Oak and Ashes | Yoa and Marius
After giving them the general plan -- go look at some leaves, try not to trip over anything important, be back by sundown to swap info on any clues found -- Marius sent the various groupleaders assigned to this godsawful mission off to instruct their people. He waited until most of them had left, then tagged along after Lena, following her until they had reached the place her group had set up camp. Once there he took the time to wave at Simone -- fairly certain she rolled her eyes at him; he'd count his attempt at annoying her successful--, then made his way over to the person he'd been looking for. He tapped her on the shoulder, and, once he'd gotten her attention, pointed back at the main tent. "Yoa? Unless you've got some strikingly important matter you need to attend to right this very moment, you're with me for today, kid."
Without another word he led her towards the main tent that had been set up close to the edge of the forest. It was supposed to function as their main base of sorts, a central meeting hub for, well. Everyone, really; although now, with everyone heading out, it was just about empty. Better for Marius, that; he needed all the quiet he could get if he wanted to see all of the Mancers come out of this alive. This wasn't the high seas where you could see dangers coming from miles off, and if he were being entirely honest, Marius was feeling a bit out of his depth smack dab in the middle of land.
Once they had reached the tent, he held open the flap for Yoa to step through, his thoughts already on how to best address the matter at hand. This was a forest, after all, and if there was one thing Marius knew about forests, than it was that there was no way in all the gate that children should be disappearing in here without a trace. And it wasn't Knights doing the taking either, that much he was certain of -- this was too smart for them, too tidy. Besides, they had enough children to force into their school already, and from what Marius had been able to gather beforehand, none of the missing kids were magical -- there was absolutely no incentive for the Knights to kidnap them. If asked to bet, he'd probably put his money on either a child-trafficking group or--something even less savory. Less human, in any case. The seas were full of monsters, deep down beneath the waves. And forests? Well, there was a reason they were frequently called a sea of trees.
"I heard you were pretty well-versed in mythology and legends," he started, all the while pushing some maps off the table in the back part of the tent and gesturing for Yoa to pull up a chair. "You read about anything that likes to live in a forest like this and kidnap kids? Any local bogeymen we should be aware of, love?" Truth was that he'd been meaning to ask Tarac about this -- that man was a walking library and he'd probably be able to recite half a dozen stories about the forest at the drop of a hat -- but there just hadn't been time, and so he'd have to make do with what the little lady here knew.