"… You know, she didn't say to keep it a secret or anything. It's from the elfy priestess lady who rides a red dragon. She wanted him to know she was taking a shortcut. There was also a box that is supposed to be secret I think."

Oops, that part probably should have stayed in his head.

"Uh, do you know her name? She had a friend named Twilly who was little and red and had bat ears, but he only called her Priestess."

"I know Twilly, and...'priestess lady who rides dragons' sounds kind of like Lady Celestia, but she's not an elf. Was she dressed in white?" 

"Yeah, and a hood! It covered her ears so I wasn't sure, but she had the look that elves do, where they turn out to be a hundred even though they don't look old at all."

"Well, that could be Lady Celestia. If not, I have no idea who it is, but Captain Rolith probably will."

He frowns. "This seems likely to be urgent enough that you shouldn't wait for evening. I'll go with you to talk to him; he'll be more impressed with you if I tell him you've practically cleared out the infirmary for us." 

"Wow, thanks!"

Elan cheerfully goes along with the doctor.

"Is there something big going on right now that's making everyone be busy?"

"It's less any one thing and more that there are five things going on at once," he explains. "Bandit activity is higher than normal, the vurrmen are unusually aggressive and so are the sneevils, and one of our patrols disturbed a bees' nest and landed eight of them in the infirmary. Meanwhile, a herd of tuskmongers broke through the fence into the garden, and our usual supply route to Falconreach is cut off by a hydra, of all things. So I'm short on potions, can't get any more, and can't pick fresh herbs from the garden to top up my supply of remedies either." 

"Wow, that does sound really tough."

And like a whole lot of monsters Elan's never heard of!

"A friend of mine found out that if you keep cutting off hydra heads, eventually the hydra can't stay awake because it has too many heads. That… might be kinda mean to the hydra, though, now that I think about it…"

"It's certainly innovative! Maybe you can suggest it to Captain Rolith and see what he thinks." 

Speaking of Rolith, here he is.

Dismay flashes over his face when he sees the healer, but he papers over it with a frown. 

"Junn? I'm hoping you've got good news for me." And not another emergency. 

"I do, actually. This man here just saved four patients in critical condition and got a dozen people back in fighting shape—practically cleared out my infirmary. If you haven't given him the recruitment pitch yet, you should—after you listen to the message he came here to give you." 

There are exactly 2 people in Oaklore Keep who can tell Captain Rolith what to do and get away with it. Junn is one of them. 

Rolith actually smiles, looking like his face doesn't do that very often. He's far too disciplined to sag with relief, but he looks like he wants to. 

"Thank you, Elan. We are in your debt; the least I can do is hear the message you're here to deliver." 

Elan beams as Rolith and Junn say nice things about him. He was for-real useful! That feels good.

"The message is from Lady Celestia. She wanted me to tell you that she's taking the shortcut. I hope that has a secret meaning you know about because if it doesn't then this feels kinda anticlimactic."

"WHAT!? The Priestess sent you? You should have told me that to begin with!" Now Elan has Rolith's full attention. It's kind of intense.  

"...and she isn't going to stop at the keep?"

His face pales. "The forest is crawling with bandits that are looking for her. She's in grave danger—we must go after her! Can you show me which way she went?" 

Awww, Elan should have known that his mistake quota was coming up.

"I'm sorry! She seemed like she knew what she was doing! She went… umm… I don't know, but we were talking close to a cliff that was that way."

He points down the path he came to Oaklore by.

Rolith looks around at his...complete absence of knights to send on a rescue mission, actually, they're all busy. "Junn, who's fighting fit that wasn't ten minutes ago?"

Junn rattles off a list.  

He nods, strides over to the infirmary door, and starts calling out names. "Jer! Norre! Gear up and meet me at the gates, we've got to rescue Lady Celestia from bandits!" 

(Sir Norre, who was clearly asleep, jolts upright in his bed and scrambles for his gear.) 

Rolith turns back to Elan. "So, you can heal. You any good in a fight?" 

"I'm okay!"

As of pretty recently.

"Especially if I can make a joke or a pun when I land a hit on someone."

Rolith smirks. "Oh, you'll fit right in. I don't suppose your surname makes a pun when put after 'Sir'?" 

Sir Jer and Sir Norre join him, still strapping on their scabbards and tightening their greaves. 

"You're not under my command, Elan, and I already owe you for healing my men, but would you come with us and help rescue the Priestess? You were the last person to see her, and your help would be invaluable." 

Vaarsuvius has explained it to Elan that "invaluable" and "inflammable" mean "valuable" and "flammable" enough times that he knows what Rolith means right away.

"Sir Elan… no, I don't think so. I have a brother named Nale, though, and Sir Nale sounds sort of like snail?"

Headshake.

"I'd be happy to help, though!"

"Great! Let's go. You there, go tell Sir Preem he has command of the keep until I return!" (The servant so addressed runs inside to do that.) 

Rolith swings his warhammer onto his shoulder with apparent ease and strides out of the gates, the two knights falling in behind. Can Elan take them to where he last saw the priestess?

He sure can!

"Okay, this is where we helped the gorillaphant," he says when he recognizes the scuffs on the ground. "And I think she went… that way."

He thinks.