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Festival of Choices

Posted by Apostate on 10/20/20
In recent years, the Faithful have established a perhaps unlikely beachhead in Redreef Shores, the small Barony on the northwestern edge of Darkwater Isle, in the south of the Mourning Isles. The Hedge Maze of the First Choice is a pilgrimage destination that sees religious tourism increase yearly. Additionally, every year Redreef Shores hosts the Festival of Choices, a fortnight-long celebration of the ability to decide.

What people mostly decide to do during this Festival is drink.

The domain led by Baroness Ember Redreef, the so-called 'Princess of Parties,' gave itself over to two weeks of drunken revelry in the streets. The reputation of the Festival of Choices is steadily growing, and tourism from outside the Barony reached an all-time high this year.

Unfortunately, the ability to make choices encompasses the ability to make bad and harmful choices as well as good ones. Many minor scandals naturally arise from two weeks of drinking and partying: fistfights in public houses, oaths of fidelity called into question, and disputes over egregiously outsize bar tabs are all side effects experienced by many.

The biggest scandal by far was the murders, of course. Details have been suppressed by the Barony as much as possible, but gossip points toward thirteen ritualistic slayings, apparently by the former majordomo of Redreef Shores' castle, the Crimson Keep, an elderly man named Watkin Blackpearl. What is known is that Lord Haakon Eswynd killed Blackpearl within the Crimson Keep itself by harpooning him into a wall. Once that bit of gossip escaped, it couldn't easily be put back in the bottle. Other names that have come up in the rumors surrounding the solving of the murders are Marquessa Norah Eswynd, Lord Drake Wyvernheart, Lady Thea Malvici, Lady Eirene Riven, Lady Trueth Redreef, and Samira Culler. This much has been gathered from the addition of those names to the rolls of those who have received medals from the Baroness for service to the Barony.

Somehow tied up in the above murder plot was Tricia Cashmore, the daughter of a wealthy exporter of red dye. Her exact role remains unclear but for her part in it, she was sentenced by the Baroness to have both hands and all of her fingers smashed with a sledge, and in the aftermath was disowned by her family, leaving her not only crippled, but also on the streets and penniless.

Further scandal arose from the theft of a display of precious gemstones from the Saffron Chain, a display of the increasing ties between the Redreef noble family and the royals of House Pravus. A group consisting of Princess Alarissa Thrax, Lady Marina Redreef, Lord Cahal Blackram, Lady Zoey Kennex, Lady Kiera Wyvernheart, Lady Appolonia Blanchard, and Mirella Fiorelli tracked the theft down to Hadassa Riverbend, a groundskeeper in the Redreef Shores arboretum. The Baroness sentenced Messere Riverbend to the Crimson Keep's dungeon.

One strange rumor resulting from the pursuit of Hadassa Riverbend through the arboretum was various witnesses swearing that the Skal'dajan Ambassador Bahiya'al'mathali threw her cane like a javelin, with such brutal and pinpoint accuracy that her claim of blindness is now being questioned by some disparate quarters.

Lastly, the Festival was noted for its spread of a pamphlet of libelous caricatures of the Redreef noble family, titled 'The Nobility of Redreef' and signed only by 'A Betrayed Citizen.' The pamphlets had been copied in such numbers that their spread was almost certainly an attempt to make the Redreef nobles look bad. The cartoons took a conservative, traditionalist stance and generally mocked the overall progressive slant of the Redreef Baroness and her family as being the territory of morons and crybabies. Inquisitor Korka Glynn, Archlector Hamish Farmer, Princess Gabriella Pravus, Miraj Roumier, and Verity Locke were all somehow involved in stopping the spread of the pamphlets, but the artist behind them was never publicly named, and it is generally believed that they escaped punishment. Copies of the pamphlets have begun appearing as far away as Setarco and Arx itself, however.

All in all, everyone is hungover but alive, except for the fourteen people who aren't anymore.