Faes eyes would dart to Elra when she says with such certainty who the castle belonged too as she tucked away her letter. A vision from her dreams would flash into thought before fading away. Her eyes would then close. The wizard would stop in her tracks for a moment before shaking her head and opening her eyes again to resume following behind the others. She'd start to feel uneasy.

Shortly after, Fae would pull out her journal and begin jotting some sloppy notes as she walked. If the group, or someone in front of her were to abruptly stop during this time, she'd be likely to walk into them. With a wince, the scholar would tear a piece of paper from her journal and would do her best to slip it into Arvel's hand or cloak while the Goblins are busy complaining and leading the way.

Fae would look up to try to meet eyes with their protector, Zeke, to share a look of concern and to be on high alert.

Zeke would have seen Fae's unease - he found himself particularly drawn to her as a kindred spirit - haunted by terrors most others could scarcely imagine.

As their eyes met, he'd nod almost imperceptibly and redouble his efforts to keep the party safe and out of sight - opening his stride to pull away from the main group and scout the path ahead.  Sticking to the shadows, his wings wrapping his body, pulling the shadows in close he'd look for any signs of patrols in or out of the castle and any other entrances other than the main gate.

As the group comes out to a position where they can see the castle over the lake, Ethan crouches down, looking around for danger.

"Should we be careful from here? We don't want them to see us coming, right?"

Ethan looks for Zeke, seeing him already doing just that, Ethan relaxes a little, and starts to follow in Zeke's direction, trying to be stealthy as he does.

Glancing briefly at the note, Arvel's eyes widen for half a moment and he tucks it away.

"OK Yeemik. There's the castle at last. Is there a backdoor or secret entrance for us to use unnoticed so you can get to your allies and evacuate quietly, or will we have to go in the front door? Because I have some thoughts if that's the plan."

Ethan's eye's light up,

"Oow, a real working secret door, that would be great to get to see!"

"I remember the course on 'Efficient Integration of Mechanisms' back at the university."

"We did an entire term on secret doors and traps, the methods used to hide the mechanisms so they couldn't be seen."

"It was a fun course. I have used many of its lessens to make my gauntlet more streamlined, hiding away the functional parts inside."

Ethan pats his gauntlet with a smile.

Ethan turns to Yeemik,

"Do they have a secret entrance to the castle?"

"I mean..." Elra looks at the lake before them. "We still have to cross that."

So that's the castle! Foreboding place, that. Wonder if having all these spiders around is good or bad for the lake...

Let's get there, and get Gundren out. Hopefully it's not too far to go around the lake.

Fae would chew on her lip in silence for a moment. She’d turn her head and whisper to Edgar, “Scout ahead and then shadow Zeke. Lend him help should he need it as we get closer.” And the black crow would leave his perch on her shoulder and take to the skies.

Yeemik says reluctantly "yeah, there's a secret door under one of the ruined towers."  He is silent for a second while looking down at the symbol from his dead comrade yet again.  He then says "you know, I must have left my dagger back at the cave."  "Any chance you saw it?"

OOC Not for this exact moment, but soon as you head down the hill towards the lake and castle it wouldn't hurt to have a Perception Check from anyone who hasn't already done one in the past 24 hours, just to see what you can see.  Edgar can make his own and with Advantage for going ahead.

"Why? Is there something special about it?" Elra asks, looking around to see if there was anything interesting around.

Yeemik says with a bit of disdain "yeah, it's mine, and the boss over here said I could keep it."

Elra shrugs, "I haven't seen it, so I would assume that it is still in the cave."

"Dagger? Dagger. Dagger? Oh, yes. That dagger. I seem to recall that, just before you left the caves, I politely asked you to let us keep it and you gave it to us of your own volition. Can't say what's happened to it after that..."

"Now, how do we get to this tower?"

"Oh right!" Elra proclaims. "Then you gave it to Fae. Remember..... oh that was one of those things that I'm not supposed to talk about isn't it."

Arvel winces almost imperceptibly.

"Sorry," Elra says, but doesn't quite meet Arvel's eyes. She turns to him, then immediately looks to Yeemik. "But you did say we could keep it, so I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to get it back."

Yeemik shrugs, kicks a rock and begins walking down the hill towards the lake.  "You lie, the Spider lies, but your people still insist goblins are the problem..."

"I honestly wasn't lying I completely forgot about that dagger," Elra says. "From what I understand a lot of people lie because they're afraid of what's going to happen if they tell the truth."

"While others would be offended merely by the accusation, but are willing to move past it in the interest of mutual benefit."

"The 'Truth' is that this isn't very good for Yeemik and the goblins either way.  You kill the Spider, then me.  He kills you, then me.  Let's just get this over with and maybe everyone will forget about old Yeemik when they are busy stabbing each other."

He continues downhill into the trees.  As the party has come all too familiar with there are excessive large spider webs but any spiders present seem to mostly ignore you with your goblin escorts.