Lost Mine of Phandelver

Marcon raises a brow at the fairy. "Well look at that, Ronk. Seems she likes you." The farmhand said just quietly enough to be hopefully only heard by the group and side-eyes the Bugbear. "But eitha way, it sounds like we got an hour to... wait, we were s'pose to meet back with Harley in an hour as well, right? Huh...." He scratches his chin in thought for a moment or two, before shrugging. "Anyhow, you up for some ring toss, Van?"

Across from the satyr's drinking competition, was a large booth that had many people leaning over a low railing tossing what appeared to be metal rings towards something in the middle of the display. The square attraction measured roughly 20-feet on each side. The sound of metal ricocheting off of glass can be heard over and over, followed by both disappointed sighs and whoops of excitement from various contestants around the railing.

Vanzaren looks rather reluctant to play any game, "'Do what you want Marcon. I'll just watch and make sure people dont sabotage you."

"Well since we have an hour before the satyr is back and Harlan returns lets find a place out of the way to wait. I want to look at the things we've gotten so far and I doubt any of this is going anywhere." says Rigel as he starts looking around for a place to regroup. "Let's go back to the Linenne's shop." He he heads off towards the armor and weapons emporium. Once he's there he lights a lantern if he can find one and takes a better look at the cards.

Marcon furrows his brows and frowns a little at Vanzaren in worry. ".. Wait, what?" He looks to Rigel. "But, wha-... Ya ain't wrong, but shouldn't we co-..." He glances at Vanzaren, and then to everyone else prior to letting out a defeated sigh. "Ah whatever. Should have at least a few hours anyhow 'fore we meet Ms. Peeping Tom later anyhow." He comments as he trudges along after the half elf. Once there he doesn't even bother trying to examine the mallet, preferring to try and hand it off to Vanzaren while the farmhand found a place to take a nap.

Garet will fallow the group to the rest place, looking around for any signs of Izolde

"And why?" Van asks when Marcon hands him the mallet only to walk off. "Oh yes, let's split up while we're at a cursed carnival that has a twisted idea of what the word Justice means. Great idea." He rolls his eyes.

Back at Linene's shop, Rigel studies the card the quickling gave him. He determines that this card can be used to cheat at a card game: the wielder of the card can telepathically utter a command word to cause the card to turn into any other card in a normal deck of playing cards. The illusion also causes the back of the card to assume the appearance of the deck in which it is dealt. It can do this three times daily, all uses resetting at dawn.

(OOC: in terms of game mechanics, this card allows the wielder to roll with advantage on any INT checks made to use a deck of playing cards.)

Marcon, who had but maybe waltzed off only a few feet away and had still been in the process of finding a spot nearby to rest, turned back and gave Van a flat look. "I get that being here has you on edge. So, I'm gonna try not to take that personally. But, I'm literally only gonna be a few feet away. So just...." He sighs and shakes his head. "You know what? Whatever. Think what'cha want." With that, he carried on to his corner if there was no back area in the shop away from the others to try and nap. 

Ronk stands near the others and frowns at the toy bugbear. He studies it as he moves its limbs, putting it into a pose similar to the pose he usually uses when meditating/napping.

Studying his prize, Ronk finds that with a command word he can cause the weight of the small item to change from 1 to 10 pounds, or any weight in between.

Seeing that Marcon was resting soundly on a stool in the corner, Rigel decides to extend the party's break and spends another hour looking at the other card - the one he received from the fortune-telling booth. Turning it over in his hands, he feels magic emanating from it...

Nearing the end of their second hour of rest, The sun has moved close to midday in the sky. Harlan has not returned, though he said he would reconvene with the group over an hour ago. Looking out the window, Rigel can clearly see that the satyr has set back up and is ready to accept challengers at his drinking booth. Across the way, a small pixie flits around handing contestants a handful of rings that they then toss at targets behind a waist-high barricade.

Having spent nearly the entire last two hours staring at the cards in his possession ,Rigel comes to a realization.

"I think I know how the quickling was insuring his success. It seems this card," he holds up the quicklings playing card "can change its appearance on command and this one," he presents the second card, "gives limited insight into the future. I think our reputation may be growing. I can see the obvious advantage to these so I'm sure those other items we've acquired may have a purpose as well." He glances out the window, "Perhaps the knowledge of our intentions to put a stop to Isolde has gotten out. Could be both boon and bane. We may have more allies than we realize but it also might create more enemies out of Isolde loyalists.  Let's play a couple more games and see if we can learn anything else. Besides I'm getting concerned for Harlan." Rigel looks out the window simultaneously hoping to see their friend and yet knowing he probably won't. Seeing to drinking booth start up again he turns to the others , "Drinking booth is up and running again. Though I don't know how good of an idea it would be to go head to head with that Satyr. We need to stay clear headed. Let's go do the ring toss. We'll all give that one a shot. Maybe we'll discover other allies. Garet why don't you take that hammer since Marcon doesn't seem interested. Speaking of, somebody wake him up and lets go."  

Rigel waits for the group to gather them selves before stepping out into the street and leading them to the ring toss for one last game.

Garet agrees on taking the hammer but asks before grabbing it "it is n..not cursed ..r..ight?"


If group decide to go for ring tossing he will aid them with his guidance spells.

Vanzaren rolls his eyes. "Of course they were cheating, they always do."

If or When someone finally wakes up Marcon, there's is some yawning and grumbling from him. But seeming at least somewhat in better spirits and not at all minding Garet keeping the mallet, he just about readily follows Rigel out. Though if the firbolg again entreats the others for answers about it -- Marcon having still been too out of it to register it before -- the ex-farmhand rubs the back of his neck and says, "Prolly not? But given that last warning from ol' dude, uh... Prolly best to not go swinging that at folk or things you don't mean to hurt."

With that "helpful" little suggestion possibly made, Marcon lingers for maybe a moment or two more for any responses, prior to heading on out. Along the way to the ring toss, he asks for no update on time, though would look around confused and a touch suspicious at the lack of any sighting of Harlan. Suspicions he soon dropped with little more than a shake of the head, figuring the carnival wizard would be fine enough on his own.

Ronk slips the toy bugbear into a pocket and shrugs. "I'm not sure how useful it is but it looks like I can change the weight of my prize, but I guess only ten pounds at most." He shrugs. "The ring toss sounds more fun than drinking, anyway."

As the party approaches the ring toss, a small pixie flutters over: "Hello! Want to try your aim? 4 rings for single gold piece! Manage to get one around the neck of a bottle, and win something neat!" The party can see slender glass bottles covering the floor inside the waist-high partition separating them from the target area. The bottles are arranged side-by-side in a single layer near the perimeter, but build up to a tower in the middle with a single bottle at the very top. Seeing them eye the tower, the pixie offers some additional info: "Hit that one on top of the tower and you will get something extra special to take home!"

RULES OF THE RING TOSS:
 - a player gets 4 rings for 1gp
 - with each ring, you get one attempt at each of the 4 target areas described below
 - "tossing" a ring is done by making a straight DEX check (1d20+DEX mod) against one of the various difficulty classes listed below, to include any required roll mods.
 - NOTE: Your +3 Proficiency Bonus is NOT included in this check roll

TARGETS:
 - EASY: the flat area of bottles at the outer perimeter are DC 13 (characters with proficiency in Dexterity saving throws make their rolls with ADV.)
 - MEDIUM: the flat area of bottles near the base of the tower is DC 15 (no additional bonus is applied.)
 - HARD: the bottles forming the tower (except for the one at the top) are DC 17 (characters without proficiency in Dexterity saving throws make rolls at DISADV.)
 - VERY HARD: the bottle at the top of the tower is DC 19 and must be rolled with DISADV by all contestants. 

(OOC: cheating is possible, but I won't explain how...you'll have to figure out how, and getting caught has consequences...)

The pixie demonstrates how to play and tries to further encourage more customers to try:

EASY: 18 vs. DC 13
MEDIUM: 10 vs. DC 15
HARD: 15 vs. DC 17
VERY HARD: 8 vs. DC 19

"Oh well, I'm not very good...but I've seen lots of folks win!" she says encouragingly.