[ To be fair, Waver did realize this endeavor was dumb, in that he probably should have enlisted some help before getting this far. But time was of the essence, and all that. All he could do was huff at the apparent hope. ] You do realize your ‘hope’ directly contradicts your concern earlier about my risking myself by embarking on this endeavor, right?

[ Because of course the man was going to question her logic.

He breathes a small sigh of relief to see the statue. Both because it meant the search was at an end, and because breaking a statue was easier than performing an impromptu necropsy that involved several layers. ]

I think I got something, looks like a statue.

[ Reaching in, he dragged the large hare statue out of the log and turned it over lightly, observing the surface and gauging its thickness. It definitely didn’t seem too solid, but it had enough heft to it that it probably had something inside it. Musing to himself, he considered just dropping it. But they needed to break the egg in front of Koschei so he didn’t want to risk mucking that up before he’d even got there… So he set the statue down and held its base as he aimed a hand to fire a magic bullet at it to crack the surface and break the layer away with his hand afterward to see if the duck was indeed underneath. ]

Right, definitely an absurd nesting doll. Got a hare and a duck inside.

[ Someday he was going to have to think about the fact that he’d said weirder things than that. ]