With the summer festival coming around as it always does every year Sol City asks for its people to help out with holiday cheer. Vonoros isn’t much for that sorta stuff but nonetheless, he is still here for a very simple reason, money. He’d been given a pretty simple job from the city and it was just posting up flyers outside of Sol City to advertise the various activities around the festival. Not wanting to leave the chilling area he called him he decided to just walk around the Pale City and spread the advertisement here. The triton walked up to the city official who hired him and received a very large pile of flyers he was supposed to hang up. He was told that if he managed to get through that one and wanted to do some more work he would be paid for hanging up another pile. Seemed easy enough and was way more relaxed than some of the work he’d had to take up recently. From beating up big crabs, and living islands to his usual assassination occupation a job like this was a welcome for the lazy man. Maybe he’d take a nap on some bench once he finished with the day’s work he thought to himself as he carried the pile of paper in his hands.



He started off his route going to one of the most bustling areas in town, setting down the pile to hold and hammer one of the flyers to a wooden wall.



“Alright cool that makes the first one’s done”, he muttered aloud to himself before picking up his pile and continuing on his path once more clueless about anything else going on.

---

Quest Name: Posted Up

Participants: Two or more

Location: Any city other than Sol City

Post Requirements: 5 posts per person, 200 words per post

Reward: +1 Renown

Description: It is once again time for the summer festival, a celebration of the warmest time of year! Each year Sol City throws a huge, month long festival filled with food, dancing, costumes and combat, inviting the entire kingdom to partake! The Crown is requesting aid, asking for help in posting advertisement's all around, hanging up posters and passing out flyers in every city across the continent! You can help by handing out or hanging up flyers, or you can be a nuisance to those who are, disrupting the advertising however you wish. There must be advertising and some kind of disruption - however, what that disruption is and its outcome is completely up to you.

Ugh, why does it have to be so cold here? Even in the summer, the Pale City and the rest of Frostgale were frigid, and the tiny Fae was not enjoying it. His bird-like feet couldn't handle the touch of the ice cold flagstone and he only felt slightly better when he changed their shape into fuzzy fox's paws and made the fur covering his body thicker.

Hylltywyll pulled his poncho a little tighter around him as a wind blew past. There had to be some magical way to keep him warm, and as soon as he had his hands on it, there'd be no stopping him from causing as much mischief as he wanted up here. Or maybe he should just try wearing more clothes. Yeah, that would probably do for now.

Hylltywyll slipped out of a window, wearing the finest (child sized) boots, pants, and jacket he could pilfer from some unsuspecting family. The jacket was a little too big and hung down from beneath his poncho to nearly cover his boots, and the pants were a bit baggy, but he was nice and warm now. Yes, this would do until he had that magic solution he was looking for. He pulled his hood up and looked to make sure no one saw him, but noticed something unexpected.

A Triton man he recognized. One that owed him tribute, if he remembered how their last interaction ended. And that Triton was nailing a flyer to a wall. He waited until Vonos was a little farther up the street and scurried right over to the flyer, grabbing the bottom and tearing it down.

---

One With the Cosmos

Making his way up a little more up the street Vonoros set his stack of flyers down on the floor pulling out the small hammer and nails he was given for the job. He picked one of the flyers and nailed it to the wall, an expression of neutrality on his face. The triton decided to speed things up a little bit, his pace increasing, although it pained him to put more effort than needed the faster he got this done the faster he’d get his reward and could lie down and call it quits for the day. He got into the routine pretty quickly laying down the stack of posters, placing it against a wall, hammering it in, and moving on to the next. Eventually, after a little bit, he went around a whole block. Only a few more posters left in his hand he decides to take a breather wiping the sweat off his forehead.



“Man, after this I’m definitely gonna treat myself to something nice. Maybe a nice cold drink at a tavern or get a trinket for Cypress”, he mutters aloud leaning against the wall.

He’d probably be able to finish within the next 10 or so minutes. If nothing went wrong he’d probably be able to finish the next stack of flyers before mid-afternoon.

Hylltywyll looked over the poster he'd just torn off the wall, a little split at the top from pulling it down from the nail. It looked like some kind of festival in Sol City. He was glad he'd learned how to read, for reasons just like this. How would he have been able to find out about something like this if the only way people were spreading the info of it was through posters? Weren't people doing this kind of work supposed to tell people by mouth too?

He looked in the direction Vonos had headed, another poster on another wall just a little ways away. The wind was blowing it around on the single nail at the top, making it flap and turn nearly sideways. It probably would be ripped right off if there was a strong enough gust. Hmph. This guy sucked at his job, but that wasn't Hylltywyll's concern.

Hylltywyll scurried over to the second poster and ripped it down too before glancing around and spotting the next one. He continued pitter pattering from one poster to the next, tearing each one down, and following the trail left behind by the lazy Triton.

patter patter

RIP

patter patter

RIP

The stack held under one arm slowly grew. It was a bit cumbersome for the small Fae, but it wasn't too heavy. A quick bit of his magic also mended the tears at the tops of the posters, making them look good as new.

When he spotted Vonos taking a break, he slipped into the shadows to stay undetected as he came from behind and silently slipped the stack right on top of the few Vonos had left.

---

Mend Object
One With the Shadows

“Man, they’re running me ragged over here. I mean how many people are going to come from Frostgale to Sol City? Eh, thinking about that type of stuff ain’t my problem just gotta finish putting these up and I got the rest of the day to relax”, Vonoros continued reflecting on his progress.



“Welp might as well get this finished, just a few more to go”, he picked himself back up and looked over to the scarce people of posters only to find it looked exactly like the moment he got the job. His eyes grew wide and his mind grew confused the more time he stared at the pile, “No, no way. I coulda sworn I was almost done”, the triton examined it, “This has to be my mind playing tricks on me. Wait...”, he pauses concerned, “Am I drunk right now”, he takes a moment to think, “Nope, I definitely would’ve felt I was drunk. What the hell is going on?”.



Befuddled the triton just stands there trying to make reason out of this bizarre sight, after mulling it over he decides, “Screw it I must've I fell asleep and dreamed I finished the job. Silly me I guess”, and picks up the pile to get the job started once more hoping this time the job is done for real.

Hylltywyll was almost surprised how easy this guy was to mess with, but he guessed from the last time they'd met that he wasn't the sharpest harpoon on the ship. He held his hands up in front of his face to stifle his laughter and prevent himself from doubling over. The shadows dutifully absorbed the sounds of his mirth watching Vonoros question his own sobriety and consciousness.

He followed along again as the Triton went back to work, hanging all the posters that Hylltywyll had brought back to him, redoing all of the work he'd already done. Sloppily hammering a nail into the top of each poster and then moving on to the next.

Again, Hylltywyll kept a distance to not be seen or heard as he grabbed each poster nailed to the wall and gave it a quick tug, tearing it off the nail and leaving a rip at the top of the poster that he easily mended with just a tiny touch of magic.

He wasn't sure if even someone as dumb as this guy would fall for his stack of posters suddenly being restored from nearly nothing to as if he'd just started a second time. He needed to be a little more subtle from now on. He had the perfect plan for that.

Every few posters, he waited until the man put the stack down to hammer one to the wall and then ran over under the cover of shadows to put two or three back on top of the pile. Now, the posters being added to the pile would be much harder to notice. He just wondered how long this could go on without Vonoros realizing his stack of posters was seemingly endless. Maybe when he ran out of nails.

---

One With the Shadows
Quick Palm

Not one to focus on bad vibes the triton sighed, starting his work from the beginning. Part of him couldn’t believe he had fallen asleep and dreamed that he handed out the posters. However, thinking it over that type of thing does fall under his behavior so Vonoros doesn’t question it. He starts from the very beginning of his route hammering the posters up without any real effort just bopping them quickly and moving on. He had wasted enough time with his nap and couldn’t be bothered to put in any actual effort.

He increased his pace, moving faster and faster, barely spending time at any given wall just placing it up, knocking the nail, and going to the next. For some reason though it felt like he was hardly making any progress. For every time he thought he had a decent chunk nailed away his pile just didn’t go down.

“What is this? Just how many freaking posters did these damn bastards give me?”, the triton takes a moment to question begging to get worn out from all the work. He only had a few more nails left but at the same time, his pile was not getting any smaller. Something was wrong, He could tell that much.

"Was this some sort of deep dream?", he thought to himself, placing the pile down and taking a second to pinch himself on the arm, actually feeling pain.

“Hmm, nah guess not. Then what the hell is it then? Did I fall under some sort of spell? Were these flyers enchanted?”, he questions out loud taking time to rummage through the pile looking for any signs of enchanted ink or parchment only to find none.

Hylltywyll chuckled to himself as Vonoros continued questioning if all this was some strange dream. Oh, even if he was dreaming, he wouldn't be safe from Hylltywyll. But, that didn't have any bearing on the current situation for him. This was all real, and it would just keep going until he either quit or the trickster got bored. And he wasn't bored just yet.

With Vonoros only have a few nails left, Hylltywyll actually stopped tearing down the posters. It would be hard to notice the stack had actually gone down this time, so it was no big deal. What he wanted to make sure of was that, if Vonoros was smart enough, he might turn around and check if the posters he'd put up were still there once his nails ran out. If he did, and all he found were empty nails, the game would be over. So, he just needed to leave a few up for him to find if he went and checked.

Now, what was he going to do with all these posters he still needed to put up once he ran out of nails? Hylltywyll didn't see anything else for putting them up on him. No glue or brush. Maybe he'd start handing them out to people, but that'd be hard. The streets around here weren't very crowded at the moment. It'd take forever to hand them to people, and who knew if his boss would be happy about him doing that instead of actually hanging them up?

“Ughhh'', the frustrated triton cries out, “What in Ginma’s Fuzzy Horse Ass going on here?”.

He sits down and takes a look at his stack, “It feels as if I’ve barely made any progress at all even though I’ve been working so hard. But I’m starting to run out of nails”, he looks down counting only around six left in his pocket.

“So that means I am nailing them down at least..I think”, he tries to logically go through his steps trying to wrap his head around what was going wrong. He turned around looking at the last poster he hung up still here and looking normal before glancing down the wall. Everything looked fine as he retraced the last couple of posters, all of them were nice and nailed up to the wall. But still, he had a sizable pile of papers to pass out and only a few nails left so he was missing something here.

“Is there someone tailing me and trying to mess with me?”, he thinks to himself glancing around wildly before chuckling and calming down, “Nah, I’m just being weird and paranoid”.

Vonoros hardly had many choices left and time was dwindling so he just took a deep breath and decided if he couldn’t nail these posters up that handing them out to people would be the next best thing. Sure it wasn’t exactly what his employer told him to do but they had only given him so many nails and he was running out of options. Plus the whole purpose of this was to get attention for the Summer Festival handing out the posters wouldn’t be too far of an idea”, he picks himself up and quickly rushes towards the city center.

“Yo, Hello there folks, Charon Summer Festival coming up, some good vibes and great time is assured. Here take one if interested”, he’d say with a fake smile to anyone who’d pass by, almost shoving one of the flyers into their hands.

"Hmph. He actually got it right, for a second." Hylltywyll said under his breath, amused. Too bad for him he decided it was just paranoia.

Hylltywyll stood back and watched as Vonoros began handing out the flyers instead of continuing to hang them up. He must have run out of nails. He did backtrack a little and check a couple of the posters he hung up. Too bad the Fae was too smart for him and saw that coming. To be fair, anyone dealing with Hylltywyll would be outsmarted at every turn, so it wasn't exactly his fault. Hylltywyll smiled smugly from the shadows as he thought this to himself.

The crowd in the streets was sparse at best, making handing out the flyers slow even with Vonoros practically forcing them into every passerby's hands. A few looked at the poster with a little interest as they walked away. Most looked angry at suddenly being harassed into carrying around a stupid piece of paper by some half naked stranger. More than one poster was balled up and tossed onto the ground not too far away.

Littering? How awful. Hylltywyll made sure those people kept their poster with them, picking them up and slipping them back into their pockets. He had to make room for the balled up paper in a few of those pockets by taking something else out, but he didn't mind.

When the flyers were nearly running out, a gruff voice filled the street where Vonoros stood.

"What are you doing!? I told you to hang those up, not hand them out!"

---

One With the Shadows
Quick Palm

“Dammit, god dammit”, the triton would think to himself as he kept the fake smile on his face handing out the flyers, “No one wants these at all, come on you cold lazy dudes would it kill ya to be festive for once? Just going to Sol City and having fun is that bad?”, he shakes his fists angered at the situation.

He drops his fake smile and instead, a scowl appears on his face as only about ten of the stack had been given away leaving him still with a sizable amount of flyers to get rid of. Still, the triton hadn’t given up, he was going to get rid of these whether people liked it or not. He placed a fake wide grin and tried his best to imitate the cheerful merchants who lured people in with their words.

“This is a great opportunity for you guys to get out there, come on folks. This is Sol City we’re talking about, take your kids, take your families out there. There’s plenty of food, plenty of games, and plenty of fun. Everyone is bound to go so why be the only one left moping around”, Vonoros would say trying to sound as confident and charismatic as he could.

Surprisingly this managed to work and people started to be drawn towards him, at first it was a few but after a few more fake exaggerated speeches of cheer and goodwill people’s attention started to pick up. Soon enough the pile on his hands grows to be only a few more flyers. A slight honest smirk of satisfaction would appear on his face, he’d done pretty good all things considered. That smirk is wiped off his face as he hears the angry voice of his employer and the unhappy footsteps that approach him.

Quickly he puts on the smile, “Hello Boss happy to see you out here. Oh that, uh well funny story really, so the nails that you gave me weren’t enough to hammer down on the walls. For some reason or another, I guess you just didn’t give me enough. So deciding to be the best worker I could be I thought maybe I could spread the word orally. And I’ve been successful just look”, he’d motioned pointing towards some people around reading the flyers murmurs of intrigue could be heard.

The boss looked around at the few people standing around looking at the posters in their hands, but didn't seem impressed.

"The job was to hang the posters. You didn't hang the posters. You didn't even give them back for me to get some other loser to hang, you gave them all away, without permission! That's even worse! Now I'm gonna need to go get more of those damn things made to hang around town. You're lucky I'm not charging you for theft. Stealing my posters, and my nails. How did you lose all those nails? There was enough to hang all those posters four times! I just handed you the damn box! I didn't think you'd manage to lose them all! I'll have to get more of those too." The boss ranted and scolded angrily, his voice catching the attention of a few of the passerby holding the posters in question and making them leave awkwardly, not wanting to get pulled into the argument.

Hylltywyll held his ears down, trying to block out the piercing voice of the old man's screaming and shouting about some stupid posters and nails. Ugh, what a cheapskate! Passing out the posters probably got more attention than they ever would have gotten flapping about on the walls, but this guy was just using any excuse he could to not have to make good on a deal he made. Hylltywyll could almost appreciate it. It was the same with Fae deals, wording was everything, but this man wasn't a Fae, and he got on the actual Fae here's nerves.

As the man was continuing to lecture Vonoros, he suddenly looked confused as he went to lift a finger to poke at the Triton's chest, but it wouldn't move. He looked down to see his hand was entirely coated in gold, which wasn't stopping there. Like molten metal flowing upward, it quickly crept up his neck, flowing out from the collar of his shirt, and coated his entire head.

The old man stood nearly motionless, his eyes sliding slowly around and his mouth moving at a glacial pace to open and close, no words coming out anymore.

Hylltywyll breathed a sigh of relief at the silence, standing next to the man with a hand on his leg.

"Much better." He chuckled to himself as he started rifling through the golden statue's pockets. With how completely coated in gold the man was, he must have been loaded! It didn't take very long for Hylltywyll to find more than one bulging coin purse on the guy.

Vonoros could only give a faint smile as he was royally chewed up and spit up from his boss’s scolding. This wasn’t anything new to him, he was used to people being displeased with him so he just took it, not saying a single word in response, just looking at him and waiting for him to finish. He didn’t care that people around were watching him get verbally attacked, not caring much for pride or being embarrassed.

As the man finished the triton simply replied, “Sorry boss I don’t know what went wrong but hey stuff happens ain’t much I can do to fix it now. I appreciate you not telling the guards, I don’t have a clue where those nails went one second there in my hands and the other they’re just gone”, he shrugs mentally checked out of the situation.

Vonoros was preparing for the situation to escalate drastically seeing the man’s eyes filled with rage but for some reason, nothing happened. Before he could question if the fellow had changed his mind, his body started to get enveloped by gold itself.

“Woah dude now that’s a way better look on you than you had before”, he chuckles, highly amused at his sudden change of luck.

“Not so angry now with that going on are ya”, he taunts the old man before looking around to see the cause of such a sight. It was then that he saw some sort of fae creature rummaging through the man’s pockets with delight.

He chuckles, “Yo little fella, thanks for the help back there I really appreciate it. Mind if I get in on some of that fella’s gold at least enough to pay me for my work?”.

Hylltywyll dropped a couple of pouches into his shadow and continued rummaging the man's pockets. He found a very nice smoking pipe carved out of a dark wood and coated in something to give it a smooth, glossy sheen. In the next pocket, he found a fancy little box containing the tobacco for the pipe. He wasn't interested in the tobacco, but the box itself was pretty, made of a matching dark wood with the pipe with the lid carved with imagery of fields of strawberries. Giving the tobacco a sniff, it also had a slight hint of strawberry to it. Hylltywyll closed the lid and clasped it shut before dropping both the pipe and box into his shadow.

Gosh, this guy's robe sure had a lot of pockets in it. It was like it was made of pockets. Just the weight of all the pouches of gold coins alone was probably equal to a suit of chainmail. No wonder he looked surprisingly well built for a crotchety old man. If Vonoros had lost his temper and tried to fight this guy, he might have actually been a challenging opponent. But, now all the old guy could do was stand there while his pockets were emptied of all their valuables.

Hylltywyll stopped fleecing the man and gave Vonoros a judgmental look for a moment. Little fella? Did this idiot not remember him or something? Hmm. He pulled out another coin purse from the guy's pockets and turned to face Vonoros.

"How much was he paying you?" Hylltywyll asked, and quickly mumbled a spell under his breath.

---

Detect Lies

The shadowy individual kept rummaging through his former boss’s pockets picking out whatever valuables he could find. He crossed his arms a sense of satisfaction coming over him as the bastard could only stand and watch powerless to do anything about it.

It was then that the fellow spoke in a haunting memory of the past, “Woah hey don’t mind me if this is a shot in the dark, but I think we’ve met before haven't we?”, Vonoros asks thinking back on their last encounter, “The Great One that Lies in Shadows, right? You saved my ass the last time we met. Looks like I have been graced once again by your graciousness and power”, he then gives Hylltywyll an attempt at a bow before giving up just sitting on the street floor instead of being too lazy to stand back up.

“Anyways, uh I think he was going to pay me like 20 solars”, the original price they agreed upon was 10 but he was hoping he could fool the fae plus a nice extra 10 solars sounded nice just for how much work he’d done today. He smiled politely waiting for the other fellow’s response, hopefully, this guy is nicer than his boss.