Ch. 1 - The Festival of Merits

Although Kailani is already excited about the swimming contest, she throws the handsome tortoise trainer a kiss - she might try to find him later at the festivities to get more insights in the fascinating profession - and follows her friends. So a maze, huh? She has never found mazes that interesting and trapsing towards a dead end never seems much fun, but she is part of a team now and she will do her part.

Kailani eyes the entrance of the maze suspiciously as she listens to the strangers' conversation. The young woman then steps towards the goblin and smiles encouragingly: "Hi, there. Dermot, is it? Light be with you. I am Kailani and I agree with Faelan here." She taps Faelan's chest for emphasis, but keeps looking at the worried little fellow. "We sure could use your help. I am not a great fan of mazes myself, but I am certain together we can crack this puzzle. We'll find our way through this maze just as the light finds its way through the darkness." Kailani raises her fist towards the maze and exclaims: "Let's do this. Let's show this town what we're made of!" Energetically she extends her arm in the direction of the goblin with an open hand to see if he accepts her invitation. "What say you, Dermot of the Light?"

"You can do it, Dermont. Come on!" the half drow tries to motivate their new acquaintance. "It's just a maze. Victory or loss - at the end of the day, it's just a game my friend. No harm, no lasting shame, just fun to keep things interesting." Concentrating on talking the goblin into competing, the fighter ignores the maze for the moment.

Calla bounces on her heels, feeling defeated after the challenge of wrangling a giant turtle even if she had finally made it to the end - what did she even do to irritate the thing! Then she feels a little sheepish remembering she’d unceremoniously jumped aboard without any warning. Whoops.

Following her compatriots to the maze, she listens as Kailani bolster’s Dermot’s spirits about the maze before hopping in - "Why can’t you go in too?" she asks the ogre bluntly. Up close she towers over the harengon.

"Wait, hold on, lemme see if I can see if you got it right!" she says between bounces, hopping straight up as high as she can to get a better vantage point over the maze.

"If you don't go in, you have lost - but if you go in, you might win or lose. That's better odds right?" Tereze smiles. "It's just some fun, look - I'll be waiting at the other side"

With that, Tereze quickly has a scan of the outskirts of the maze. It seemed pretty complicated, but surely she would be guided on the right path. She holds up her Warhammer and the symbol of the moon glows. Marching forward, and placing 3 silver in the right hands, Tereze successful makes it through to the other side.

'I fail to see if the worry. if you succeed you do well. If you fail you just keep going till you have it perfected. Perfection cannot be achieved if you don't even try.' Ardeth is once more taller, her hood pushing out slight at the presence of longer ears. Her voice is refined and well spoke as she observes the maze. 'Of course for some it is already won.' With that she gives a sly smile and moves to enter.

She strides through the maze with confidence, swiftly making her way through out on the others end. 'Child's play, as always'

The ogre smiles at Calla as she tries to get a better look, "Careful doing that, don't let them see you get too good of a vantage. I can't go in because I'm 7 feet taller than the walls of the maze, so I can pretty much see the whole maze at any point." She then turns away from the maze to look back at her goblin friend, hoping that everyone is able to convince him.

With nearly the whole group's encouragement, the anxiousness twisting his face finally gives way as he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, clutches the symbol of the Luxon in both hands, and begins walking towards the maze.

"Right, it's just some fun, and I can't win if I don't try. Gotta just try. Maggie, show me what you see, please."
The ogre smiles as Dermot finally approaches the maze. She gladly but quickly picks the small goblin up with both hands and hoists him up on her shoulders as she points out to the maze, explaining to her goblin friend and all of you what she thinks is the way out. She then swiftly plops Dermot back on the ground before any suspicions are raised.In a surprisingly short amount of time after Ardeth and Tereze exit the other side of the maze, the small goblin Dermot exits as well with a giant smile on his face. "Oh Luxon, I did it!" he says quietly to himself, with a look of pride and amazement.

Kailani paid, waited her turn and focused on the smells of the nearby sea. It helped her to sharpen her other senses to navigate through the maze.
Her eyes glowed blue for the briefest of moments before she entered the maze.The young woman wasn't quite as swift as Dermot, but she went with confidence and managed to exit in a timely manner. She congratulated Dermont wholeheartedly and beamed at Tereze and Ardeth. "Time to go for a swim!" Expectantly Kailani turned to welcome Faelan and Calla next.

Trying his luck, Faelan takes a good look from the outside before entering the maze. Still getting lost for a moment, the half drow fighter sneaks back and retraces a second route. After a few heartbeats of doubt and feeling that he had chosen wrong a second time, the noble comes out on the other side and breathes out as no aarakocra swops down on him.

Looking at Dermont and the women of his group, he saunters with renewed vigor in his step, over to them and smiles a victorious smile. "So fare, so good.

Let's gather our medallions and then I will cheer for you, Kailani." Swiming is not Faelans forte, so he will leave it to the dark-haired girl and her affinity for water.

Watching everyone else canter in one at a time, Calla waits her turn before slapping three silver into the right hands and setting out herself. Passing through the maze threshold, the green hedges remind her so intensely of her home.

She's reminded of the dense wind-whispering canopy and the verdant, impassable foliage surrounding her village. Like a globe of greenery, it kept the village safe and isolated - with the villagers trapped inside. Or at least Calla had felt trapped. As a leveret she'd spent countless hours finding secret trails into the forest, heedless of the leader's orders to stay put. The paths had led to abandoned homesteads, hidden towers, and magical glades dotted with pixies and glowing glyphs, but until she had been drawn to the rabbit hole that dropped her here, it had never lead her out. And now here she was. Wherever 'here' happens to be.

Her hand turns the coin in her pocket over and over as she's lost in her own thoughts, with a frown between her eyes and her ears drooping. With a jolt, she stumbles out the maze's other side and back into the crowded festival without having hardly paid attention to the maze itself. A quick shake, a rueful grin, then she hops off to rejoin her newfound friends. "Are we off for a swim now?"

"Thanks. I'll give my best." She smiled broadly at Faelan, then watched Calla step outside the maze. They had all made it. Terrific! Maybe they should call themselves the Fantastic Five. Kailani snickers, then tilts her head. Did the bunny look a bit glum?

"Are you alright, Calla?" the dark haired woman laid one tattooed arm around the haregon's shoulders. "You're not still bummed about the tortoise thing, are you?"

"I knew you could do it!" Tereze smiles at Dermot, exuding a warm friendly aura.

"Swimming?" She overhears the others. Hopefully there was somewhere fitting to change. It wasn't good for a cleric of any god, bar the temples of beauty, to bare much skin, nevermind change in front of a crowd. She was hesitant. Her mother had never been one to be ashamed of such things, but that indeed was partially why Tereze was.

The small goblin blushes as everyone congratulates his speedy solving of the maze. "Oh, no no no. I couldn't have done it without Maggie and al of your help, so thank you!" He smiles up at each of you before turning to the approaching Maggie, who immediately laughs and picks him up and hugs him tight.

"See? Told ya you could do it!"

A tall, middle-aged half-orc man walks up to the group with a large smile and a handful of medallions. He congratulates each of you as he places the band around your neck. "Wow! Everyone in your group made it in one try! You guys'll definitely be in the running for participating in the Closing Ceremony should you choose to! Good luck!"

From atop Maggie's unreachable shoulder, Dermot happily beams down towards all of you as Maggie says in farewell, "It was great to meet all of you. Thank you for your help with this little fellow. Hope to see you later!" They wander off into the crowd, high-fiving each other as they go.

At this point in the afternoon, the sun is now getting to its hottest spot in these few hours before sunset, just in time for the Ifolon Plunge event! From the exit of the maze, the group can see just down the road a bit the dock where people are beginning to gather for the start of this event. As the party travels deeper into the Meatwaters (the area of Jigow of docks, businesses, and houses perched along the souterhn edge of the city, the banks of the Ifolon River), and near the center of activity, they can feel an air of tension gripping the crowd.

Numerous people are gathered on the piers, arguing among themselves and venting their ire at a grizzled orcish woman, who responds to their anger with a simple wizened and amused expression.

Suddenly, a brash voice cuts through the chatter, and a blue-skinned woman pushes her way through the crowd and stands protectively in front of the old orc, yelling, "She’s not gonna say it again! If you’re here with a team, only one member of your team can participate in the challenge! The rules are clear, and if you can’t handle it, get off the pier!" After just a couple of seconds, small groups of people begin to quietly murmur among themselves.

She adds in "Now come on, everybody. It's almost time to get this thing going!" before exchanging a nod of respect to the old orc woman behind her, then walking back over to a familiar-looking drow, the drow man the party met at the Riddles and Rhymes contest.

The drow and the genasi exchange a few terse words, which any of you with a higher passive perception catch the end of.

"Allow me to cast it. It would increase your odds tremendously and it's not that large of an expenditure of effort on my part."

The genasi refuses, "No. I want to win this on my own."

The drow has an expectant look on her face as one by one her companions com out, as if she expected nothing less, watching them all with a calculating eye.

As the others start to celebrating she shrinks again and runs over to join in any celebratory embraces. 'See! That was fun. Oh the swimming next right? It'll be fun to see if I can swim!'

As the half-orc mentions they may be in the running for the closing celebration she grins. 'Well we can't loose speed now, right guys?

___

'Aww that's a shame. Well Kailani, you're our bet for this one yeah? I can always go swimming later.' She grins .

As she looks over the rest of the contenders, she focuses on a certain pair and suddenly grow tall again. 'The rest of us can ensure there is no cheating. Though doing such a thing is testament that one is unskilled, if he must be underhanded to win.'

"Oh! Aw, Kailani!" Calla looks up at Kailani with giant eyes that are a little moist around the edges, "D-d-don't mind me! The maze, all that greenery, that's what my home looks like! You know, I end up just where I want to be and yet I end up gettin' all misty eyed -- wait what is that?"

The team had been walking toward the water but, suddenly distracted when the blue skinned woman pushes her way to front, Calla bounds closer to the river's edge for a better look, any cloud of gloom instantly dispelled by her newest fascination. "What kind of person is that? Her skin is like water?!" Calla says, staring perhaps a little rudely but unable to help herself.

Observing Ardeth's everchanging body, the halfdrow inquires: "Does your strength and endurance change with your appearance? Would you like capture the last medallion for our group?" Indicating at the festival he continues: "It seems we are invited to the closing ceremony anyways, but if you want to, then please, for the light - have fun and bring honor to our fellowship." Smiling encouraging, the fighter holds up his three prices and winks at the versatile woman.

Leading their small group further to the next challenge, he grins sympathetically at the drow as his proposal for magical aid is negated. Winning is everything, Faelan understands. Mockingly wiggling his index finger, he winks at the drow and glances sideways at the water-genasi-woman as shared joke with the elf.

Next, wishing Kaliani the best of luck, the noble would take part of her equipment to ease her burden for the competition and promenades to the spectators ranks to attain seats, where they could follow the contest. Looking at Calla while sitting down, he answers: "A genasi as it seems. A person with elemental blood in her veins." Feeling a little concerned that this could be too much for his friend to overcome, Faelan stays silent and watches tensely, awaiting the start of the swim-duel.

The drow merely shrugs and just barely rolls his eyes at Ardeth, then grins back at Faelen.

As the genasi woman begins heading towards the starting line, the drow wanders over next to the group and speaks softly and elegantly to Ardeth, "It's a simple contest with simple rules. Swim out, grab the rusty spear, swim back, and be the first to place it in the elder's palm. Using one's skills in one field to solve an obstacle in another is simply problem-solving. Seems like a shape-shifter like yourself should understand, I'm sure that comes in handy."

The genasi notices Calla's fascinated stares and seems only slightly discomforted by them.

With a big-whoop expression, she says "Yes, I am blue-skinned, and you've got fur. Now, politely, I ask that you look elsewhere, I am trying to get in the zone for this race."

As Falen asks he question the changeling shakes their head and shifts again, back into the orc. 'Sadly not friend. At least not much. This is my old resemblance, but I am not as strong as I used to be. I will stay an cheer for Kailani as friends should.

As Galsariad approaches the haughty drow makes her reappearance. 'One's own skills yes. Not someone else's. Everything I do is by my own merit. Your friend seems to agree. A win with someone else help is not true.'