1. Journals

Chapter 18: The Festival of the Sun

Chapter
Campaign One 2022-02-25

The Day Before the Festival of the Sun

Granny and Willowbark wake up in the grass fields outside of the forest, being awoken by the rising sun that illuminates the sky. Remembering her dream, she gets a worried feeling, thinking that her tribe might be in imminent peril from the unknown woman she saw. She walks over to Granny when she sees she’s also awake, and shares her worries with her, telling her that she feels that her tribe might be in danger. Granny replies that she should follow her feelings, sensing that the dreams might be more than just worries, and that they should speak to the rest of the group about it. Willowbark says that she now has money to pay Kal, if she requires it to aid her, but Granny tells her that she will come around and be there for her when she needs her.

Theren, having slept in the ring for the whole duration, wakes up when he falls onto the floor. As it is quite uncomfortable compared to the fantastic pillows within the ring, he gets on his feet, and sees Demetrius sleeping heavily in the bed next to him. Not wanting to wake him yet, he quietly makes his way downstairs to the tavern. Kal, after having dreamed, rises, having gotten a long rest, but not feeling well rested by the experience, gathers her things, and heads downstairs, thoroughly annoyed by her god. She heads outside, sees that even more people have arrived and begun setting up tents and preparing for the stalls, and makes a campfire in order to prepare breakfast.

Penny suddenly wakes up from her dream, although one could almost call it a nightmare. She feels exhausted, but more powerful at the same time, sensing that she was somehow granted powers she didn’t think she could achieve. She feels awful, and lethargic by the dream, and drags her feet as she descends the stairs to find the others.

Sitting around the campfire eating breakfast, Willowbark explains her dream to Kal, and asks if she would be willing to come with her to her forest or to look for a way to fix the corruption, offering her all her money if she requires it. Kal apologizes to Willowbark for her comments earlier, pointing out that they were already hired by Gundren at that time, but now that they have finished that quest, she’s more than willing to come along, and no, she won’t take payment. They are closer than that now. 

Kal suggests that they should find a library or some other place with a wealth of information, in order to see if anyone else has some pointers on what to do with the forest. They figure that the best bet would be to check out the libraries here in Moroxia, considering this is where the corruption has been spotted. Theren mentions the library in Edhellond, saying that is mostly for study and magic, so one place could be Elvenroth, which is on the way to Ravenforge, where they have already been advised to go.

When Penny eventually joins the party, she looks extremely pale, with deep dark rings around her eyes, and the others look at her, worried. Hearing this, Penny tells them that she slept poorly last night, and that she just needs rest. Kal casts a spell to see if she is under the influence of a spell or has a disease, but she finds nothing. Hoping to help her, Kal gives her a bowl of stew, in case it helps.

Killing Time

After he has eaten, Theren says he’s going to walk around looking at the preparations. He heads into the streets, and walks towards Unknown on the northside of town, asking if they have any rooms available for the next night, but finds that due to the impending festivities, the inn is fully booked, but there might be vacancies tomorrow after the festival is done and people start heading home, and offers to reserve a room for him should he wish. Theren tells the innkeeper to hold off, but thanks him for the help. 

Wandering back south, he looks around and spots the elderly woman he fought the day before, sitting at a table next to The Feylocker. He passes by her, giving her a look, which she recognizes and quickly excuses herself to go join Theren at another table. As she sits down she remarks that he looks better than he did the day before, with him not responding. 

He tells the woman that he wants her to deliver a letter to Delphine. Opening the letter she tells him that Delphine has been waiting to hear word from him. They talk a little about what his mission is, and reminds him where his loyalties should lie, and that he should give them whatever he finds on his way that might be of interest, like for instance whatever they found in the cave, indicating she doesn’t know exactly what they retrieved. The lady then shows her annoyance at Delphine’s fondness of Theren, not seeing what is so special about him, but he just ignores it, and goes on to tell her that he is investigating a possible threat in the forest, telling her about the corruption. She says she will ask around, and come back to him, before wishing him happy festivities, and leaving. 

After breakfast, Willowbark goes to sit next to the forest, hoping to see a sign or anything that can give her a path to head towards, but as she sits there, nothing that she recognizes as a sign reveals itself. But she cannot shake the feeling of being watched. But looking into the forest she sees only the darkness within, not seeing anything looking back at her.

Granny heads to the Curious Forge, in hopes of crafting the shield of her dreams, and spends the rest of the day there, being guided by Bamin on how to do it properly. She has had an idea of crafting a shield with a quick release, making it easy to take it off and on, as that could make the difference in combat. He thinks it an excellent idea, and provides the necessary buckles for her to achieve the effect. After working there for the rest of the day, she has a beautiful functioning quick-release shield that she is quite proud of. Bamin congratulates her on the work, and asks if he can use the design in his own products. Granny thinks about it, and asks if she can use his forge whenever she needs, but this is too much of an ask, so they don’t come to an agreement, but part on very friendly terms.

Kal goes around town looking for anything that the party might have use of, and comes across a diamond looking through Aerolla’s stock in the Feylocker, worth around 100 gp. She decides to purchase it, as it could always come in handy. As she returns to the inn, she and Demetrius have a talk about their past, when Demetrius asks Kal if she’s ever been a mercenary. She says she hasn’t, but she has killed quite a few people. Demetrius says that his past isn’t exactly spotless either, but they work with what they have. As they talk, they pass the time playing dice. 

While Penny wanders the streets to look at the preparations, she finds herself in the fields to the west, where the big tent and arena is being prepared. Further to the south, she spots a rather peculiar monument. A large dragon skull, perched on top of a standing stone. She comes closer, and examines it, finding it quite beautiful, but unsure what it means. She stops one of the locals working on the arena, asking what it represents, and they tell her that it was from a dragon that attacked the village about a hundred years ago, that the townsfolk managed to slay themselves. They supposedly ate most of the dragon in a big feast celebrating their accomplishment, and preserved the skull to commemorate the achievement. He is unsure about what the color of it was, but it definitely came from the west.

When Penny returns to the others, she tells them about the dragon, and the history, surprising the others, as defeating a dragon is no small feat. They ask if she knows what color it was, but she says the guy he talked to didn’t know. A passerby shouts out “it was red!” before moving on.  Penny finds the story fascinating, and so decides to write a song about it using what she knows. As night comes, Willowbark and Granny return to the campfire, with them all talking about their day and looking forward to the festivities in the morning.

The Festival of the Sun

The day of the celebrations has finally arrived, and Penny is up way earlier than the others for once, wanting to get as much out of the day as she can. Walking to the mirror, she realizes that she still looks as grim as the day before, so she puts on some makeup to cover it up to the best of her ability, finishing it off with a sun painted on each of her cheek. When she and Granny meet up, she decorates her shell with a big yellow sun, and Kal cannot escape having her cheek painted as well. The group decides to wander around and try everything that is available to try, in order to really let off some steam. There are booths and stalls all up and down the main street filled with food, candies, drinks and other fun items for sale.

Walking towards the large tent, they see that there is a chicken catching competition, which Willowbark decides to join. When applying, she realizes that the man holding the competition is the farmer whose field she has been using as a bed. He recognizes her, gives her the stink eye, but allows her to play, figuring it’s a special occasion. Using her advantage of being a firbolg who can talk to animals, she easily manages to convince the chicken to come to her, as she doesn’t want to harm it, just hold it for a bit. The chicken walks over to her, allowing her to easily win. The farmer looks flabbergasted at how easy she made it look, but tells her that she can either keep the chicken or she can give it back and he will make her a meal from it. Shocked, she decides to keep it, and lovingly names it Corn, after first suggesting Udall, but changed her mind when Kal pointed out that it probably will attract lightning better than a lightning rod if she did.

Continuing onwards, they decide to indulge in the various foods and drinks the festival is selling. Looking around they see cotton candy, candy apples, popcorn and a weird looking sandwich made with peanut butter and marshmallows. Penny buys said sandwich, and finds it’s called a “fluffernutter”, and it tastes delicious. Granny sees that the arena that was being set up is used to show some plays, but later it will host a fighting tournament, where no magic is allowed. She decides to sign up, thinking it could be a fun exercise, and maybe she can get some coin out of it.

Reading the Future

Penny spots a tent with some weird looking signs in front of it. Granny helps her read what it says, telling her it’s a fortune teller. Penny thinks that’s awesome, and so wants to have her future read. The rest of the party is a little bit reluctant, saying that it might be dangerous, and that she should be careful. Penny thinks to herself that if it was dangerous they wouldn’t allow her to be here.

When she enters the tent, she is greeted by an old lady sitting behind a small table with a crystal ball in front of it. The rest of the party follows her, not wanting to leave her out of their sight. The old lady asks for Penny’s hand as she sits down, and closes her eyes. She tells her that she is riddled with bad luck and then reveals to Penny that she is from a small little island down south. She also tells Penny that she stands alone, but Penny is unsure what to make of that, and considering she is not from a small island, she realizes that the woman might be a fraud.

Willowbark wants to get a reading as well, and so sits down after Penny. The woman takes Willowbark’s hand, and focuses for a long time. She tells her that she is searching for something, and that her answer lies to the north, but doesn’t elaborate further. Willowbark replies to each thing the woman says with great enthusiasm, and thanks her for the great reading, thinking it was quite useful.

Kal reluctantly agrees to have her future read. Penny, disappointed that the woman didn’t read her future properly walks outside, casts detect thoughts, and then walks back in. When Kal sits down, the woman suddenly grows a concerned look on her face, and twitches back and forth as she is holding Kal’s hand. Penny, reading her mind, can sense that something weird is happening, almost as if another soul is making contact. The woman then, in what sounds like a different voice, tells Kal what she can hear.

“Why did you kill me? Why why why why did you do it? She killed me!”

Kal immediately pulls her hand back to herself, and has a very shocked and concerned look on her face, and quickly leaves the tent. Demetrius, not reading the room, sits down to have his fortune read. She tells her that he must beware, because one of his friends will betray him within the next two weeks. Penny, who is still reading thoughts, notices that she didn’t get a vision from Demetrius, and decided to make something up, and calls her out on it.

The seer then rises out of her chair, and scolds Penny for her insolence, and casts a spell at Penny, putting her hand into her pouch, and throws some red powder at her. Granny tries to block it with her shield, and gets most of it, but it seems the spell still went through. Suddenly, the tent, the lady and everything within the tent starts darkening, before disappearing without a trace, and the party that was inside is suddenly standing in the empty plot. A red haired woman comes running over.

“Oh no, did you insult her? I was hoping she would last the whole day this year…”

She looks at the party, shakes her head, and returns to watching over the festivities, clearly a person in charge somehow. Noticing that the crowd is staring at them, they decide to quickly move on to other activities.

The party spends much of the day enjoying whatever the festival has to offer. Penny tries to join a pie-eating contest held by Geoffrey, the innkeeper of the Golden Goat Inn, but her small figure is no match against the bigger contestant, so she lasts a couple of rounds before everything comes barfing out again, much to the laughs and disgust of the onlookers. Penny just laughs it off, having had a good time regardless. Granny, Willowbark and Demetrius all join an archery contest, but only Granny is able to move on, thanks to her experience with a longbow. It’s a close match, but Granny manages to beat out the rest of the contestants, barely, and wins an efficient quiver, to hold all her arrows in.

Old Acquaintances

While watching Granny win the archery contest, Willowbark suddenly notices a familiar face in the crowd, spotting a half-elven woman in the crowd. Their eyes meet, and the woman comes walking straight over to her and smiles, saying “Nice to see you again, Thana!”. The rest of the party present looks at Willowbark, to the woman, and then back at Willowbark. She replies to the woman “nice to see you too, Cora”. Cora explains that “Thana” traveled with her group for a short while, but when Willowbark wanted to waste her time to help someone they didn’t see the point of helping, they parted ways. Cora says it must be a couple of months since they last saw each other or so.

Penny, being a good friend to Willowbark, tries to convince Cora that their group have already been on grand adventures and vanquished many dangerous foes, but Cora seems unimpressed, asking “Thana” how she has been. The party remembers that Willowbark gave the same name when talking to the raven in the woods, and realizes that she must have changed her name fairly recently. As they’re catching up, another individual suddenly shows up, and elderly man with gray hair greets Willowbark, seemingly genuinely happy to see her. She greets him as Claudius.

Willowbark asks them what they’ve been up to since they last saw each other, with Claudius telling her that they had to come back to kill an owlbear that Willowbark apparently refused to kill. He goes on to explain to the party that they had been tasked with taking out a dangerous owlbear that had attacked and killed several people, but Willowbark tried to convince it to leave and go someplace else, so that it could live. Apparently it attacked a farm, so their group was tasked to kill it once and for all, which they did. Willowbark is taken aback by the reveal, feeling very saddened by what happened.

Penny tries to shoot in with some snide remarks to Claudius and Cora, but as the words leave her mouth, she gets a great pain in her head. Cora, laughing at her insults, sarcastically tells the party she wishes them luck and that she hopes to see them in the future. As she walks away, Penny tries to cast an illusion spell at Cora, but the headache gets worse when she does.

As the party watches the duo walk away, the music of the festival abruptly stops, and people hurry together, starting a great dance, as the music begins building up again. The group joins in with the locals, some unsure about what is happening, but soon the whole town is dancing in circles. Suddenly, at the zenith, the sun gives off a short flare. It only lasts for a moment, but it triggers cheers and celebrations from the crowd, who then continues with what they were doing. 

Willowbark remarks that “Baskar is strong today”, prompting the group to ask who that is, and so she explains that he is the spirit of the sun. The party looks at her, puzzled, as this is not the common name for Ilene, the goddess of the sun and the moon, but the party has realized by now that Willowbark and her tribe doesn’t really follow the same gods as the rest of the world, thinking nothing more of it, Theren and Penny decides to check out if Aerolla has any good deals today in the Feylocker.

As they walk in, they are greeted by the elf, who by all accounts, looks a lot better. Much more natural, and not as “picture perfect” as she was before. When she realizes who they are, she thanks Theren profusely for buying the Deck of Certain Things, hoping it hasn’t brought him too much trouble. Penny thanks her in return for the coffee pot, saying they have gotten quite a lot of use out of it already, and compliments its delicious brew.

Theren looks around, and sees that they are running a promotion today only, with discounted spell scrolls available. Looking through the pile, he finds some useful spells that might come in handy, but decides to buy the alarm spell, as it would alert them to danger if someone sneaks up on them. The duo returns to the rest of the party as the fighting tournament is about to begin, with Aerolla thanking them for their patronage.

The Tournament 

Granny sits with her friends as the redheaded woman they saw before takes the stage. She introduces herself to the crowd as Avelina, the town sheriff, and tells them all about the rules of the tournament, reminding them all that magic and spells are disallowed, and will grant the culprit an immediate disqualification. She goes on to say that she “doesn’t want a repeat of what happened last year” to the laughter of some of the townsfolk. 

Avelina begins by drawing the names of who will fight who. As the entry fee was quite steep, there aren’t that many contestants, but some look more dangerous than the others. Willowbark sees that Cora and Claudius have joined up with the rest of their group, and the rest of the party notices a blonde, smug looking man. When asked who that is, Willowbark simply replies “That’s Rowan”. 

The order is revealed, and Granny is paired up against a dwarf named Bolhild. The first fight to take place is between a human named Lewis, a middle aged balding man wielding a crude looking axe, and Goroth, a muscular half-orc who has at least a foot on Lewis.  The fighters take the stage, and shake hands, before Avelina blows her whistle, starting the battle. Goroth wins easily, striking Lewis right in the face with his hammer, causing him to topple off the stage right into the crowd. 

Goroth gestures from the stage triumphantly, while Lewis lays on the ground, tears falling from his eyes, and punching the ground. Penny overhears him mumbling to himself “stupid stupid stupid! Saved up the whole year, and knocked out in the first round. What will she think of me?”. Penny takes pity on the man, and helps him up, giving him a hug while saying it will be okay. She gives him a gold, which helps a little, but he still seems to be taking the loss quite badly. The last they see of it is him walking away from the jeering crowd. 

Next up, it’s Granny versus Bolhild. They take the stage, with Bolhild wishing her a good fight, before putting on her helmet, preparing to fight the elderly tortle, clearly underestimating her based on her demeanor. Granny surprises everyone and, like an unstoppable force, makes quick work of the dwarf, winning her bout, before joining her party members to the cheers of the crowd.

There are a few more fights, but one that draws the crowds attention is that of Rowan, fighting a local man with a shortsword and a makeshift shield. Rowan, wearing a platemail that looks unused, indicating that he never fights or never gets hit, and wielding a greatsword. He easily steps away from his opponent, dodging every attack with ease, before finishing off the man by making a single strike, slicing open his stomach. He starts walking away as soon as the blow has been dealt, walking off the stage as clerics run up to save the man. Rowan sits down to the cheer of the crowd, looking smug.

Now it’s Granny’s turn to face Goroth, and if she wins this, she will be in the finale. She takes the stage, but the half-orc looks at her and tells her “I’m gonna END you”, while barely bothering to shake her hand. Granny thinks to herself that he seems to be quite the overconfident opponent, and wants to take him down a peg. Goroth is a fierce fighter, who deals several blows towards Granny, but her shell manages to protect her, although some of the blows are starting to crack the shell. Seeing an opening and a way to end the fight, she gives him a swift uppercut, temporarily dazing him, and then brings her axe down straight at his exposed foot, cutting off all the toes on his right foot. The half-orc screams bloody murder and falls over, and desperately tries to put his toes back, but to no avail. The crowd is stunned, but shortly begins to clap and cheer at the bout. Granny now only has one opponent left.

While the clerics that the town has procured heals Granny, she watches the penultimate fight along with her party. Rowan is facing off with a dwarf, and the combat seems to take a bit longer, with the dwarf putting up more of a fight than his previous opponent, but he still doesn’t manage to make even a dent in the armor. Rowan finally gets an opening, and strikes the dwarf in the head with the blunt edge of his blade, knocking him out. 

Granny gets some encouraging words from her party members, before she takes the stage, ready to fight Rowan. When they meet to shake hands, he tells her that she should probably step back down before she breaks something, with Granny replying that the only one who’s going to break anything is him. He laughs at the jest, and takes his position. Granny comes out swinging, and actually manages to get a few blows in, but his armor takes most of it, and he retaliates by striking at her with his sword. 

Using her shell to her advantage, she manages to avoid being wounded by the greatsword, but the blows are beginning to take its toll, as she can hear that her shell is starting to crumple underneath the barrage. The rest of the party can see that a large crack has appeared in it. Not taking any more risks like that, Granny spins around to strike Rowan in the face with her axe, giving him a rather large gash across his nose. Enraged, he runs straight at the tortle to finish her off, but she sidesteps him and pushes him out of the ring, causing him to tumble into the crowd, losing the fight.

Cora comes running straight over to him, helping him get back up, while Avelina announces the tortle to be the winner! Rowan looks completely shocked at the development, and when Granny walks past him she tells him better luck next year, as she joins the rest of her friends to collect their payment. Willowbark gives Rowan a sly smile as they leave, with him staring back in disbelief at his loss.

The Talent Show

One of the last events that have been planned for the day is a talent show held at a small stage a little south of the main tent. Several people have made their way to their seats, and the roster seems to be rather full, with many people wanting to show off their various skills. Demetrius, Willowbark and Penny all decide to join, and can see that both Aerolla and Bamin are also waiting in the queue. 

Not all contestants are as talented, some singing a song or showing how strong they are, with others doing various magic tricks and showing off what they have trained their animals to do. Penny enters the stage with her lyre in hand, and performs a cheerful song about her hometown. The party learns that it is a place of little worry, a small community close to a body of water. She playfully sings about not being able to find her way back home.

Willowbark also performs a song, using her flute to play while her new chicken, Corn, sits on the stage with her. It’s a nice tune, and as a finisher, she turns herself invisible and picks up her chicken, who poops on the stage, partly ruining the performance. She is followed by Aerolla who uses some minor illusion spells to show the history of the town to the crowd, showing various events like a dragon attacking and being taken down, a group of trolls smashing some buildings, among other various displays.

Demetrius nervously walks onto the stage, waves at the audience while holding a tankard of ale, and then opens up his notebook that the party has seen him scribble in from time to time. He drunkenly finds  what he was looking for, and begins to recite poems that he has written over the journey, that are surprisingly deep and philosophical, drawing the attention of several women who swoon over him. After he has read one poem about death and one about love, he thanks the audience and leaves the stage, with two ladies from the audience following him as he heads towards the inn to get some “rest”.

After the last contestant has shown off their card tricks, the judges who have been watching the crowd and their reactions announce the winners. Demetrius manages to get third place, while Penny takes first place, and happily goes up to the stage to receive her prize, a cloak of billowing. Afterwards the crowd spreads out to have some fun smaller contestes and eat some food, with Kal and Penny both partaking in an arm-wrestling tournament, with Kal just barely managing to defeat Penny in the final.

The Banquet

As the winner of the fighting tournament, Granny is honored with a wonderful feast for her and her companions, where they get served as much food and drinks as they would like. They all indulge and enjoy the rest of the night, with Demetrius eventually returning, still drunk, with both the ladies from the crowd around each arm, and sits down to join the party. Penny and Kal gets quite inebriated, and after a while, Penny asks Kal what happened in the fortune teller’s tent. Penny says she could swear the woman told them that Kal had killed someone, but Kal brushes it off saying she’s killed many people, so it could have been a bad guy. Theren sits a bit back watching all of this, but doesn’t partake in the drinking itself.

Penny eventually takes the stage, thinking the musicians they hired aren’t up to her preferred quality, and begins playing a song with her viol about the group killing Venomfang, much to the enjoyment of the crowd, and the party surprisingly finds her to play even better when drunk than she usually does. After finishing her set, she returns to her group, overhearing a couple of patrons talking about a dragon they saw to the west. As she sits down, she notices that Willowbark has disappeared. Thinking nothing of it, as she likes to be alone at times, the rest of the party spend the rest of the night in the tent.

Forgiveness

Willowbark, having snuck away from the festivities without most of the party noticing, decides to wander towards the forest, passing by drunk people all around enjoying what’s left of the festival. She can hear Penny beginning to play in the tent, and is happy that the party is enjoying themselves. She herself has been torn ever since Claudius told her what happened to the owlbear that she wanted to help. 

Crossing the little bridge over the water, she decides to step into the forest proper, in order to get a better connection with her god. She sits down on a tree stump, looking around and sees only the dark forest surrounding her, as the lights from the town shine in the distance. She starts crying.

She speaks out loud, to anything that will listen, be it Faunus or beast, that she finds the prospect of her failing the owlbear extremely difficult to bear. She thought she managed to save it by convincing it and it’s offspring to move someplace else, out of sight, out of view. The fact that it now is dead is hard to accept, and she feels very guilty about it, but that she only tried to do her best, and to do what is right.

She suddenly gets a shiver down her spine, as she can hear a creepy voice coming from directly behind her.

“We forgive you.”