The sun blazes overhead, though the people below celebrate a passing star. The day is bright and warm and cheery, the sky a vibrant blue with only the most vibrantly white clouds. This is the day when each and every of you find yourself in Sumak.
Sumak. The town at the Forest's edge. In another life, it would have been content to be a humble farming village. Time and fate have made it a new creature entirely. Squat schools stand log to log with humble temples. The local Forest Home Inn shares its block with a two-story building that the educated folk call the observation lodge. The town prefers the library of its lower floor to the curiosities of its upper.
Perhaps the root of these oddments is at the center of town, the statue of an unnamed individual standing tall. A single stone arm points upward from the robed figure. A single finger jutting toward the sky. They call it the Sage, that nameless and faceless thing. It is the Sage who watches for the comet.
Festivities have taken form around the pedestal of the Sage, today. Tents and temporaries sprawl throughout the town, and the buzz through the streets carries further than the noise of any mere harvest festival. Children laugh at a fire-juggler as a jesting player sneaks up upon him with a water bucket. A small crowd claps with awe as a trainer shares a dance with a tamed bear. A knight from Greywater assists in uncorking a bottle of wine, initiating the opening of a tent full of imported flavors. All through the town, lofted torches spit embers into the air. A small handful closest the Sage glow magically green.
Plastered everywhere through town, a variety of posters question their audience: Do you dare? Take the challenge - race for gold and glory! The Sumak Ranger Conclave will be hiding their flags along the edge of the forest - when the horn sounds, be the first to return with one! The posters show a rough sketch of a stag with branchlike antlers - the symbol of the Conclave. Other posters include Duel for a drink with Greywater's Guildmaster of Tailoring! and Festival of Stars 2nd Pig Hunt!
A few slender clouds of dim shade drift upon the horizon.
Children gasp when the bear trainer playfully offers the animal a flower - chuckles follow with the bear nibbles on the flower uncertainly. It seems rather content. Nearby, five white horses from the distant city-state of Crownfell trot in a well-practiced rhythm, each wearing the signs of a different good or neutral deity - absent the Minstrel. A slower procession of mottled steeds carry the colors of the city-states behind them. Then come the tumblers and the acrobats and a fire-breather or two. The parade of sorts winds its way through town, winning a path through presence.
Among all the chaos of the day, it could be very easy for one to get lost.
The fine steeds prance and the children play and the winds sing with the merriment of the occasion. Yet, there is at least one individual who is decidedly not having fun, and being loud about it even so. She is known to the townsfolk as Old Ranger Clemens, and outsiders may not even recognize her for that. Old Ranger Clemens is a muddy-skinned, straw-haired crone, and she sits upon the pedestal of the Sage with all the reverence of an audacious child. A few knights have since stepped forward to urge her down, but she swings her feet in the air with a dexterity that doesn't quite fit her appearance. And she does call out, "Look at you! Right lot of fools. You, there, yes, you! And that biggish one there! Buffoons! But, oh, it's any excuse to get drunk and bloodied!" Her voice creaks up a pitch with her sneer. "My word, of all the things! I oughta--"
As she is pulled down from the statue, Clemens descends into a cursing fit. Those she's dragged past catch the powerful stench of alcohol practically seeping from her pores. Her oaths carry on long after she's out of sight.
After a heartbeat of silence, there's a rush of noise as each reveler hurries to be the first to recapture the crowd's attention.
Spoiler: NotesWe'll start with that. Can have some mid-festival introductions, possibly a meeting of characters or two, and then we'll see what happens after. :smallwink: