Swamped

You walk towards a side room as she's still thinking.

"Right, so first thing he asked was if they were going after wooden stuff or just plants in general," she says after a while. "But we hadn't noticed that. Then he started talking about mimicry? Like I said, I wasn't following too closely. Some legend about some fellow... Corren, that was the name! Said they were Corren beetles."

"Corren?" You think on that for a bit. "Oh, right, now I remember. One of the heroes of Aedran myth. Mostly went around stealing things from people the gods didn't like, as I recall."

You heard about him from Ash. He seemed to find Corren a fascinating figure. Kept telling you stories when you had free time. You wonder how many of those were real.

"Yeah, that was it. Or, I think it was something like, he tried to steal from the gods, and they punished him by putting him through a series of trials. Which, yeah, mostly involved stealing things." She chuckles. "I'll bet he learned his lesson, eh? Anyhow, our friend said the name was based on a specific story, one where Corren steals a golden apple from an enchanted orchard. The orchard has a mind of its own, and is enslaved by one of the gods' enemies - good luck asking me to remember that name, though. It keeps out everyone except the apple-pickers. So Corren slips in disguised as one, and tries to swipe an apple." She pauses. "I don't remember how the rest of the story goes. Doesn't really matter, I suppose. Point is, our friend said that there's a type of beetle called an orchard beetle, that tends to make anything that eats it sick. So most animals ignore these Corren beetles that look just like them."

"Oh yeah, I think I heard this one. I think he tries to romance the orchard for the apple," you say.

"Wouldn't surprise me. That sort of thing happens a lot in old Aedran stories. Anyways, the last cover is in here. Help me out with it."

She opens the door to a storeroom, and sure enough, there's a metal cover. You both pick it up, and it's definitely heavy.

Although, something unusual in the storeroom catches your eye. You don't really have time to investigate right now, but maybe it's worth asking about.