The Finals

Researcher: Dīca Dux
 
 
Research: "Life Adventures from Land to Sea"
 
 
Report: Though technical up front, the knowledge is aquired from submerging the book with yourself. During which I was able to sit in on one of the Great researcher's teachings. It contained information of a botanical and an infusion process.
 
 
Journal: "Life Adventures from Land to Sea"
 
Final round of the tournament came. We started with more puzzles. The first room was kind of homely. It had a desk with some papers, tea materials, and a door. The others looked at the desk, I opened the door to be met by a knight. They seemed to take offence at my presence and slammed the door in my face after hitting me with something. An-core found some papers from the bard college of etiquette and politely knocked on the door. When opened, An-core introduced himself and Sir Grimlock did the same. An-core says hospitality and asked to go through the door. The knight closed it behind the suit and Ravash offered him tea that he started. Kar'elf actually served him the tea as Ravash knocked on the door. The knight jumped up to open it for him. The rest of us bow to the knight and follow through.
The next room looked to be a cabin that sounded of water. In the center of the room was a 50ft deep pit with rough waters and rocks at the bottom. About 15ft down were four ledges in the cardinal directions and back 10ft in a cove on the ledges were levers. The one on the opposite of the room was pulled. The door behind us seemed to lead to a catacomb when looked, but otherwise the other levers needed to be pulled. Snowball slipped from the slick cliff but Kar'elf managed to slow her fall to land on the ledge, An-core turned into a mechanical spider and crawled down a ledge much to others displeasure. If only they seen the spidersnakes... Ravash asked if I was going to go to the last or if I needed help, I simply said our winged one could handle the last. They pulled the levers in succession. The first one stared a deluge of water from the edges of the room that threatened to push us in, but Water is my element and I was fine. The second lever ceased the function of our magical effects. Kar'elf was hit the hardest as his bag of holding proceeded to dump all his holdings into the water below. The final lever magically darkened the room, but the other effects ceased. The pit dried up, and a staircase came from the bottom and met a walkway that extended from the top center. Kar'elf retrieved his wet items with An-core help packing them away. A doorway was at the bottom with the curious phrase "The road my be dark, yet oft-times light does naught but blind" inscribed at the top. I followed in to find myself alone in a staircase. After a few turns of the monotonous stairway, I figured that I should kill the candles on the wall. A few more turns I eventually figures out that the stupid puzzle was counting my darkvision which isn't how it work biologically. I appeared in the next room with a statue of a guy with a spear and a pool of water with "Come, human, die by sword or spear" inscribed around it. on the wall was an arch with "T M D V N F W O G X P J Z Q K A R L" on it. Eventually some time later, Snowball figured the phrase "command word orpar" that activated the magical circle to pop us to the arena.
Once in the arena, Ravash went invisible again and Karelf peaked over the starting wall. They called out an Ogre, a mage, a Gloomstalker rider, and a Yuan-Ti hybrid all with Boros regalia. I move away from the group and take cover behind a nearby rock trying to avoid any AOE they might throw toward us while still being close to help. An-core called out the mage and I ran in to the target. I managed to land a good stun and proceeded to beat them down with Kar'elf shooting from a distance. They managed to recover and quickly threw up a force wall around themselves. I used the breather to climb a nearby structure and empty a vial of stomach acid I had on my onto the wall thinking that it would rain down on deactivation, but unfortunately it was repelled off. I then used the gauntlet that was lent to me to bring up a smokescreen to protect myself after seeing the ogre's cannon do earlier. During my maneuvers the mage disappeared and I tried to use the guatlet to burn him if he was still nearby, but to no avail. I slunk back into the smoke as I heard an explosion behind me. Ravash managed to explode the ogre's cannon and his arms off. The mage then reappeared near Snowball and tried to zap her and Ravash, but he was ready and dismissed the mage's magic. I sprinted over there and caved the mage's chest as the Yuan-Ti tried some sort of acid spit. It then did some sort of hypnosis to Snowball and fled to the other side of a stream. I decided not to risk the cross and activated my eldritch tattoo for the bonus range. I land a good hit in and Ravash finished him off seeming to have a thing against the hybrid himself being a full blood. The last one left standing was the Gloomstalker rider who managed to down both An-core and Kar'elf. I guess the fight with the Yuan-Ti must have worn Snowball out as she got knocked out too when the rider unleashed some sort of blast that I partially managed to dodge. That was the only bit I had gotten hit from in the round so far. Ravash then shot the Gloomstalker itself out of the sky and only the rider was left. I get to him and after thoroughly knocking him around he conceded the tournament and phased away in a puff of smoke back to another mount outside the arena. With that the arena pulsed the life energy and everyone was back. We had won.