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In my story, there is a group of four characters that are called upon a classic macguffin hunt. The characters know that the macguffin is important, but they do not know all the details as why it is important. I want to provide that info to my readers, but while writing in third person limited, I'm not sure how.
I think a generic answer would be better to help others, but read on for my particular case.
To draw a parallel to something in the real world, consider Tabasco brand sauce. Now, almost anyone can cultivate peppers almost anywhere and use them to make a hot sauce. But only if those peppers are that one particular genetic strain, and only if they are grown on Avery Island in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, can the sauce made from those peppers carry the name Tabasco. There is something about the soil or the weather or whatever, that gives those peppers their unique blend of heat and flavor that no other hot sauce can replicate.
In my fictional world, this certain vegetable can also be grown almost anywhere by almost anyone. It can be used to add a pleasant flavor to tea, and also added during fermentation to make a nice liquour. But if you use "special" vegetable, that tea can treat a disease, and when special vegetable is used in the cool quaff, it adds an extra kick the regular version just can't replicate.
Because I am the author, I know that this is because special vegetable grows on a particular cluster of islands. These islands are of volcanic origin, and located within a equatorial zone. An ocean current brings a stable climate, regular rains, and steady supply of nutrients. A unique crab lives there, and its burrowing keeps the soil turned over just so. Finally, sea birds in the area go out and eat a unique blend of fish during the day, coming back at night to (um, er) fertilize the special vegetables.
The characters know about the medicinal tea and the potent potable, and they know about the existence of these islands. They do not know any of the rest. I believe it help my readers understand the magnitude of the quest if they knew the details. I can't write a dialog where one character explains to another, nor do I want to break in with a sudden paragraph of omniscient narrator, then jump back to a character's point of view. I can't find any way to do this that doesn't seem really jarring, unrealistic, nor break the flow of the story.
(3)More posts by @LarsenBagley300
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If you need to convey specific information to the reader without resorting to an omniscient info-dump while staying in a third person POV your choices are indeed limited (pun intended).
Your MC can either discover that particular piece of information through their action (find what seems to be the McGuffin and see that it does not work as expected, so it is not the real one; find a book, a letter, a decaying ancient scroll with some partial info, etc.) or be told about it by another character.
Those are the devices at your disposal.
I must add though, that a conversation being held only to deliver the info is the same info-dump, only from a different narrator(s), and yes, it will be hard to make it sound natural.
What might work, however, is prioritizing what exactly your readers must know so the story can proceed without breaking pace.
Is it the dietary preferences of the particular breed of seagulls, pooping over the crop, or the fact that there is only one place the planet, where it grows, which is more important to your plot?
I wager it's the latter--you cannot go on a quest if you do not know where to go. The rest of your worldbuilding can stay undiscovered. While it is very tempting to introduce it to the reader in its wonderful entirety, trust me, the readers do not care about crabs, birds, and how well done the last night honey-glazed bear steak was. They care about the story and not the recipes of all the food your characters eat.
Break the info into pieces, and let your character(s) discover the important ones only as your story unfolds. Keep the rest and stick them in when the moment is right. Or never.
Remember that terms like "third person limited" are not meant to be jails. They are descriptive.
If it works for your story to have one (or a handful) of scenes outside your protagonists' viewpoint, go right ahead and do it. No editor will break down your door with an giant eraser to make you change anything.
The Harry Potter series is told from Harry's POV, except two opening chapters (books 1 and 6, IIRC) which are just third-person limited, focusing on other people. That doesn't negate the rest of the tale.
In terms of flow, you can present it as a short chapter, an interlude, a prologue, or some other form of break so the reader knows that the "camera" is moving outside what's been presented before, and this is something special happening at the same time somewhere else.
My first thought would be to add someone who farms these special vegetables as a character in a subplot, giving you all sorts of ways to work in the key information. You would still have to break the flow of the main storyline occasionally for these interludes, but the reader would readily forgive you if the farming subplot is interesting in its own right. As long as you have a good way to tie the farming character to the main storyline as the quest progresses, I think it would work.
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