Letter to Carnwen et. al 3

Dear Carnwen, Petra, Krysander,
 
It must be strange to receive this letter, probably the day after the last one. But while those came by normal courier, I can imagine this one arriving with rumors of what happened in Ravensfield and in the hands of a refugee from a possibly lost village. My intention was to give it to Safira and Zx'ex'xm but they will be taking the prisoners so I've asked one of the departing villagers to hand it over, please help them out in any way you guys can and take some liberty with using family resources to do so. Of course, it could also be that I will be here myself, having rushed over and caught the caravan after tomorrow's battle. But maybe it's best to get you up to speed:
 
We woke up on the morning of the 16th of Nuan thinking we'd be here for a while until reinforcements arrived, so Luke spent some time hunting for a scroll of Polymorph, asking Dan from the local merchant group if they had one, and while they had no such scroll Dan could tell Luke about a Hag in the forest that you could do dealings with, being able to contact them through an altar surrounded by runestones. That at least looked interesting to waste some time while waiting for extra knights from Keralong, though summoning the hag was out of the question we could always have a look at these ancient stones. But first Hayley wanted to use her magic to get more information out of our prisoners, and she learned something horrible:
 
The champion of Arcarost, the person experimented on by the professor, it is Robert Talespinner. At least the description Hayley extracted from the prisoners exactly matched him. It explains his interest in Dragons, and of course the red colors. But we barely got to process this information and its consequences when panic broke out outside Hayley's house, villagers running past us away from the town square. Losing no time Liliana and myself jumped on Torrin and drove off to the centre, everyone else following suit. We found a group of undead Kobolds wreacking havoc together with humanoid monsters made from different dragon parts, we learned these monsters spat acid, which almost killed Torrin. But Torrin proved to be sturdy and even trampled a few of the enemies. The battle itself was hectic, as the enemies were spread out and one kobold especially refused to die, its undead nature refusing to relent, but eventually we cleared out what we would soon learn to be a first wave.
 
The second wave would come from above, except for Gael and Luke everyone was caught by surprise when four dragonells and their riders swooped down and his us. They struck and flew in such a way that they left little openings. So Lil and I stood fast in the open, readying our strikes while the others used their ranged attacks to take out the riders. The battle turned quite sluggish as, once the riders were taken out, the beasts came down and swarmed us. They even struck down poor Torrin, though he managed to survive the battle he was out and dropped me to the ground. After only two beasts remained a loud whistle sounded and they flew up and levitated next to a big, dragon like being, a wyvern, and atop it was a man in full plate armor and a helmet that fully covered his face. He gave us a second to collect ourselves, here I became aware of how dire our situation was: Luke and Hayley were forced into a house for cover and were limping out from side windows, Gael was hunkered down in an alleyway to avoid the reach of the dragonells, though some arrows of their riders had pierced him, Dadroz even went down for a split second. And while Hayley's rejuvenating brew and Liliana's healing closed some wounds and refreshed me a bit, every one else looked to be low on magical resources. This fight could prove fatal if it proceeded.
 
But no attack came, the armored man on the wyvern wanted to know if we were the ones who attacked Hollow Hill. And once we confirmed this he gave us an ultimatum, he was here to exact vengeance for our attack on Hollow Hill and would kill us and burn down the village, but he'd give the villagers 24 hours to evacuate and then he would come back with an army and we would fight this out. If we were to evacuate with the villagers he would run his army upon us all and kill everyone. With that he turned around and flew away giving us a precious few minutes to collect ourselves and start planning how we'd defeat this menace. But first the villagers slowly returned and Hayley talked to the mayor and Dan from the consortium to convince them to evacuate the village, and they agreed to start making way to Keralon. Zx'ex'xm and Safira would join them to deliver our two prisoners to Keralon, to extract extra information. Reynis on the other hand wished to help, he'd rather die in this fight with us then live his life in the forests. A true act of bravery that we couldn't turn away, so we decided to set on preparing the town and ourselves for the fight tomorrow.
 
Of course fighting an army with the seven of us was close to impossible out in the open, but quickly a plan formed to use Ravensfield to our advantage. Dadroz and I would set up to close off alleyways and funnel the army through selected streets, the others would use the time to grab all the lamp oil and flammable objects that the consortium didn't take with them and set out to make sure the town would burn and make the army pay for every inch they would move into the town. We would make our stand near the barn at the other edge of town.
 
Tomorrow might be our greatest challenge yet, an army and its wyvern saddled commander (making a note to ask his name at least). I'd be a fool if it didn't frighten me a little, but what is bravery if it isn't standing firm in the face of fear? One thing is for sure: Ravensfield will burn. But who will build on its ashes will be decided tomorrow.
 
Hope to see you soon,
 
Ali
 
P.S.: The whole preparation of the battle has almost pushed Robert's identity from my mind. Make sure news of it reaches the knight circles. I assume Zx'ex'xm and Safira will be spreading it too but make sure of it.