Letter to Carnwen et. al 2

Dear Carnwen, Petra and Krys,
 
Almost immediately after sending the last letter things took an interesting turn for when we left Reynis, Liliana and Gael a Dryad showed up seemingly knowing Gael and his connection to Sylvesse. Through this Dryad we learned that Reynis came from a place called Hollow Hill a bit further into the forest. According to this Dryad many dark things happened there. Which really gives all the reason we need to go check that place out, although we'd have to take Reynis along. Which brings us to the first night where we’d have to take care of Reynis’ transformation. We blindfolded him beforehand but that didn’t stop his transformed self from blasting Liliana and myself, downing us in one fell blast, luckily he was still subdued and transformed back into his kinder self and luckily when regaining consciousness he wouldn't transform back. To think we might have to do this every night until help from Keralon arrives...
 
So after a well earned rest we arrived at Hollow Hill after a few hours to find the abondoned ruins of elves long gone (we would later learn this is a tomb of elves loyal to Corellon, who is himself a dead God of the elves) and between the statues of these long gone elves we found a pit, but those who could see in the dark pointed out this was likely a spiralling staircase that broke off as they could see what remained of them a bit lower. When I get back home I should do my morning exercises with my armor on because climbing a rope with it seemed harder than I thought it'd be, almost falling to the floor in the process. We left Reynis up in the forest as he did not want to enter the tomb again.
But we then found ourselves in the hideout of those who cursed Reynis, after some quick fingered lock-fiddling by Dadroz we then came to a darkly lit room. In the middle, standing before a blood drenched altar was a mage and a construct under his control, clearly in the middle of some dark ritual. The fight the ensued was quite intense, the mage dropped scorching blasts of fire on us: something I hoped I would not be on the receiving end of ever since I saw Luke perform that magic all those years ago when he was powered up by the fey magic of the Lorewood. Regardless, Liliana dismantled the construct with her glowing sword, the power Vivienne gives her on full display. And the combined effort of her, Luke and myself brought down the mage, as I knocked him out another door opened up bringing reinforcements: other cultists in red robes who were there to fight to the dead, which they did. Except for one, who joined the mage in becoming our prisoner.
As things calmed down we tied up the mage and we studied the altar, the runes adorning the altar were in draconic but it took some magic from Luke to really figure out what it did: it was the altar used to transform people like Reynis. And lucky enough for Reynis there was a way to use this altar to revert the rituals, but less lucky for Reynis: the strength to cast that magic was beyond those with us, though the mage's spellbook (now Luke's spellbook) did provide all the spells required at least.
 
We decided to explore further and got to the mage's study, which was magically trapped as Hayley triggered the statues to life. After dealing with them we poured over the mage's letters, he is in contact with someone called Vezir. There were two letters: the first one talks about a chosen of Arcarost that was sent to the mage and was suited for whatever transformative ritual they have planned, seems they are looking to transform others into dragons? The second letter claims the transformation was successful and this new champion be sent to Keralon. Hopefully with this we stopped more 'champions' being made but this one being there does worry me. And the second letter also referred to someone called Beatrice, that together with the name Vezzir might give us some clues as to how we can actually engage the cult's presence in the city of Keralon.
 
Now, you might think a cult to Arcarost transforming people into dragon-like beings sounds familiar to the story of Galiene and myself saving Petra from a similar fate. And you would not be wrong, but some things are different: the cult we saved Petra from did not have these tatoos that these cultists have. So on the one hand we have that difference, but on the other: how many Arcarost cults that transform innocent captives into dragons can there be? In any case, maybe Petra should stay at the house for her safety or at least not go out alone, just in case this cult gets any ideas. Just until we can get this cult sorted out.
 
After taking this all in we came to the horrible realization that the professor had somehow escaped and gone into a narrow tunnel that was hidden by the altar. Luke identified the creature that helped the professor escape as an imp, a small devil. Not wanting to give him too much of a headstart we rushed into the tunnel, though rushing is a bit of an overstatement as we were reduced to crawling. But after a while we ended up in a large cave, the darkness preventing many of us from seeing anything. Though Gael suddenly unleashed a shot and we heard a body thump to the ground. Apparently the professor was in the midst of performing a ritual on the skeletal corpse of a giant dragon.
With the professor knocked out cold (again) the main worry was the imp who was hiding around and whatever was left in the tomb we hurried away from trying to capture the professor. So we decided to split up, with one group hanging around the skeleton of the dragon while Dadroz and Gael went up ahead to scout. After a while we got a sending to meet up at some crystal they found, they managed to prevent the imp from crushing it. And Luke divined with his magic that this crystal, infused with the roots, was creating a barrier that covered up the entrance. Seems the professor was planning on flying off on a revived dragon skeleton. If this person wasn’t also kidnapping and experimenting on people against their will I’d admire the plan.
 
After thinking it over we decided to keep this cave closed, we were apparently close to Ravensfield so opening this up might create commotion we could better avoid for now. So we crawled back to the tomb to clear out the rest of it. We found the bulk of their treasure, a not insignificant amount of gold and a adamantine shirt now being worn by Gael. In another room a heap of bones in the dark transformed into skeletal monsters that at first were left to Liliana to fight as she could see in the dark thanks to Vivienne’s lended powers, striking mighty blow after mighty blow, her sword still lights up a bit when using her magic, so you can at least see that. But when Luke’s levitating ball of fire lighted the place up we all got to work and cleaned up after Liliana. With that we had to go back up, as we left poor Reynis alone for a few hours now and if we had two prisoners to take along. When we talked to him, Reynis seemed hopeful that there was a way to revert his curse, but the hope was a bit dampened as none of us had the magic required to actually revert it.
 
We went back to Ravensfield, thinking to put our prisoners at Hayley’s house under the careful watch of Safira and Zx'ex'xm while we went into the forest to once again beat down Reynis’ cursed form. This time we tried to add some manacles and hit him before his transformation completed but his strength and vitality made it turn into a small fight regardless, though much easier than last time as the drake had no real chance to blast us again. Since we were now well into the night this meant our prisoners awoke.
 
But if we expected an easy interrogation we’d be disappointed, The Professor was quiet at first until Hayley probed his mind and learned this whole things was to turn humanoids into dragons. Then he was interested in talking about how humanoids are weak and the cult’s objective was unlocking ways of ‘ascending’ into dragons which to him are greater beings. In his warped mind the kidnapping and murder of innocent humanoids, kidnapping and stealing from the draconics were necessary sacrifices. Quite sickening. We didn’t really get anything more out of him between the weird ravings about ‘stolen power’, this Beatrice person was known to him but he wouldn’t reveal any more information. And when Hayley stepped in to probe him again with magic to know about the Champion they sent to Keralon he bit his own tongue and spat it at us. I’d admire his loyalty and tenacity if it wasn’t in service of something this twisted and sick.
His former cultist colleague saw all this and the professor’s display of tongue spewing was enough for him to offer information about the champion, but only if we let him go. Something we all agreed wasn’t an option.
With that we decided to call it quits for the day. It seems like we’re going to be waiting a while for reinforcements from Keralon, and unless we get more information out of our prisoners or we find a scroll with the magic spell we need to save Reynis under a rock it’s going to be a quiet few days... besides having to beat the shadow drake out of Reynis every evening.
 
Sorry for all the letters, but please send this one to Ileas as well to keep him up to date on the story. I remember he liked listening to Robert Talespinner’s stories about dragons, and this one misses some of the grandeur but I reckon it’s close enough to the subject.
 
Kind wishes,
Ali
 
P.S.: Liliana of course sends her regards as well.