August 4, 2013 - Midreign!

Thirteen showed up today and many pictures were taken (thanks to the return of our favorite photographer!)

As it was a special day, the middle of our reign, it was a time for celebration and different activities than normal.

We started with a class life pool game, where everyone got a good warm up, and then we jumped into the tournament.

Prada ran the four bracket tournament, with classes in single short sword, Florentine, sword and board, and an open category. Meanwhile, Riken ran a neat archery and spell ball/thrown tournament. She had park trinkets to give as prizes to three winners. The prizes were chosen at random by the winners of each category.

Zwik won the archery tournament and received a Teleportation trinket.
Henry Greatwing won the single short bracket and received a Teleportation trinket.
Tungdil won the spellball/throwie tournament and declined to take the trinket due to it only being of use in our park and he is leaving for Ruby Hills and college. So he chose to give his trinket to one of our newbies, Adahay- who now has a Shadow Step trinket.

After the tournaments we had one more class battle (life pool) and then started on the quest.

Riken opened up a box that contained the deed to the Valley of Smoke... unfortunately a necromancer had stolen it and left a taunting note. Immediately his power possessed two of our park members: Henry and Prada. They fell to the ground screaming or lunged at the sheriff before vanishing.

The heroes found a map leading them up one of the paths, where they encountered Henry and combat ensued - but he was fortified with dark magic (Ancestral Armor of many points). After wounding him, he teleported away and the heroes faced Prada. Eventually he teleported away as well and they found a chest. With it, a map leading them to the second area.

On the way to this second area, they found Henry and Prada seemingly dead on the road. They quickly arose and a fight continued... but

they teleported away again. Next they found them at the entrance to a tower backed up by a possessed Zwik. This wizard put Void Touched on Prada and many people were killed, lives stolen, guts stabbed with a madu. Zwik teleported to the tower and Prada and Henry vanished.

At this point Zwik was forced to face them alone and fought bravely - but fell and vanished. At this point the heroes saw a three headed Hydra rising from their training field at the bottom of the hill. Three heads, long necks, and magic kept the heroes busy but they killed all three heads at the same moment and slew the Hydra.

The pieces of the deed were reunited and all was well with the shire again! The three members of the park who had been mind controlled and had created such a stir awoke from the Hydra's remains, wondering when the quest was going to get underway!

 The day ended with court being held under the shade tent. During this time, the tournament awards were handed out, and the regular awards were issued, some in the form of hand written and drawn scrolls created by Riken.