Week 1: The Symposium of Wonders

Aiden was awakened by his half-goliath friend Zuri: she’d found a mark (Tannith, a common gambling buddy) who had a ticket to the symposium. Aiden bet his favorite coat against the ticket and wound up winning. Upon arrival at camp, he registered with Steward Carletta and selected the white flag as the team favorite. He narrowly dodged a ball of chewleaf that Marsander Soza hocked at him. Rosalia, an elvish urchin, woke up Toby and pressed a gold coin into his hand, telling him to spend half on something nice for her and keep the other half for himself. He rushed to camp and met Bini, who asked him to pretend he’d been insulted and run off. Ochi roused Kyamu and gave him a letter of introduction to Doctor Marbalay, where he was supposed to pick up a glassbladder for Draken. Kori tripped him on the way to camp and yelled out “It’s summer, not fall!”. Vel was already up, but a little kid injured himself so Vel took him to see Harricka. She applied lacewort to the wound, and gave a dose of it to Vel in case of any mishaps at camp. Someone stuck a note to Vel’s back saying “Golden Eagles rule, White Team drools!” that Iomina removed when he got to the camp.

Marsander Soza and one of the Tukari kids are on the Golden Eagles team, along with Kori, Bini, and others.

The group met Iomina and the other campers, going through their introductions. Effi is a waif of a girl, on the tall side and fairly skittish. Her friend Kada is a Nawabe boy from near Typor; his parents are science-y types, with his mother being an herbalist/midwife of some sort. Fondelore Oveda is a noble kid who seemed to have all of the riches but so far hasn’t really pulled rank on the rest of them. Moki’s a laid back bechi salesman with an infectious laugh who might be a stoner in another world.  Kowara is a mahksi girl who’s going to attend the Campus of Semoz in the fall; she seems like a bit of a goody two-shoes so far. Saleen is the daughter of a maid who works for some rich family; she does some work there and also gathers herbs and such for money.

After some debate (the Sea Sentries? The White Wind) the group settled on the White Gryphons as their team name.

Dinner was had, and then a spiel from Warden Hollendar and Steward Carletta about the plans for the weekend happened. The group headed to crash out, where they saw Iomina buy a bottle of wine from a girl named Dyta. Dyta offered them pastries for sale and after some conversation it became clear that she’s a bit of a fixer — she even said she might be able to sneak them off the island some night.

In the morning they went to visit the Grounds, where they witnessed a puppet show: the explorer Arko Adi has returned from visiting an elven homeland on the other side of the world! Marghoz Lango has opened trade with the east, signing a treaty with Marqueza Bellina Palmyra and Governor Grey Annie of Tarsha! And Saffa has settled their differences with Wurdonne, and is now trading apples and other goods with them! Apples are a brand new fruit, which were distributed among the kids.

They saw a couple of new inventions: mattresses made from puffballs and giant sea sponges, and a shadow inverter that prints silhouettes onto paper. They beat the Golden Eagles in a greased pig competition and got a small stuffed broadback in a game of axe-throwing. And they saw stilt-walkers, fire breathers, jugglers, and acrobats. There was a bit of a hiccup when a kid stole Kyamu’s funicular ticket, but they chased him down and recovered it.

The view from the funicular was spectacular; Dyta joined them there and showed them where Doctor Marbalay’s was. His place is creepy, with all sorts of preserved animal parts, live animals in baskets, taxidermied specimens, etc. Kaymu picked up the glassbladder, and Aiden and Vel overheard Marbalay setting someone’s broken leg in the back room. Kaymu saw some sort of fake chimera that was being stitched together.

The group were defeated in a contentious stairball match, which involved a lot of kicking in the groins. After the match Toby took a swing at Marsander, resulting in Soza pulling his sword and the counsellors separating the two teams. Toby swore he would make Marsander eat that sword.

They returned to the Grounds to watch a kite fight, but first there was an update on the Tarsha run: the Tukari vessel Issa’s Kiss is in the lead, while The Gryphon of Mezzi Island seems to be lost. Sigrid Avram — a singer from the east — performed her haunting tune Northern Lights, and then Pilquo used a couple of clever techniques to defeat Kilkeppi in the finals of the kite-fighting (using an older bark kite to crash into Kilkeppi’s kite in the first match, and exploiting the position of the sun on the summer solstice to win the second fight).

The group returned to camp to find Steward Carletta had been attacked, and the attacker had made off with the list of campers. Vel offered his lacewort to heal Carletta’s wound, and the Warden and another counseller summoned the Bronze to post watchmen on the island for the night.