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Lara's eyes narrowed as she realized that the Dragur had found their camp and then at that point she went to pull out her spear and shield, and let out a cry as the first arrow hit her in the shoulder. "Oh... you're going to regret that." She growled out as she strapped her shield to her arm. It did sting a big as her left shoulder had been the one to get hit, but thankfully she could use her shield to hold onto and ride out the pain. Besides, an arrow was nothing compared to bullets, or at least that was the lie she was willing to tell herself at the moment.

She dashed in to close the distance to one of the Dragur and she aimed up, hitting him in the chest with her spear. She had hoped it had been a killing blow, but she saw that it had gone more to the left, hitting him in the right side of his chest. She did notice him swing his own axe at her, and she held up her shield and blocked it's swing, and the sound of metal on metal rang out in the little camp, as his blow had hit the center of her shield. "What should we do now, Arnora?"

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Runa flinched ever so slightly as she felt something rub up against her - only to look down and see that it was just Klara's cat. As much as her mind wanted to just wallow in self pity and self hatred, a disastrous combination, she couldn't help but smile ever so slightly at the cat. Animals were so pure and kind - they weren't malicious or evil or anything of that sort. They also didn't know if someone was being an idiot or not, so Runa felt like animals could never judge her. The cat didn't stop her though from digging her fingernails into her wrist. She had done it so often that she was almost numb to the action at this point.

Her eyes widened as Klara, without any warning picked up Nadia and threw her up into the air. The Utgard-Loki person was just laughing at them and Runa narrowed her eyes slightly. At the risk of sounding like an idiot and making a complete fool of herself, she spoke up. "Can't we just ask someone else for directions?" Runa asked softly. "Do we really need to get directions from that one specific dwarf?"

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"Sorry, it was the only idea I could think of at the time," she responded to Nadia's complaint with a bit of a shrug. Sure she probably should have asked for permission first, but how else would she be able to potentially think it would work? Best way to figure out a solution in her mind was trying a million other things first that could be potential solutions and just hope that you stumble across the right one. Sitting there trying to constantly figure out the solution by just thinking about hypothetical solutions was insanely boring in her mind and not something that she wanted to sit there doing.

Klara's attention was pulled away again though, this time by Nadia asking about the armor that her cat was wearing. Glancing at Betty, she shrugged slightly, "Huh, I honestly forgot totally about it, maybe the armor does have some sort of special thing to it, come here Betty," she said, wiggling her fingers and causing her cat to race over from Runa and jump up onto her shoulders. "Let's see what secrets this armor holds..." she muttered, before moving the cat slightly so that she at the least could look at the different parts of her armor. "Now what is this?" she asked, feeling an inscription of sorts on the helmet, runes of some sort, and she ended up running her fingers along it. The runes began to glow slightly and Betty jumped off of her, but when she hit the ground the little fluffball was no longer there, instead there was a rather large wild cat whose coloring mimicked that of Betty the cat's, so the animal would stand out for that one. The cat was wearing the same armor but now it had shifted to include a saddle for a rider on it's back. "...Okay, I've got to admit, that is the coolest thing ever."

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Utgard-Loki turned to look at Runa and smiled somewhat towards her, giving her a mischievous look at her. "I could cut you a deal of sorts, I can let you take the tools for free and let you deliver the tools back to the owner without any further issue. However you will have to do something for me next time that we meet each other." Utgard-Loki said, as he watched the cat suddenly transform into a rather large cat now with a saddle. He was curious what they were going to do with the cat now with a saddle, and how they would get the bag of tools dangling in the air right now.

Nadia took a step back seeing Betty was now a large rideable cat now at this point and smiled a little bit this was going to be pretty cool actually in her opinion. "Now thats pretty cool." Her aunt did have a really big thing for cats from what she knew, Nadia's attention turned towards Utgard-Loki and stared the large giant down for a moment. Nadia didnt like the idea of having to do some kind of chore for this giant at all, from what she knew there was always some kind of ulterior motive with him. "I dont think that would be a wise idea." Nadia whispered to both Klara and Runa as well.

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Elizabeth tried to throw another fireball at one of the Dragur that started to turn it's focus more on her now, as the undead warrior grabbed onto Elizabeth. Arnora watched as that happened and charged forward swinging her axe at the zombie, decapitating it's head and offered her hand towards Elizabeth. As more Dragur started to come out of the woods, Arnora turned to look at Lara as she asked what they should do. So much for their time to try and relax some as she looked down the shoreline for a moment there werent any dragur down that way really. "We need to run." Arnora said to Lara as she started to think of something.

She held out her hands as the area around them started to get a bit colder, as Arnora managed to summon a wall of ice blocking the dragur off from them. "That should slow them down a little bit." Arnora said as one of the dragur managed to fire off an arrow and hit Elizabeth in the leg causing the girl to scream. Armora quickly went forward and grabbed onto Elizabeth and started to run further down the shoreline motioning for Lara to follow her.

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"I do agree, running seems like a good idea." Lara could see they were getting outnumbered as more dragur appeared at that point, and there were more coming out of the woods. She did take another stab at the drauger in front of her and it crumpled to the ground, having been taken out by her attacks. Thankfully that did mean there was some space between them and the dragurs that were working their ways out of the woods.

She ran after Arnora and then smiled a bit as she saw the ice wall go up and was about to thank Arnora when Elizabeth got hit in the leg. Lara dashed after them, going to grab Elizabeth's other side to help support her as they ran off. "So where are we going to go... should we try to get back in the boat or just roll the dice and pray luck is on our side?"

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Runa gaped with astonishment as Klara's kitten transformed into a giant beast, easily the size of a tiger. She was still having some trouble wrapping her head around everything that she was seeing and experiencing since dying. In some moments, she wanted to run from the information - but she knew that really her only path forward was just to accept the chaos swirling around her. Like for instance, she still didn't know why they couldn't ask someone else for directions, but apparently that wasn't an option - that or Klara and Nadia just hadn't heard her suggest it. She bit her lip slightly as the bully offered to give them the tools, in exchange for an IOU more or less.

Nadia didn't think it was a good idea, and Runa trusted her when she said that. She didn't know what sort of favors the bully may ask for, but if Nadia thought it was a dangerous deal, then there was no way Runa was going to support taking it. "No thank you," Runa told the giant, speaking softly but still loudly enough that he would be able to hear her.

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"No way would we want to be in your debt for anything, that is beyond stupid," she instantly said to the giant, before looking up at the tools that were in the air again. Hang on a second. That sort of thing probably required quite a bit of concentration to maintain, most sorts of magic did. So what would happen if she found a way to break that concentration? Easiest way would be to just beat up the guy a few times to hope he gets knocked out that way. But, thinking about it, she had a bit more of a creative way to potentially break that concentration without even having to lift a finger.

A mischievous grin appeared on her face as she looked down at her rather large cat. "Alright Betty, sick him," she said simply, pointing at the giant, before she watched as the cat started doing a butt wiggle, clearly about to pounce, before the cat did just that. Betty tackled the giant and pinned him to the ground, and that resulted in him losing his concentration with keeping the tools aloft in the air. They dropped to the ground, and Klara just nonchalantly walked over to the tools and picked them up off of the ground. "You said if we could get them down we could take them, pleasure doing business with you, good girl Betty," she commented before looking at the others. "Job done, let's go."

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Nadia looked at Klara and then Betty with a bit of a surprised look seeing the now massive cat tackling Utgard-Loki to the ground was both an amazing and funny sight as well to see. "Great job Betty." Nadia said as she walked over towards Runa gently wrapping an arm around her as she watched Utgard-Loki struggling to get Betty off of him but he couldnt really as Klara simply took the set of tools up into her arms. Nadia was satisfied that the job was all done now as well to which was a good thing then.

"C'mon lets get the tools back." Nadia said as she eyed the saddle for a moment wondering if it was big enough for all three of them could get a ride on before Utgard-Loki spoke again. "I know that you are searching for Baldur, and that he is inside Hel's palace." Utgard-Loki said turning to look at the three girls. "And I know a secret way to get inside to, it wont be easy to get in through the front door. All that I want are those tools." Utgard-Loki said, as Nadia shook her head she didnt trust him at all. "I still Don't believe him, lets get going." Nadia insisted as she was getting ready to leave the alleyway now.

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Elizabeth started to look really bad now as Arnora looked over at the arrow for a moment and then over towards Lara and then over towards their boat. She noticed that more Daugur were starting to swarm the boat now, and they carried weapons and were smashing against the hull, some of them getting onto the boat as well breaking whatever they could. "I dont think the boat is an option anymore.." Arnora said towards Lara as she continued to run.

Arnora looked forward she noticed what looked to be a cave of some kind near the shore and then looked towards Lara and gestured towards that spot. "Lets go in there." Arnora suggested as she quickly ran over there, entering the small looking cave, and started to make a shushing motion to Lara. The undead seemed to be focused on smashing their only ride to get out of the area, which was both a good and bad thing right now they were stranded the good thing was they were distracted right now.

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Lara looked over at their boat and winced as she saw it being smashed and broken into. There went their ride, but thankfully that meant they didn't have to try to return it now, right? She noticed the cave as well and then went to follow Arnora inside, and looked at Elizabeth. The other girl was starting to look pretty bad, and Lara was pretty sure she had lost quite a bit of blood. Once they were in the cave, Lara gestured for Arnora to set Elizabeth down.

For the moment, all Lara could do was rip off parts of the shirt she was wearing and tie them around the bleeding wounds of Elizabeth's both. She wasn't sure if Elizabeth would survive at this rate, and so she looked up to Arnora and frowned at that and then sat down and leaned up against the wall. They needed to still be quiet for the moment, as the dragur were distracted for the moment, but who knew how long that would last.

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Runa giggled ever so slightly at the way the cat wiggled her butt before pouncing. She never really understood why a cat would do that sort of thing, but she had seen it once or twice before. She replayed the moment again in her mind and couldn't help but smile, giggling a little bit more. And that just made her think about the butt wiggle again, until Runa was honestly giggling and smiling - the most Klara and Nadia had seen her smile so far, and the most she had smiled since her untimely death. It was probably that bit of honest mirth that caused her to not stiffen and tense up when Nadia put an arm around her. She really wished they had that moment on video.

"We should just ignore him," Runa recommended. Nadia didn't trust the strange person, and neither did Klara, so as far as Runa was concerned there was no way she would trust him. She did have to wonder how he knew about their quest - they had only just received it. Did the entire universe know that she was one of the three sent out to fix things? If everyone died, would they use their final breath to curse her name? The smile on her face faded away at that thought. Would her mother blame her for failing?

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"She's definitely a very good kitty and is definitely going to get more snuggles later, isn't that right Betty?" she said happily towards the cat who meowed in response to what she said, purring slightly too. She giggled slightly at her cat, more then a little happy that she had the armor that allowed her to be more useful in a fight. Then again she always found Betty amusing when she was wandering around with a knife or something in her mouth. That cat was pretty dangerous when she wanted to be, unless she liked you.

Her attention was drawn away from her own thoughts with regards to her awesome little kitty cat (though Betty wasn't so little anymore) as the giant started talking. Klara rolled her eyes slightly as the giant tried to seemingly bargain with them over the tools. Something was odd to her, the fact that the giant really wanted the tools. "Why the hell do you want the tools? Seriously, this is ridiculous, you think we're going to just hand you tools that don't belong to you without you giving us a valid reason to believe anything you say or whatever? You really are dumb."

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Nadia looked towards Runa seeing the girl actually giggling and laughing at the whole scene of Betty pinning down the giant it was actually the very first time that she had seen Runa actually laughing. She still had no idea what it was that he wanted the tools for. She didnt trust the guy at all or why the tools were so important anyway. "I just want them, and they are very useful." Utgard-Loki said as he managed to shove Betty off of him and stood up to his full height now and looked at the three girls before him.

"But a deal is a deal, i'll be seeing you three again soon you will be needing me as an ally soon enough." He said giving the three a smirk before a flash of light and he was completely gone. Nadia stared at the spot where Utgard-Loki was and shook her head slightly it really did sound to ominous. "I now really dont trust him like at all." Nadia said letting out a bit of an annoyed sigh as she picked up her sword and sheathed it back. They needed to focus on the task at hand right now, and they needed to get the tools back so that way they could get back to their quest.

"Brokkr will be happy to have his tools back." Nadia said as she started to make her way back towards the shop, as Nadia looked she saw the blacksmith and made her way inside seeing the dwarf was back at work again. "We got your stuff back." Nadia said as the dwarf was still a bit to focused at the task at hand right now.

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Arnora looked over at Elizabeth seeing the girl started to shake as her eyes went down to look at the arrow still stuck in her, the arrow looked really nasty seeing bits of dried blood on there as well the shaft of the arrow looked like it was made out of bone or something like that. She gently set her down on the floor, dying outside of Valhalla was for good and there was no way that she would end up coming back and waking up at the hotel. She turned to look at Lara and shook her head slightly, Arnora knew that it didnt look good at all, she didnt have any skills really to help.

"Well this really sucks.." Arnora said letting out a sigh as she leaned back, the Draugr she could hear were still searching for them luckily none of them had found out about the little cave that they were hiding in. Arnora watched as a single draugr walked past their cave, she made a shushing motion towards Lara and looked at her. She wasnt sure if there was more were close by or not but she didnt want to risk it.

Gerric wasnt to far on another end of the shore, as another group of Draugr were after him the group of Einherjar that he was with ended up getting scattered due to the group of undead trying to hunt him and the others who were with him down. They were on a completely different quest given by the Norns shortly after Runa's group had left to search for a weapon of some kind.

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Lara looked over at Arnora and shook her head a bit as well and sighed at that. It was most likely that Elizabeth wouldn't survive her wounds unless they could get her back to the hotel in time, which seemed unlikely. So, she simply put a blanket over the other girl to make sure she was comfy as she leaned up against the wall at that point.

She saw the Draugr as well and nodded. She didn't dare make a sound, she didn't dare alert the Draugr to their hiding spot at all. She did make sure to keep her spear out, just in case their hiding spot was found. However, it was looking worse and worse for them. Lara had seen bad before, but they were outnumbered and if they died here, they were never going to see Valhalla again. She was trying to figure out a way out, maybe a way to bind them with their words, but she doubted the Draugr could even speak.

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Gerric knelt over the body of his fallen comrade, her dirty blonde hair matted over his bloody hands as he lift her head up off the cold hard ground and searched her soft features for signs of life. There were none. Her icy blue eyes stared emptily up at the sky.
Behind him, the sound of shuffling snow and rattling bones neared without notice. A one footed Draugr limped towards him alternating between foot and shin as it stumbled forth with out stretched arms and a hungry abandon.

A moment before the claw like fingers raked across his back, Gerric twisted and shift his weight, his friends abandoned head fell lifeless to the snow as he drove a closed blunt fist up towards the skeletal figures jaw. Quicker than his flying fist, a silver liquid flew from the drinking horn at his side and splashed upon his hand. The blunt ineffective force of his uppercut was replaced by a long steel blade that grew from the now solid gauntlet he wore.

Gerric’s raising force tore the draugr’s head from its already dead body as he came to stand. He growled with rage as he stared up at the half-rotten lifeless face impaled upon his raised bladed gauntlet. He brought the creatures face closer to his own and opened his mouth wide as he let out a loud blood curling war cry that echoed his wrath out across the frozen tundra.

His emotions took control of his magic and the steel gantlet began to melt away letting the Draugr’s head fall to meet its body. In the wake of the vile creatures dark face Gerric saw the consequences of his outburst. He had called the attention of all undead in earshot. All around dark silhouettes in the white snow began to redirect towards him.
Good. he thought to himself. Let my brothers flee. he knew death out here would be truly that and if his was to come, hopefully it would be in the place of any more of his Einherjar allies.

He owed these people that came with him nothing but coin, barely even knowing their names, yet somehow their deaths weighed heavily on him. Not all were dead though, not yet anyway. Gerric would try keep it that way. Drawing the dripping liquid metal back through the air to join the rest still on his hand, it rolled over his body and made its way back into its drinking horn.

Looking around Gerric noticed what might be a cave in the distance, a draugr passing it by. It looked like not only a good place to hide but also fight. It’s narrow entrance would funnel the numerous enemies into a narrow line, making their numbers worth naught. Unfortunately that was not where he was going. Hoping the others would find it, Gerric instead ran across the icy ground leading the dead away from there as he raced towards the water like his life depended on it. Although it lengthened his journey he sprung from left to right zigzagging his path to remain unpredictable to any Draugr archers. In no time he was panting and sweating as his heart pounded heavily in his chest.

The ocean was his domain and would be his best advantage over the undead, he just had to make it there. He flung a heavy knife out through the air here and there to clear his path all’s whilst running his heart out.

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Runa frowned, incredibly confused by everything that had happened. Why did the giant need those specific tools? Why was he claiming that they would need his help? Why had he just vanished in a flash of light - was he really powerful? And if so, why couldn't he just force them to do what he wanted? She got the sense that there were more rules to this world than she understood - and she didn't know if she would live long enough to have a chance to learn them all. "Why did he want us to do something for him?" she asked Klara, as Nadia had already started marching off towards their next destination.

She followed along after Nadia, not exactly wanting to get separated from anyone in the group, although she had a feeling Betty would likely be the best companion for a solo venture if she ever did get separated from the rest. They went back into the shop and found the dwarf working on some sort of metal-work, although Runa couldn't quite tell what it was supposed to be just by looking at it. He seemed to not hear Nadia when she announced that they got his tools and she sighed ever so slightly.

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Klara was a bit annoyed that the giant had just more or less shoved her cat to the side without so much as another thought. The giant was just being flat out rude to poor little Betty. Going over to her cat, she softly patted her cat's head and scratching behind her ears, causing the cat to purr rather loudly. "You are beyond rude to my poor kitty!" she said instantly to the giant, sticking her tongue out at him for a moment before she looked at the helmet that the cat was wearing, running her fingers along the runes and her cat popped back to being her little fluffball.

"Come on you little fuzzball, let's get going," she said to the cat after the giant left, and she held her arm out which allowed Betty to climb right back up onto her shoulder. "I don't know, I asked him but he decided to not answer it, so nothing we can do about it let's go," she said, still carrying the tools and following after Nadia. Once they stepped inside the shop she walked over and set the tools down, "Tada! Here they are," she commented, looking at the dwarf.

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The dwarf quickly turned his attention over towards the three of them, his eyes instantly went towards the tool box his eyes instantly lit up as he quickly went over towards it and rudely snatched the tools out of Klara's hands. He inspected them, and shook the box slightly hearing the satisfying clanging sound inside. Before going over towards a nearby table and proceeded to dump all of its contents out onto the table. To the three of them, they looked just like normal everyday tools which Nadia didnt know why he was so obsessed with them before coughing slightly. "I think we had a deal right?" Nadia asked Brokkr, as he quickly finished counting them all and turned to face the group of them and nodded.

"Yes, yes a deal is a deal." He said as he walked over towards a nearby drawer and then pulled it out, which contained a lot of little inventions. Nadia watched Brokkr carelessly tossing things out of a drawer, she turned to look at both Klara and Runa and gave a slight shrug she wasnt sure what he was actually searching for.

A few seconds later the dwarf had found what he was searching for and tossed it over towards Nadia. Which she caught it easily and looked at it for a moment turning it around slightly and then over towards Brokkr it looked like just an ordinary looking compass to her. "Whats this do exactly?" Nadia asked as she showed it to Klara and Runa, as Brokkr went back to counting the tools again. "It works by itself it will point you to where you will need to go. Once you are at the location it should open up a portal to the World Tree." Brokkr said as Nadia looked down at it as the needle spun around erratically for awhile before ending up pointing towards the west. Nadia nodded slightly as she handed it over towards Runa for her to see.

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Arnora turned her attention towards the outside of their little cave and could hear what sounded like a human scream, she wasnt sure if it was a trick or not really either as she looked over at Lara for a moment. She went to check Elizabeth, she was still breathing but barely right now which wasnt a good thing. "I'm going to check it out." Arnora said as she quickly took out her axe and made her way outside of their little cave. Seeing someone making their way towards the water, she thought that was a bit suicidal in her own opinion as more draugr had been drawn to the newer person.

As Gerric tried to get deeper into the water he would feel it was really cold and he would start to loose the feeling of his extremities, he would also catch a glimpse of the World Serpent moving through the water again. And a group of ten draugrs suddenly rose out of the water right in front of him.

They let out a loud ear shattering screech as one of them charged forward swinging it's sword across Gerric's chest. The cut wouldnt be super deep but it tore his shirt and it would start to bleed quiet a bit as well, another draugr from the beach had drawn it's bow and fired off an arrow narrowly missing his face as well. Arnora quickly threw her axe at the draugr bowman and it went into it's head, the body fell down lifeless onto the ground, she instantly called her axe back as it flew back into her hand. "Get out of the water!" Arnora yelled out towards Gerric.

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Lara looked up at Arnora and then nodded at that. "I'll try to see if I can at least stabilize Elizabeth..." She sighed at that as she checked on Elizabeth, and remembered some of the medical training she had gotten when she had been learning to be a nurse. After a little bit, she had stabilized Elizabeth and she seemed to be breathing easier for the moment. At least they had that going for them for the moment, even with the Dragur...

She heard the screech and she looked to Elizabeth. "Don't move." She stood up and summoned her spear and shield again from their pendant and bracelet and she went to dash out of the cave to see Arnora engaging with another draugr, as well as what looked like another person? Person! Then she saw the serpent again and her eyes went wide. "Oh... fuck."

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Gerric didn’t hear anything over the splashing of water, his engagement with the drugar and his own growling. The slash across his chest caused him to rethink his choice of not wearing armour.
He drew his largest dagger and used it to defend against any oncoming blades while constantly controlling the flow of the icy water around him. He pushes or pulls enemies away, slamming others with a jet of water or erupts a wall to block projectiles.

Jörmungandr in the distance was as awe inspiring as it was terrifying, even if it’s presence came with a flooding of questions. Gerric didn’t allow those thoughts into his mind. His focus was on those around him. The spay of water around him increased as their surroundings grew more and more choppy. Gerric backed away, pushing the undead into a cluster as he prepared his escape. The world serpents presence didn’t change his plan, what good would an extra 50ft on land do to hinder the will of a creature large enough to wrap the world.

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Runa couldn't help but notice how loud Klara was. Everyone tended to be louder than Runa of course, but Nadia wasn't nearly as bubbly and outgoing. It made her smile ever so slightly. She would have assumed that after being dead for so long, Klara would've been numb to the world, her emotions worn away like a river carving away at rocky shores over thousands of years. It was really admirable. If she was so lucky to still be... well, not alive, but not completely dead, she didn't think she would have been so full of life. She wondered what Klara's secret was.

She looked with interest as the tools they had gone to such lengths to retrieve were just sloppily tossed onto the table, and Runa flinched a little bit from the loud noise. She winced each time the dwarf threw something carelessly out of a drawer, feeling a little bit bad for the small inventions. Some of them were doubtlessly breaking and they didn't deserve that. The poor things hadn't done anything wrong and they were just tossed aside... Maybe she did need a therapist if she was starting to relate to spare inventions...

Runa tilted her head at the compass when Nadia gave it to her. It didn't look special. She had a suspicion that they had been conned, but she kept her mouth shut - at least on that note. "Thank you, this is very kind," she told the dwarf. "Erm... Shall we go, then?"