Meanwhile, over at the Arcane Contest, Vesper steps into the ring with a female elf who has silver hair down to her back and a long flowing flowered dress on her slim body. She nods with a warm and polite greeting and produces a faint laugh when she realizes that her opponent is quite inebriated, although she seems to be enjoying Vesper’s dancing. The two are introduced to the crowd and this semi final match begins. 

Vesper goes first and creates her fireworks illusion. They’re quite good and the crowd is very wowed by the display. The elf answers with a stunning bouquet of flowers in a basket that appears in her hands. Bright orange poppies, throngs of daisies, purple lupines and pillows of pink phlox spill out of the basket. Next to her flowered dress, it’s such a beautiful scene, and the crowd loves it just as much, if not a tiny bit more than Vesper’s fireworks.

Round two begins, and when Vesper invites Arine into the ring and does the skin-changing trick on her friend, the crowd goes wild with laughter. It even brings a laugh from her elven opponent, who answers the challenge by giving herself wings; the kind you’d expect to see on an eagle, only larger. The crowd loves this one too, and there’s an indistinguishable difference in the amount of applause the two women get during this round.

In the last round, Vesper does her “kiss” trick, which again, brings much laughter and joy from the crowd. Even the elf appears to be amused by it. For her final turn, she says a few words and points at Vesper, and suddenly, a little bluebird appears on her shoulder. The elf, who is obviously much older, smiles at her young half elf opponent and encourages the crowd to show their appreciation for Vesper’s fun and creative magic, which they do.

Since it’s essentially a tie at this point, the announcer leaves it to the crowd to decide who shall win the 25 gp and advance to the final. Voting with their applause, they clearly choose Vesper. Before leaving the ring, the elf grabs Vesper’s hand and says, “You are so talented, my dear, I wish you the very best of luck in the final round. I know you can win, just be imaginative.”

Vesper has a huge smile on her face when the elven woman makes a bluebird appear on her shoulder and it remains as the crowd gives her the victory with their applause. "Aww, thanks!" She says to the woman. "You did well too!"

Vesper goes to find her friends. She drops her spell, returning Arine's skin to it's natural color. "I did it guys!"

"Thank you nice pretty lady!" The kobold would say to the black haired woman as he shook her hand while the jeers continued behind him from the crowd. He would give the girl a big smile that would quickly fade as the heckling continued. When he was given the pouch of 25 gold however, the smile would return bigger than ever. "Thank you!" He would shout as he is nearly pulled over by the unexpected weight of the coinbag at first. "Woah! I have never had this many gold coins before! They weigh a lot more than copper coins!" He would say as he combines his existing coins into the larger new coin purse and ties it to his belt. He would then rush out to Congratulate Arine. "You won too! That is great! I am sure you will win the chapionship! I guess I will see you in a little bit!" He would add before bouncing around to the half-orc bard. "HEY LUMEN! I heard you cheering and it helped me a lot!" He would say with a grin. "Thanks friend!" He would add before bouncing around a bit more, occasionally rubbing his leg after this bag of coins bangs into it. When it was time for Krackle to compete for a last time, he would shake Arine's hand and prepare for the final test.

(OOC: If I were a bad kobold I would make slight of hand checks to casually make the ground difficult terrain for Arine as she were to compete but Krackle is nice :P)
19 4 20 11 20 8 16 23 17 

(OOC: Not looking good for krackle lol)

"Good job Vesper! i am sad I missed your show!" The kobold would have said to Vesper as he finished talking with the half orc., looking down at his feet. Me and Arine both won too! We get to play against each other next" He would add. "I am sure you will both win your competitions!" He would say with a smile looking to Vesper and Arine. 

Lumen is just still watching, slowly picking himself up. He's glad his inspiration is helping his friends, and when Krackle and Arine face off against each other, he'll give encouraging looks, but no magical inspiration. He'll inspire the others still in the competition, however, when he can (DM let me know how many inspiration slots I've used so far and I'll check the boxes).

(The inspirational quotes and songs essentially feel like an Andrew W.K. album on shuffle.)

Chrys whistles loudly as she watches Vesper take home another prize.  Apparently loosening her inhibitions with a little alcohol also unloosed more of her magic potential.   The skin-color-changing trick did make both of her eyebrows rise, though. "Hmm, better take care to make sure I don't wake up with pink hair someday," she mumbles with a bit of worry.

Krackle's next competition is also one that the little kobold wins handily; it's good to see him blossoming under all the attention, and all that gold surely can't hurt either.  Her brow does twitch a bit when she hears that Arine will be facing off against Krackle for the final competition; though she hopes the halfling will go easy on the little kobold, she's more than familiar with Arine's competitive spirit.  Still, if the last two competitions have been anything to go by, the timid kobold is more skilled than anyone has guessed so far.  Genuinely curious, she waits for the match between the two to begin.

Lumen is waiting close by, just as invested in the matches as she is.  As she notices him humming in preparation for the events, she flags him down.  "Oy, Lumen!  I got a match comin' up too, and I know you've been helpin' out the pie crew.  I really appreciate it, an' I'm sure they do, too.  But ya know, this here ain't no life-or-death battle, an' I can't help but feel like I should be givin' my opponents a fair shake against these beauties."  She demonstratively flexes her biceps with a proud grin.  "'Sides, if someone does manage to best me, I might learn something in the losin' that I can use in a real battle -- when it really counts.  So best you save that throat o' yours for the rest of our friends' matches this time 'round.  I'll win or lose with my own two arms, fair an' square."

Lumen nods at Chrys' request for no inspiration. "How about I just tell you straight up that I think you'll win, no arcane interference included?" He almost grins, and then takes another deep pull from his mug. "I thought I was getting the hang of magic, and I did really think I had that gnome bested with my approach. Turns out I don't know as much as I thought." A cloud passes over his face, and his eyes look to the sky. "Might be that I should stick to bashing people with sharp things like the tribal chiefs told me."

Then, looking up at a passing cloud, his face turns reflective, and barely looking at the table below him, he dips a finger in his beer and begins drawing an intricate representation of the cloud, the sun, the horizon, and the people in the crowd with just his finger as a brush, the beer as paint, and the table as canvas. He loses track of the contests, focused entirely on the drawing.

A short while later, Chrys is called up for her semi-final round in the wrestling ring. Her opponent this time is a scruffy male dwarf who carries a patchy beard, a shaved head and a rather rancid scent of beer and body odor. When she enters the ring, she says, "I'm in a real bad mood right now, so I wanna thank ye in advance for volunteerin' to be my punchin' bag.  Don't take it personal."

He spits and responds with a deep, scratchy retort. "Oh, we'll see who's a be takin' the punches, woman." Rubbing his nose vigorously, he walks up to the middle of the ring and stares her down. When the signal is given, he stands fast and waits for her to make the first move while slapping her with loose punches in the shoulders, using the heel of his hand. 

Chrys does make the first move, and she comes in low and wraps both arms underneath his chest. Then sliding her right leg to the outside of his right leg, while performing a sort of brutal heimlich maneuvers on the person, she attempts to lift with the arms, and at the same time, tries tripping him in an attempt to bring him down. 

Only, he doesn't budge. He stands fast, resisting her throw by squatting down an bit and making his body feel like dead weight in her arms. With no leverage or opposing movement to use against him, Chrys ends up locked in an awkward stalemate with the equivalent of a 160 lb bag of mud.

Seeing the futility of this approach, she backs off and tries to come at him a different way, this time looking for a way to draw him off his balance point. The two opponents circle each other slowly for a half minute, each looking for a weakness. At one point, she things she sees one, and she moves forward to take the advantage. However, as soon as she locks on, she's suddenly realizes that she's over extended herself. 

Two massive arms lock around her own and she suddenly feels the weight coming off her feet. She fights desperately to get away, but his hold is too tight. A second later, her feet come all the way off the ground and she feels her body being pushed backwards. His own weight shifts as he follows her down to the mat. The action is so smoothly executed that she makes almost no sound as she hits the mat. 

As he lands, he twists his body so it's almost perpendicular to her own. Then, putting most of his weight on his outstretched feet, the other dwarf presses his body tight and holds her down with such a fierce grapple, she can hardly breathe, let alone move. Chrys tries to struggle, but any effort proves futile, and in her head she can count the seconds that go by. Or is that the crowd yelling the count that she hears in her own years? 

"Two... three... four..."

"FIVE!!"

The referee drops to his knees and slams the mat with his open hand. The dwarf relaxes his grip and slowly gets up. He doesn't offer Chrys a hand, but he looks down and says, "See, not so bad, eh? Ye got fire, though, woman. Give ye that. Pity the orc that crosses you tomorrow." 

Chrys glares at her opponent and gets up slowly, dusting herself off.  She stomps up until she's nearly toe-to-toe with her opponent and tilts her chin defiantly.

"We'll see how it shakes down next time, if there's ever the chance for a rematch."  Then, with the same fierce glare, she reaches out and clasps the man's forearm, giving it a firm shake; finally, a tiny, wry smile cracks through.  "I know when I've been bested, an' that was a good fight.  Honor and glory ta ya, sir, and may the ale always flow strong in yer cups."

With that, she steps off the platform, cracking her neck and wincing in pain.  "By the Duin!  That fella hit harder than my da's hammer," she groans.  Noticing that she's just in time to view Arine and Krackle's match, she seeks out a few of the others from the party and joins them to watch the bout. 

"What!? Come on, ref're you blind? He's got knuckles like a devil's heart, no way tha's fair! Rematch!" Arine yelled in the general direction of the strength competition, making her voice carry the distance by sheer will alone, without stepping an inch out of her own ring. She'd been in the middle of 'limbering up' - that is to say, blatantly yelling at Chrys to do... things, fighting paladin things. Arine didn't have specifics to back her up.

Still, she'd tensed when the dwarf had gone down, mouth pinching into a thin line, only to begin hollering the moment she realized only Chrys's pride sustained the most damage. Lumen was close by. She gave both of them a thumbs up, hoping for the best.

With a decisively satisfying crick, she popped the bones in her neck and wiggled herself out.

"Alright, kid. Let's do this."

(acrobatics 17 5 16 17 21 24 )

(OOC: looking at rolls, it is going to be kind of close. You got some nice crits though)

¨C´mon Chrys relax a little, you can beat another tomorrow. After all this ends, we take a job where ass kicking is the only activity... Speaking of that¨ Silver points to the Marthammor Duin symbol on her  and stop walking ,look at her friend ¨You are made for bigger things, remmember that¨  A half smile appear on silver´s face ¨Don´t lose your temper over this , let´s have fun¨

Silver motion to the arena where Arine is competing ¨That girl needs to relax a little bit...¨

EDIT: a typo

"Good Luck Arine!" The small kobold would say with a nervous smile, his tiny tail practically tucked between his legs as he glanced around waiting for the contest to start.

Vesper doesn't really want either of them to lose, but she's known Arine longer, so she cheered for her during the contest.

When it's her turn to compete, she warmly greets her opponent and waves to the crowds, making a point to look out and find her friends. She starts her performance by pointing towards the side of a building and using Prestidigitation to make a large symbol in the shape of a rose appear on the side of a large building. 11

Then she uses her magic to turn herself into a nice shade of pink. 10

And finally, she uses her magic to create the scent of roses and have it blow over the entire audience. 15

Cheered by Silver‘s kind words, Chrys smiles thankfully.  „Yeah... if the job board don‘t turn nothin‘ up for us, we can do like I‘ve always done: ask the local temple if they need a helpin‘ hand with anything.  They might even have beds for the night if we ask ‚em polite enough.  And t‘be honest, it‘ll be a might easier to get by if we all help eachother out, no matter what we end up decidin‘.“  She pauses as the scent of roses washes over from Vesper‘s competition and chuckles.  „Good to see that girl havin‘ such a fine time right now.“

With all eyes on the Agility Ring, and much of the crowd now heavily inebriated, the air is full of cheers, and of course, more than a few jeers as the Krackle and Arine make their way over to the corner and wait for the signal. The MC introduces the two contestants in his larger than life voice.

"And now the final contest in the agility competition! We have our two semi-final winners, Arine, the quick little halfling who has a flair for showmanship, going up against Krackle, the nimble little kobold!! (a throng of boos and hisses follow, as well as a few pieces of half eaten fruit which are anonymously tucked into the ring from drunk audience members. "Now now... We don't know who he is or where he came from... he's certainly an unlikely contestant, but the little bugger can balance. He's shown his mettle here in the ring, but is he good enough to win?"

"Only one way to find out..."

"GO!!!!"

Krackle and Arine each grab their first item, which isn't a cup this time, it's a candlestick. A fat one, but nonetheless, a candlestick. Stacking a plate on top of that, they both take off walking very slowly as they make their way around the fist lap, their eyes glued to each of their own towers. They both find this to be much harder than stacking a plate onto nice wide beer mug. 

That said, they each hold together and finish the first lap. Stacking another candlestick on the plate, they begin walking their second lap, going even more slowly and deliberately than before. They try hard to keep their minds focused, which proves to be quite a challenge with the roar of the crowd in their ears and the uneven cobbles of the street below their feet. However, they both finish the second lap with their towers intact. 

Adding a second plate proves to be an extremely delicate task, but they both find the balance point quickly and begin their third lap. This one goes much more slowly as they have to stop multiple times to keep it totally steady and prevent any kind of movement. Where the fist laps in the previous rounds took a minute or two, this one takes about five minutes. Complete concentration is a must here, and both Arine and Krackle soon find that the sound of their own heart beats drowns out the roaring cheers of the audience members all around them. As they struggle to keep moving forward, all other sights and sounds fade away from their consciousness. 

With Arine holding a slight lead, about 10 feet ahead of Krackle, they both finish the third lap with success. Adding yet another item, their towers are now candlestick, plate, candlestick, plate, candlestick. It seems an absolute impossibly that any mortal could balance such a precarious and awkward collection of items, but after a long delay trying to keep their towers from swaying, which seems like a completely fruitless notion, both Krackle and Arine attempt to take a step. 

By now the crowd is completely silent and every single breath around the ring is being held. Arine and Krackle, who are standing side by side, just a few feet apart, can see each other out of the corner of their eyes. Slowly and with an incredible amount of deliberation and concentration, they both put one foot forward, almost in perfectly synchronized tandem, and slowly shift their body weight forward. Both of their towers show the slightest bit of movement, but they each manage to keep it in check.

Now, the hard part... bringing that back foot forward. Krackle lifts his every so slowly and brings it in line with his front foot. Pausing for a good ten seconds to prevent any swaying, he finally move it forward and slowly plants it on the ground. A single gasp escapes from the audience, but everyone else is silent. 

Arine begins to take her second step. Removing the weight from her back foot, she lifts it every so slowly and starts moving it forward with the utmost care and deliberation. Halfway through the step, she stops... Her top candlestick rocks back and forth once. It's only a millimeter in sway, but that's more than enough to bring it down if the sway continues. With her left foot still in the air, she stands there on one foot, her eyes glued to the top of her tower for nearly a full minute. 

When she's sure she has stopped any swaying, Arine starts moving her left foot forward. However, the physical awkwardness of trying to stand perfectly still on one foot for that long while trying to balance this impossible tower causes a brief shift in her otherwise perfectly still posture. Her body makes a single involuntary movement to the left, and then overcompensates to the right. This slight shift causes her entire tower to wobble, and with absolutely no room for error, the entire stock comes crashing down around her.

The clattering of metal on cobble breaks the silence with a deafening crash and the entire crowd burst forth with a round of cheers.

"We have a winner!!!!!!!"

Krackle would remain completely still.. not noticing Arine's tower topple until the roar of the crowd caused him to flinch. The tiny kobold would quickly duck and cover his head as the tower collapsed on top of him, waiting a moment to uncover his head and look around. "Who won? Did I win?!?" He would ask with a startled look

Seeing this, silver runs to the arena to make sure Krackle is fine ¨Litttle one , are you ok?¨ after he makes sure he is okay, he will take the tiny Kobolt on his shoulders, and present him to the crowd. ¨you did good!¨. He then put Krackle down so he can move freely.

He then goes over and check Arine, if she is Ok. 

"Yes, my little friend, you are this year's champion," the announcer says to Krackle with a wide smile. "You win the first place prize of 50 dragons," (the local name for gold coins in the region of Silverymoon), "and bragging rights for being the most nimble creature at this year's Shieldmeet Festival. Whoever you are, it was well earned, so relish in your victory and enjoy the rest of the festival, you odd, but strangely cheerful little fellow."

As Silver hoists him up onto this shoulders to present the crowd, the audience gives him a large applause that's overwhelmingly positive. Only a couple of faint boos can be heard, but for the most part, Krackle a very enthusiastic response for is win.

"Not bad, short stuff!" Chrys yells from the sidelines, happy to see Krackle finally getting his day in the sun.  She surreptitously shoots a glare at a few of the onlookers who are readying some more rotten fruit to throw; between her knit brows and Silver's towering form as he hefts the kobold onto his shoulders, the bystanders quickly decide to reconsider what they're doing with their lives and their projectile choices.

She looks on with more worry at Arine, who is still brushing bits of wax and broken pottery off of her shoulders.  "Oi," she says while approaching the halfling, "Don't tell me you were throwin' the game to make that lil' one's day, eh?"  Smiling, she helps Arine clear off the debris.   "Well, the nice thing 'bout the wheel o' fortune is that it keeps turnin'.  While folks like us are scrapin' the bottom, someone else is sure to be ridin' at the top.  That's the way o' the world, and it ain't always a bad thing, right?"  She looks over at Krackle, still lifted high on Silver's massive shoulders, and tilts her head with a grin at them.