Rep explained to Zalan that the town they were approaching was called Poppyville, named after the flowers that were surrounding it. Zalan couldn’t tell any one flower from another. He accepted that there were probably a lot of poppy flowers amongst the differently colored flowers surrounding the city. 

It was a beautiful entrance, lined with multicolored, complimentary gardens that invited travelers within. Though there was a small wall surrounding the outside of the city, similar to Oriton, there were vines spotted with flowers all across it, like the wall was partly alive. The city had a small moat running around it, not large enough to stop any serious invaders, but Zalan quickly deduced it was used as irrigation for the flowers in and around the city. As they approached the gates of Poppyville, Zalan noticed that the guards had roses emblazoned on their tunics. Two men leaned over to look down at them. 

“Business?” one of them asked cordially.

“Passing through,” Gorb replied, equally relaxed.

“Where to?” the guard continued. 

“The Castle of Docrun,” Gorb said. 

“Artifact hunting?” the guard asked.

“Yes.”

The other guard looked over the group skeptically. 

“Are you aware there is a dragon up there? Flies over us occasionally. It is rather large,” the guard asked. 

“We are indeed aware,” Gorb nodded. “Four of us are Elementally Powered.”

“And all of you are above Level Five, I hope, to take on your average dragon,” the guard said. 

The comment gave Gorb pause. Fran was the only one in their party over Level Five. 

“Why does that matter?” Gorb asked. 

“A dragon is far too powerful for any group weaker. Even a few Level Seven travelers we spoke to struggled to flee with their lives and limbs. And they did not even make it to the dragon,” the guard replied.

“Come off it, Aldric,” the first guard scoffed. “We do not need to interrogate their abilities or plans after the city, only their intent.”

“Bah, fine. You’re too serious, Egbert,” Aldric crossed his arms. “What is the word out there? Any trouble? We saw smoke some time ago.”

“We had a run in with Boznoks,” Fran said.

“The den?”

“The den,” Fran nodded. 

“And you fought or fled?” 

“Fought,” Fran said, though there wasn’t any pleasure in her response.

Aldric looked them over once more, a new appreciation in their observations. 

“Not so much as a scratch after a fight with a Boznok Den? Maybe your group can take on a dragon,” Aldric mused. 

“What did I just say about evaluating their abilities?” Egbert asked. 

“Fine, fine,” Aldric waved him off, rolling his eyes. “Anything else worth reporting? Nearby dangers we should be on the lookout for?”

“The Mind of Madness passed through the forest beyond the meadow when we were on our way through,” Gorb said. 

“What way was it headed?” Aldric asked seriously, his companion immediately tensing up.

“To the East. Away from the city,” Gorb replied. The two guards relaxed greatly. 

“Did it hit any of you?” Egbert asked, curious. 

The four looked to Zalan and waited for him to answer. Zalan didn’t want to share, but the looks from his companions were very clear to the guards. 

“I am sorry you had to see it,” Aldric said sincerely. Then he snapped his fingers loudly. “This group is fine, open the gate!”

The gate pulled open for the five of them and Zalan marveled at the energy of the city. The excitement was almost tangible as he observed  the residents rushing between marketplaces. There was an air of enthusiasm that met the travelers as soon as they entered inside, like they had joined in some party. 

“Is it always like this?” Zalan asked, watching children run by with treats in hand. 

“I have never been here before,” Rep shrugged, equally enamored with the buzz of the people.

The others had not visited before either, and Yelsa decided to get some answers from the nearest woman selling bouquets of radiant flowers.

“Is there a festival happening?” Yelsa asked. 

“Indeed!” she said. “We are sending off some of our fighters to the Elemental Rage Tournament and trying to rouse them before they leave us! Our annual Festival of the Tournament!” 

“You do this every year?” Yelsa asked, impressed. 

“Indeed! If one of our fighters wins, we want them to come back to us with their title and talents rather than running off to some new town that will want to woo them as a new champion,” the shopkeeper explained. 

“I appreciate your candid explanation,” Yelsa smiled, then slid her a gold coin. The woman’s eyes darted between the coin and Yelsa a few times, her eyes wide. “I’ll take five bouquets,” Yelsa smiled. 

“This can get you much more than that!” the shopkeeper replied as she took the coin gladly. 

“Just five is fine. Consider it for both the flowers and your succinct answers,” Yelsa said. 

Her companions watched with interest as she distributed a bouquet to each of them. Zalan normally didn’t care for flowers, but these bouquets were wonderfully aromatic and brought him a sense of calm. Especially when they were offered by Yelsa, who was yelling at him only hours ago. 

“What am I to do with these?” Gorb asked, twisting his bouquet as though looking for a hilt to grip.

“Take them as a token of peace,” Yelsa suggested. “We have been at one another’s throats for much of our time together, but I certainly want us to work together when we reach the Castle of Docrun. Retrieving the Homeseeker is very important to me. I really do wish to go home.”

“Back to the clouds?” Fran smiled, then Gorb nudged her in the ribs. “Right, peace, yes,” she corrected herself.

“I welcome the gesture,” Rep said encouragingly, a pleasant smile on his face as he held up his bouquet like he was making a toast. “To a better team!”

Zalan tapped his flowers against Rep and the others laughed in amusement. The residual animosity between the group had been largely removed, and he once again felt glad to be in their company. It felt like they had all apologized to one another, though no one explicitly asked for forgiveness.

“What do we do now?” Fran looked at Gorb. 

“The original intent was to spend a night here to heal our wounds and replenish our food… but it seems we are in need of neither? I feel no hunger and the Boznoks did me no damage. We could simply continue?” Gorb suggested. 

“Or we could spend a day at a festival!” Yelsa said as though it were obvious. 

“But we would waste a day that the Satiator would keep us fed,” Gorb replied. 

“It is not a waste! We could spend the day explaining everything we know to the infant here,” Yelsa indicated to Zalan. 

“I wouldn’t mind staying to check out the festival,” Zalan shrugged. 

“You would not mind?” Gorb repeated the phrase in a way that made Zalan want to reword his sentence. 

“I want to stay at the festival. I want a break after the Mind of Madness and the Boznoks,” Zalan clarified. 

“Very well,” Gorb nodded immediately to Zalan’s surprise. 

“You’re okay with staying now?” Zalan probed. 

“Your reasoning is sound. It has been an eventful day. Let us celebrate our lack of wounds with some light merrymaking,” Gorb said. 

“Fun!” Fran said, lighting her bouquet on fire and incinerating it. Yelsa didn’t seem to mind, laughing at the display. Fran looked around. “I wonder if there are any games based on Elemental redirection.”

As the group made their way into the festival, Zalan was amazed to see that there were a lot of games based on Elemental skills of some kind. Rep suggested that if this festival was themed after the tournament, then it would make sense that they placed a lot more focus on Elemental power. Most games were played by what looked to be the guards, based on the rose insignia on their clothes, but even with their much better handle on their Elemental Power, they couldn’t win the games very easily. It felt a lot like scam carnival games to Zalan. Fran pointed to each game, staring at it from a distance to evaluate whether she would be able to succeed at the challenge. The group stopped at one game when Fran showed intense interest.

The game was to get a boy in white clothes wet with water dyed in blue ink. The boy stood about thirty feet from a barrel filled with the blue water. The only rule was that you could not step beyond the barrel, but you could use any Elemental power or non-Artifact at your disposal to get the boy wet. 

The first two contestants they watched had Elemental Power over water. They tried to set out a stream of water from the barrel, targeting the boy in a torrent of firehose-like strength, but the water was redirected midair and splashed in their faces. Clearly, one of the organizers of this game was an Elemental Water user hidden away from the game area. The crowd seemed to find it all in good fun and considered it a part of the challenge. They would laugh and cheer at each contestant and cheer even louder when the water ended up soaking the player. The boy would look around in incredulous innocence and ask what happened and how he was still not covered in an ounce of blue. 

Fran looked very enthused to try the game and was digging in her pockets for enough bronze coins to cover the cost to play the game. The old, thin woman running the game had no sympathy for Fran’s lack of funds. After a few minutes, she groaned in annoyance, unable to locate enough money on her person. Yelsa then slipped her a gold coin. Fran looked at it with wide eyes. 

“The game only costs one silver. I appreciate the generosity, but I do not need nearly this much,” Fran said. 

“I do not have any silver coins,” Yelsa shrugged. 

Fran looked down at the gold coin, then back up to Yelsa. 

“Just how wealthy are you?” Fran asked suspiciously. 

“Stop asking questions and go win the game. If you succeed, I will allow you to keep the change,” Yelsa said excitedly. 

“Deal!” Fran said, sounding like she wanted to accept the terms before Yelsa changed her mind. 

When it was Fran’s turn, she stepped forward with determination, looking at the boy with enough intensity that the boy had to break eye contact. Fran began by throwing pillars of fire in the surrounding area to try and throw off any of the Elemental Water users around. Then, placing the water into a cup, she threw it powerfully at the boy. It would have reached him, but was caught in midair by the invisible Elemental Water user. Zalan checked to see the thin woman running the game and could tell she wasn’t using any power.

“Is it the boy? He has Elemental Power and is redirecting the water?” Zalan asked. 

Rep shook his head, though he was smiling through Fran’s newest frantic attempt. She threw another flask while firing fire in the general direction of the crowd. They gasped, ducked, then cheered at the idea until the flask stopped again and the boy shrugged his shoulders innocently.  

“The boy is too young. He could attain the power, but he cannot go beyond Level One. There is too much water being controlled for him to be able to redirect it all. If he had Elemental Power, which I doubt, his Wisdom would be too low for these feats,” Rep replied. 

“Then who do you think it is?” Zalan asked, scanning the cheering and jeering crowd for anyone standing out of place. 

“I suspect they are hidden away, far from the play area,” Rep ventured, looking out across the city.

“Can people even use their Elemental Power that far?” Zalan asked. 

“How far can you use yours?” Rep asked. 

“I have no idea!” Zalan didn’t know why the thought never occurred to him. He would have to try it out sometime. “So if you’re a high enough Level, you could do it from across town?”

“Definitely not that far,” Rep assured him. “But if one had the Artifact called the Ring of Range, then they may be able to do it from one of the food stands behind the crowd, even if they were something like a Level Eight.”

Zalan immediately checked the food stands to see if someone was hiding behind them, redirecting water in this game. He couldn’t see very well beyond the lines of people getting food.

Fran finally gave up when the flask she threw was redirected to dump right on top of her head, much to the crowd’s roaring amusement. Fran herself seemed more light-hearted than disappointed at the outcome. She was going to try yet again, but was told she had already run out of attempts. She had only paid for ten. Fran sighed in defeat, and allowed the next person in line to give it a try.

A massive Elemental Earth user stepped forward, putting the full length of his arm in the water. Then, in the same motion he used to take out his arm, he threw a wave of water in the air and used the distraction to trap the boy by wrapping his feet in rocks. He then hoisted the barrel of water overhead and chucked it at the boy. The boy screamed in real fear for the first time, but the barrel slowed gradually to a stop a good few feet away from him. The Elemental Water user stopped the barrel by controlling the water within it. But the Elemental Earth user didn’t lament, instead he ran forward at full speed to the shock of the crowd and the terror of the boy. The man stopped himself before reaching the floating barrel and flicked his wet arm forward at the boy. Then he roared a loud cheer in the air to the confusion of everyone. He removed the earthly shackles from the boy’s feet, freeing him to move once again.

“I won!” he boomed, turning to look at the crowd who weren’t sure whether to cheer or boo, yet. 

The boy looked down at himself and saw that tiny specks of blue were strewn across his clothing from when the man tossed the few residual drops of water on his wet arm. He blinked in shock, then looked up at the thin woman running the booth for what to do next. An onlooker from the crowd called out to contestant,

“But you went beyond the starting point! You were supposed to get him from here!” the onlooker cried.

“No, the rule was that I was supposed to get him from behind the barrel!” the Elemental Earth user said proudly, patting the barrel that was still floating next to him. He was, indeed, still standing behind it.

The entirety of the crowd turned to look at the woman running the game. She was shifting her lips from side to side in thought. 

“Your name?” she asked.

“I am Dimak,” he replied.

“Dimak is right. He got the boy and did not break the rules,” she decided. 

The crowd exploded in cheers and rushed forward to carry the man on their shoulders. They cheered his name as they carried him from the game to nearby stores. 

“What was the prize for this game?” Zalan asked, watching with a wide smile as they threw the large man in the air and struggled to catch him as he came back down. 

“A bow and quiver,” Fran pouted. 

“You do not know how to use a bow,” Gorb pointed out.

“Yes, well, I still wanted to win!” she snapped. 

Gorb laughed and patted his sister on the back, thanking Yelsa for giving her an opportunity to partake in the challenge.

The rest of the afternoon was much of the same, with Fran wanting to participate in all the Elemental Power games she could and disappointing herself when she could not succeed. Fran never asked, but Yelsa continued to fund each of her games, clapping along with the crowd as her friend failed over and over again. 

Zalan found studying the way others used their power to be fascinating. In the first game, Elemental Water users could carry a barrel of water with their power alone so long as they turned the barrel upside down. In another game, you were supposed to move either fire or water that was placed behind a brick wall, depending on your Elemental ability. Zalan found it interesting that while Fran could create a typhoon of flames from her hands, she couldn’t affect a candle placed out of her line of sight. Fran got especially mad at that game because Gorb was able to affect the candlelight by sending a gust of wind from above the wall, easily winning the prize of a few bronze coins. He tried to pay Yelsa to reimburse her, but Yelsa refused to take any of it, simply happy to see someone in their party succeed.

By the end of the day, Zalan had not participated in any games of his own, but tried a lot of the different desserts despite his lack of appetite. He found that while the Satiator’s power caused him not to get hungry, he would still get full after eating a few candied fruits and flower-laden tarts. They all collapsed on their beds in a nearby inn that night, ready to fall asleep almost immediately on contact with their furnishing.

“Hey, Rep,” Zalan yawned from his bed next to Rep’s in the room they shared. “This Elemental Rage Tournament sounds like kind of a big deal.”

“Indeed. I tried telling you about this before, but you said you would be gone by then,” Rep said, fighting sleep. 

“Yeah, I know. I’m still gonna be gone. But I think you should attend. I think you’d be a really good fighter in a tournament,” Zalan said, his eyes growing heavy. 

“You think so? I am not much of a fighter,” Rep admitted. 

“You saved my life a bunch of times,” Zalan murmured, his eyes closed. “I think you’re a great fighter.”

“You think so?” Rep asked hopefully. 

But Zalan was already asleep. Rep studied the frown on Zalan’s face for a moment before closing his own eyes. 

“One thing at a time,” Rep told himself.