Arren presses himself instinctively against the eastern wall, waiting to see how the attackers react to the Corporal's warning. His hope for a peaceful solution dies the moment two bolts whistle past him, and he hears the same chaos on the far side of the hostelry. The difference is that, over there, someone's been hit. He's not entirely sure who, only that blood has already been spilled.

His first instinct is to run west to aid the Corporal, especially since Tace surrounded by three bandits, and perhaps already hurt. But if he runs, the eastern window will be left unguarded, and abandoning the carriage's cover will make him an easy mark. His grip tightens on the pommel of his longsword as he hesitates. A delicate balance, he thinks bitterly. He hadn't expected his words to materialize so quickly.

Time is of the essence, and Arren makes his decision: he loosens his grip on the sword, stays where he is, and raises his voice so the bandits can hear. I hope I'm not making a mistake. 

"ENOUGH! Drop your weapons and leave while you can. Whatever you think you’ll gain, think again. You’ll end up dead like your companions last night, or if you’re foolish enough to kill one of us, on the run. Leave us be and vanish into the dark, or face the consequences. From us, or from the next patrol that hunts you."

(Intimidation: 2+5= 7. Thank Tyr I hadn't used my Heroic inspiration yet! Re-roll: 19+5 = 24)  

'Tace' grunts as the arrow cuts through the flesh of his arm, but does not cry out.

He watches as the one bandit falls out of view, and the others retreat. Another man struck down by a weapon I wield.

And then he hears the words of the Sergeant. His voice carries strength and intent. If I were them I would do as he says.

Knowing that the Lieutenant has eyes on this side of the hostlery, and assuming the Sergeant is directing his words at bandits he has seen himself, he decides to move around to get a view of the eastern side. He is careful to avoid any caltrops. After all, the Sergeant didn't have his bow, and his javelins will be difficult to throw at the range the bandits are sticking to.

This time he doesn't speak, he allows the Sergeant's words to sink in, and waits at the corner with his crossbow ready once again.

Movement: Around the building in a clockwise direction again, ending along the north wall by the eastern corner. He hopes to gain some cover from the building if the eastern bandits are not further north than him.
Bonus Action: Hide
   Stealth: 5+6=11 (fails to hide this time)
Action: Ready crossbow attack on any figure he sees that appears like it could be hostile

A few moments pass, during which no bolts nor arrows are fired, before Lieutenant Tireur calls to Arren: "They're retreating! At least those on this side. They're carrying a wounded with them." Bryn can hear the Lieutenant's call, too. A few more moments pass, and still no bolts or arrows, nor any bandits, show any sign of coming close.

As the night remains quiet, and after a few more moments peeking out of the other window just in case the bandits return, the Lieutenant walks over to the broken window, where Arren stands. "I think they're gone. Maybe you managed to scare them away this time without drawing your blade first, though I find it strange. Surely they'd have known by now who they're dealing with?"

"Or maybe they're not truly gone yet. Stay alert," the Commandant suggests once it seems safe enough to leave the spot she chose under the table, which seemed slightly more protected. "If they're still determined to attack us, they could wait for a more advantageous time. If anything, it's concerning that they chose to attack while you're both awake and watching, unless they don't yet know how many of us are there."

At least for a while, there are no signs of more bandits if you stay by the hostlery.

'Tace' waits what feels like minutes before he is certain they are gone. He then moves around the hostlery to the main door, avoiding the caltrops.

He feels the pain in his arm where he was shot, and sighs. I need to get better at avoiding these things.

When he meets up with the Sergeant, he inclines his head, "Like I said, fearsome, Sir".

The commandant doesn't need to tell him to remain alert. "They have been watching us for days, Ma'am. I cannot see how they would not have got our numbers by now. There could be multiple groups out there, and no organisation", he says respectfully, offering another explanation.

He stands awaiting orders from one of his superiors, checking his wound and thankfully not finding it too bad.

Arren relaxes a little when Walnus reports that the bandits are retreating, and relaxes more when the Lieutenant joins him at the window and Tace reappears, circling from the far side of the hostlery. In response to the Elf's inclination, he returns a grateful, if doubtful, look. "I wish we were fearsome enough that they won't dare come back," he says quietly. "But I'm not so sure. One would think that after yesterday's fight, they wouldn't try again so soon, yet here we are. Perhaps you're right, and we're dealing with more than one group."

To the Commandant's concerns that the bandits have chosen to attack while two soldiers were on watch, he says, "Divide and conquer, perhaps? They may have hoped the two of us would chase them, which would have allowed the rest to enter the house after you and the Lieutenant."  Is it the two Meyen they're after? 

He frowns, and continues. "The bandit groups we've faced all these years were never this determined. We should assume they'll keep pressing us. Shouldn't we reconsider the route to Pyorre, sirs? I know we're already late after spending so many days in Ersta, but a detour might be wiser. Better safe than sorry. Better to arrive late than...well, not at all. "

"In any case, if they do strike again tonight, I think it won't be right away. They'll wait for us to relax, then come back when our guard is lowest—middle of the night, most likely. We could change the watches so there are always two awake in those hours, and one in the rest. I can turn in now, rise in a couple of hours, and share the watch until near dawn. Then I can recover a bit of rest before we set off."

He knows the plan he's proposing won't give him a full night's rest, but ... he's trained to endure that.(ooc: how many days until we reach Pyorre, though? I shouldn't do that often haha) Whatever plan is agreed, he makes a point of retrieving his bow and quiver from the carriage. Even if the bow isn't his preferred weapon, it is better to have it close at hand.

When Arren suggests the bandits may have tried to enter the house, the Lieutenant and the Commandant share a look, and the Lieutenant immediately goes to check if someone snuck into the other two rooms during the commotion. Small as they are, however, it takes just a few moments before he returns. "None inside," he reports, "but you're right, it might happen. We shouldn't watch only the front door. If two watch, one should be watching the other door."

"By the time we reach the shoreline," Commandant Nattensbarn answers Arren's repeated suggestion to change their route, "we would already have seen most of the dangers here, and then need to face the dangers there. The time lost will have been greater than we can allow ourselves. We're already quite late. I reckon we have... about five or six more days of travel until we get off the mountains, and then four more days to Pyorre. Going around at this point will about double that. We can't waste so much time. We've been ordered to come with haste following the recent incidents in Tus, and that's what we'll do."

The Commandant doesn't interfere with how the others choose to watch, and the Lieutenant trusts Arren to know his own limits, so Arren may watch when he deems it right. However, I, as the DM, am not quite sure of his intentions. It's been just over 30 minutes into the first watch, which started a little after dark. Does Arren plan to sleep for two hours now and then stay awake for the rest of the night? Assume that it is ~22:00 and that the carriage will depart on the following morning at ~07:00, in about nine hours. What is Arren's currently planned sleep schedule for the night, approximately?

Also, remember that you don't have any alarm clocks/watches to keep time, so in practice, Arren can only track time by certain things that happen every night at about the same time, being:
To match what I wrote in the past, dusk is at ~17:30, dawn at ~07:00 at this time of the year.
The Lieutenant's trance ends four hours from when he starts it, assuming it isn't interrupted. He doesn't start watching immediately at dusk, but closer to 21:30, or about one candle (recall, about four hours each candle) into the Commandant's work. He should end at ~01:30.
The Commandant goes to sleep a little before the Lieutenant's trance ends, after two candles have burnt out. It is ~01:00.
Bryn ends his trance after four uninterrupted hours following the Lieutenant's. ~05:30.
The Commandant wakes up with the first light, but before the sun can be seen. 06:15-06:45, depending on how exposed to the light you are. From that moment until departure, you have very little time to actually rest, since you usually will spend that time tearing down tents (not now), organising and perhaps eating a little.

The times written are only approximate and should not be given much weight, but the durations between them are more or less constant. Let me know how Arren plans to sleep tonight before we move on.

Following the short "fight", Arren decides to go to sleep early, but asks the Commandant to wake him once her next candle, which she'll probably light in a few minutes, burns about halfway through. It's not a very accurate method, especially should the Commandant be too absorbed in her work to notice the candle's exact relative length, but it's probably the best option.

At the same time, Lieutenant Tireur returns to his opened bedroll, sitting on top of it to trance. Given how very little time he got to trance before he was interrupted, he'll have to start the four hours again.

Arren once again attempts to trance following Walnuts' and Bryn's instructions and tips, but again finds the task more difficult than he'd imagine. Keeping his mind awake is no challenge, with the sounds of the Commandant's work and the light rain outside, as well as the recent "attack"  keeping his mind busy. But to ignore the sensations in his body is a whole other matter. They neither go away or get easier to ignore with time, and to his frustration, it doesn't feel like he's falling asleep at all, nor like anything either Bryn or Walnuts described. Nonetheless he must have fallen asleep at some point, as when he's woken up, Arren realises he's been sleeping a pretty normal, albeit short, sleep.

Bryn, meanwhile, guards the hostlery alone. If he's close enough to the broken window, he can hear Commandant Nattensbarn working under the candle's light. Mocha and Choco nearby sleep quietly in a seated position, allowing their weary legs some rest, as much as they can given their reins are hitched to a post. 

About fifteen minutes after Arren left Bryn to watch alone, the rain temporarily stops, leaving Bryn to watch in the silent night while accompanied only by his thoughts. Thoughts about various things. Perhaps his current standing in the world, perhaps about Breithe Staidear, or his possible connection to Emma. Perhaps the bow, hidden among his things, keeps his mind busy with curiosity. But more than anything, his mind keeps going back to the men he hurt. Men he killed. Men whose families, if they had any, now probably mourn their loss. What would happen if he met these families? What would his own family think of him, once he met them, if they knew what he did?

But eventually, Bryn's endless thoughts are abruptly interrupted by a hushed cry of surprised pain from the other side of the hostlery, probably by the back door. Though faint and brief, Bryn's keen senses pick up on the noise and he is immediately alert. It's been a little over an hour, probably, since the Sergeant went to sleep. Earlier than either of them expected, but someone is trying to enter the hostlery from behind, fortunately stepping on the scattered caltrops the Sergeant laid there. If they hadn't, would Bryn have noticed them at all?

Bryn would now be somewhere from which he can see the front door, or anyone approaching it. However, at the moment, Bryn is the only one who noticed the noise (although he doesn't know it yet. Passing by either window or entering the room where the other three stay, he'll find the Commandant still working and the other two soldier resting, revealing that they're unaware of the noise he heard, unless he says anything). 

Act as if in initiative, though unless Bryn or something else alerts the others, they'll continue working/resting. If Bryn does alert them, Arren will only get to act on the next round, since he's currently unconscious.

Damn!

'Tace' stirs from his introspection at the sound of the noise and begins to move towards the back of the hostelry. Please, not another who will force me to take their life!

As he passes the broken window and notices no-one else heard the sound, he decides it best to change that. He causes the sound of a creaking floorboard to emanate from a point within the room that the back door leads to, loud enough to certainly be heard by those in the main room and outside the back door. That should give any interloper pause, as well as alert the Commandant, Lieutenant and Sergeant.

He continues to the corner and hides before peeking around.

Movement: Down the west side of the hostelry to the corner
Action: Cast Minor Illusion
Bonus Action: Hide
   Stealth: 4+6=10

(OOC: Not sure if the distraction of the sound is enough to perhaps grant help. If so - Stealth: 10+6=16)

Inside the main room, the only sounds are the Commandant's quill whispering across parchment, the near-silent cadence of Walnut's trance, and the deeper rhythm of Arren's sleep. Then, suddenly, the creak of a floorboard.

The Sergeant's eyes snap open. He doesn't sit up, but his hand slides to the sword at his side. I failed to enter a trance once again, didn't I?  is his first thought. Followed by an immediate: What was that sound?

He lies still, listening. Quill, breath, the wind outside. Has someone slipped into the inn, or is his mind betraying him?

To make a floorboard creak so loud would take a woodworking master, or a seriously heavy person over a seriously durable yet flexible board. So, given the sound of wood squeaking against wood, it is more plausible to believe someone is moving furniture in the other room. This sound and its implication, immediately alert all in the vicinity. 

Inside the hostelry, Arren wakes to see Walnuts springing off his bedroll, no longer in his trance. Commandant Nattensbarn, also alerted by the unexpected noise, quickly moves out of the way to allow everyone else to act freely. Perhaps assuming that the sound comes from furniture being moved to block the possible escape route, Lieutenant Tireur tries to force the door open, expecting considerable opposition. The door, with nothing to hold it closed, violently flies open, and the confused Lieutenant almost loses his balance after applying a lot more force than needed, stumbling into the empty room and quickly scanning for anything that might have been the source of the noise. "Nothing's here," he alerts the Commandant and Arren, preparing to check the next room in a moment. 

Outside the hostelry, Bryn reaches the corner and peaks around it to find three dark-dressed Humanoids. Perhaps Elves, since they do not carry any source of light with them and they're too tall to be one of the shorter races, but Bryn cannot be sure. One of them had just stepped on the caltrops laid by the door, and Bryn reaches the area just in time to see them pulling the metal out of the soft shoe's sole the couldn't protect their foot from the sharp metal. Each of the three carries a simple melee weapon - a handaxe, a spear and a mace - and a rickety wooden shield that looks more like a bunch of wooden planks nailed together than a proper, designated shield. One of them, the one holding the spear, also has a shortbow carried on their back.

Once they hear the noise from inside the inn, the three figures briefly look at each other before they turn around and flee. As they run, the person holding the mace looks back to see if anyone happens to be chasing them, and as they do, their eyes fall on Bryn, who has no doubt he's been spotted. The man calls to his companions in Elvish, alerting them of the imminent danger. ["An enemy!"] He shouts, a call that Arren from inside the hostelry can faintly hear too. The other two immediately turn around to face Bryn, weapons ready and shields held high, but they resume retreating by slowly walking backwards, their eyes cautiously fixed on Bryn.

The three currently stand 30 feet away from the hostelry, and for simplicity, about 30 feet away from Bryn too. They do not engage him yet, slowly retreating, but they're ready to fight if he makes any hostile movement. The one holding the spear, in particular, is ready to throw it at the first sign of danger.

Please resume acting in initiative, though now both may act (Arren may move as if he already stood up on the previous round). Should it matter, the one who stepped on the caltrops is the one holding the handaxe.

"Bloody bandits. Aleshi take them all," Arren curses angrily as he realizes that, indeed, they are once again under attack. He doesn't know what frustrates him more: the fact that they'e beset by enemies, that his prediction on the timing of the attack was off, or that it looks like they won't get a normal night's rest until the gods know when.

Mostly awake, but not fully clear-headed, he starts towards the back door, where he heard the Elven voices. Half a second later he freezes. Wait. They're not attacking—at least not yet. What are their intentions? Why are they so intent on forcing their way inside? And if it's someone in here they're after, why haven't they come in? Is it because…

His eyes flick toward the front door. Who's to say there aren't more of them out there?

"Walnuts!" he blurts, without fully thinking, "Can you check the broken window? See if anyone's coming that way?"

Meanwhile, he moves to the front door and opens it just enough to peek outside, scanning for any sign of movement coming from that direction.

(Perception:  7+3= 10 .... :/ )

'Tace' watches the three bandits slowly back away, stepping out a little rather than trying to remain unseen, his crossbow visible but not ready.

He takes a good look at the three of them in the dim light of his elven vision. What are they after here? Surely they didn't think they could catch us asleep and unguarded.

He hears the Sergeant moving and speaking inside the hostelry, and speaks himself, just loud enough to be heard through the broken window.

"Three hostiles retreating away from the back door", is all he says, just enough to let those inside know that the threat from that direction is no longer present.

He then walks across to check the back door, avoiding the caltrops. He wants to know if it is open or unlocked. He moves in a way that he continues to see the bandits retreat.

Action: Perception at disadvantage due to the dim light
   Perception: (2, 13)+5=7 - looking for any detail about the bandits that might be pertinent. Are they half starved? Injured perhaps. Does he recognise any from before.
Movement: Across to the back door, whilst remaining vigilant
Free Action: Check back door - is it open or locked

Arren opens the door just in time to see a movement at the edge of his perceivable area. Whatever was there just moved away.

Meanwhile, on Bryn's side, the three continue to retreat, and seeing Bryn doesn't pick up his weapons, they turn around and run away, until eventually they're out of sight, concealed by the darkness. When Bryn checks the door, he finds it unlocked. Inside, the small living quarters look as they did when he first saw them, earlier, when they first checked the place upon arrival.

Lieutenant Tireur seemed uncertain at first, but once he heard Bryn's call that the hostiles were backing away, he follows Arren's request and checks the window. However, from that position, he cannot see those Arren spotted. "I don't see anyone," he replies, "only the carriage and the horses." 

You may act out of initiative now. If Arren wants to change his planned sleep schedule, please mention it explicitly. 

'Tace' enters the room adjacent to the back door, and closes the door behind him. He then looks to see if there is any kind of lock or bolt, and thinks back to how they left the door. Did we lock this door before or not?

If it cannot be locked, he looks to see if it can be barricaded with furniture.

He will perform a similar exercise with the two internal doors, making sure to call out his presence so the others don't assume he is an intruder.

He will finally enter the main room from inside, and report back on what he saw, and the state he left the doors he passed through.

"I heard a noise and went to the back door to investigate. There were three of them, Ma'am, Sirs. They were able to see in the darkness without a light source, and carried simple weapons. One a handaxe, one a mace and the last a spear. They got spooked and ran away before I got to them".

"There was at least one more coming by the front door," Arren adds. "But I only caught a movement in the dark."

He pauses, rubbing his eyes and letting out a faint sigh before speaking again. "What the hell are they trying to achieve? If they meant to catch us asleep, they were sloppy. And foolish. Can't they imagine a post of soldiers would be ready for that eventuality?" He stops to think, then continues, "The weapons they carried tonight weren't the same as a couple of hours ago. That alone might not mean anything, but if they belonged to that first group,  then why not bring more men for a second attempt? That  would cause us real trouble. Which makes me suspect these are different groups."

Arren falls silent for a moment, then suggests, "We could try talking to them next time. Because it looks like there will be a next time. Perhaps not tonight, but tomorrow, or any of the five days we still have in the mountains. Maybe these aren't the same zealots from yesterday. Maybe their reasons differ, and they might be more willing to speak. I'd like to find a way to stop these attacks other than fighting them — and, best case, scaring them off — every single night." 

The Sergeant shrugs a little after saying this, knowing it's a wish that may not work. But he's at a loss for other options that might ensure their safety. Hopefully, without having to resort to killing more people.

(ooc: Let's stick with the proposed sleep schedule. I'd say Arren wouldn't really trust he'll be able to get much sleep tonight anyway)