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Sisyphean Attempts at Self-Improvement #1097374 added September 14, 2025 at 4:04pm
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The Road to Risaan
Your road to the former Alerian capital city of Risaan is defined by two specific events.
First, you stopped over in the small town of Orilon, which was pulling out all the stops to celebrate the Summer’s End Festival. Thogun orders a massive funnel cake while everyone takes part in the various carnival games that are on offer. Antonio executes a perfect five-for-five ring toss as Whispersail attempts dart throwing only to give up after two tries when he realizes the guy running the game is bad at math and offers a horrible return on investment. Tho signs up for the improv contest and crashes out immediately after being stumped by the challenge of starting things off, and then - joined by Whispersail - manages to get disqualified from the pie-eating contest when they each vomit up the pie they had been trying to hold down. Their consolation prize was more pies.
Reggie dominated the local strongman in an armwrestling competition, then let him win to help rebuild his confidence. He went to the fortune teller and realized after the fact that he could have asked more than just yes-or-no, and Tho won some cash off the grifter who wasn’t very good at three-card monte.
But the real highlight of the night was Antonio and Reggie participating in a drinking contest of bizarre but not particularly deadly potions, to see who could endure the most side effects before quitting. Antonio tapped out after the first potion put him on an emotional rollercoaster and the second set his hair perpetually on fire all night, but Reggie powered through, incurring a case of the giggles, growing a vestigial bunny tail (which develops into a deep itch he can’t scratch) and is compelled to reveal his deepest, darkest secret (which, incidentally, is worrying that no one will ever love him). The last effect Reggie suffers from is immediately believing everything he’s told, which Whispersail exploits to take his prize of a small satchel of actual, useful potions... and which Tho exploits by convincing him that the completely normal tattoo artist in town can give him another magical tattoo. Reggie proceeds to get inked with a pair of lightning bolts on his backside, one on each butt cheek with the tips of the lightning bolts directing any potential viewer’s line of sight directly at his poop chute.
A few days later, you encounter a small set of ruins outside of Risaan and discover a troll walking his two pet dire worgs. You all engage in fierce combat while the slow-moving, elderly Ikaron carefully makes her way toward the fray. You manage to overwhelm the troll’s regeneration abilities and down him quickly, also finishing off one of the worgs. Ikaron enters the fight just in time to knife the other one in the back with her short sword and take credit for the kill after Whispersail, Antonio, and Reggie do most of the work.
After the fight, you arrive at the ruins of Risaan, a city so large it leaves you in awe. It’s miles wide, and filled with paved roads and classical structures in rubble and overrun with vegetation. Other than the map itself with the riddle on the back, the only other clue you have to go on - if you believe it - was the fortune teller in Orilon who Whispersail encouraged to look at the second to last line of the riddle, and got a vision of a throne room of some kind.
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582 words
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