Lost Mine of Phandelver

Marcon couldn't help but grin a little at Ronk, agreeing whole hearteldy with the bugbear's earlier sentiment. Upon later reaching the booth and seeing things in action, he lets out a low whistle and shakes his head. "Looks tricky fer sure. But, uh, don't sell yourself short, Mam. That was a very good try. Ain't that right, Ronk." He nudges Ronk's side playfully with his elbow, then gestured to the rings. "But what say you, Big Guy? Or you, Rigel? You two up for having a go at it first?"He asked the pair.

"Is no one in the least concerned that the one person here we've been able to trust has not come back yet?" Van asks, glaring at the stall runner.

"And you, my dear lady," Vanzaren says, "dont you think its time to go home? I mean, surely you have better things to do than be here at this stupid carnival."

"M..m..maybe let's t..toss few r..rings and go l..l..looking for Harlan" Says Garet looking at all the battles and rings

"And we should do that why?" Van asks, getting fed up with everyone seemingly acting like nothing is wrong

"Yes I'm concerned for Harlan because I agree,, if he didn't show then something is probably wrong.. However, if something is amiss fat chance we have of finding him, I mean look how well we've done finding Carp. Harlan  survived here for quite awhile so I'm going to trust that he can take care of himself. We're doing these games to see if we can find potential allies or information. Besides it's the best way to work the crowd to find said allies. So far I'd say the quickling did us a favor by giving us the card. Being able to foresee if a desired choice will be successful or not seems like a good thing too.". Rigel ends his statement by pulling out a gold coin. Holding it up he calls the faerie over with a nod and flick of his hand. Once he has collected his rings he steps up and gives it a try.

At the initial mention of 'trust' in Harlen, Marcon couldn't help giving a quick sort of 'ehh' kind of shrug. Just how serious he was in that reaction though is hard to tell in the sleepy-eyed young man in the moment. But while the modem that was his brain took its sweet time trying to fully piece together a response to the questioning, the other's answering first and even clarifying elicited a soft sigh of relief and some gesturing in their direction  in agreement.

"What, uh, Rigel said is basically how things are. If it seems like we're just kinda goin' with the flow of things... I dunno what to tell ya other than you've seen how well everything else we've tried have gone so far and just how far that's got us." He said plainly. "If got any ideas, and I mean actual ideas for how to better navigate this mess, then I'm all ears. But -- and I know this is probably rich commin' from me, but don't don't take things out on us just 'cause. Again, I get this whole riggermarole has ya all twisted up inside. I do. But that alone ain't gonna cut it here. It ain't just our lives at stake here, man."

Taking careful aim, Rigel works his arm through the motions of tossing the ring. His arm swings back and forward twice and on the third forward movement the ring does sailing through the air.

Tier one (DC13) 15

Tier two (DC15) 16

Tier three(DC17) 15

Tier four(DC19) 10

The corner of Rigels mouth curls in a very slight smirk of pride as the first three rings drop over the necks of their respective bottles. The celebration is cut off by a bell like tone as the final ring strikes the side of the top bottle.

"Guess you can't win 'em all." He says with a sheepish shrug.

Ronk shrugs and fishes out a gold piece. "I can try too, I guess."

EASY: 13 vs. DC 13

MEDIUM: 11 vs. DC 15

HARD: 21 vs. DC 17

VERY HARD: 16 vs. DC 19

PIXIE TO VANZAREN: "I wish I could go home...if only..." she says to the wizard with a sad expression on her face. Her demeanor then immediately brightens once again and she looks around as if scanning to see if anyone might have noticed her brief moment of forlorn reflection. She claps and cheers as Rigel's rings find their marks, until he misses the last target, the singular bottle at the top of the stack. She offers Ronk some words of encouragement after his first ring hits but the others ricochet off the necks of the bottles. 

The quickling from the Follow-the-Queen card game, zips over and whispers something to the pixie before zooming away in a flash. The pixie then flutters behind a partition and quickly returns with an armful of items: she first hands both Ronk and Rigel a feycake tart for hitting the easy targets. She then gives Rigel two additional prizes: a hand-painted wooden toy soldier (approximately 6 inches tall) and decorative box containing a beautiful glass potion bottle nested among a clutch of pink and green grass. A viscous orange liquid sloshes back and forth inside the bottle, even when it is held perfectly still.

"Congratulations!" exclaims the pixie, just as a few rings from other players score winning shots. "Uh oh, gotta go!" she blurts out as she flutters back behind the partition again to retrieve more prizes.

Marcon hadn't taken his eyes off of Vanzaren even as the prizes are being handed out to the others. He crossed his arms and stood patiently, waiting for a response out of the half-elf. But if one isn't exactly forthcoming, then he asks plainly, "So, we good for now man?"

"Curious. I wonder what he told her." Rigel muses as he looks about trying to judge the hour. 

"Our time with Isolde draws close I believe. We may not have time to find out if these new items have any special properties. But regardless, we should go prepare. Harlan will just have to find us." Stepping away from the ring toss he moves back across the way hopefully out of earshot. Once everyone has gathered he lays out his plan. "I don't think we should all go. Someone has to stay behind to rescue me when this thing goes sideways. Ronk you and I will go into her tent the rest should take positions around her tent. Not that it will probably matter but should something happen the rest of you should prepare to come in through the tent wall. Let's get this overwith." The ranger moves off towards Isoldes tent.

Marcon seemed reluctant, but would take his eyes off of Vanzaren to follow Rigel a ways for the meeting. Towards the end of which, he sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Somethin' tells me she gonna insist on all us being there, least we can't 'participate' or some other bull hookey." He comments. And yet too tired to muster much in the way of resistance, he followed along after the half-elf presuming the others were of a mind to go along with things. 

Garet agrees with the plan and fallows the group. "I hope if we s..survive I will learn more of me f..father s..story" 

"Oh, let me give you the lowdown," Vanzaren says as he walks with the group. "He probably made one tiny error, something that anyone can do. And instead of, oh I dont know, understanding people make mistakes and moving on they latched onto him and dragged him around with this whole stupid carnival until he died."

"But of course, that's just one thought on the matter," Vanzaren says, looking around for Harlen as they walk.

Ronk sniffs the tart he'd won, then nods to Rigel's plan, pocketing the tart. "Yeah, OK. Let's go."

"N..nature rarely gives s..second chances ..ye n..know. Fir..Firbolgs as you call us, know that w..well. I do n..not have h..high hopes. I j..just n..need to n..know"

Replays Garet without any signs of anger or grief.

Without further hesitation, the party wades past the throngs of carnival performers and townsfolk to the large tent in the northwest corner of town, the one Harlan previously identified as Isolde's. As they approach, they see a young boy who looks the spitting image of Carp playing in front of the tent flap. In one hand, he holds a sparkler which he shakes and swirls back and forth through the air in front of his face. In the other, he holds a long vicious-looking sword with a red blade. It drags the ground, and the boy pays it no mind, almost as if he does not even realize he is holding it.

When the party comes within earshot of the boy, he alerts to their presence (whether they call out to him or not), drops his sparkler and waves at them happily. He then beckons them forward with a wave of his hand as he ducks into the tent, still dragging the sword along behind him.

As the group moves through the crowd, Rigel addresses Marcons misgivings. "Oh I'm sure she will but she will also have to accept that there's no way I'm allowing all of us to walk into an obvious trap. If needed we'll come get you once we scout it out." 

When they reach the tent and see the boy with the sword Rigel snorts and shakes his head. "Who does she think she's foolin'. Turning to Ronk he tilts his head towards the entrance and says, "Shall we..." before following Isolde into the tent.

Marcon clenches his jaw at the Carp look-alike, and for a moment it looked as if the man might march right through the entrance, ignoring Rigel's previous plan. But he catches himself after the first step or two if noone else hadn't immediately barred his way, glaring after the 'boy' with a look of disgust. Hearing Rigel speak, he returns further to the present in mind, muttering something to himself in goblin as he moved to stand aside the entrance like some body guard.