Mystery of the attack on house Nirosa

You crest the ash-choked lane as the farmstead burns. Festival tents collapse into sparks, shouting, and scattered villagers, while every path beyond the fields buckles beneath smoke and fleeing bodies.

Beneath the ruined festival arch stands a gaunt middle-aged man, with close-cropped iron-gray hair and a narrow scar through one eyebrow, in a torn blue lord’s coat, his weathered face streaked with soot. He grips a bloodstained scroll as masked attackers close around him.

The attackers advance through falling embers, cloaks snapping in the heat. Behind them, a burning granary sheds flaming beams across the western track, sealing one escape route.

A bell tower collapses somewhere within the smoke. The crowd breaks in three directions, while the masked ring tightens and the oath-scroll begins to blacken at its edges.

Lia slips toward the nearest cover and finds only scorched ground beneath the smoke. The tree she expected is absent, leaving her crouched in the open between the lane and the burning arch.

She raises her bow anyway, drawing the string partway as ash stings her eyes. The masked ring shifts, their silhouettes blurring together through firelight and smoke.

The attackers turn toward her as one. Their movement breaks her aim, and a falling ember strikes the bowstring; it snaps against her fingers before she can loose the arrow.

Lia claws a double handful of scorched earth from the lane and flings it into the attackers’ veiled faces. Ash and black grit burst through their formation as they recoil, coughing and swatting.

She plants one foot on a fallen shield and springs over the masked ring, cloak brushing raised blades. Her boot catches a shoulder on the way across, but the momentum carries her beyond them.

Lia lands beside the ruined arch hard enough to scrape her palm across hot stone. Pain flashes up her arm, yet she is through the attackers and within reach of the exiled lord.

Behind her, the masked attackers stagger out of the grit cloud and reform beneath the smoke. The scorched oath-scroll crackles in Edran’s clenched hand.

Edran turns the blackening scroll toward Lia, shielding its wax seal beneath his torn coat. Firelight catches a crest she recognizes from old Nirosa records.

The masked attackers recover behind them, boots grinding ash across the stones. Edran folds the scroll once and presses it into Lia’s waiting hand.

Lia folds the oath-scroll beneath her cloak and slides it securely into her pack. Edran seizes her free arm, and they break east beneath the ruined arch.

They run through smoke and falling sparks. Lia's injured side pulls sharply with each stride, but she keeps pace as Edran leads her between burning stalls.

Behind them, masked attackers pour beneath the arch, shouting through the haze. Their pursuit falters among fallen beams while Lia and Edran reach the lane's bend.

Edran shoulders open a warped gate, and Lia slips through after him. They emerge onto the eastern lane, clear of the flames, with the scroll safe in her pack.