Nina, her stomach churning with a mix of apprehension and determination, turns her gaze towards the guild master. "I didn't see Ronan on my way here. Where is he?" she asks, her voice barely a whisper. The question hangs in the air, heavy with unspoken implications. Kael, the ranger, stops sharpening his hunting knife, his grey eyes fixed on Nina.
The guild master, however, doesn't immediately answer. He hesitates, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his features before he speaks. "Ronan... he's... he was restless," the guild master finally says, his voice low and evasive. he avoids direct eye contact, his gaze drifting to the worn wooden table. "He was finding it difficult to stand still. Especially given his nature."
Kael, with his attitude as a ranger, adds, his voice gruff but laced with a hint of caution, "The creature is powerful, child. But its loyalty is... conditional. Guided by its nature, bound by its desires first and foremost." He gestures towards Ronan's usual position - a darkened corner of the guild master's office - now conspicuously empty. A silence descends upon the small office, punctuated only by the ticking of a grandfather clock in the hallway. The unspoken tension is thick, suffocating. Nina senses a reticence; a carefully constructed wall of information being held back from her.
The guild master's evasiveness, the ranger's cryptic warnings - they all point to something more significant than Ronan simply wandering off. The air crackles with unanswered questions, a sense of foreboding hangs heavy in the room. The old mill south of Porthaven, Elara's disappearance, Ronan's absence - all pieces of a puzzle that remains frustratingly incomplete, yet intensely dangerous.