Penelope went ahead in coming up with one of her usual fake stories to the villagers and began casually asking about the group they had been looking for. It seem that the villagers bought her lies but she couldn't help but notice that they nearly acted nervous about the group approaching them, despite how she tried to act friendly towards. It usually worked fine so the knight wondered why these villagers weren't as welcoming. Perhaps it was just because it was a different village. One woman shifted a bit closer to her husband as he glanced down at her before looking back to Penelope to respond. 

"I think I seen the group yer looking for headin' toward Azmar in the east." he told her with a small shrug. 

"Azmar, huh?" Penelope echoed with small frown. If they had truly traveled that far then it meant they'd have to go out on another trip. One she doubted Mia would approve of. "Do you know anything else? Did you talk to any of them?"

"No." the woman said shaking her head. "We just seen 'em come through."

"I see.. Well, thank you for telling us." she said with a grateful smile before turning to head away from the group. Once they walked away from the peasants, she turned to glance over at Rikki and Alistair, wondering if they had noticed something was off about the villagers they had just talked to as well. "Them seemed rather nervous, didn't they?" she asked. 

Rikki was eying her nails as she walked behind the knight, looking rather uninterested. "Well maybe it's just because you're not as good a liar as you think you are. They probably figured something was fishy with the way you were questioning them." she responded with a shrug. She lifted her gaze to smirk at Penelope. "But I mean, hey you did better than I thought you would."

"Maybe they're just a bit antsy because of the war too." Alistair added on a more positive note. 

"Maybe.." Penelope mumbled with uncertainty. While she knew Rikki was just saying that out of pettiness, perhaps the female thief wasn't completely wrong in her assumption. The knight had been successfully lying to the villagers of the previous villages they had searched but that didn't mean the people of Wheldrake couldn't see through her. She decided not to dwell on it for too long. Regardless of what the villagers thought, they had still given her the information she was looking for. Now she just had to figure out if anyone else had any further details about the thieves. 

The group continued on towards the tavern, stopping only twice to talk with more villagers. Both times Penelope hung back to let Alistair and Rikki take control of the situation, deciding to test out the female thief's theory. A couple villagers still seemed a bit nervous while another, hot-tempered man acted short with them. The two thieves didn't seem to think much of it but Penelope found it strange. She also found it a bit strange that all of their responses were about the same. None of the villagers seemed to know more than merely which direction the thieves had left in. 

The group eventually reached the tavern and Penelope became a bit more hopeful. Perhaps with a bit of alcohol in their systems the villagers would be even more loose lipped. She stepped inside after the other two thieves—as Alistair seemed to regain a bit of energy as he hurried inside—and began to look around for a group that was reasonably drunk.