The Festival of Merritt at Jigow

PREFACE
It was an odd sensation knowing you were fully alive and maybe less so now. That something horrible happened and to not remember any of it, the precious memories that are one's life, my story ... just gone. How can you miss something you can't remember? But in that hole where my life would have been, was something else spectacular, or rather someone. Gran-gran. I imagined a version of myself that would have happily given up anything for Gran-gran to be with me. And now here she was, part of my soul, right when I needed her most. After the unsavory event we were unsure which direction to head.
 
The curator suggested starting off slow, “Now that you have made a full -ish recovery, maybe look into interesting customs in the area to report on.” I was now in a different city than I was where the event happened and would be safe here. We were in an Inn and the curator was getting up to leave. "Trust in Ioun " He said, “We will be blessed with the knowledge We need, not the knowledge We want. The journey to discovery will make you strong." After the curator left we started to venture out of the room. A rosy cheeked woman at the front desk of the inn waved to me and said "Feeling better dearie? My, my you look white as a ghost. I didn't think you should be having visitors so soon after your ordeal. Same breakfast as usual?" Before I could explain we had no idea who she was, she bounced off and when she returned, she had brought us a green drink and fluffy white bread with orange icing and smashed berries on top. Almost reflexively I whispered, "Smoosh berry cake". And then Gran Gran in my head added "your favorite". I couldn't remember the lady or how I knew her or anything from my time after leaving the Fay wild but this,,, maybe I would remember this. I picked up the fork and cut into it, gently raising the perfect bite to my mouth. I realized I haven't been breathing... was breathing before? No, no more weird stuff. This is my first memory on my own after coming back and it would be this good pure normal thing that I lov..... "WHaT the moon maiden trickery is this!? It's nothing! It tastes of dust and emptiness." We dropped the fork, and it clattered on the table. We turned to the woman saying "I'm sorry my illness must have taken my appetite. Will you please clear the table". Confused, she rushed to remove the items. The rest of the morning we sat and watched others enter and eat eggs and bacon and weird green things with power on them and crumbly muffins and fruit. And we listened as we heard a group of goblins say they were so excited to get on the road, something about fried frog on stick, and Horizon backs that knock down houses. “Im sorry" we interrupted, "what are you talking about." The shortest one replied “the festival of Merritt at Jigow.” Then the taller one “We go every year” then the thirds said “You have to go!”
 
JIGOW
And so it was that we arrived in Jigow, where people gathered in the streets, colored flags waived in the air, painted animals pulled decorated carts, and music and noise filled the air. Suddenly I felt my sayter hoofs keeping time beneath me and in a moment, I was playing an electric gig on my jet black viol with a group of likeminded musicians. It was almost like what I imagine having a heartbeat would be like. When the song ended we shook hands and I got a slap on the back and they wondered on and I started deeper into the festival.
 
MEAT PIES
Everywhere I tuned things were happening, a puff of smoke, man with a twisted mustache offering a bottle to me, a woman laughing way too loud. And meat pies. So so many meat pies. A woman shouted that a pie eating contest would start soon. How I ached to join in the fun, but food and I no longer mixed. I chose a long shot, purple hair small girl with a cute hat, to be my champion. I hooted and hollered for her in the crowd and was quite pleased when she wasn't the first one out and didn't look ten shades of green like that other poor fella.
I was hoping to interview her when she came down off the stage to get her impressions of the experience and to find out how good those meat pies were. They looked delicious. I cast mage hand to record the conversation on some parchment as we spoke. I debated hanging round to see who the winner was. It was taking a long time and the longer I stood there the more discussing it got.
 
ARMWRESTLING
We heard a small crowd cheering across the street and headed over to see what the ruckus was about. There we came upon an epic battle of strength and will. An arm-wrestling contest! A fancy man mumbled something about a "bunch of brutes" as he wandered off. There was a group of soldiers rooting for a short woman. They had a couple of spirits with them too they did not seem to be aware of who were probably fallen comrades. Its nice that they stuck together. There were whispers as an older man with greying hair and weathered skin approached the champion, Meril Bronzefang. Bookies were placing bets, and the odds were not in Ciara'n favor. But I always did like an underdog... I think.... well I do now anyway. Ciara'n seemed calm and had a tense stare like a lion about to pounce. Bronzefang seemed smug and smirked as she straddled her chair and locked hands with the man. Biceps flexed, sweat dripping off their brows, a warrior scream as he pinned her arm to the table. The crowd roared! Some turned their attention to their losses; others recounted their disbelief to those around them. But I focused on the two competitors and noticed a tense moment between them before they turned to exit the stage. I pushed my way through the crowd but only got a few questions asked before he moved off. "What did it feel like to beat the champion? Have you done much arm wrestling before?" What a great story this would make for the Cobalt Soul. Though I know they would prefer harder to get stories of the ghostly variety this would do.
 
BATTLE OF WITS
I felt Grama-ma pulling me down the street and into a shop with a sign out front "Riddles And Rhymes". It was a dark intimate space at the center of which was a table with a light floating overhead illuminating the table. A Wizard sat across from someone who's back was to me and was slightly in shadow. And a tall mechanical thing in a top hat waited at his side. Curious. His butler maybe? They seemed to be engaged in some sort of battle of wit. We hung back and explored the shop which was full of potions and star scrolls. I could see why Gran-gran liked this place. Then the man stood and bowed. As the wizard placed a metal around his neck, I could see he was a quite beautiful man with gold locks and fine clothes. We could not wait to slip into the now vacant seat across from the wizard named Colbu Kaz. He explained the rules of the game and set out 7 bottles with colored liquid. We just needed to select the correct bottle after listening to the riddle. I could feel the fancy man and his butler standing behind me watching. Good. I perform better with an audience. And in a weird way I felt like he was supporting me, rooting for me. I will try not to disappoint. The first bit of the riddle seemed clear and I was able to eliminate 5 of the 7 right away. I remember he said the “light one” was the correct choice. And I only had a Purple and White left. So maybe the white potion? I reached my hand out and felt Granma-ma smack it and say "no"! The she urged me to breathe and listen. I could hear whispers pulling me to the purple bottle third from the right. I picked it up and downed it with confidence. I began to glow. I waved my hand in front of my face fascinated by the light emanating from it. Colbu Kaz stood and lifted a ribbon to place around my neck. I felt the weight of the medal before I saw it. I tipped it up to look at it and then smiled at the fancy man with his medal. We did it. That was exciting. Let's go find another challenge to participate in Gran!
 
 
GRAIN
We did three more challenges. The first we lost but it was fun because they gave us a scythe to swing to cut grain. I teamed up with the purple haired girl from the meat pie eating contest. Her name I found out was Very which I thought was rather unique. She seemed like she needed a win. I did try to see if the spirits working in the field could give me some tips. There was a bugbear woman kneeling next to me picking at the grain who was quite skinny whispering "not enough....need more". I tried to ask her if she had any tips on how to work the field more efficiently. Suddenly she sucked in some air and then started screaming in my face. Screaming about how she was starving, dislocating her jaw in the process. So.... maybe not the best person to ask. To make it worse the game masters caught me and said it was using magic which was cheating. I can see how it could be an unfair advantage, so I promised to ignore any ghosites in the field during the competition. I hoped Very wouldn’t be mad at me for nearly getting us disqualified. We lost but you can't say we didn't try.
 
MAZE
We also participated in a maze. I saw the fancy man and his butler robot, and a human with lots of pockets on his clothing and a few others gathering around the map. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw someone wander into the maze. Probably a spirit wandering around. When we were ready we could enter. I saw some evil looking children spirits snickering as the human went the wrong way. I was going to tell him but I thought a few times I saw my grandmother's spirit going around a corner. Usually, I don't see her. I just feel her in my soul, a part of me. I followed her a good bit of the way before I realized it wasn't her. Just some quick old lady. I saw the spirit of a hedge trimmer who walked with me and told me a story of a clever animal who lived in the maze. In his story were clues to the exit and maybe something more. A gift hidden in the story. The old lady had made it out before me. I wanted to interview her but she disappeared into a crowd of people. But where there is a crowd there is an audiance. So I told them of the adventures of the maze, the dangers of losing your sanity at every wrong turn and the story of the clever animal. It was so fun to entertain the crowd with my story. I waited to see if anyone else would make it out, but no one came.
 
SWIMMING
I lost the crowd to the swimming event. A disgusting bloated spirit in the water called to the crowd. His skin looked transparent and slimy, and he had a big grin saying “The water feels fine, come on in and have a swim" Though water gurgled up out of his mouth on the last word and water looked rather rough. No I will take a hard pass on this challenge. I saw the fancy man there. We chatted a bit though it was difficult to pull my eyes away from the disgusting blob spirit in the water. His name was Armani. He complimented me on my clothes which I thought was kind as they needed a wash. Armani seemed like the kind of person who would know clothes. He excused himself to participate in the event. I thought maybe we should warm him of the drowned spirit but… he probably wouldn’t believe us. A while later he emerged in a swimsuit and he looked so blindingly pale, I thought he was a ghost. A water Ganassi, a human, an orc and Armani the Pale jumped into the water and made an attempt to retrieve a spear from the other side. Armani and the orc discovered quickly they were in over their heads as the current was strong. They turned back right away. The drowned spirit laughed and pointed at the struggling swimmers. The ginassi and human were struggling. We worried they would drown so we cast bardic inspiration on both of them and watched as Ciara'n and Armani’s metal butler attempt rescues. The ginassi as it turned out didn't need saving as she was well…. a water ginassi, dispute the valiant efforts of the arm wrestler. Hugo the metal man was able to rescue the human and no one won that event but no one drowned either so that is a sort of a win.
 
 
HORIZONBACK HEARDING
We saved the best event for last. The baby HorizonBack Hearding. It was the reason I came. The goblins we traveled with to get here told us about how in last year's races the horioznbacks knocked down 10 houses, an outhouse, and trampled 2 grain fields. It took 50 men to wrangle the beasts back to their pins! We walked up the hill and looked down into the gorge where the animals were kept before the race. Seeing them all squished together made me think of giant land masses smashing together to make mountains. And these were just babies! The hulking animals huffed and stomped their massive feet as they waited to be freed from their pins. Animal handlers attempted to attach saddles to them for the riders of the upcoming competition, though it looked wildly dangerous. There was a team hopping about distracting the animal while four others worked quickly to get the straps around the beast. As I watched I was surprised by how unique the Horizonbacks looked from each other. Though they were all turtle-like in structure, one was muddy with roots poking out, another with ridges like a conch shell and barnacles crusting its underside, one looked like it had a small mountain on its back and another had swampy looking dead trees and moss. One had a spirit squished under one foot. Just two feet, two hands and a head poking out and every time it stomped the spirit man would say “ooo my back!” But my favorite was the one that looked like it was made of carved stone with blue glowing ruins and Azure Aster flowers growing on it. It had a willow tree sprouting out of the back and fireflies floating around it. It reminded us of Fay wild. We decided that would be the one I rode in the contest.
 
The herders were pulled aside and instructed by an animal handler to not put your arm or any body part you didn't want bit away from the animal's face, no sudden movements when mounting and if we fell off, we were to roll away and avoid getting trampled. We signed a waiver acknowledging that we could get injured or die and then he said "Right! Well go choose your animals, have fun and try not to die." My Horizonback had a sign next to it. "Azure Heart". I gently stroked her neck. "Azure Heart, Is that your name girl? Well, nice to meet you. Easy girl. You are safe with me. I bet you feel cramped in here. How about we go for a run?" A big glassy eye looked at me, she slowly blinked and bent down so I could climb up easier. "Thats it girl, nice and easy." Once up in the saddle I was lifted up off the ground about 10 feet. Looking side to side I was even with the other riders as we were lined up to start the race. Then I gripped the rains and Azure Heart and I set our sights dead ahead in the open space. A flair shot, the gates clanged open, and we ran. I leaned forward into the air rushing past my face and felt free. For a moment I felt weightless and almost let go of the reins to spread my arms out but ahead of me someone was tossed from their mount. I heard a high pitched "YEEEEEE" as the man pinwheeled and skipped along the ground past me. Well, that was a good reminder to stay focused. I have already died once, and I did not intend to get trampled. I hunkered in to get a better feel of Azure Heart's rhythm. She was breathing hard now but had hit a steady pace. As we approached the finish line, I realized we were winning. I squeezed a little tighter as we crossed past the flags and the animal handlers banked us along a natural rock formation expertly slowing us down as they guided us into another holding pin. I laid flat hugging her and letting my tired limbs hang down on either side of her neck as he as she panted, exhausted. That was fun wasn't girl? Thank you for letting me come along for the ride.
 
I stood at the end of day ceremony with 3 medals around my neck. One for wit, one for the maze and one for my Horizon Back ride. The Riddle master Wizard stood tall in front of the crowd and announced teams for tomorrow's trials. We were elated when our name was called. Gran Gran was so very proud of us. The folks on the other team seem tough but I am happy with who I got teamed up with. The fancy man seems like a risk taker, the arm-wrestler seems gallant and strong. I thought Very and I made a good team, but grain was just not my challenge. I am looking forward to getting to know the others. Right now, I just need a long lie down under the stars. I could write 10 stories and 20 songs based off this day. Years of my life were gone from my memories, but I knew I had never lived a day like today. This is one was truly unforgettable.