I do have an idea of how I want to interact with the fear-spiral, but it makes for sense for Ferron to just randomly leave his dwarfs to explore the north for a bit. However, something did get my interest. The fear-spiral invoked fear in plants, and I am presuming that plants being scared is not a normal thing with this world, and is a result of the fear-spiral. 

Now, this question involves a lot of things you probably can't outright say, but I need to ask the question in full context for it make sense. The only thing I need to answer to is can Ferron sense it because it is messes with his domain. (Full Context: The spiral can apparently cause things normally incapable of fear to be scared. Does this effect apply to the ore below the ground, and if it does, can Ferron sense something strange occurring because something strange is occurring with metal.)

I don't intend on competing over the fear domain, but I do think I can do some interesting story stuff with the fear-spiral.