Post by Markas Virnala on May 24, 2019 15:05:35 GMT
Fey Games, Child Pirates and Dance Party Security Breaches
6th Entry in the journal of Markas Virnala
To say the last couple of days for me have been the most eventful since coming to Kantas, would not do it justice…
It all started with us taking up another job, this time as bodyguards for a guy called Rholor. I've heard his name a few times around Daring heights and Port Ffirst. He's kind of a kooky character but then, most of the people I meet here are. Thinking on it, I guess I must look a bit strange to new people too, travelling and talking with Hoop… Just feels normal to me now.
Baine and Horrus had picked up this job too, and Milo! It's strange seeing him out of the Forge in Daring but apparently he adventures on the side too. I was excited to finally get to try out the new sword he made for us, especially if he was going to see it in action too! Shame I never got the chance…. We met 2x new faces this time:
Ginead the Green… or Binead the Beige? I'm sure he called himself Einead the Emerald at one point too…. Whatever colour he is, Gin was a huge human with a shaved head a massive beard (with bits of wood in it?) He always seemed to have a pipe in his mouth and was kind of mellow in how he acted…. A little like Rooster when he had that tobacco from New Hillborrow. Maybe Gin's been there too? He had a warhorse he travelled on while we went on foot, called Stewart (this is an important detail as you'll see later)
Then there was another Halfling with us, though not as surly as Bogg is! Jacinta (I've been calling her Jess) looked like a ranger and was a little short as Halflings go. It was funny to see Baine hoist her up on his shoulders with Bogg being gone…. I think he missed him. She's quite sensible compared to the rest of us but I can tell she is used to travelling out in the wilds.
I'm not sure what to think of Rholor. He's nice and kind and comes across as being very sagely and knowledgeable, but besides leading us on this trip, he didn’t really do much to help us along the way. Normally, given that we were hired to be bodyguards for him, this wouldn’t surprise me much, but I've heard a lot of talk about him to the contrary… He's the High Priest of the temple of Selune in Daring Heights. From what I've heard he founded the temple there, which has survived a war? He's supposedly done more than his fair share of adventuring too, to the point of being owed a favour by one of the Royals in the Fey wild. He, himself, said at one point he was: "the most powerful person in town". Maybe he is? There is definitely more to him than I've seen but, to be fair all I've really seen is a child…. (I'll get to that later)
When we got to the Temple of Selune, Rholor was stood behind an alter surrounded by all these books and scrolls. It was quite a simple looking place, sort of domed shaped with white walls and not much decoration inside, aside from a very complex map of all the moons phases on the floor and rows of pews for people to sit on. There was a large opening in the roof that let light in but I just keep wondering what they did when it rains? Anyway, he asked us to sit and I was expecting the normal religious advocate speech about the good word of Selune but then he seemed to change his mind and walked over to sit with us instead. It was like watching one of the trainers at home talking to the young initiates at the Monastery. Squatting around a camp fire trying to gain their trust by talking like them…. Not what I expected of a High priest. There was a weird religious gesture I saw him do once too. He brought both hands up and pointed one finger out with his thumbs straight up, giving them a little shake as he did…. Not sure what it's supposed to be though…. Maybe it’s a bit symbolism for Selune?
After our introductions, we find out why he needs bodyguards: The Fey Wild and The Amaranthine games, neither of which I'd heard about until now.
I asked what they were which…. Got me very conflicting answers, all at the same time:
Baine was dead against going (but still did). He was saying about these creatures that play pointless games and he had to kill people for no reason? Lots of tricks and being mean to people.... He said he'd been before and I guess he found the whole thing very stressful by the look of it.
Meanwhile, Gin was saying it was great! Full of games, rewards, lots of fun and 'like being in a painting'. Now I've been there I actually understand that last bit but he clearly had a different view on the place.
From what I could gather between their ramblings and Rholor's explanations, the Fey Wild is…. Like another Plane on top of ours? I've heard of some of the different Planes already, like the Plane of Air we were close to in Za'Suul but this one sits in the same place as the material Plane? It makes more sense in my head I guess… it's basically the land of magic. It's home to magical creatures like Satyrs, Elves and pixies. Knowing this didn’t really prepare me for what I saw going in but it was a good place to start I guess. The point of us being bodyguards was to protect Rholor as he made a pilgrimage to the Palace to meet Sarastra Aestruum, Queen of night and Magic.
Turns out there was a portal that would LITERALLY take him straight there but a big part of the tradition apparently was to make the journey itself. Anyway, the purpose of this pilgrimage was something called the Ascension…
Which brings us to the Amaranthine Games.
The games themselves are anything and everything. They generally come up like random events with competitive points being awarded somehow? These are run by the Lords and Ladies of the Fey Wild (like the Queen Rholor was going to see), every so often so they can compete for the glory and influence that being crowned winner bestows…. Only the nobility is allowed to compete though, taking up a seat in the games. They can, however, get whoever they want to help them along the way by doing…. Well, just about anything! Once it's all over and done, the winner is crowned and one of their prizes is being able to 'Ascend' someone up to the level of Nobility in the Fey Wild.
Rholor was picked by Queen Sarastra to be ascended after he 'played an integral part' in taking down a Hag for her, meaning she owed him a favour… if she wins the Games, he joins the Fey nobility.
I really need to find out more about Rholor at some point.
As for the Lords and Ladies of the Fey, Rholor said they can never Lie. They can of course be deceitful in other ways but never lie. The same can't be said for others in the Fey wild though and tricks and games were commonplace. This place sounded crazier than anywhere I have been yet and I couldn’t wait to go! Now I'm back, It IS crazier than any place I've ever been and I do Kind of want to go back.
ALL THIS IS BEFORE WE EVEN LEFT!!!!
We set off, south of Daring into the large forest there. We spend hours walking through dense forest, Rholor reading and trying to explain the Fey wild to me as we go. So far, this trip was seeming to be the peaceful excursion he was after at least. A few hours into the forest, Rholor says we will be reaching the Fey crossing soon. And we did:
What was a pleasant walk in a beautiful forest suddenly became…. Better? Everything suddenly started to be brighter, more colourful and vibrant. The leaves started to turn into golds and browns of Autumn with pink! Then we actually reach the crossing: A tree. Rholor just announces we are there, walks up to the tree and asks as to follow… as he walks around it and just vanishes!
This is where I understood what Gin meant about being in a painting…. Walking around the tree, we followed Rholor and everything just…. Got better again?
I thought the area was pretty nice to start with but as we approached the crossing, everything seemed to take on a fantastical and brilliant feeling. Rounding the tree I got that same feeling again, ON TOP of the first... I can't rightly explain it. The air tasted better, the light shining in the colourful leaves was dazzling…. By comparison, the forest we walked through felt like a room at the seashank! I could spend days here… I didn’t really get why Baine was looking so Tense. His mood in particular seemed to bottom out as we went over, while my own sense of wonder seemed to just boom. Rholor explained to us the emotions here are super heightened which explained that. For his part, he seemed unfazed…. I guess with everything he is supposed to have seen, this is pretty normal.
My own fascination aside, we carried on for a little while, passing a market close to the border (we didn’t stop though, Rholor wanted to press on) and after a few miles came to a large hill with these twisted trees on. Each one was bent over and twisted towards the next, creating a circle of archways on top of the hill. We climb up find an old Elf with a long beard waiting for us. Rholor seemed to know him but didn’t introduce us. The Elf used the staff he was leaning on to open a sort of portal in one of the arches, through which we could see towers of a city. He said that what we could see was Equinox, the city we were travelling to. Since we were supposed to be protecting Rholor on this trip, we had a bit of a debate about how to proceed but all ended up walking through first to make sure it was safe.
*This is where things started getting weird.
We stepped through and… fell? Only a foot or two… but I fell onto a wooden floor. I glanced around and saw I was now in a dark wooden room and everything felt wrong… I stood up and looked around and all my stuff was gone! Everyone was gone and instead I was surrounded by… really tall children…. 5 kids, looked maybe about 12 years old, wearing tattered old clothes and….
It's about here that I realised these 'kids' where actually the rest of our group. Mostly because the half-Orc kid was holding Baine's Sword Phil (which was just way too big for him) and the blue Dragonborn nearby. I saw the rough looking Kid that reminded me of Gin was standing with a small Pony… Stewart seemed to have come through and been turned as well…
Next there is a loud noise and another child fell through, this time backwards. Even as a child Rholor somehow managed to maintain that sagely look on his face. He said as we went through the portal, he thought something was wrong, he turned to the old Elf there and see it was actually someone else called Langston? Before he could do anything, he was blasted back through the portal and now was with us.
About now we finally noticed, across the room, sitting on a bench were 3 Goblins looking pretty neat as far as Goblins go, but each one had a malicious grin on their face as they watched us and talked among themselves. I didn’t catch everything they said but what I did hear was pretty clear. They set up the trap to turn people into children, then planned to sell them on some market. They tried coaxing us over as if we were kids, offering us a drink of something called a Capri-Moon but only seem to get annoyed when we told them to piss off (what did they expect, we aren't ACTUALLY children). That’s when they all stood up and came for us. Rholor reached for the large shield he had been carrying on his back to find it gone.... All of our stuff was gone, save for Phil and Hoop. He swiftly steps back, saying something about hiring us for this, just as the Goblins tried grabbing at Baine, Gin and Jess.
I have spent years training and perfecting my fighting style before leaving the monastery and I've kept that up even while I've been travelling and adventuring. I know the moves and stances backwards. The child version of me, in that room, knew all the same things…. But didn’t have the years of muscle memory and development I've actually had. Everyone else seemed to be having similar issues, making this fight much harder than I expected.
The Goblins managed grab hold of Baine and Jess, only just missing Gin. While he was being dragged away, Baine managed to flip Phil over his shoulder cutting deep into the Goblin, killing it instantly. Gin rushed to help Jess who just managed to kick herself free, just as Milo charges across the room and head-butt's him, making its nose explode in a cloud of blood! Seeing them surround him, I chased after the one who tried grabbing Ginead and fumbled my stance, barely managing to connect. Luckily I didn’t really, otherwise I might have still been stood there as a flash of lighting went past me from Horrus, hitting both of the remaining Goblins. Even as a kid that breath attack is impressive!
I was close enough this time to feel the hair on my arms tingle.
By now they looked pretty annoyed. I don’t think they expected so much trouble from a bunch of kids…
They managed to grab the Phil from Baine while the other hits Horrus with hilt of his sword, sending him reeling back. Baine tried to get Phil back but couldn’t reach it in time. By now the Goblin had clearly met Phil and he was seeming to glance around him looking for something… Guess that means Baine can hear Phil as well and it's not just him talking to his sword.... Definitely lends some precedence to those rages he goes into anyway.
Maybe Gin is right and it is a cursed sword?
The next thing I see is Gin rushing past me on baby Stewart. He'd ran back, mounted up and went into a full on charge, trampling the Goblin that grabbed Jess into the ground. Seeing one left, Jess and Milo rushed him, trying to grab hold of him but he broke away, stepping straight towards me! Taking a little more time to think this one through, I stepped in and brought one hand up in an uppercut before side stepping, twist and bringing my elbow back into the Goblins temple, sending him to the floor.
We won.
When the dust settled, Baine went into a Tirade, saying "This is why I don’t like the Fey Wild" over and over. I was not relishing being a kid again and if these were the tricks he was talking about before, I can see why he doesn't like the place. We spent a little time in the room taking stock of what we had. The portal was closed and Rholor seemed unable to open it back up, his magic being stripped away from him. Milo tried repairing my tattered clothes (the original clothing of all of us for some reason?) but couldn’t use his powers either, leaving us as a bunch of children and a Pony.
As for Langston, seems he has been a problem like this for a while... No-one has been able to stop him so far though.
Gin, Jess and Horrus took up the swords the Goblins dropped. Baine had recovered Phil by now and was talking to it about being a kid… Leaving me and Milo with no weapons. Rholor tried giving us a pep talk but I feel he lost a lot of the impact telling it as child. Before leaving, I asked Hoop, who was equally not impressed we were children, if we could borrow something from the room. It took some convincing but they popped out a glass-like short sword with a faint purple glow for Milo to use if he needed, before we walked out of the wooden shack we were in. For my part, I trained without weapons most of my life, so opted to just carry on that way.
What we saw needed some explanation from Rholor…
Equinox is, in fact a beautiful city of soaring towers capped with large crystal-like caps, casting different colours across everything below them. The centre seems to be where the Palace is, a vast delicate crystalline structure, nearly glowing in the light of what seems to be an eternal sunset in the Fey Wild? And the moon is HUGE here!
Around the Palace is the inner city, where the exquisite towers of buildings soar into the sky and are connected by ornate bridges. Heading further out into the outer city, the towers become simpler and shorter but, more notably, have rough wooden shacks built directly on top of them, just like the one we had left. What was most striking about the place for us, however, was the fact the entire place was under water.
This is where Rholor's explanation helped. The city is built on an island and it appears we have arrived at high tide. .. But not tide as in how normal tides work at the coast. Here, the island itself periodically sinks and rises in the water. The reason for the tall towers and wooden shacks is the fact people literally have to move upwards every few months as the island sinks, moving back down again when it rises, relying on boats and floating platforms to get around during high tide. The only exception to this is the Royal Palace which floats on the water during high tide. The water itself is very still and clear. We could see all the way down to the base of the towers and the paved streets now submerged.
This was possibly one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen, even the notably poorer areas of town looked incredible, but WHY would you ever build it on an islands that constantly keeps sinking!?
So there we were, 7 children, armed to the teeth, stood on a wooden platform balancing on a tower that’s mostly underwater. With a pony.
From our vantage point, Rholor could roughly work out where we needed to go. The plan was to find the Temple of Selune here and have them try to reverse our…. Condition? Luckily it looked like the Goblins had a small raft tied up a few levels down from where we were at the water level so we had our transportation. It took some goading but Gin managed to coax the Pony (now dubbed Hormonal Stewart) onto the raft. I'm not sure how exactly the whole thing didn’t capsize but then I don’t seem to understand much of what goes on in the Fey Wild yet.
We spend a while navigating the maze of towers trying to get towards the inner city, passing other elves and magical creatures in boats or flying around the cities towers as we go, occassionaly being blocked by rickety wooden bridges and floating piers between the towers. We started to notice the concerned looks we were getting which, thinking back makes sense. I'm sure I'd look twice at a raft manned by sword wielding children. We did actually come across another child manned craft at one point though. They were sailing around in a Giant Boot!
I was sure we would end up fighting a bunch of children here... They started sailing towards us waving their makeshift weapons around asking what we were doing on their turf. Luckily Gin convinced them we were sick, while Baine pretended to cough a lot. I was so convinced we were going to fight I nearly give it away! But luckily Gin was pretty convincing and they quickly left us alone.
Never thought this would be my first encounter with pirates (More or less)
Eventually we reached a point where we just couldn’t carry on by raft, being blocked by too many towers, platforms and bridges. We jumped off at a busy area with a market nearby and a lot of commotion going on. This is more like a city I could recognise. The smell of cooking, people shopping, music playing in the streets. While Rholor took stock of where we were and where we needed to go, a few of us had a look at the nearby stalls. Ginead tried to get some info from a Satyr nearby, speaking a weird language I've never heard before but came back disappointed, saying they kept asking him where his parents were… Trying to do things as a child is much harder than we expected…
I found a stall selling lots of crystal figures and odd Knick-Knacks and decided to see about getting one... of course since all of our equipment was gone I had no money though. It was as we were looking we realised they don’t seem to trade in gold here but weird concepts like
: 'a week's worth of tears'. There were a lot of different things, especially figures of the Night Queen but there was one that caught my eye, tucked away at the back:
A crystal figure of some kind of creature with six tentacles ending in eyes, but the body seemed like it was made of small pieces of something? Carved into Crystal it gave a very weird effect... The crystal itself was a weird mix of blues and blacks with flecks of Gold through it. When I asked about it, the Pixie manning the stall gave me the same treatment that Gin got: "Did your parents say you could be here?". Learning from Gin's attempt, I told him my parents didn't say I couldn’t be there (technically true, my mum didn’t… she probably would have though…). He seemed to like that response and told me about the figure: Jack
Jack, the Knave is supposed to be the Queen of Night & Magic's Fool. From what I could gather, only the nobles like The Queen of Night can have a seat in the Games going on, but Jack has somehow managed to get his way in. Apparently the Queen and nobles gave him an honorary seat in the nobility as a joke and he is exploiting the rules to take part in the games and become a noble himself through the Ascension if he wins.
Regardless, Hoop seemed to like the Figure as well so I asked how much for it, seen as money wasn’t going to be an issue here. The Pixie gave me an odd look and gave me 2x options:
- My happiest memory
- The Colour of my hair
I could see Rholor eyeing what I was up to but he didn’t seem about to intervene so it couldn't have been too bad I thought…. I asked the Pixie how it would work exactly. The memory or the colour would be gone for good. I would still have other happy memories or keep my hair but my happiest would be gone for good, as would the colour?
I thought about it for a bit... And have been still since we got back. I have a lot of happy memories. I was picked on a lot in the village but Mum was always there to look after me… I was scared when she took me to the Monastery at first but I fit in pretty quick. Life there could be hard but it was always good…. All the times Hugo, Aila and me trained together. The tricks we played on Kiirion when was trying to be strict with us. Eating the cakes my mum used to bring that we'd sneak in…. Sneaking out with Aila for the festival…. That was what made up my mind. I have so many happy memories, but I don’t think I could give those up so easily…. I agreed he could take the colour of my hair.
The Pixie pulled a wand out of his leather jacket with a small bottle on the end, tapped me on the head, giving me a tingly feeling…. The bottle filled up and the colour from my hair faded to grey. It's a very weird feeling seeing my reflection now... I almost don't recognise the face looking back at me. The dark brown hair my mum gave me is gone. But It's ok! Baine called me a Silver Fox and Hoop was pleased with the new gift. It'll take some getting used to though.
About this time, the parade in the distance where all the music was coming from had caught up to us. The procession was led by a few Priests and being followed by a huge crowd, all dancing and playing music. Everyone had these colourful robes like they had been dipped in dyes with crazy patterns. The music was just intoxicating…. A little too much for Baine and Jess as they get completely carried away and joined the parade! Rholor just tells us to get them back while he asks for directions but Baine and Jess were just too into the music to care. about what we had to say.
So we did the only thing we could do.
We joined in
They weren't listening to us, they just wanted to party. Obviously the music had some kind of effect on them, so I thought maybe we could get them to just party with us? Then Gin suggested we Conga, so we formed a line, Gin riding Stewart at the lead and start dancing, calling Baine and Jess over. They bought it came along….. Along with EVERYONE in the parade! We diverted the entire parade away from where it was going in a giant Conga Line along the floating piers and submerged rooftops of Equinox. Rholor looked a little distressed seeing us coming at him like that at first but he joined in too, not that he had much choice by now.
We get to the gate separating the inner and Outer districts. Over the music, Rholor was telling us we needed to find a way past the guards but, as we approached, we could see a strange expression come over them…. Then they joined our Conga line too! And we danced our way right through into the inner district.
That's how 7 kids used a dance party to breach security at the City of Equinox.
I heard a few of the guards at the party later talking about it. They've never had an incident like it before and there was a fuss from their captain about how it had happened but it looked like they didn’t know it was us…. We got away with that at least.
Once through, we broke off from the Conga line, which carried on working its way through the inner City. Jess seemed to have snapped out of it now and was with us but Baine….. Baine was lost in the music for a while yet. He eventually came round and sulked back over to us.
The trip this side of the wall was a little different to the outer district. Out there, aside from the Boot Pirates, everyone generally gave us a wide berth. Here though they came up to us a little more freely, asking why we were there and, again, where were our parents….We were getting pretty tired of this by now and it was getting hard to keep making excuses for the weapons. Jess managed to convince a few that we were performers though which helped for a while. Until we were stopped by some patrolling guards. Again, children with weapons…
They weren't buying the performance story though. Quoted some law to us about children not being permitted to run with weapons. I pointed out we weren't running but they didn’t seem too impressed. Gin quoted back some rule about being allowed to carry weapons if on an errand of religious importance which they were curious about. I never realised Gin knew so much about the law here? Rholor backed his story up and explained what we had been going through and that we were on our way to the temple of Selune. They seemed to buy it enough to escort us the way there at least.
The rest of our trip was pretty easy. With the guard escort, no-one stopped us anymore so we got to the temple pretty quickly. Rholor managed to prove who he was and the priests there were happy to turn us all back to normal for free! I think they are going to be asking him for favours in the future but that's something I guess he has to deal with now. Either way, it was good to be back to normal, besides my Grey hair of course.
With that resolved, Rholor took us the rest of the way to the Palace, where we were met by a guy called Eladrin, with blue skin and a crazy head dress with all these branches and icicles hanging from it. He didn’t approve of what we were wearing to see the Queen (he pointed out my torn clothes especially… I guess I can see his point), so asked us all to prepare ourselves. Each of us were shown to other rooms with servants and tailors on hand to make sure we were cleaned and had the clothes we wanted to make a formal appearance.
This was another new experience for me. The attendants asked me what I wanted and had to explain the situation to me a little before I could try experimenting a bit. I'm used to keeping things simple for myself. My clothes may be torn but they still function well enough… I got the hang of it in the end with a little help and had a lot of fun trying different ideas and clothes on before settling on an outfit. When we came out, I could see the others did too!
The Formal Attire
Milo had kept his Mythril chainmail armour as it was pretty shiny already. He did have some new, VERY shiny boots though. And he seemed to have put some wax or something in his beard and had it made into some pretty crazy style!
I made a quick sketch before we headed off to make sure I could remember it later! I doubt I will see him in the Forge like that later.
Horrus came out wearing a Formal black suit with a top hat and cane. He looked like some kind of official attending a fancy party, which, I suppose he was!
It was very different to what I've seen him in so far but it suited him in a weird way.
Rholor was still in his High Priest Garb he was wearing when we arrived, except both he and the robes just looked like they had been cleaned up a little.
Jacinta is much more reserved than us and had a much simpler outfit than the rest of us. Saying that, it still looked very elegant on her, wearing a patterned tunic, something like what I've seen some high elves wearing before. The one thing we did spot on her was her nails…. She had them painted but whatever they used was definitely magical, as they kept changing colours all night.!
Unsurprisingly, Ginead had gone all out for his choice. He opted to keep his chain mail on but this was now covered by a huge velvet green cloak with leaves embroidered into it around the bottom. A huge creamy coloured Ruff surrounded his neck, way bigger than it ever would need to be, trimmed in gold and on his head was a new helmet with vast branch like horns coming out from it (I think he just wanted to one up Eladrin with this). All this, finished off with a small domino mask over his eyes.
Even though he wasn’t allowed in, Gin also made the attendants give Stewart (Now also returned to normal thanks to the priests at the temple) a full makeover as well. He made a point of showing us during the after party, pointing out the braided mane and little flags he had hanging all over him. Stewart, for his part, just seemed to be happy eating.
Baine had kept his armour as well but it was now all polished and shiny. The words he has stitched into the leather had all been changed so it was now all sparkly as he walked, topped with a large fur lined cloak and his braids retied in swooping loops. It was way too warm for a fur lined cloak but he didn’t seem to care! Phil was now sporting a similar styled Sheath with more 'Power' words on it too, like 'cut' and 'sharp'.
For my part, Eladrin made it clear my current clothes were not suitable in the slightest. They tried throwing them out but I took them back before they could (rude).
Instead I had to go for a whole new outfit, one suitable for an audience with a noble. I think it must look good, Hoop gave a whistle when they saw it and Hoop's normally very to the point about what they see. I went for a black doublet with gold trimming and shiny brass buttons up the front, formal black trousers and some new elegant looking soft leather boots. I picked out a long black cape with a gold lining to go over the top and then, finally, finished off with a large white feather the attendant said would add some flair to the look. He attached to my Hip. Made it awkward to move my arm but it was fun to wear!
The Ceremony itself was actually very short. We all entered in a line, Gin demanding a little more space around him with his huge Ruff and antlers, with Rholor in the centre of us. The throne room was quite large and as we walked in, ahead of us was the throne and sitting there, looking just... impossibly regal was an Elven woman in a beautiful gown: Sarastra Aestruum, the Queen of Night and Magic. I've never been before royalty or nobles before so I'm not sure if the slight intimidation I was feeling was normal or not. She just had an aura about her, like anything she says or does is important and should be obeyed… probably not helped by the all the people around the room who seemed to adore her… I can't say I felt the same way but she definitely commanded everyone's attention. There was only one thing out of place here: Some smashed up wood in the corner. Not sure what it was, never got round to look at it but it was definitely out of place over there., compared to the immaculate look of the rest of the room.
The Queen gave a speech about how she was "destined to win" the games and through "sacred rites" would ascend Rholor for his help with the Hag we heard about before: Queen Granny Longtooth. Still didn’t hear much of what he actually did but he must've done something big to earn her favour like this. She formally pledges to ascend Rholor, who bows to the Queen and she in turn gave a tiny bow back. Everyone started clapping here, marking the end of the speech and we were free to enjoy the party.
The party after was pretty good. Not the loud affair we usually have at the Seashank but very polite and formal. If I'm honest, I felt pretty out of place here... The food was good and I looked the part I guess but it's very different to what I'm used to. Thankfully I had Hoop with me, they loved the party, so I spent most of the time showing them around and meeting people.
Everyone is usually interested in Hoop so made it easier to fit in.
After a couple hours, people start heading out so we decide it's probably about time we left too. Eladrin met us as we left, handing out small gifts for coming to the party: Small pouches containing a simple ring with the symbol of the Queen on and a small crystal that’s supposed to glow in the moonlight. Otherwise, he said we could keep our outfits too! He guides all to a teleportation ring, sending us straight to Daring again, marking the end of our trip. Rholor paid us each 150 gold for the trouble from his own pocket, all except Gin, who wanted it to go towards an Orphanage. He's a good guy.
Hoop seemed to really enjoy this trip. I'm guessing they haven't been to the Fey Wild before, they were interested in everything as much as I was! Wasn’t too happy about us being kids though... I think Baine was having a similar thing with Phil… thought I heard him say he didn’t mean to be a kid again! I returned the sword Hoop gave us for Milo while we travelled. It was funny to see everyone's face as I went into the room, they obviously wasn’t expecting Hoop to have that power. Baine is used to it by now of course. And of course, Hoop always loves a party….
The Pixie at the stall saw me putting the figure into Hoops room when I bought it and wanted to Buy Hoop from me again. That’s a few people now wanting to do that…. I can't sell Hoop. I promised we'd find their previous owner. I think it was Kresht? Hoop hasn’t mentioned them for a while now though... Besides, Hoop may be a plate, but they are alive. They have thoughts and ideas…. I wouldn't sell a person and to me I guess Hoop is a person in their own way. Truthfully, I can't imagine not having them around now…
This trip has really hit me. My brain is swimming with all this new information and the things I've seen…. The Fey Wild, The Amaranthine Games, The Queen & Jack…. I want to know more! Now I'm back in Port Ffirst, I'm hearing more and more people talk about these games... I think I want to be involved! It feels like something big is coming and I want to be part of it. I know Baine isn't keen on the Fey Wild or these games, but I think I'll go see if he wants to come along anyway. I'm sure I can convince him to come along... I'll leave it for now though. We've already been talking about going to some party in Daring in a few days time. It'll give me a chance to find out a little more about who's involved in the games as well.
I think I need some time to get my head straight anyway. Being a kid again is making me realise how much life has changed since I was a kid… And the Pixie wanting my memories has brought up a lot of things I hadn't really thought about since I left the Monastery. Especially Aila…. I still haven't met anyone like her…. I've been thinking about her ever since we got back... I wonder if she would even recognise me now?
6th Entry in the journal of Markas Virnala
To say the last couple of days for me have been the most eventful since coming to Kantas, would not do it justice…
It all started with us taking up another job, this time as bodyguards for a guy called Rholor. I've heard his name a few times around Daring heights and Port Ffirst. He's kind of a kooky character but then, most of the people I meet here are. Thinking on it, I guess I must look a bit strange to new people too, travelling and talking with Hoop… Just feels normal to me now.
Baine and Horrus had picked up this job too, and Milo! It's strange seeing him out of the Forge in Daring but apparently he adventures on the side too. I was excited to finally get to try out the new sword he made for us, especially if he was going to see it in action too! Shame I never got the chance…. We met 2x new faces this time:
Ginead the Green… or Binead the Beige? I'm sure he called himself Einead the Emerald at one point too…. Whatever colour he is, Gin was a huge human with a shaved head a massive beard (with bits of wood in it?) He always seemed to have a pipe in his mouth and was kind of mellow in how he acted…. A little like Rooster when he had that tobacco from New Hillborrow. Maybe Gin's been there too? He had a warhorse he travelled on while we went on foot, called Stewart (this is an important detail as you'll see later)
Then there was another Halfling with us, though not as surly as Bogg is! Jacinta (I've been calling her Jess) looked like a ranger and was a little short as Halflings go. It was funny to see Baine hoist her up on his shoulders with Bogg being gone…. I think he missed him. She's quite sensible compared to the rest of us but I can tell she is used to travelling out in the wilds.
I'm not sure what to think of Rholor. He's nice and kind and comes across as being very sagely and knowledgeable, but besides leading us on this trip, he didn’t really do much to help us along the way. Normally, given that we were hired to be bodyguards for him, this wouldn’t surprise me much, but I've heard a lot of talk about him to the contrary… He's the High Priest of the temple of Selune in Daring Heights. From what I've heard he founded the temple there, which has survived a war? He's supposedly done more than his fair share of adventuring too, to the point of being owed a favour by one of the Royals in the Fey wild. He, himself, said at one point he was: "the most powerful person in town". Maybe he is? There is definitely more to him than I've seen but, to be fair all I've really seen is a child…. (I'll get to that later)
When we got to the Temple of Selune, Rholor was stood behind an alter surrounded by all these books and scrolls. It was quite a simple looking place, sort of domed shaped with white walls and not much decoration inside, aside from a very complex map of all the moons phases on the floor and rows of pews for people to sit on. There was a large opening in the roof that let light in but I just keep wondering what they did when it rains? Anyway, he asked us to sit and I was expecting the normal religious advocate speech about the good word of Selune but then he seemed to change his mind and walked over to sit with us instead. It was like watching one of the trainers at home talking to the young initiates at the Monastery. Squatting around a camp fire trying to gain their trust by talking like them…. Not what I expected of a High priest. There was a weird religious gesture I saw him do once too. He brought both hands up and pointed one finger out with his thumbs straight up, giving them a little shake as he did…. Not sure what it's supposed to be though…. Maybe it’s a bit symbolism for Selune?
After our introductions, we find out why he needs bodyguards: The Fey Wild and The Amaranthine games, neither of which I'd heard about until now.
I asked what they were which…. Got me very conflicting answers, all at the same time:
Baine was dead against going (but still did). He was saying about these creatures that play pointless games and he had to kill people for no reason? Lots of tricks and being mean to people.... He said he'd been before and I guess he found the whole thing very stressful by the look of it.
Meanwhile, Gin was saying it was great! Full of games, rewards, lots of fun and 'like being in a painting'. Now I've been there I actually understand that last bit but he clearly had a different view on the place.
From what I could gather between their ramblings and Rholor's explanations, the Fey Wild is…. Like another Plane on top of ours? I've heard of some of the different Planes already, like the Plane of Air we were close to in Za'Suul but this one sits in the same place as the material Plane? It makes more sense in my head I guess… it's basically the land of magic. It's home to magical creatures like Satyrs, Elves and pixies. Knowing this didn’t really prepare me for what I saw going in but it was a good place to start I guess. The point of us being bodyguards was to protect Rholor as he made a pilgrimage to the Palace to meet Sarastra Aestruum, Queen of night and Magic.
Turns out there was a portal that would LITERALLY take him straight there but a big part of the tradition apparently was to make the journey itself. Anyway, the purpose of this pilgrimage was something called the Ascension…
Which brings us to the Amaranthine Games.
The games themselves are anything and everything. They generally come up like random events with competitive points being awarded somehow? These are run by the Lords and Ladies of the Fey Wild (like the Queen Rholor was going to see), every so often so they can compete for the glory and influence that being crowned winner bestows…. Only the nobility is allowed to compete though, taking up a seat in the games. They can, however, get whoever they want to help them along the way by doing…. Well, just about anything! Once it's all over and done, the winner is crowned and one of their prizes is being able to 'Ascend' someone up to the level of Nobility in the Fey Wild.
Rholor was picked by Queen Sarastra to be ascended after he 'played an integral part' in taking down a Hag for her, meaning she owed him a favour… if she wins the Games, he joins the Fey nobility.
I really need to find out more about Rholor at some point.
As for the Lords and Ladies of the Fey, Rholor said they can never Lie. They can of course be deceitful in other ways but never lie. The same can't be said for others in the Fey wild though and tricks and games were commonplace. This place sounded crazier than anywhere I have been yet and I couldn’t wait to go! Now I'm back, It IS crazier than any place I've ever been and I do Kind of want to go back.
ALL THIS IS BEFORE WE EVEN LEFT!!!!
We set off, south of Daring into the large forest there. We spend hours walking through dense forest, Rholor reading and trying to explain the Fey wild to me as we go. So far, this trip was seeming to be the peaceful excursion he was after at least. A few hours into the forest, Rholor says we will be reaching the Fey crossing soon. And we did:
What was a pleasant walk in a beautiful forest suddenly became…. Better? Everything suddenly started to be brighter, more colourful and vibrant. The leaves started to turn into golds and browns of Autumn with pink! Then we actually reach the crossing: A tree. Rholor just announces we are there, walks up to the tree and asks as to follow… as he walks around it and just vanishes!
This is where I understood what Gin meant about being in a painting…. Walking around the tree, we followed Rholor and everything just…. Got better again?
I thought the area was pretty nice to start with but as we approached the crossing, everything seemed to take on a fantastical and brilliant feeling. Rounding the tree I got that same feeling again, ON TOP of the first... I can't rightly explain it. The air tasted better, the light shining in the colourful leaves was dazzling…. By comparison, the forest we walked through felt like a room at the seashank! I could spend days here… I didn’t really get why Baine was looking so Tense. His mood in particular seemed to bottom out as we went over, while my own sense of wonder seemed to just boom. Rholor explained to us the emotions here are super heightened which explained that. For his part, he seemed unfazed…. I guess with everything he is supposed to have seen, this is pretty normal.
My own fascination aside, we carried on for a little while, passing a market close to the border (we didn’t stop though, Rholor wanted to press on) and after a few miles came to a large hill with these twisted trees on. Each one was bent over and twisted towards the next, creating a circle of archways on top of the hill. We climb up find an old Elf with a long beard waiting for us. Rholor seemed to know him but didn’t introduce us. The Elf used the staff he was leaning on to open a sort of portal in one of the arches, through which we could see towers of a city. He said that what we could see was Equinox, the city we were travelling to. Since we were supposed to be protecting Rholor on this trip, we had a bit of a debate about how to proceed but all ended up walking through first to make sure it was safe.
*This is where things started getting weird.
We stepped through and… fell? Only a foot or two… but I fell onto a wooden floor. I glanced around and saw I was now in a dark wooden room and everything felt wrong… I stood up and looked around and all my stuff was gone! Everyone was gone and instead I was surrounded by… really tall children…. 5 kids, looked maybe about 12 years old, wearing tattered old clothes and….
It's about here that I realised these 'kids' where actually the rest of our group. Mostly because the half-Orc kid was holding Baine's Sword Phil (which was just way too big for him) and the blue Dragonborn nearby. I saw the rough looking Kid that reminded me of Gin was standing with a small Pony… Stewart seemed to have come through and been turned as well…
Next there is a loud noise and another child fell through, this time backwards. Even as a child Rholor somehow managed to maintain that sagely look on his face. He said as we went through the portal, he thought something was wrong, he turned to the old Elf there and see it was actually someone else called Langston? Before he could do anything, he was blasted back through the portal and now was with us.
About now we finally noticed, across the room, sitting on a bench were 3 Goblins looking pretty neat as far as Goblins go, but each one had a malicious grin on their face as they watched us and talked among themselves. I didn’t catch everything they said but what I did hear was pretty clear. They set up the trap to turn people into children, then planned to sell them on some market. They tried coaxing us over as if we were kids, offering us a drink of something called a Capri-Moon but only seem to get annoyed when we told them to piss off (what did they expect, we aren't ACTUALLY children). That’s when they all stood up and came for us. Rholor reached for the large shield he had been carrying on his back to find it gone.... All of our stuff was gone, save for Phil and Hoop. He swiftly steps back, saying something about hiring us for this, just as the Goblins tried grabbing at Baine, Gin and Jess.
I have spent years training and perfecting my fighting style before leaving the monastery and I've kept that up even while I've been travelling and adventuring. I know the moves and stances backwards. The child version of me, in that room, knew all the same things…. But didn’t have the years of muscle memory and development I've actually had. Everyone else seemed to be having similar issues, making this fight much harder than I expected.
The Goblins managed grab hold of Baine and Jess, only just missing Gin. While he was being dragged away, Baine managed to flip Phil over his shoulder cutting deep into the Goblin, killing it instantly. Gin rushed to help Jess who just managed to kick herself free, just as Milo charges across the room and head-butt's him, making its nose explode in a cloud of blood! Seeing them surround him, I chased after the one who tried grabbing Ginead and fumbled my stance, barely managing to connect. Luckily I didn’t really, otherwise I might have still been stood there as a flash of lighting went past me from Horrus, hitting both of the remaining Goblins. Even as a kid that breath attack is impressive!
I was close enough this time to feel the hair on my arms tingle.
By now they looked pretty annoyed. I don’t think they expected so much trouble from a bunch of kids…
They managed to grab the Phil from Baine while the other hits Horrus with hilt of his sword, sending him reeling back. Baine tried to get Phil back but couldn’t reach it in time. By now the Goblin had clearly met Phil and he was seeming to glance around him looking for something… Guess that means Baine can hear Phil as well and it's not just him talking to his sword.... Definitely lends some precedence to those rages he goes into anyway.
Maybe Gin is right and it is a cursed sword?
The next thing I see is Gin rushing past me on baby Stewart. He'd ran back, mounted up and went into a full on charge, trampling the Goblin that grabbed Jess into the ground. Seeing one left, Jess and Milo rushed him, trying to grab hold of him but he broke away, stepping straight towards me! Taking a little more time to think this one through, I stepped in and brought one hand up in an uppercut before side stepping, twist and bringing my elbow back into the Goblins temple, sending him to the floor.
We won.
When the dust settled, Baine went into a Tirade, saying "This is why I don’t like the Fey Wild" over and over. I was not relishing being a kid again and if these were the tricks he was talking about before, I can see why he doesn't like the place. We spent a little time in the room taking stock of what we had. The portal was closed and Rholor seemed unable to open it back up, his magic being stripped away from him. Milo tried repairing my tattered clothes (the original clothing of all of us for some reason?) but couldn’t use his powers either, leaving us as a bunch of children and a Pony.
As for Langston, seems he has been a problem like this for a while... No-one has been able to stop him so far though.
Gin, Jess and Horrus took up the swords the Goblins dropped. Baine had recovered Phil by now and was talking to it about being a kid… Leaving me and Milo with no weapons. Rholor tried giving us a pep talk but I feel he lost a lot of the impact telling it as child. Before leaving, I asked Hoop, who was equally not impressed we were children, if we could borrow something from the room. It took some convincing but they popped out a glass-like short sword with a faint purple glow for Milo to use if he needed, before we walked out of the wooden shack we were in. For my part, I trained without weapons most of my life, so opted to just carry on that way.
What we saw needed some explanation from Rholor…
Equinox is, in fact a beautiful city of soaring towers capped with large crystal-like caps, casting different colours across everything below them. The centre seems to be where the Palace is, a vast delicate crystalline structure, nearly glowing in the light of what seems to be an eternal sunset in the Fey Wild? And the moon is HUGE here!
Around the Palace is the inner city, where the exquisite towers of buildings soar into the sky and are connected by ornate bridges. Heading further out into the outer city, the towers become simpler and shorter but, more notably, have rough wooden shacks built directly on top of them, just like the one we had left. What was most striking about the place for us, however, was the fact the entire place was under water.
This is where Rholor's explanation helped. The city is built on an island and it appears we have arrived at high tide. .. But not tide as in how normal tides work at the coast. Here, the island itself periodically sinks and rises in the water. The reason for the tall towers and wooden shacks is the fact people literally have to move upwards every few months as the island sinks, moving back down again when it rises, relying on boats and floating platforms to get around during high tide. The only exception to this is the Royal Palace which floats on the water during high tide. The water itself is very still and clear. We could see all the way down to the base of the towers and the paved streets now submerged.
This was possibly one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen, even the notably poorer areas of town looked incredible, but WHY would you ever build it on an islands that constantly keeps sinking!?
So there we were, 7 children, armed to the teeth, stood on a wooden platform balancing on a tower that’s mostly underwater. With a pony.
From our vantage point, Rholor could roughly work out where we needed to go. The plan was to find the Temple of Selune here and have them try to reverse our…. Condition? Luckily it looked like the Goblins had a small raft tied up a few levels down from where we were at the water level so we had our transportation. It took some goading but Gin managed to coax the Pony (now dubbed Hormonal Stewart) onto the raft. I'm not sure how exactly the whole thing didn’t capsize but then I don’t seem to understand much of what goes on in the Fey Wild yet.
We spend a while navigating the maze of towers trying to get towards the inner city, passing other elves and magical creatures in boats or flying around the cities towers as we go, occassionaly being blocked by rickety wooden bridges and floating piers between the towers. We started to notice the concerned looks we were getting which, thinking back makes sense. I'm sure I'd look twice at a raft manned by sword wielding children. We did actually come across another child manned craft at one point though. They were sailing around in a Giant Boot!
I was sure we would end up fighting a bunch of children here... They started sailing towards us waving their makeshift weapons around asking what we were doing on their turf. Luckily Gin convinced them we were sick, while Baine pretended to cough a lot. I was so convinced we were going to fight I nearly give it away! But luckily Gin was pretty convincing and they quickly left us alone.
Never thought this would be my first encounter with pirates (More or less)
Eventually we reached a point where we just couldn’t carry on by raft, being blocked by too many towers, platforms and bridges. We jumped off at a busy area with a market nearby and a lot of commotion going on. This is more like a city I could recognise. The smell of cooking, people shopping, music playing in the streets. While Rholor took stock of where we were and where we needed to go, a few of us had a look at the nearby stalls. Ginead tried to get some info from a Satyr nearby, speaking a weird language I've never heard before but came back disappointed, saying they kept asking him where his parents were… Trying to do things as a child is much harder than we expected…
I found a stall selling lots of crystal figures and odd Knick-Knacks and decided to see about getting one... of course since all of our equipment was gone I had no money though. It was as we were looking we realised they don’t seem to trade in gold here but weird concepts like
: 'a week's worth of tears'. There were a lot of different things, especially figures of the Night Queen but there was one that caught my eye, tucked away at the back:
A crystal figure of some kind of creature with six tentacles ending in eyes, but the body seemed like it was made of small pieces of something? Carved into Crystal it gave a very weird effect... The crystal itself was a weird mix of blues and blacks with flecks of Gold through it. When I asked about it, the Pixie manning the stall gave me the same treatment that Gin got: "Did your parents say you could be here?". Learning from Gin's attempt, I told him my parents didn't say I couldn’t be there (technically true, my mum didn’t… she probably would have though…). He seemed to like that response and told me about the figure: Jack
Jack, the Knave is supposed to be the Queen of Night & Magic's Fool. From what I could gather, only the nobles like The Queen of Night can have a seat in the Games going on, but Jack has somehow managed to get his way in. Apparently the Queen and nobles gave him an honorary seat in the nobility as a joke and he is exploiting the rules to take part in the games and become a noble himself through the Ascension if he wins.
Regardless, Hoop seemed to like the Figure as well so I asked how much for it, seen as money wasn’t going to be an issue here. The Pixie gave me an odd look and gave me 2x options:
- My happiest memory
- The Colour of my hair
I could see Rholor eyeing what I was up to but he didn’t seem about to intervene so it couldn't have been too bad I thought…. I asked the Pixie how it would work exactly. The memory or the colour would be gone for good. I would still have other happy memories or keep my hair but my happiest would be gone for good, as would the colour?
I thought about it for a bit... And have been still since we got back. I have a lot of happy memories. I was picked on a lot in the village but Mum was always there to look after me… I was scared when she took me to the Monastery at first but I fit in pretty quick. Life there could be hard but it was always good…. All the times Hugo, Aila and me trained together. The tricks we played on Kiirion when was trying to be strict with us. Eating the cakes my mum used to bring that we'd sneak in…. Sneaking out with Aila for the festival…. That was what made up my mind. I have so many happy memories, but I don’t think I could give those up so easily…. I agreed he could take the colour of my hair.
The Pixie pulled a wand out of his leather jacket with a small bottle on the end, tapped me on the head, giving me a tingly feeling…. The bottle filled up and the colour from my hair faded to grey. It's a very weird feeling seeing my reflection now... I almost don't recognise the face looking back at me. The dark brown hair my mum gave me is gone. But It's ok! Baine called me a Silver Fox and Hoop was pleased with the new gift. It'll take some getting used to though.
About this time, the parade in the distance where all the music was coming from had caught up to us. The procession was led by a few Priests and being followed by a huge crowd, all dancing and playing music. Everyone had these colourful robes like they had been dipped in dyes with crazy patterns. The music was just intoxicating…. A little too much for Baine and Jess as they get completely carried away and joined the parade! Rholor just tells us to get them back while he asks for directions but Baine and Jess were just too into the music to care. about what we had to say.
So we did the only thing we could do.
We joined in
They weren't listening to us, they just wanted to party. Obviously the music had some kind of effect on them, so I thought maybe we could get them to just party with us? Then Gin suggested we Conga, so we formed a line, Gin riding Stewart at the lead and start dancing, calling Baine and Jess over. They bought it came along….. Along with EVERYONE in the parade! We diverted the entire parade away from where it was going in a giant Conga Line along the floating piers and submerged rooftops of Equinox. Rholor looked a little distressed seeing us coming at him like that at first but he joined in too, not that he had much choice by now.
We get to the gate separating the inner and Outer districts. Over the music, Rholor was telling us we needed to find a way past the guards but, as we approached, we could see a strange expression come over them…. Then they joined our Conga line too! And we danced our way right through into the inner district.
That's how 7 kids used a dance party to breach security at the City of Equinox.
I heard a few of the guards at the party later talking about it. They've never had an incident like it before and there was a fuss from their captain about how it had happened but it looked like they didn’t know it was us…. We got away with that at least.
Once through, we broke off from the Conga line, which carried on working its way through the inner City. Jess seemed to have snapped out of it now and was with us but Baine….. Baine was lost in the music for a while yet. He eventually came round and sulked back over to us.
The trip this side of the wall was a little different to the outer district. Out there, aside from the Boot Pirates, everyone generally gave us a wide berth. Here though they came up to us a little more freely, asking why we were there and, again, where were our parents….We were getting pretty tired of this by now and it was getting hard to keep making excuses for the weapons. Jess managed to convince a few that we were performers though which helped for a while. Until we were stopped by some patrolling guards. Again, children with weapons…
They weren't buying the performance story though. Quoted some law to us about children not being permitted to run with weapons. I pointed out we weren't running but they didn’t seem too impressed. Gin quoted back some rule about being allowed to carry weapons if on an errand of religious importance which they were curious about. I never realised Gin knew so much about the law here? Rholor backed his story up and explained what we had been going through and that we were on our way to the temple of Selune. They seemed to buy it enough to escort us the way there at least.
The rest of our trip was pretty easy. With the guard escort, no-one stopped us anymore so we got to the temple pretty quickly. Rholor managed to prove who he was and the priests there were happy to turn us all back to normal for free! I think they are going to be asking him for favours in the future but that's something I guess he has to deal with now. Either way, it was good to be back to normal, besides my Grey hair of course.
With that resolved, Rholor took us the rest of the way to the Palace, where we were met by a guy called Eladrin, with blue skin and a crazy head dress with all these branches and icicles hanging from it. He didn’t approve of what we were wearing to see the Queen (he pointed out my torn clothes especially… I guess I can see his point), so asked us all to prepare ourselves. Each of us were shown to other rooms with servants and tailors on hand to make sure we were cleaned and had the clothes we wanted to make a formal appearance.
This was another new experience for me. The attendants asked me what I wanted and had to explain the situation to me a little before I could try experimenting a bit. I'm used to keeping things simple for myself. My clothes may be torn but they still function well enough… I got the hang of it in the end with a little help and had a lot of fun trying different ideas and clothes on before settling on an outfit. When we came out, I could see the others did too!
The Formal Attire
Milo had kept his Mythril chainmail armour as it was pretty shiny already. He did have some new, VERY shiny boots though. And he seemed to have put some wax or something in his beard and had it made into some pretty crazy style!
I made a quick sketch before we headed off to make sure I could remember it later! I doubt I will see him in the Forge like that later.
Horrus came out wearing a Formal black suit with a top hat and cane. He looked like some kind of official attending a fancy party, which, I suppose he was!
It was very different to what I've seen him in so far but it suited him in a weird way.
Rholor was still in his High Priest Garb he was wearing when we arrived, except both he and the robes just looked like they had been cleaned up a little.
Jacinta is much more reserved than us and had a much simpler outfit than the rest of us. Saying that, it still looked very elegant on her, wearing a patterned tunic, something like what I've seen some high elves wearing before. The one thing we did spot on her was her nails…. She had them painted but whatever they used was definitely magical, as they kept changing colours all night.!
Unsurprisingly, Ginead had gone all out for his choice. He opted to keep his chain mail on but this was now covered by a huge velvet green cloak with leaves embroidered into it around the bottom. A huge creamy coloured Ruff surrounded his neck, way bigger than it ever would need to be, trimmed in gold and on his head was a new helmet with vast branch like horns coming out from it (I think he just wanted to one up Eladrin with this). All this, finished off with a small domino mask over his eyes.
Even though he wasn’t allowed in, Gin also made the attendants give Stewart (Now also returned to normal thanks to the priests at the temple) a full makeover as well. He made a point of showing us during the after party, pointing out the braided mane and little flags he had hanging all over him. Stewart, for his part, just seemed to be happy eating.
Baine had kept his armour as well but it was now all polished and shiny. The words he has stitched into the leather had all been changed so it was now all sparkly as he walked, topped with a large fur lined cloak and his braids retied in swooping loops. It was way too warm for a fur lined cloak but he didn’t seem to care! Phil was now sporting a similar styled Sheath with more 'Power' words on it too, like 'cut' and 'sharp'.
For my part, Eladrin made it clear my current clothes were not suitable in the slightest. They tried throwing them out but I took them back before they could (rude).
Instead I had to go for a whole new outfit, one suitable for an audience with a noble. I think it must look good, Hoop gave a whistle when they saw it and Hoop's normally very to the point about what they see. I went for a black doublet with gold trimming and shiny brass buttons up the front, formal black trousers and some new elegant looking soft leather boots. I picked out a long black cape with a gold lining to go over the top and then, finally, finished off with a large white feather the attendant said would add some flair to the look. He attached to my Hip. Made it awkward to move my arm but it was fun to wear!
The Ceremony itself was actually very short. We all entered in a line, Gin demanding a little more space around him with his huge Ruff and antlers, with Rholor in the centre of us. The throne room was quite large and as we walked in, ahead of us was the throne and sitting there, looking just... impossibly regal was an Elven woman in a beautiful gown: Sarastra Aestruum, the Queen of Night and Magic. I've never been before royalty or nobles before so I'm not sure if the slight intimidation I was feeling was normal or not. She just had an aura about her, like anything she says or does is important and should be obeyed… probably not helped by the all the people around the room who seemed to adore her… I can't say I felt the same way but she definitely commanded everyone's attention. There was only one thing out of place here: Some smashed up wood in the corner. Not sure what it was, never got round to look at it but it was definitely out of place over there., compared to the immaculate look of the rest of the room.
The Queen gave a speech about how she was "destined to win" the games and through "sacred rites" would ascend Rholor for his help with the Hag we heard about before: Queen Granny Longtooth. Still didn’t hear much of what he actually did but he must've done something big to earn her favour like this. She formally pledges to ascend Rholor, who bows to the Queen and she in turn gave a tiny bow back. Everyone started clapping here, marking the end of the speech and we were free to enjoy the party.
The party after was pretty good. Not the loud affair we usually have at the Seashank but very polite and formal. If I'm honest, I felt pretty out of place here... The food was good and I looked the part I guess but it's very different to what I'm used to. Thankfully I had Hoop with me, they loved the party, so I spent most of the time showing them around and meeting people.
Everyone is usually interested in Hoop so made it easier to fit in.
After a couple hours, people start heading out so we decide it's probably about time we left too. Eladrin met us as we left, handing out small gifts for coming to the party: Small pouches containing a simple ring with the symbol of the Queen on and a small crystal that’s supposed to glow in the moonlight. Otherwise, he said we could keep our outfits too! He guides all to a teleportation ring, sending us straight to Daring again, marking the end of our trip. Rholor paid us each 150 gold for the trouble from his own pocket, all except Gin, who wanted it to go towards an Orphanage. He's a good guy.
Hoop seemed to really enjoy this trip. I'm guessing they haven't been to the Fey Wild before, they were interested in everything as much as I was! Wasn’t too happy about us being kids though... I think Baine was having a similar thing with Phil… thought I heard him say he didn’t mean to be a kid again! I returned the sword Hoop gave us for Milo while we travelled. It was funny to see everyone's face as I went into the room, they obviously wasn’t expecting Hoop to have that power. Baine is used to it by now of course. And of course, Hoop always loves a party….
The Pixie at the stall saw me putting the figure into Hoops room when I bought it and wanted to Buy Hoop from me again. That’s a few people now wanting to do that…. I can't sell Hoop. I promised we'd find their previous owner. I think it was Kresht? Hoop hasn’t mentioned them for a while now though... Besides, Hoop may be a plate, but they are alive. They have thoughts and ideas…. I wouldn't sell a person and to me I guess Hoop is a person in their own way. Truthfully, I can't imagine not having them around now…
This trip has really hit me. My brain is swimming with all this new information and the things I've seen…. The Fey Wild, The Amaranthine Games, The Queen & Jack…. I want to know more! Now I'm back in Port Ffirst, I'm hearing more and more people talk about these games... I think I want to be involved! It feels like something big is coming and I want to be part of it. I know Baine isn't keen on the Fey Wild or these games, but I think I'll go see if he wants to come along anyway. I'm sure I can convince him to come along... I'll leave it for now though. We've already been talking about going to some party in Daring in a few days time. It'll give me a chance to find out a little more about who's involved in the games as well.
I think I need some time to get my head straight anyway. Being a kid again is making me realise how much life has changed since I was a kid… And the Pixie wanting my memories has brought up a lot of things I hadn't really thought about since I left the Monastery. Especially Aila…. I still haven't met anyone like her…. I've been thinking about her ever since we got back... I wonder if she would even recognise me now?
