Day 54 (S30-33)

They docked at Vorovni and went immediately to the Mayor's office.
"Good morning, The Bound!" The Mayor greeted them, "You are here just in time to get my Lloyd to Everhelm. Though, you should take some time to stop in Greenwarf on your way."
"Do we have to?" said Alice.
"Yes! Because my good friend is there, and we must meet with him!" Lloyd said as he came from the other room.
"Then you are to take a ship from Greenward to Everhelm," said the Mayor, "I have it already arranged!"
"Well, then I guess we better be on our way," said Alice, "We can get to Greenwarf really quickly, but I don't know how long it takes to get to Everhelm from there."
"Yes, yes! Be off!" The mayor said as he shooed them away.The three of them used treestride to get to their tree at Greenwarf, and the girls greeted the orphans - who now had better clothes and trinkets.
"Haazaah! It is good to be traveling with you again, friends!" said Lloyd, "Where are the other two of The Bound?"
"Aurelius is dead," said Alice.
"And Kin decided to find his own path," Rina answered.
"Well, maybe my friend in Greenwarf can help!" said Lloyd.
"Help us with what?" Alice asked.
"With the mission, of course!" said Lloyd.
Just then, they approached the Greenwarf adventuring guild, "Haazaah! My friend shall be in there awaiting us! Come, The Bound!"

In the Gallian, they saw a huge guy who was bald and wearing only shorts. He had two beers in one hand, and was arm wrestling people with the other.
"Anyone who can beat me gets a beer!" he said as he chugged the two he had in his other hand. "Anyone who loses," he slammed the man's arm down, "owes ME a beer!"
"Blanke, my good friend!" Lloyd exclaimed, "We have arrived!"
The large man turned around, then quickly finished his newest beer, "Sir Lloyd! It is so good to see you!"
“This is Blanke” Lloyd introduced, “I got him out of a sticky situation and he’s here to help us win the Everbleed Bowl!”
Rina, Neely, and Alice looked at each other questioningly. “Oh, did I not mention this was a 5-person competition?” Lloyd said.
“Um… no,” Alice answered.
"You mean... this isn't just an escort mission?" Asked Rina.
"I thought this was only going to last a couple of days!" Neely said as she got out her schedule book.
“Well, you don't HAVE to help me” Lloyd said, “But I’d really appreciate it. And I can pay!” he said as he threw a bunch of silver in the air.
Everyone at the bar scrambled for the silver, including Alice.
"Well, The Bound - will you help us?"
Rina looked at Neely, still stressed about her schedule, "I think we can work it in," Neely said, "we did have some things scheduled but any of it could be moved."
Alice and Rina looked at each other an sighed.
"Fine," they both said at once.
"Haahzahh!! Wonderful!" Lloyd said as he threw more silver in the air out of excitement.

"So, Blanke... tell us about you," said Rina.
"I'm Blanke!" he said.
"Yes... we know that much," said Alice, "Anything else?"
"I'm a Barbarian! I like beer... and sandwiches!"
"Where are you from? Are you from here?" Alice asked.
"I come from Vorovni," he answered, "Lloyd got me out of jail there, then sent me here to wait for you. I couldn't afford any beer, so I arm wrestled for it!"
"You have a last name, Blanke?"
"Yep!" Blanke said, "So, wanna arm wrestle?"
"No, thanks... but I will buy us all beers!" Alice said as she raised her hand to the waiter.
"Well, Blanke - I'm Rina Afrisa Michaelis. This is Alice Mondance, and this is Neely."
"Neely, do YOU have a last name?" Blanke asked.
Neely sighed, "... yes."
"Cool! Me too!" Blanke answered.

"So are you prepared for a competition, Blanke?" Rina asked.
"Yeah... I just wish I had a better sword. The one I have isn't very cool."
"Oh, here," Rina said as she pulled out the extending chain long sword and handed it to him, "You can borrow this for now, I don't really need it."
"Cool! Thanks!" Blanke immediately pushed the button on the end and the chain flung out and cut the dartboard in half.
"Nice aim!" said Alice!
Everyone in the bar got excited by the chainsword, so excited, in fact, that they began a huge ruckus that ended up as a bit of a playful bar fight amongst all of the people in the bar.
Rina and Neely immediately exited the bar and stood in the doorway. Rina conjured two Healing Elixirs and Neely just clutched her pen and schedule book tightly.
Alice jumped into the bar fight and actually started fighting with them, Blanke had her back when she missed.
Alice and Blanke knocked out everyone in the bar.
"Everyone owes me and Alice a beer!" Blanke announced.
Rina handed each of them an Elixir.
Blanke handed her and Neely a drink, which they both happily drank as they watched the chaos ensue.

"The boat to Everhelm sets sail in an hour!" said Lloyd, "Let us go and board it! Haazaah!"
They boarded the ship, Rina got seasick as usual, "I've got to stop eating before getting on a boat."
"You didn't eat anything, miss Rina," said Neely, "you did drink multiple shots of whiskey at the Gallian though."
"Oh yeah..."

End session

During the ride to Everhelm, the five of them rested in their bunks, and awoke to a very different place - somewhere familiar, though, to Neely, Rina, and Alice. They awoke in the center of a hedge maze that they recognized to be Phesoi's Realm.
Phesoi, the god of Chaos, appeared to them again. "Good day, The Bound! See I’ve been watching you," Phesoi starts, “I noticed you’re a little down on your luck lately. So I thought I would help you out. I got some information from Therius about everything you have missed since becoming an adventuring party, and I thought I’d give you a little challenge where you can get back some of what you’ve lost.”
"Who is this guy?" Blanke asked.
"And where is Alice?" asked Neely.
"I am Phesoi, God of Chaos. And... of the five of you entering the Everbleed Bowl, you are the three who needs it most. Neely has only recently started training as a rogue and a Bard, and Blanke is new to the group."
"What about Lloyd?" Rina asked, "And why do you think I need assistance?"
Phesoi laughed, "Lloyd is a good fighter in his own right, and you have a new little friend, do you not?"
Rina summoned Volvagia, who immediately flew over to Phesoi and cuddled under their chin.
"Hello, little friend! It is good to see you again! What's it been? 200 years, or so?"
"You know her?" asked Rina.
"Oh yes, I know her very well, I think you and she deserve a little bonding time - that's why I've brought you here."
"I decided to name her Volvagia."
Phesoi paused, then looked at the little dragon and whispered, "You're named after a female body part, did you know this?"
"It just means cave dragon in Abyssal! It's not that deep guys..."
The little dragon looked annoyed, but flew back to Rina.
"Well you got me for at least the next 4000 years," Rina said to her dragon, "better get used to it."
Volvagia nipped at her earrings and she sighed, "Why didn't I spend the last three decades learning my own magic? I could be doing this without a devil attached to me... instead I decided to learn a dead language."

"So, you guys have been here before?" Blanke asked, confused.
"Yes, this was a maze the last time we were here, with puzzles and stuff... it looks different now," Neely answered.
Phesoi then gestures to edges of the hedge maze we are in the center of, which had a few openings in each direction. “Behind each of these entrances is a challenge you avoided. Defeat them, and you will get an item that will help you on your journey.” They paused, “Hmm… I’ll probably owe Therius big time for this. Oh well!”
"So there's stuff to fight over there?" Blanke asked.
"Yes, yes... oh, that reminds me. I have a Cleric of mine I need to check on. Good luck!" they then disappeared.
Blanke immediately starts heading toward one of the openings, so Rina and Neely follow.

The first entrance had a single wizard behind it, one that they avoided fighting near the beginning of their journey. After just a few turns, Neely ultimately downed him. We decided as a group that whoever gets the kill gets the item, so Neely got a new pair of boots that increase her movement speed.

The next entrance was 2 knights of Luminus who we would have fought when we made our own hedgemaze. Rina eventually downed them with a fireball, so she got the next item. This was a small notebook with just a single page - this was a notebook from Therius himself. If you asked it a question, it would answer to the best of Therius’s knowledge. But she can only ask one question, and it must be within this challenge realm.

The next entrance was a giant black creature, covered in blood and guts and pulsating like a beating heart. This was the monster that came out of the belly of the t-rex who Alice exploded the first time she went unconscious near the Medallion. After a few turns, Blanke downed the monster and his reward was a better sword.

The final challenge was Gunther. Gunther as he would have been without the influence of the bodak. He first mainly targeted Neely, and she eventually went down. Rina and her dragon fought him and dealt a lot of damage, but he eventually took them down, too. It was Blanke and Gunther - 1 on 1. Blanke eventually downed the visage of Gunther, and We decided that Blanke deserved a little extra because he essentially had nothing to help us in the competition to come, plus he got the kill.

Rina asked her question: “Where exactly is Roscoe Baldwin, the missing fingers of Luminus?”

The book answered with a series of instructions:

“Plunge from the top of Mt. Luminus, enter the world beneath. Find Beth, follow her trial of experiments.”

End of session.

As they approached the capital city of Everhelm, the first thing that came into sight were tons of old wood parts floating near the southern part of the city. Logs, old boat parts, pieces of wood houses - all holding up the base of the Witches coven - the Great Pyre, the “Right hand” of the city.
On the north end of the city sat the largest church of Luminus in Asmery, all white and gold, the “Left hand” of the city.

All of the city is made of stone, with jade around the edges, and some iron in the buildings. The roads are wide and lined with stone, with iron lanterns that light up at night (fire). All of the stone is very well carved with lots of decorations on it everywhere. Even on the docks - which were also stone.

The city is very grid-like and organized. We see a huge round-about - so large that we can barely see the other side. Alice is too short to see, so Rina offers for her to get on her shoulders. Blanke tries to do the same to Neely, but she was not having it and flipped out of his hands. Lloyd, however, jumps onto Blanke’s shoulders - they’re basically besties at this point.

The church of Luminus is large with 9 pillars, each one with a bell inside. It is white with Gold.

The castle is made of dark stone, it’s square and towering. There are long green and gold tapestries flowing down from the top. The flag of Everhelm being a gold bear on a mountain with a green background. This is Cavebear Castle. From the castle we can see the church far away on the east side, and the top of the witches pyre on the west.

In front of the area of the Everbleed Bowl, we see hundreds of people lined up to register.

Both the Salt slayers and the fearsome 5 are here - the fearsome 5 rounding out with a couple of random people. They help us get farther up in line, and we are #73. Rina registers them with their names, "Rina Afrisa Michaelis, Alice Moondance, Lloyd of Vorovni, Neely of Vorovni and... Blanke?" Blanke answers "Just Blanke."

We are escorted into the building, there is an area under the bleachers with lots of rooms everywhere, with basic stuff for all of the parties.

Alice gets into a small scuff with someone in the cell next to us, and it ended with our little tree getting knocked off and the table and getting broken. Alice uses plant growth on it and it ends up breaking part of the wall. Mayoay was there with a team of Twilight Coven witches, and Abagail was also there with a Sprite Lights team. Both of them, as well as the fearsome 5, all agreed we would help each other to make it to the 2nd round.

There is a huge “Bowl” with 5 walls, an iron floor, with a pillar in each corner - each being about 80ft in diameter.

The prize is a Wish spell for the party, the wish needs to be announced in front of everyone.

The first round is basically a blood bath. Everyone get a balloon full of blue liquid that would pop if you were unconscious for more than 6 seconds. If it gets popped you are out.

The bowl was full of hundreds of people (super bowl vibes) with the queen - Queen Loanna Staffon, Slayer of Bears - standing at the top of the tallest tower. Her husband, Edmond Staffon, the Bear of Cavebear Castle, standing to her right. She welcomes us to the 53rd Everbleed Bowl. Supposedly no one should reasonably die during this. Rina is suspicious.

The first round will eliminate all but 16 teams, then those 16 teams go on in a bracket-type competition.

When the doors open every team just runs at each other. Alice becomes an Ankylosaurus. The rest of us get on her back and we start fighting. Blanke does more hand-to-hand combat with each of the teams who come to us. We battled some giants, a wizard with a few guards, and a handful of Luminus Paladins. Rina fireballs and downs a handful of random people, then keeps up a fire wall as needed. Lloyd does amazing, and Neely gets good damage as well.

In the end there are 16 teams left. 1:Us (The Bound), 2:The Salt Slayers, 3:the Knights of Light (the Luminus paladins), 4:the Eyeless Kindness (an eyeless cult team), 5:the Logger Champs (a group of strong loggers), 6:the Sprite Lights (Abigail’s team), 7:Muk & the Grimers (Muk being a reptilian dragon looking guy, and his team of Kobolds - all very withersalty), 8:The Mounds (people made of hair, just fuzzballs), 9:the Valedictorians (a group of wizard 1), 10:the Emperor's Whiskers (some ninjas from Ilanga), 11: the Thundersteps (Bolgrothians from The Kingdom of Bolgroth), 12: the SuprasUpras (vampires from Drusk), 13: the Fearsome 5, 14: the Tall Tails (Tieflings- Cofamoso), 15: the WhatTheHecks (Twilight coven witches), and 16: Beasts of Claw and Tooth (people from Basta'Thrope').

There is a huge lounge for all of the 16 teams and we each get our own quarters as well as a servant. We get Mari, who is very enthusiastic, but maybe not so great at her job. Simon is the lounge concierge, and told us to talk to him if we need anything. There is also Pip the bet master, who Blanke immediately spoke to. Blanke put 150 gold in the Bound winning the whole thing - odds 172:1. Pip said that there are not often “normal” bets and he “Bets that someone will lose an arm in round 2” and winks. It seems that whoever makes that happen gets extra gold.

Alice begins to eat at the buffet, and Rina hangs back.

A bat-girl from the Beast group approaches Rina “Are you the elf, Rina?” she asks, Rina says yes. “Your son, Darrian, said he would be coming here to cheer us on if we get through round 2!” Rina smiled, “My son is coming here!?”

End session.

Mari approaches us to let us know what our options are now that we have completed round 1. “You can go shopping, The web will have anything ya need. You can also go to the training grounds, or see the arenas being built. Just let me know what ya want, and I’ll get it for ya! I’m basically owned by the everbleed bowl so… I pretty much have to!”

“You’re a slave?” Alice asked.

“Well, they outlawed slavery many years ago, but the arena kind of has its own laws so… it basically owns me. But lets not worry about that! Where do ya want to go next? I could show you Tower #4, it’s where all the competitors stay while they’re here.”

After some discussion we head to The web first. A large area that looks like a dome of tent tops over everything. There is a huge line, but Mari gets us inside past Edward the guard. “Good mornin Edward!” she says as she gives him a little punch in the arm. “Good morning Mari” he replied. Then Blanke punched his arm even harder when he walked by, Rina just pats him gently there “Sorry about them…” she hoped he’d feel better, but then Alice followed behind and punched him in the arm just to be mean.

We get inside and there are thin masked people who look almost ghostly and speak robotically, they ask us what we are looking for. Alice gets some stuff for animals and some witchy stuff. Blanke gets a few more mesh shirts. He was only going to get one, but Rina convinced him to get more. “I only need one, why would I get more?” “If you get more now, that’s more time you could spend training later!” that was enough to convince him. He also got a better flute and gave Rina back hers.

Rina got 6 Black Dragon arrows, good against dragons and dragonoids, as well as 6 Blessed arrows. She also got a ritual spell for Feign Death There is a ritual scroll for telepathy available, but its way too much money ($2k gold?).

We then decide to head to Tower">#4 to get our room. On the way there we see Gunther and his team, Rina stops to talk to them. She asks what their wish would be. “To get our friends back who we lost.” Rina remembers that she’s the one who killed softfeather, but doesn’t say anything. They leave to go shopping while we go up to our room, and Rina invites them for a drink later on after everyone is done with their shopping etc. Blanke uses his new flute to impress everyone in the place, he now has a famous person’s flute and he is known as “Blank-ey” to everyone there.

Our room is more of an apartment, it has 3 bedrooms and 2 pull out couches. Lloyd immediately takes a couch, and Blanke takes the other. That leaves the 3 rooms for the 3 girls. Alice had bought Neely a book on being proficient in the harp, so she starts to read it. Lloyd begins to “practice” fighting by slashing up the bedposts of Rina’s bed. Rina asks Mari if she would get someone to clean it up. With the right mix of Money and threats, we get Mari to mention we can get a lot of information from the Concierge - Simon - by bribing him. “You may think round 2 starts tomorrow,” She started, “But it really started today already. The other teams sometimes get information or try to sabotage other teams the night before a fight.”

Blanke also gives her all the gold he has to get him a giant cheesecake, so she goes on her way.

We start heading toward the arena again and run into the salt slayers on the way down. Alejandro indicates he has been watching all the teams for their weaknesses, “Maybe I have been watching you guys specifically” he said. Rina responds, “Maybe we are watching you, too.” It was a fun and brief interaction as they go up to their room.

We get to the arena and we see Simon out on the field watching essentially a large wheel with all the teams on it spinning, and writing down the results. We go and try to convince him to tell us who we will be up against, he’s unimpressed by our money and our lack of charisma in our rolls. Alice then drops 1,000 gold from the party fund, “How about now?” He responds “Just tell me if you want to fight someone easy or hard, and tell me if you want to be in the water or not.” We wanted someone easy and not in the water. Rina then pulls another 1,000 gold out, “And the Beasts of Claw and Tooth make it through round 2.” He nods, “another team will not like that but… okay” he says, “Now leave me be, I have things to do.” He then begins to talk to another person on the field with weird hair and a weird suit, and they seem to be having a somewhat serious conversation and arguing a little. However, we believe that we will have a somewhat easy fight - not in the water, our friends (Fearsome 5 , the 2 coven teams, & Salt Slayers) will make it through, and the Beasts of Tooth and Claw will make it through also. Rina gets to see her son!

Afterwards Rina comments on how happy she is that there was enough in the party fund for both of us to just take out 1g. “You took that out of our party fund?!” she yells angrily. “Yeah I did, you know what I’ve put more in there than you have.” Rina replied. “That is not true! I cannot believe you would do that, that’s not for us it’s for you!” “Ok, ok fine,” Rina responded, “I will put half back now and half back when we win - deal?” “Deal” Alice responded.

We then head into the training area, and we see all of the strongest people from the other groups working out with weights, etc. Blanke and Muk begin a weight lifting contest, Alice tries but really can’t  do much. She keeps trying though, and eventually just about everyone in the room begins to cheer for her when she gets 1 rep in.

Rina sees one of the members of the Beasts of Tooth and Claw there and approaches her. She is a woman with sheep’s horns and hoof-like finger nails, and covered in fur.

As Rina approaches she addresses her, “Baa, hi Rinaa. Good to see you!”

“Oh, you already know who I am?” Rina responds.

“Oh yes, baa - Darrian talks about you all the time!”

Under her breath Rina starts “As much as I’d like to know what he says…” Then she speaks up, “What is your name? I didn’t catch it when I first met your group.”

“I aaam Spiralhorn Handcrunch.” she responded.

“I was going to ask what your wish would be. If you don’t mind sharing?” Rina asked.

“Wee would wish for acceptance of our people, baa.” she answered.

“I really want that, too.” Rina replies, “and I really hope you make it through round 2. I really want to see my son. I don’t even really know what he’s been telling people about me. I know he talks about me, but I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

“Haaa, yep!” she says as she smiles, then continues working out.

“Well, It was nice to meet you, good luck tomorrow!” Rina says as she leaves.

After this interaction, we know that everyone in the room now has disadvantage on attacks against us in that round.

We get back to the Tower">#4 and we see the 2 people from the Knights of Light party there. One of them approaches us, “We may be enemies on the field, but we wanted you to know that we have been in deep prayer and Luminus has told us that you are in grave danger this night.” Rina rolls her eyes and says “Uh huh… sure. Because of you?”

“No, not us. We will not harm you in anyway.”

Blanke and Alice tell them to swear by Luminus that they will not do anything to cause us harm, directly or indirectly. They go through their spiel swearing by Luminus that they won’t do anything to harm us, directly or indirectly. Alice and Blanke don’t really believe them, Rina thinks they are just trying to psyche us out entirely.

Everyone in the competition are in the bar. Blanke gets his huge cheesecake, and only shares it with a select few people who ask nicely.

Rina gets a bunch of shots of whiskey for her and Alice, She only takes a couple herself and lets Alice take the rest. After alice is drunk, Rina asks her “Alice, whose names did you put in for the vampire lottery?”

“I don’t remember.” she responded, “It just wasn’t that important to me, so I don’t know.” - but Rina could tell she was lying.

“I just want to know if I’m in it… that’s all. Can you remember that at least?”

Alice acted like she really wanted to keep this from Rina, but she was incredibly drunk at this point. “I put your name on all of them…” she eventually slurred.

“ALL of them?” Rina exclaimed, “You didn’t even keep one for yourself?”

“No, why would I?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t put Aurelius or yourself even once though.” Rina said quietly.

“You’re the only one who really cares about it. You are the one who wants to be close to them.” Alice responded, before digging into her piece of cheesecake.

“Well… thank you.” Rina started, “Ok well that’s all I wanted. I’m going to say hi to the Salt Slayers now.” Rina begins to walk to the end of the bar.

“But…” Alice started, “I thought I’d finally made a friend.” she wined as Rina walked away. Rina sends some other snacks to Alice at the end of the bar and smiles and waves at her. Alice was still a little mad, but also too drunk to probably remember it the next day.

At the end of the bar, Alejandro is standing on the bar with a jug that looked a little sketchy.

“This jug is one we - the Salt Slayers - found at the bottom of the ocean on an old shipwreck. And tonight, on the eve of the 2nd round…” then he spoke a little quieter, “the REAL beginning of the competition,” then he winked and spoke louder again, “It is what will get us all drunk! Shots for everyone!” Rina got a shot glass and almost did not take it, she hesitated until most people had taken theirs. But in the spirit, and probably being too trusting of Alejandro, she took the shot anyway. Blanke also took a shot, along with almost everyone else in the bar. Not Alice, though, she was passed out in her plate of food.

On the way back to the room, anyone who took the shot got a hella hangover.

We get back to the room and Neely is still reading her book, Blanke gives her a piece of cheesecake.

Lloyd, who does not drink, gets ready for bed. Blanke tucks him in, then immediately falls asleep on his own couch. Alice has trouble sleeping, thinking about the Luminus team’s warning. Rina stays up a little later than usual, but still gets her 4 hours of trancing in.
She burned a letter to Agronoch before sleeping:
“Agronoch, I've gathered information on how to find the missing Finger. I'm still making progress on our contract - it is my main priority. Reach me when you can, I am worried. Stay alive. Yours, Rina”"

Next: Day 55 (S34-37)