Yalme	Ser Becklin Uth Viharin	Darrett Highwater, Ser Becklin’s Squire	Ridomir “Cudgel” Ironsmile	Mayor Raven Uth Vogler
Jeyev Veldrews, Cudgel’s Lieutenant	Lord Bakaris Uth Estide	Bakaris “the Younger”, Lord Bakaris’s Son	Dragon Army (Red) Soldier (Messenger)	Dragon Army (Red) Soldier

During the River Gate

   Before the dragonarmy messenger can leave, the dwarf steps forward igniting the head of his holy hammer in blue flames. “Messenger, I have a reply back to Belephaion, the Voice of Takhisis. Tell your commander that Coltan, the Apprentice of Reorx, stands with the villagers of Vogler. Reorx has returned to oppose the Queen of Darkness and protect His creation.”

   When Coltan approaches her with a fiery hammer held up, she takes a stance that Artanis recognizes as Coltan’s imminent decapitation. Through narrowed eyes, she listens until Coltan calls himself ‘the Apprentice of Reorx’. Then, she relaxes and stands straight. “Well then, Coltan, Apprentice of Reorx, I shall deliver your message to my captain—if indeed, you are actually the Apprentice of Reorx, and not some pretender. What might the Apprentice of Reorx be doing so far north from Norbardin in the Kharolis Mountains? You don’t cut the impressive visage I’d have expected from the head Reorx’s clergy.” With that, she gallops away, up the road towards High Hill, leaving a cloud of dust in her wake.

After the River Gate

   Who knows the area between here and Kalaman pretty well? I’m wondering if there’s a place where we could create a giant rockslide and dam up the river, thereby robbing this army of the ability to make use of it. Alternately, can you think of a different way it might be possible to dam up the river, or do you know someone else who might have ideas how we could do that?” Mery says to Mayor Raven.

   Mayor Raven says, “Unfortunately, due to the plains-ish nature of the area, although the river obviously snakes through the lowest part of the region, you won’t find hills big enough to provide such a landslide until you go further inland away from the river for quite a distance. The battle of “High Hill” was on the highest part of the walkable area, and that was hardly a “hill” in the most generous of senses. 3 miles north west, the land does head upwards a bit, not all that much, and then drops off into the valley where that army is encamped.” She thinks for a moment and then continues. “Damming up the river would be disastrous. I’m not about to cut off my nose to spite my face. Simply put, that’s out of the question. There’s no way to do such a thing in time to stop this army from invading, and there’s no way to do it in such a way that won’t cause a reservoir to build up, bust the makeshift dam, and then absolutely destroy Vogler. You’ve convinced me to have us evacuate, and I’m about to give the order to start that process. When the army comes in this town, hopefully it will be empty and they will move on. My people can return and rebuild their lives. They cannot do that if there’s nothing left but a flood-scarred slab—if the flood doesn’t actually scrape enough of the town’s land to submerge it permanently.”

   Cudgel says, “Mr. Veldrews and I both agree that if we can get the Ironclad Regiment into the town, we can defend it from this army—if not fully repel them, give us a lot more time to evacuate.” She looks back at the gate, where the messenger had given them Belephaion’s orders, and says, “Unfortunately, the only way to get the regiment into town without alerting the army is to kill—or capture if you insist—all of those Dragon Army Soldiers sitting up on that bluff just outside the gate. None of them can be allowed to escape to send word back to the army.”

   “Well,” says Ser Becklin, speaking for the first time since leaving the Brass Crab, “There are a few ways you could do that. Of course, you could directly climb those bluffs—it’s only 30 feet—but you’ll be under fire the entire time, and you risk them sending a runner back. However, you could take a boat further up river and walk back within the forest behind them. I can send Derrett as your guide. Once you’ve gotten behind them, they can’t escape until you kill them or they surrender . . . or . . .” she thinks for a moment and says, “Well, that tinker gnome, Than, would be overjoyed to let you attempt to launch yourselves over our besiegers’ heads with Gnomeflinger . . .”

   “Milady,” Darrett said, “Has Master Than managed to do something about the landing part? I mean, I’ve seen him use the Gnomeflinger successfully, but the object he flung . . . it landed rather more un-successfully, I might say . . .”

   “If I remember correctly,” Ser Becklin said, “Master Than said something about a ‘Narrycrash’--some sort of backpack-like device that deployed a white sheet of cloth? I’ve only seen it work once, but I’ve been too busy with the funeral arrangements and the festival . . . so . . .”

   The two are interrupted in their musings as Lord Bakaris and three thugs come running down the road, tails tucked between their legs. The lord looks scraped up and dirty on his front—perhaps he was thrown to the ground?—and the three bodyguards have javelins sticking out of their armor, and they’re all bleeding. They ran past your group, ignoring you. One of the men was yelling about how “those dragon army bastards killed Garlen, milord!”

   Mayor Raven shakes her head and says, “Idiot,” before turning to the rest of you. “I’m going to go inform the elders that we need to begin the evacuation by boat. We have a bit of a problem, though. We have enough boats to evacuate at most 200 of the village’s people. There are around 400 in the village, so we’re going to need help coming up solutions. I have some ideas, but I may need your help. For now,” she looked back at the gate where you can now make out a javelin skewered, armored lump that must be the dead ‘Garlen’, “I need them removed without word getting back to the army so that we can get the Ironclad Regiment here.”