Swamped

"There's this group known as... well, if you've heard of them at all, it would probably be by the name of Dune Wanderers," Ember starts to explain. "They stage occasional attacks in the desert, for reasons that are usually unclear. Crossbows are their main weapon. Most are perfectly ordinary, but they have a small number of enchanted ones."

"So, what, you think this wretch is with them?" you ask.

It's odd that Ember seems unaware you already ran into some... was Rider unwilling to share the details of your encounter? Well, you're certainly not going to spill those particular beans if Rider wouldn't.

"No, I think they stole the crossbow. The crossbow enchantment is the one you've guessed - moving at very fast speeds."

"So what about the bolts? Does it speed those up or something? They're already pretty fast."

"The crossbow can do that, but that's not the main use. You see, in theory there's no limit to how fast you can move with the speed enchantment, but in practice, if you run too fast you lose perception of your surroundings. So the bolts serve as markers; you fire one and you can identify it, even if you're moving faster than the human eye can perceive. So you run towards one and stop."

You have a lot of questions about how exactly that works, but they aren't immediately pertinent. You decide to move things back to the main question.

"Okay. So let's say they did steal from these Dune Wanderers. What's that mean, exactly? We should contact the Wanderers somehow and hand this so-called hunter over?"

"Even if you had the means to contact them, I wouldn't recommend it," Ember says. "You wouldn't be comfortable with how they treat prisoners. For that matter, there's a decent chance they'd attack you, no matter your intentions."

"Then what do you think we should do about it?"

"As long as our guest here doesn't get a chance to retrieve the crossbow, there's no problem," Ember says calmly. "The Wanderers will find it eventually. So in that regard, it doesn't change anything - the decision is still yours and Rider's to make."

He pauses for a moment.

"Which is not to say I don't have a recommendation. If you'd like to hear it."

"Might as well," you say. "It'll give me something to think about, at least."