By Rose "Arryn" Whittle, The Storm Queen:
I arrived in Rhiassa with Captain Orion, anticipating a fun and intense day of tournaments and war maneuvers. I knew my team was the smallest team to take the field, but I was thrilled with the enthusiasm that they approached the challenge with. After setting up our day camp, we readied our team for introductions. Team Phoenix and Team Salt Queen both had an amazing showing, and truth be told, I was afraid our introduction would not live up to theirs, but Captain Orion did splendidly.
My true supporters: Captain Orion, Court Seer Esmeralda, First Archer Darvan, and Lord Sir Kovaks, stood proud and set the mood of our team: we were a team that was there to compete, and even if we were outmatched, we would hold our heads high and not go down without a fight.
The first war maneuvers took nearly all of our team, while Kovaks and Mayumi stayed back and
maintained day camp, making sure that everyone on the team stayed in good health throughout the day.
The war maneuvers for the most part went as we expected them to, which unfortunately meant we placed third nearly every time. Nonetheless, I took the field with my team, and our generals Orion and Darvan made excellent use of what advantages we had, those being our mobility and our ranged superiority. I don’t think there was a single fight where Ashenmark’s great tower shields were not present. The castle battles were one of the battles we fared the best, with Mayerling’s archers and the coordinated volley of Zinc, Kara, and me launching lightning bolts into their second line. Ultimately, in our defense against Team Salt Queen, we brought the fight to them, breaking out of the gate to the left and opening their shield line for our archers. While we still lost the fight, I couldn’t have been happier with my team’s performance and high spirits. Ultimately, the sportsmanship displayed on the field on all sides made the day fantastic, despite the rain which drenched the entire field.
After war maneuvers and individual tournaments had concluded for the day, the fun continued into the noncombat tournaments. Again, the dedication and sportsmanship that all teams brought absolutely blew me away. Personally, I could not have been happier with the dress that Mayumi made for me, everything about it felt great. The performances were all fun and interesting, each team giving their performance its own flair. Lastly, the jester tournament was hilarious, Kara, Rolland, and Tulli made a great comedy trio.
The following day, the tournaments and war maneuvers proceeded in much the same way, but with much less rain, though not without the threat of it. Fortunately for us, the rain held off just long enough to get through the award ceremony and clean up afterwards.