Letter to Carnwen et al

Dear Carnwen, Petra and Krys
 
Hope things are good at the house and you are having a good time despite our absence (or because of it). We won't be back in a while as things in Ravensfield have turned out quite eventful.
 
As you know we set out on the morning of the 11th to Ravensfield. The name does make me wonder: did the village rename itself after Hayley showed up with her raven? Or did she choose the village because its name containing raven in it? A bit of a drake and egg problem, or maybe a pure coincidence. For nostalgia's sake we hired a draft horse and took our old cart to make the travel easier.
 
Anyhow, during the travel Hayley wanted to clear the air that her companions were former soldiers in Morenthene's army and it might not be the best idea to bring up that we fought in it. And like Gael, I wasn't really interested in holding a grudge or bring up the war when our peoples are looking for peace.
 
After three days of travel we finally arrived at Ravensfield, a charming village a bit bigger than Tarn where we all spent so much of our childhood. Hayley started talking to the local baker called Bart and confirmed some of the news we heard, that there's been petty theft going on and attacks by some creature, and some we didn't: some new organization called the "Restoration Society" has been establishing itself here. They have a base in Keralon as well apparently, but their mission is to rebuild some of the Northern lands of Keralon after the conflict with Morenthene's forces. They are also looking to consolidate some of the merchants, which does sound a bit like a guild. But anyhow, the representative here was a man named Dan who was overseeing the building of a barn.
 
After talking to Bart we went to Hayley's home in Ravenfield, where we met one of her companions here, A kobold named Zx'ex'xm, pronounced "Zem". He showed us where there were last tracks from the creature that was plaguing the village. Gael and Hayley bent over it and quickly saw the creature was like nothing we'd ever known: a print like a drake but not the right amount of toes. Our thoughts immediately went to the hybrids and constructs the cult was throwing at us. But for now we'd have to make due with following the tracks into the forest. This eventually led to a clearing where we found some claws and black scales of whatever was writhing and slashing around here. Yet no tracks left from here again that we could see, so either the creature took off or it magically transported (or transformed)
 
Gael had an idea to get some more information from the sheep that were attacked using a spell that allowed him to speak fluent sheep. Though the only thing he learned was that the creature used shadow (though it might have referred to the black scales) and that it has a spiked tail, but no wings.
So for the night we decided to set up on top of the barn they just raised after getting the approval from the Restoration Society representative here, some guy named Dan. With the clear night's sky we hoped to get a good view of the area to see where the creature would come from.
 
After a while Zem and Hayley's other friend, Saphira, came up with some food and it became quite a lovely picnic with some talk about the distribution of magic swords among knights and when the sun set we established the usual watches.
 
Around midnight, Gael and Liliana woke us up as they saw a shadowy figure enter the village from the forest. We started to get ready as Gael decided to sneak up on ahead, followed by Hayley's raven.
But before long Hayley snapped out of her trance to warn us Gael was spotted and was engaging the creature: a shadowy drake.
 
Sadly by the time I got there the fight was already over, Gael managed to shoot a few arrows in it before the drake disappeared into the shadows. He did learn that the drake could somehow teleport through shadows and had a mean tail swipe.
 
After patching Gael up we started to follow the trail of the drake, helped by some blood now decorating the tracks. But once again we ended up at a clearing where the drake seemed to have been writhing around before vanishing. Though now we finally found some new tracks, from a human sized figure, walking away. This lead to some small camp in the forest right outside Ravensfield, with a small tent a dying fire. We decided to set up a trap here for when the occupant would return.
 
Eventually we got him, after he tried to sneak away. We learned he was a guy called Reynis, a Half-Elf from Drybank cursed to become a mindless drake during the night. He was apparently kidnapped by the same cult that has been attacking Velora Morenthene's attempts at making peace with Keralon. We're sure since he mentioned the red robes and tattoos we've seen on them before. After little more than a month of torturing and performing some ritual on him, they deemed the transformation a failure and dumped him in the Lorewood near Ravensfield.
 
He showed remorse about killing two shepherds near Ravensfield and the petty theft but we tried to convince him these things were out of his control. But that we can now help him. For that we did need help from Keralon, someone strong enough to break this curse. It was decided we send a message to them and wait for help while we dig around a bit more in Ravensfield and keep an eye on Reynis for when he transforms. So together with Luke and Hayley, I decided to go back to Ravensfield to write the letters: one for Ser Donovan, The Long Table and to you of course. Hayley's eccentric friend Zx'ex'xm promised to arrange the couriers to get them to you all.
 
Anyhow, it's time to start heading back to the forest for the first of many night managing Reynis' affliction. And hopefully we can find out more about what is going on here. So as it stands you'll have free reign of the house for at least a few more days it seems.
 
Hope we see you soon,
 
Ali (and Lil)
 
P.S.: I included a copy of this letter for Ileas, could you post it for me? Trying to keep him up to date on all events around this cult and Velora Morenthene. Robert Talespinner and him talked a lot about Dragon stories.