to do so. Forest Dwellers tend to get along with the Elves as they too like to steal from those who bother them, though they like to play games with their victims first before snagging their stuff. As Riona and Cass step out of the fog, they see the fountain ahead and decide to rest for a moment.

While they sit, an Elf strides toward them with a smirk, saying, “Yo, yous know you ain’t supposed to be here, right?”

Riona, calm but firm, replies, “We’re just passing through. Won’t be staying long.”

The Elf's smirk turns into a sneer. “Yeah, well, there’s still a price for chillin’ here,” he says, holding out his hand. “Gonna run yous a thousand chips.”

Riona’s eyes widen. “A thousand chips? Do we look like royalty to you?”

“Or employed?” Cass chimes in, crossing her arms.

Riona looks down at her, “Cass, you are employed.”

“That’s family stuff, they pay me peanuts for that.”

The Elf shrugs. “Sorry, toots, that’s the goin’ rate.”

Riona crinkles her nose in disgust. “That’s a ridiculous price for sitting by a fountain for barely a minute. Look, we’re here on business, trying to solve a theft. We don’t need you getting in our way.”

The Elf rubs his chin, intrigued. “A theft, huh? What’d they boost?”

“Cooking supplies,” Riona responds.

The Elf’s eyes gleam with opportunity. “Oh yeah? Funny yous mention that. I seen someone walkin' ‘round here with some supplies. Looked real shady. I’ll tell ya where they went—if ya cough up the dough.”

Riona, growing impatient, sighs. “I’ve got three hundred chips. Will that get us the information we need?”

The Elf taps his chin, then nods. “Yeah, alright, that’ll work.”

Riona hands over the chips, and the Elf pockets them before speaking. “I seen a guy in a black cloak headin’ toward the Chrome Caves. Creepy lookin’ dude, covered in iron head to toe. Some kinda magic, maybe. I dunno, not my area.”

Cass lights up, grinning. “Wow, that’s a huge help! Thanks!”

As they start to leave, the Elf calls out again, “Whoa, whoa, where do yous think you’re goin’? I said I’d tell ya what I know, not let you walk off for a measly three hundred. You really think I’m lettin’ yous waltz outta here like that?”

With a snap of his fingers, another Elf leaps out of the bushes and snags Rionas bag, hands the main Elf their supply bags, and then steps back, smirking as the first Elf rummages through their stuff.

“Rags, junk. Paper, trash,” the main Elf mutters as he digs around. “Food, we’ll keep that.” the second elf eagerly nods in agreement, “Oh, what’s this?” He pulls out a photo of Riona and her father, Hendrick. “This your old man or somethin’? Sucks you gotta head home without this stuff. Hope he’s pissed!”

The Elves laugh, tossing items carelessly. Cass's cheerful demeanor vanishes, replaced with fury. She rushes the main Elf, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him into a tree. Riona draws her sword, pointing it at the other.

Cass, her voice low and dangerous, growls, “Unless you wanna become a permanent fixture in this forest, I suggest you give us our bags back. Or I’ll use a spell so powerful, your dust will be indistinguishable from the dirt!”

The main Elf’s eyes widen in panic. “Agh, you're a mage?! Alright, alright! Give ‘em their stuff back, I don’t wanna get fried!”

The other Elf hurriedly tosses the bags back and they both scramble away, dropping all the chips they took, leaving Cass and Riona alone again.

Riona goes to pick up her chips,  before glancing at Cass. “You weren’t actually going to do that, were you?”

Cass chuckles, shaking her head. “I don’t even know any big fire spells. All I’ve got is Spark. Might’ve burned a hole in his tunic, though.”

Riona snickers before refocusing. “Well, at least we’ve got a lead. Do you think we can trust what he said?”

Cass shrugs. “We don’t really have any other options.”

Riona crosses her arms, “True. The Chrome Caves are in that direction... but there’s more fog ahead.”

As they continue past the foggy path, they come across a bright searing light. Or at least to Cass it is, all that time in the swampy lands of Sienna caused her eyes to adjust to more dark environments, due to the thick trees of the area blocking out most of the sun. 

Cass covers her eyes in pain, “Agh! What is that?!”

Riona shades her eyes with her hand, “Oh, that’s just the sun reflecting off the metal in the open caves, see.” She points into the chrome cave, “It’ll get better as we walk in.”

Cass squints her eyes, though she still can’t see anything, her yellow eyes dimming in the light. She grabs Riona’s sleeve as they walk into the cave. As they continue walking, they hear a dim voice echoing in the distance. Clanking pans and humming become louder as they get closer to the end of the cave. This particular cave wasn’t big, at least compared to the other caves in the area, so it became very easy to hear the clanking of steel in the distance. Eventually, Riona and Cass get to the end of the cave where they find what seems to be an artificial iron wall with a doorway leading into a large room, a man was on the other side of the doorway. white hair contrasting sharply with the black jacket adorned with yellow accents around the ends. His black boots, reinforced with metal soles, clinked softly as he moved. A peculiar headpiece, shaped like a ring with a gem-like base, encircled his forehead. Surrounding him was a faint, pulsing aura of iron, like waves of metal emanating from the ground around him. Just as the Elf described, the man was equipped with steel contraptions scattered around a large desk he was working at. It seems the Elf hadn’t been lying after all.

The man jolts behind him after hearing a subtle sound. Riona and Cass duck behind the doorway before they were seen.

Cass questions their next course of action, “So what’s our approach here, do we have a plan?”

Riona, equally as concerned, responds, “Honestly I figured we were lucky if we even found him. I’ve never really done this before but I suppose I could attempt to confront him. You stay here, we don’t know what he may be capable of.”

Cass nods as Riona approaches the man and clears her throat before saying, “Um, hey. I’m Riona, squire of the head royal knight Hendr-”

The man gets startled and a spike of iron shoots from the ground, stopping right below Riona’s left eye. 

The man, freaked out, says, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear you come in. I’m so used to hearing metal boots walking around here that I didn’t realize anyone was there. Um, why are you here?”

Riona clears her throat again before attempting to restart, “Um, there’s an investigation going on over stolen goods, steel cooking appliances to be exact. The evidence was followed here and unfortunately, you're suspect number one at the moment. Um, may I ask for your name?”

The man responds, “Oh, uh, yeah. My name is Eldridge, and uh, I can explain everything. I do have the steel you're looking for, but I can’t give it back. I would buy some myself but I don’t have any currency.”

Riona questions, “Chips?”

Eldridge says in realization, “Oh, is that what they're called? Yeah, that. I feel bad I had to resort to this, but I can’t give them back. Please understand.”

“It doesn’t matter what you need them for, these don’t belong to you and I’ll be taking these back,” Riona said, as she leaned to grab the appliances off from the desk he was working at. 

But before Riona could grab the items a vine of iron sprung from the ground and wrapped tightly around her wrist, holding her back from grabbing the items. Suddenly there was a graveling rumble coming from the ground before another vine came up and wrapped around her lower torso before throwing her across the room. 

Eldridge, using the iron underneath his booths rises higher into the air to summon even more spires of iron from the ground, while saying, “You clearly don’t understand the circumstance you're in, kid. You need to leave, immediately!”

He shoots more vines at her in a fleeting attempt at incapacitation, but before the iron vines reach her they are cut down by a siring slice of light, a spelled cast by Cass. In shock Eldridge turns around to see her with her hand out, still recovering from the recoil of the spell she just cast.

While he’s distracted Riona shouts at the top of her lungs, “Hey, you wanna fight?!” she draws her sword, “Now you’ve got a fight!”

Eldridge raises his hand making a fist. As this happens Cass is engulfed in a glop of iron, she wriggles around in an attempt to get free, with unfavorable results. Eldridge bolts after Riona with more iron tendrils, he swipes and cuts at her but with her sword drawn she can slice and deflect his attacks. She shifts her body into the proper sword stance, widening her legs and holding her sword with a tight, unbreaking grip. While this is happening Cass attempts to calm herself before using a small sparky fire spell that weakens the iron. Eldridge notices what’s happening though, Riona attempts to stop him by charging at the tendrils under his boots, cutting them to the ground. This doesn’t completely work, only severely chipping it. Eldridge hardens them more, she quickly thinks of a new plan and kicks the other side of the tendril causing him to lose balance and fall to the ground, breaking his fall with an iron ramp manifested from the ground. Cass runs for the cookware, she makes it to the table before being dragged underground by a metal capsule from the ground. Riona, completely out of breath, stabs the side of Eldridge’s collar, nearly missing his neck. Eldridge, also out of breath, uses the last of his energy to summon more tendrils to throw Riona away and drag her underground as well. He removes the sword from the wall, freeing himself. Eldridge walks up the doorway and blocks it off, Riona and Cass come out from under the ground from the other side of the wall. 

He makes a small opening at eye level, “Go, leave me be.”

Riona slams on the wall, “Hey, my sword!”

“Oh yea, I was thinking about keeping it.”

Her voice gets shaky, “Please! It-it was my late mothers, please give it back.”

Eldridge’s smug expression fades into sadness as he looks away, as if lost in thought. “I... I know what it’s like to lose someone.” He sighs. “I didn’t mean for any of this. I knew it might cause problems, but it was a last resort.” He creates an opening under their feet and slides the sword to her. “Now go. Never come back—please.”

Riona and Cass leave the cave. Riona sits on the ground for a moment before putting her hands over her face.

Cass concerned asks, “Are you ok?”

Riona replies, “That was a complete disaster.”

Cass objects, “No it wasn’t.”

“Not that” Riona clarifies, “I meant my technique, my fighting it just, wasn’t there. How am I supposed to be a knight one day with sloppy work like that?”

“You're being too hard on yourself, it doesn’t matter if things go entirely according to plan. If anything I’d say it’s not very smart to assume everything would go entirely according to plan. So adapting and persevering anyway—I’d say that’s pretty impressive.”

Riona smiles, “We still failed though.”

“Well yea, all except this.” Cass puts her hand behind her back, pulling out a single metal pan.

“Woah!”

“Yea! I snagged it while he wasn’t looking.” Cass punches Riona in the shoulder, her knuckles clanking against her shoulder pad, “OW! Friggin, ow, ugh.” she rubs her knuckles.

“Oh, well that’s cool!” she looks as Cass rubs her hand, “You good?”

“Yea, yea no I’m fine. Let’s go home.”

As they head back toward the forest, they encounter a man wearing a green cloak, brown leather gloves, and boots, along with a gray traveler's tunic. Several pouches hang from one of three belts wrapped around his torso, though only one is actually around his waist. He carries a large staff with a wooden handle, feathers dangling near the base of a crystal orb that gleams with an aqua hue in the sunlight. A crescent-shaped hook of wood curves above the orb.

Riona cautions him, “Hey, I wouldn’t recommend going anywhere near that cave.”

The man replies, “Oh, I wasn’t planning on it. I saw you two head into the cave earlier, and with all the fog, this forest is an absolute maze. Maybe you could guide me to the Kaleidoscope Kingdom instead?”

Riona looks up at him and smiles, “Oh, yeah sure, we can take you there.”

The man returns the smile, bowing his head slightly, “Thanks a bunch.” As he does, he notices the orange crystal on the back of Cass’s hand. He straightens up and gestures towards it, “That crystal—do you use it for your magic?”

Cass grins a little, proud, “Yeah, I know a bit. I’m self-taught.”

“Interesting.” He chuckles softly. “Where are my manners? My name is Thistle, and this here is my staff, Gaia. I specialize in nature-based magic. Nice to meet you both.” He holds out his hand for a handshake.

Riona takes it, nodding, “I’m Riona, and this is Cass.” She gestures to Cass, “Nice to meet you.”

Cass gives a friendly wave, then tilts her head slightly, like a curious dog, “You named your staff?”