The boat still hasn't returned, but there's a distinctive red-haired woman near the entrance who wasn't here before. She barely reacts to most characters.

But if Ryu talks to her...

He looks flustered.

The scene goes black...

...and then Ryu finds himself in a log cabin, facing an old crone. The young woman who brought him here watches from the side, and there are several large intricate circular symbols carved on the floor.

The redhead steps forward.

Ryu looks uncomfortable. The redhead walks up to the crone.

She walks down and pulls Ryu to the side.

Ryu doesn't seem any less uncomfortable.

Sanamo walks back to block the entrance.

When Ryu stands in the middle of the larger central circle, Sanamo stands in one of the two to the side.

The screen darkens. Sanamo spins around and tries to basically beam into Ryu. Nothing much seems to happen at first, but then there's a flash of light, and a wall of flame and flying dragon appear. The dragon roars.

A pillar of flame blows the roof off the cabin.

The fire rages out of control, burning down not just the cabin but the entire forest around it.

Ryu backs away a few times, seemingly more uncomfortable than ever.

As a result of this experiment, Ryu has learned the Fire Puppy, Ice Puppy, and Thunder Puppy skills, which allow him to exhaust his AP to briefly assume dragon form and inflict a powerful blast of raw elemental damage against a single enemy. Unfortunately, he's on his own for the moment, taggers-on notwithstanding, and even with dragon power, the monsters here are a bit much. Fortunately, the town is nearby. A nondescript man stands where we met Sanamo.

This time, thankfully, the game sends us directly back to base with no further walking.

It pretty much has to, since we can't cross the ravine without Sten, and party switching is locked out for now, so there's no other way back.

The old woman takes an immediate interest in the house, of course.

But it's the side building that she's eyeing. She walks right up to Bosch, Sanamo trailing behind her.

She shoves him out of the way and they continue inside.

Ryu isn't amused.

The old woman walks back out.

She ignores him and addresses Ryu directly.

Sanamo walks out and approaches Bosch.

Bosch panics and rushes into the main house. Ryu looks embarrassed for him, but Sanamo is just confused.

Ryu follows Bosch inside, where he's claimed the rightmost room on the lower floor.

After putting the party back together, the others also have things to say, this time the same regardless of whether they're in the active party or not.

Rand:

Lin Pu:

Nina:

Sten:

The implications of this idiom, as well as Sten's character, may suggest he means catching Sanamo's interest more than suddenly manifesting dragon powers.

The old woman and Sanamo remain outside, talking Bosch's place blocking us out of the side building.

Time for yet another long walk back!

Now that we need some serious carpentry done, we have the option to ask the village's carpenters for help. One of them, whom I'd dubbed the Victorian Chef for his style of house and additional services, lives in the rightmost house (with his wife and the kid we saved from the dry well) and is always available.

Any of them will do, but each of the carpenters has a different building style and provides different side benefits later on if chosen. Refer to The Commune page for details (but note that it also has spoilers relating to further development that won't be available for a little while longer).

Even a skilled carpenter can't finish a project instantly, though, so there's little point in returning to base just now. Instead...

...we can finally continue west in pursuit of that thief!