>Let's close in on that feeling about an hour away.
>You stow your dowsing rods again and head westward in the general direction of the faintly conspicuous signature you detected. This is not far off the path you were originally following before you diverged in search of blackberries and fairy footprints, and sometimes the terrain itself forces you to follow closer to it than would be strictly direct; there is only so much you can do about the bumpy terrain and thick underbrush. Faint birdsong and the rustle of tiny animals through the bushes offer sporadic counterpoint to the steady thump of your feet against the mossy dirt. Just once, you thought you might have heard a voice call out at the edge of your hearing, but if it really was, you were unable to find further sign of who it belonged to. You continue forward.
>You take periodic measurements with your dowsing rods as the terrain forces you to steer aside in one direction or the other, referencing your map each time you do so. It seems increasingly likely that what you're sensing is some sign of habitation, past if not present - smelted metal of some sort, more refined than that in the ground around it and much more of it in one place. It could just be a few tools strewn around an old campsite, but maybe an actual dwelling. You even start to sketch roughly where you think it's located on your map, correlating the shifts in its relative position with the changes in your own - probably on the other side of the Grau, towards the south.
>The Grau itself, at least, is easy to find. The gentle rumble of what could be nothing else first reaches your ears about twenty minutes after resuming your journey, then weaves steadily louder among the sounds of the forest until it has risen above them all. A hint of fresh spray from its waters mingles with the heady scent of the wood around you long before you can spy the river's flow through a gap between the trees.
>The river is broader than you suspected, though it does not look to be particularly deep, judging from the multiple protruding rocks that can be seen cresting its surface even far from shore. The waters churn grey around them, but the flow elsewhere is clear and cold - forceful, but not rapid. Trees crowd close to the river on both sides, before their soil gives way to rocky ground with little for a plant to find purchase. There isn't really much of a shoreline to speak of, but you suppose someone could prop themselves up on one of several convenient rocks and have a comfortable enough time fishing, if they cared to - assuming there's actually something worth catching in the river, of course. The meandering course of the river and the dense forest that surrounds at least this part of it prevents you from seeing more than a couple hundred feet along it in either direction, and nothing that you
can see particularly catches your eye.