The party finds themselves materializing from smoke in what looks to be a stone Arena. There are bleachers on opposite sides of the arena that easily hold several hundred people on each side. Currently there are about 20 to 30 lonely stragglers in each of the stands. Ikol materializes in front of the party and introduces himself. He explains that this is a special dream state that the party is still alive. What happens here is only in their dreams, dying here rarely affects anything in the waking world. He continues to explain that tonight’s events will be played out as three events. The first one is for the players to deliver bouquets of flowers to the people on the arena floor. Scattered throughout the arena floor our hearts of various colors shapes sizes, sparkling, shiny, and otherwise. “Let me have the goblins demonstrate for you.” As the party watches three goblins out in the arena. As the first one steps on a heart their bouquet of flowers that they were carrying disappears. The second goblin steps on their heart and achieves double their movement. The third goblin moves onto its heart and is catapult forward 20 feet but unfortunately the wall was at 15. That goblin falls prone to the ground after slamming into the wall. Ikol, explains that there is no rhyme or reason to size, color or shape of the hearts, and there are various things that will happen, depending on the hearts. Some will increase movement. Some will spring the player forward in the direction they were going, some will return the bouquet of flowers while others could possibly have more dastardly plans.
Initially, the players are cautious and take things a little slow moving throughout the arena while testing out various aspects of what they are able to do in the arena. Daffodil has fortunate luck and eventually delivers a bouquet of flowers while stepping on several hearts that benefit them. Greybold on the other hand, loses their flowers and has an unfortunate return to sender moment. Greybold asked for Daffodil’s assistance in clearing a path for them. Poppy being a more creative type, tries, shooting the hearts and eventually catapulting he bouquet of flowers towards one of the Receiving beings. Unfortunately, the catapult missed, and the flowers landed short of the receiving party on a heart space. Poppy ended up having to fight the first heart she steps on. With a little help from Roland the first heart was defeated. Upon attempting to retrieve her bouquet, poppy activated a second heart monster. Meanwhile Roland may have ended up having the second-best luck on getting some distance, but eventually stepped on a heart that returned him back to sender. Well, all of this is happening Daffodil seems to run around the arena without a care in the world. It seemed their luck couldn’t be broken, and they collected by far the most hearts. After 30 minutes in the arena, the alarm goes off, and the arena was magically cleared of all the hearts and all traces of the game.
Ikol steps out once more and gathers the party members. “For the second event you are to capture the four wolvesin the arena. In this game the wolves move in unison with being able to move 15 feet. The party members can move up to 25 feet. The difference in the normal world compared to this one is that movement is predetermined and all parties move at once. With some quick action one wolf is captured quickly. With the party working together there are some near misses but eventually the party is able to capture all four wolves. Roland yells out, “Did you see that?” as he eggs on the crowd! Ikol returns and say; “You made quick work of them, good job! Now for the third event!”
Ikol hands each of the characters two tokens. One has crossed swords on both sides of token. The other token has a shield on each side. “You all have a decision to make. You will decide your fate. Your choice is between fighting each other to the death or fight three waves of monsters of our choosing. Do you know your friends? Do you know what they want to do? In one bag you will place what you choose to do. In the other you will place what you do not want to do. You cannot talk or discuss it beforehand. Your individual choice must be made by you and no one else.” Ikol walks to each person as they place each choice into the corresponding bags. Ikol looks into the action bag and finds that the party is split. Two want to fight to the death while two want to fight monsters. Ikol calls out; “You four don’t know each other and have cast your votes equally. With this I call upon Mistress to make the deciding factor. Mistress, please choose a token from the bag.” As a lady walks from the gateway to Ikol and draws a shield token from the bag.
As the crowd starts to roar, four skeletons walk out from the opposite side of the arena. With some amazingly quick work, the party picks off the skeletons one by one. Initially this seems like easy work for the party. But as the party defeats the four skeletons, six orcs walk out from the same area the skeletons did. With these orcs outnumbering the party 6 to 4 along with catching the party off guard; the orcs are starting to overpower the party. Unfortunately, the party is scattered far enough apart that they are unable to help each other. Initially, the party is able to hold their own while Daffodil dazzles one orc. Graybold deflects 6 straight strikes, Rolland doges blows, and Poppy is able to keep her orc at bay. Though eventually, the orcs start taking out the players. The first one to fall is Graybold. The second is Poppy and the third is Daffodil. Eventually, Roland is all that is left against three orcs. With some heavy wounds, Poppy succumbs to her death and her body goes up in smoke. With Roland, seeing this, he furiously attacks the remaining orcs. But in some ways, he knows what his feet will be, he dies, flipping off the arena around him upon his death.
All four characters materialize back to the center of the arena with the crowd cheering and applauding the characters. Upon Ikol’s appearance, Roland‘s initial reaction is to punch Ikol in the face. He completely swings through Ikol as Ikol turns into smoke and then reappears. “I understand your frustration, but as I stated in the beginning, this is your dream state not the real world. You all fought valiantly and played the games well. But there can only be one winner in tonight’s games. With the delivery of flowers, the number of hearts and the actions on the battlefield Daffodil, you are the winner. Each of you will receive a potion of healing, but for Daffodil you are awarded The Duck of Love. We hope to see you all again in our dreamworld!”
And with that the party is returned back to the second story of Moonlight Willow where in those two seconds previously they all come to remember what happened while they slept. Just before running down the stairs they each reach into their pockets or pouches and find a potion of healing. While Daffodil finds The Duck of Love in her other pocket.
