by Renee "Kindrianna" Booke
It began as a lovely, albeit windy, day, and I was eager to get outside and enjoy myself at a festival that promised much merriment and fun. When I arrived, I was greeted by the sight of green Chimeronian banners and Rhiassan lions that proudly flanked both sides of the road. A sight that made me smile right away.
I contented myself to greet friends and companions I had not seen in some time, enjoying their company and laughs. Sir Laika en'Naur and Lord Syruss of Neden, both accomplished weaponsmiths, were hard at work under the pavilion forging shields and blades alike while they mentored other adventurers in the craft. There were many fresh faces that I did not recognize, and some that I did. I reacquainted myself with the brave young Auroran, Margaret, whom I had met in Stonewood not too long ago, and we recounted our adventure there, with discussions of philosophy and faith while we didn’t have to worry about fighting for our lives.
I would be lying, however, if I didn’t admit that my favorite part of the day was the food. I was thrilled to indulge in two of my absolute favorite things in this world: chili cheese fries (the cheese melted by hand torch much to Lord Sir Aeston’s delight) and strawberry shortcake. I did discover, however, that apparently, I have been doing things wrong this entire time. Lord Sir Elwin was aghast that I did not have people to fetch me food and drink, and further, found it very odd that I should frequently hunt my own dinner in the forest.
For entertainment, there were a series of tournaments and challenges, many of which I missed in my attempt to make up for lost time with friends. Fae Teatime seemed a relaxing delight in the meadow, and Mogar would be sad if he knew he had missed the battle boar that Dame Ellith led to the field. Dame Twenaria and I would have preferred to hug such an adorable creature, but it was all fired up and eager to fight, and many adventurers challenged it in teams of three to claim their prize. I also witnessed a survival challenge, in which small teams had to survive against a steady stream of respawning “monsters.”
The Adventurer’s Guild also took the opportunity to introduce their new initiative: Inscription. Moving forward, heroes will have the opportunity to collect essences of varying attributes and commonalities to aid them in inscribing schema to create new scrolls. Rumor has it that the View from Valehaven will soon feature an article with more information on this topic, so I will leave this one to the experts.
On top of all of this, Sir Temorse began his search for an apprentice to train in combat and battlefield tactics through a contest. I found him hunched over some papers, analyzing the tactical minds of his prospective candidates, but he was willing to stop and share with me his theories of battle lines and where different weapon combinations were most effective in varying matchups. I found it quite an interesting discussion, but alas, second dessert was calling me.
All in all, I had a lovely time though the weather grew cold with the chill of the wind. I even spied our very own Realms celebrity gracing the crowd- the famous Madam Zarine, who looked as beautiful as ever despite best attempts to capture the back of her head with one of those magical elven portrait-taking devices.
I look forward to the next time we gather in good spirit and good fun, goodness knows our dangerous lives could use a little more celebration.