What You Missed: Blackwood Tournaments VIII, by Jericho

I arrived in Acteon in high spirits. The weather looked good, friends everywhere, and rumors of a pig roast abound. This was my first time in Acteon and was looking forward to it. Especially because we were there to celebrate the happy couple!
Friday night, we all gathered by the tavern, and King K asked us to fetch some things for his crafters to be able to make a gift for Jinx. The first item to acquire was a special flower that could only bloom in the last remnants of a moonbeam. We eventually found the moonbeams, but we could not get the flowers out. We discovered if we put our weapons in, it seemed to allow us to swing them, and act like they were made of silver. I don’t quite remember how we got the flowers out, but it had something to do with the pixies attacking us. We eventually got them out, and made our way back to K. He then asked us to get two more items; the still-beating heart of an oak tree, and water from the stream a unicorn has drank from.
We eventually found the tree, who was not happy we were there, and he was being guarded by some sort of caterpillar that could basically crush us if we hit his legs too many times. We tried diplomacy, but it wasn’t working, so we made short work of the caterpillar, and convinced the tree to let us have his heart, and King Hygar promised to return it after. We left from this and I found another group had split off and gotten the water. All items in tow, we returned to K, passed them off, and participated in the festivities that night. I personally spent it down at the grand opening of The Thirsty Wolf Tavern. They served amazing food and drinks well into the sun rising.
The next morning found us on the field lined up before Jinx and K. They chose their teams of Stag and Doe. Stags wore bow ties to signify which team they were on and Does wore garters. K chose Daekara as his captain, and Jinx chose Mogar. We participated in team tournaments right from the beginning, including the castle siege, and the bridge battle. We also played in a couple I had never heard of before but enjoyed very much. After this we had the individual tournaments, including an obstacle course that you got to shoot a ballista in. Overall the competition was fierce all day, with hot, tired, and sweaty competitors all around. A while later was the dinner feast. Despite it coming out later than had been expected, it was worth every second of the wait, it was delicious. I heaped my plate full, and by the time I had finished, Bones had sown up talking about strippers for the bachelor party, and something about a keg that had gone missing.
So, we went out wandering in the woods looking for these strippers, which ended up being succubi. They seemed to make people love each other quite often, and we soon found ourselves in a field watching a fireworks display. And illuminated in the light of the fireworks was what appeared to be a massive demon. However, that was soon forgotten, as they disappeared, and we continued on. As we went along, we ran into a Demonologist, that had found a phonetic rune set that we could mark ourselves with. The words to this enchantment though, were from a set list, and they had to be words that we considered to be as true to ourselves as possible. We discovered that upon doing so, would protect our souls from the pesky succubi. Not many did this though, as it was very time consuming, and many wanted to continue onwards.
I did my enchantment and went on and found the group trying to convince the large demon, Big Pimpin, to let us take his strippers for the party. I believe he was looking for payment. During this time, a lot of people were being killed, and then when they got up, they would murder their friends. Being protected from this, I never had the problem myself. Although, once when I was dead, I heard a whisper in my head, asking me if I wanted to stay dead, or rejoin my friends. Luckily, I remembered hearing a waning about how this might be one of the Strangers are trying to infiltrate our world, so I chose to remain dead, and came to shortly after. Eventually, Big Pimpin was put down, and we made our way back to the tavern triumphantly. The night was yet another of revelry, and drunken marionettes.
Come morning, many had left for home, and the teams were much smaller than they had been the day before. It started out with the two captains putting on a dress or suit and fighting it out. The sight of Mogar in that dress is not something I will likely to be able to forget unfortunately. Despite the sweltering heat, we fought our hardest to a Doe victory.
Well done to all the competitors on the field this tournament, and a huge congratulations to King K and Jinx on their upcoming wedding! I know I had fun at this, especially as it was the first time for me attending the Blackwood Tournaments.

Safe travels,

Jericho Axelthorne
Lord of Arken