The villagers may seem rough around the edges, but they are very friendly. They happily answer your questions:
“These ruins? Oh, that’s recent. That’s our dragon’s doing… Well, actually, it’s more like we belong to the dragon, if you can put it that way. The whole kingdom of Faraway is under its thumb. As long as our king pays tribute, we’re chill. But sometimes it burns the neighboring lands. There used to be a fortress over in Nonearby’s kingdom where, they say, rebels got executed by the bucketload. Gotta say, now the region’s crawling with ‘em. No one knows how they get past the Long—that’s the river’s name—but more and more of them are gathering to plan their revenge. Anyway, I don’t know much about their politics, but those sneaky bastards are extorting folks on the roads, so watch your back when you travel.”
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You still have some questions about the state of the kingdom.
“Oh, we’re fine. Even if the dragon went on a rampage across the country, we’re at the other end from it, so we’d probably face no consequences. But they say a bunch of knights died trying to take it down, and some even say it kidnapped the princess! I don’t really know where it’s nesting, but it’s gotta be in the Boût mountains… somewhere over there… far away…”
Your interlocutor vaguely waves their hand in a direction that could be Northwest. You thank them for the information and return to 130.