That had gone less badly than anticipated, even though the mental resistance of some of the soldiers had been almost palpable with bare hands. He, the Aen Seidhe, had just made proud humans listen to his commands ? A fine surprise indeed, but whether the process could be repeated or not was an entirely different question. It probably would not be the last time for him to have and try to use authority and he wasn't sure if he should be looking forward to it or be afraid of it. Therefore the elf was rather glad about having been given the task of finding fresh water. It made sense, would allow him to get into contact with the nature surrounding the castle and, last but not least, would lead him away from a bunch of potentially disgruntled men at work.

Where to begin though ? It dawned upon Tyrvariél that the castle might very well have been built right [i]onto[/i] the only source of fresh water around and that in that case there was hardly anything he could do about it until the scouting party would return. Otherwise though there were two directions to go: to the left of to the right. Without additional information it would be a decision of pure randomness, but putting some more thought into the problem revealed to him that it also was not worth bothering about: If the castle wasn't built onto the source of fresh water it was certainly built close to it so it would be wise to go around the castle in a circle anyway, rendering the initial direction pretty much irrelevant.

Tyrvariél left the camp to the east.

Staying close to the castle in a circle would also give him the opportunity to check what kind of damage time had done to the outer wall and where repairs were  in order. Getting this place back into shape on the inside would be pretty pointless while its outer defenses were incapable of doing their job properly. As the Aen Seidhe ventured into the depths of the woods alone he tried not only to concentrate on what he saw, but also on his ears. Water could come in many forms: A deep well would be undetectable by sound, but a creek would be more easily be heard than seen. The same could hold true for a boar, or, even worse, a bear. Both were things he was not looking forward to, but this was a pretty much wild forest. The worst case of course would be any kind of real aberration that the conjuction of spheres had brought upon this world once, but even then the fact that he still wore his armor would hopefully but at least some time to make a run for it. He was not much of an experience fighter even though the morning star dangling from his belt did not betray this.

As Tyrvariél slowly began his turn there didn't seem much to be discovered at first. A few trees had been ripped out of the soil by some anonymous storm, their massive trunks and extensive networks of branches waiting to be harvested. He would have to notify the others about these sources of firewood as halfway dry timber could not just be fabricated in no time. That would require a lot of transportation effort and, given that this forest probably had not seen any human for quite a while, the usage of carts and horses would be difficult. At least the abscence of any beaten paths gave some confirmation to the premise that this castle was abandoned. It would have been quite unfortunate to clean up this place only for some pesky noble to show up afterwards and claim that he owned it.

The further he went away from the green plains in front of the castle, the more dense and thus dark the forest became...