"So no one knows where the Ring is now?"

"No, despite centuries spent looking."

"Maybe Sauron doesn't have it either."

"We - hope he doesn't."

"Comforting."

"I think the consensus is if he had it, everything would be much, much worse for us."

"Suppose we have to hope he has as much trouble finding it as us."

"Yeah..."

"That's depressing."

"So what do you do besides escort hobbits and laze with elves?"

Quite a bit, mostly in the vein of 'studying' and 'exploring'. His mother was a Ranger and a friend of Lord Elrond, so he spends some time learning woodcraft with the rangers...

Still, they've covered most of consequence, and soon enough he and Russet both head out.

"They seem like nice people," she says to Bellona.

"Yeah! I like them."

"I'm leaning more on favor of the 'need to get the Ring' theories."

"Same. And it should be pretty easy for us to destroy too..."

"Once we find it, sure."

"Sadly no advantages there."

"Alas."

Bellona spends the next while working on an engineering solution to their problem - mostly to see if having only the two alchemists wielding the modern technology is feasible.

El busies herself coming up with plans for manufacturing. Mostly in jumbled, disconnected scribbles as far as anything written down. Just enough to keep it straight in her head for if they decide that's the path they need to pursue.

She soon enough - in the room they met Russet and Estel in - finds a small golden ring kind of awkwardly dropped behind a chair. Looks good quality, if plain.

Huh. Must have been dropped.

She picks it up.

It's warm. Heavier than it looks, too. Quite pretty, and now that she's looking closer at it, exceptionally well made.

Odd that it was missed so long. She should probably return it...

Certainly no one else seems to have noticed its absence. And it's so wonderful - it'd be a shame to part with it, and if whoever dropped it really wanted it back, they would have retraced their steps, wouldn't they?

She certainly would have. It's an elegant piece of craftsmanship, for all its simplicity.

She runs her fingers across it, turning it over in her hands.