by: Ella "Violet" Smith
Hello good people of the realms, this is what you missed at Arken Expedition 2:
All of us adventurers gather before the fire before making the trip to the Arken castle, where there was a call for adventurers to help defend the castle. They had heard rumors of a plan to seize the castle. Once we made it to the castle, it was only quiet for mere moments before the attacks started. The front was hit hard but held; the sides remained strong throughout; the archers would have ran out of arrows if not for the amazing use of shape shifting magic to go out and retrieve the shot arrows.
Once the siege appeared to be over, we were informed to go claim the land surrounding the castle. Each area had its own tasks to complete to raise the Arken flag, whether they be fighting or puzzles. I can only recall what me and my small group got into. We were told when entering the area that there was not a game of fighting, but of wits, and the word inconceivable was thrown around a lot. I volunteered to do this challenge. The challenge was to pick between three glasses: two with poison and one without. Myself and the man that I was to play this with would each drink one. It was only until my hands were on the glass that I was told it was no mere poison: if I picked the wrong glass, part of my soul would be torn apart, leaving a permanent mark on my soul. However, I was willing to gamble; it was, after all, a one in three chance. Thankfully, I gambled correctly. I took the only safe glass, and after my opponent died, we were given a mirror shard and what appeared to be a recipe to seal the mirror realm. In addition, we got to raise the Arken flag for that area.
Once me and my small group got back from that, we were tasked to collect all the mirror shards so that they were in the same place. I got the feeling that the more I collected them, the more they were pulling to go towards the old shattered mirror. After the knowledge was shared, all of us adventurers made our way to the old shattered mirror. We put the pieces into the mirror and made it whole again. With the mirror whole again, we entered the mirror realm and were immediately met with violence. After we cleared the area and ensured that part of the land was safe, we took a quick soup break. We are mortal, after all. At least, most of us are. In addition, the feedback on the chili was absolutely incredible.
After the soup and warming by the fire, we were back to the quest. We soon encountered slimes on the road. We quickly pieced together that the recipe I had gotten earlier was for the slime goo, and if we did it correctly, it could make a potion that could forever seal the mirror realm. The only problem is that we couldn't kill the slime or touch them to get the goo. Luckily, we had a magical ladle to collect the goo. While the goo was being laddled, the rest of us were working on distraction. Once all of the goo was collected, we needed to perform a ritual: we needed three magic users, two people of the color green, one person who symbolizes rage, and an alchemist to oversee it all. I was one of the magic users involved, and the ritual was a giant success.
After the ritual, we needed to get moving fast because the rest of the adventurers were already fighting up ahead. When I got to where the fight was happening, there was a lot of death. However, once the magic users were back up, everyone was raised again. We spent some time fighting towards a massive mirror building that seemed to hold all of the people we were fighting. There were some negotiations, but none seemed to work, so we just brute forced it and crushed the building. We took out the remaining people, I became a mother to a fox during this fight and still don't really know how that happened, and other people found really amazing magic items.
We could at last make our way out of the mirror realm, where we met up with Fancy, who exclaimed their thanks to us for assisting. Finally, mirror-Fancy showed up and started monologuing, but we all started running and officially sealed the mirror realms.
Thank you all for reading my tale, stay warm -Violet
