Letters to a Valkyrie

DAY THREE: THE FESTIVAL

While I was busy being smitten at the pool, Tallulah and Locklin decided they were going shopping. You see, on our way to the Gymnasium we passed some people setting up several stone monoliths. Turns out they were going to be used for some festival games the next day. Tallulah and Locklin decided we needed new clothes.

We didn't know about this until we were walking back to the Guild Hall and Tallulah called us over to the tent they bought the clothes from. Locklin didn't seem to be there, but there was an older man named Whilce Portacio. Alexandra and I found out later he was Locklin in disguise. I don't know what happened while we were at the baths, but Locklin looked a little worse for wear. More so than when got back, I mean.

The next morning we all slept in for several hours because the previous day had sucked harder than meeting a remorhaz on an open glacier would. Granted we brought it on ourselves and it hadn't been all bad there at the end. Once we'd eaten, most of us went to sign up for the festival events. I say most of us because Sprocket had left before us and told Sally he was off searching for "a truth that could be bent" and hadn't returned yet. He wants to learn to con people like Tallulah does. May the gods help us all.

The festival arena was split into three areas, that would host three separate but simultaneous events. They hanged in the air over what seemed for all the world to be a bottomless pit. First were three concentric stone circles, each floating about ten to fifteen feet over the one below. The lowest circle was ablaze, burning like the smith's forge. I did my best not to look at that one. On the middle ring was water. Not a puddle, but a full ten-foot depth. No walls, nothing to hold the shimmering mass in place. It looked like those jelly monsters Mordenkainen wrote about in one of his tomes. There were chests at the bottom sitting on the stone that held the water up. The third platform was empty at the moment.

Across the gap from the confused water was what appeared to be a forest area, also sitting on its own monolith of stone. From what I heard, the people in that area were supposed to hunt and track animals. As the Lady wishes us to bring her back parts of magical beasts in what I assume is an attempt to learn about how they got where they were, points there were gained by butchering animals and retrieving parts for the Lady.

In the center was a thin walkway of the same stone the other arenas sat on. This is where the support team would go. We sent Tallulah and Crampernap there. Ciarnali, Helem, and a chameleon man named Zellig we had somehow recruited to join our team at the last minute went into the forest area. Locklin, Alexandra, and I went to the concentric circles with confused water. And the fire that I am not thinking about even remotely.

The three of us split up, one to each tier. Alexandra took the bottom layer, her demonic heritage making her most suited to that level. Her challenge was to beat the other team's man in a duel while resisting the effects of the fire. Locklin took the weird water. His task was to retrieve the chest from the bottom of the... tier. That water was confusing, its hard to describe.

My task was fairly straightforward, though I didn't find out what it was until we were floating out to the arenas. I was to fight another for the killing strike on a yeti. Only the person who scored the final blow was awarded any points. My opponent was that Thask character Sprocket was finding magic items for. He uses smokepowder pistols. Those are painful to get shot with, in case you were curious. He only shot me once, but once was enough.

The fight with the yeti was slightly one sided. It saw Thask as the greater threat, what with him making loud cracking noises and throwing smoke everywhere. I was agile enough to avoid most of its attacks, and while Thask was reloading one of his pistols, I was able to get in two quick strikes with my halberd, finishing off the monster. I got something like seventy-five points for that kill, boosting us into a commanding lead. Once the yeti fell, Thask and I were done fighting. We ran to the edge of our platform to see Locklin trying to pull his opponent's head out of the water. She was an elf who wore similar armor to Alexandra, who appeared at the top of a magical staircase leading from the bottom tier to the second. She had beaten her opponent as well, and the fire hadn't bothered her in the slightest.

As Locklin managed to get the elf's head out of the water (I later learned her name was Flern) Thask grabbed a metal sphere from his belt. It clicked for a bit before he dropped it into the water below, where it EXPLODED near Locklin. Then Thask pulled off his long coat and leather holsters before diving into the water to retrieve some chests to try and recoup the close the sizable lead we had over his team. I wasted no time in ditching my armor and padded jack before diving in. Yes, I was absolutely going to take this chance to show my muscles off for the sexy tiefling, shut UP.

That was apparently to be the only reason for me to dive in, because as I grabbed a chest it disappeared. The others in the forest area had finished their tasks, which led to the third event. The two support teams in the center would now have to do battle with each other. The central platform began to fall away in segmented chunks.

As they fought, I had swam over to the side of the large mass of water and exited through the side to stand beside the soaked Alexandra. I may have been fishing for compliments. She was understandably preoccupied with what was going on with her sister though. Tallulah and Crampernap quickly dispatched the other team, a goliath bard and a half-sun elf cleric named Jenzen (another of Alexandra's old squadmates). Both men fell into the abyss below us before being returned to their seats from what I could tell. We had won. Our match, anyway.

It turned out that we had won more than just that one match, as no other team reached our score. Once we had cleaned up, and I finally got to put on that gorgeous outfit Tallulah and Locklin had gotten for me (its amazing, I will gush all about it in a bit), we were called down to the platform where I had fought the yeti. We were carried down on a floating disc to receive our reward.

An audience with the Lady herself.

Yeah, that was intimidating. She is, or the form she took is, massive! Taller than the masts of the huge trading vessels from the southern seas. It was terrifying. She looked like a huge Manifest, but her mask was surrounded by a ring of blades. I have never before in my life beheld a being of such majesty. And she was going to give us a reward.

More memories, but only for one of us. Ciarnali and Helem were adamant that they didn't want more at that point, and most of the rest of us were still processing what we had seen. The only one of us who wanted to know more about our past was me. I wanted to know who had scarred my face. That's not what I got.

I got you, Frieda. I got my trek to Sostren Hall, my thoughts as I passed out in the blizzard that had caught me in the tundra. I remember Kara and the rest of your scout group who helped you two get me to Sostren and nursed me back to health. I remember my feelings for you, I remember what I think is our first kiss, and of course, I remember your fiery red hair.