8 Misuthar 838

We entered ourselves into the Festival of Merit as “AAA” possibly short for Avandra’s Adaptable Adventurers. We found out that a room at the inn is only gifted to the winner, not all entrants. Also we found out that the festival consists of several free entry events followed by a final ‘race’ of some kind. Entry into the finals is determined by the number of medals earned in the events.

Ali immediately set out towards the archery contest and encountered a figure from her past: Ayo Jabe who has beaten her in competitions for her whole career. Ali had a chip on her shoulder and really wanted to win, luckily, she did very well and beat Ayo. Ali was awarded with a gold medal for archery.

Next, the party headed to the Maze, and Eveneem decided to run the maze, with Wonder and Xenith as her guides. She was able to finish the maze exactly in time and won a medal for her efforts.

The party went to the poetry recital and won a medal with a poem roasting Ayo. Afterwards, Ayo confronted Ali and challenged her to a small race. The two set out to retrieve a spear from a rock in the harbor. It went kind of poorly, there was a shark, Ali ended up losing the race and some blood. Ayo’s teammate Maggie Keeneyes, an ogre with bright blue eyes, apologized for her teammates behavior before leaving.

We set out to visit the temple of the Luxon in town where we met the small goblin compatriot of Ayo named Durmot Wurder. He was quite kind and we talked about worship for a moment. Wonder prayed for a moment and the party headed across the street to the pie eating contest.

At the pie eating contest, we leaned heavily on guidance and scraped out a win with Wonder’s stomach before heading to the riddles event.

Elder Colbu Kaz was administering the riddles and we started with the riddle of the box:
One box with several keys. The box has an oceanic theme. We figure out the key is the Bronze Key.
Next was the riddle of stars, which was about moons and we got it pretty fast.
Last was the riddle of potions and we took a minute to puzzle it out, but got it right in the end.

We were approached by a Drow man in carapace-like armor who said he looked forward to testing his wit against us later.

The final race began and we headed to the starting position.