Adventurer's Challenge: Week 20
A brief respite
Huzzah!
Good afternoon, and welcome once more, fair adventurers.
Apologies for the delay in this week’s quests. I needed time to gather accurate accounts of recent events. After last week’s encounter, the threads of the realm have shifted, and I dared not report until I had verified which ones were fraying.
Now, to those who failed to face the foe: you may notice a slight tug in your step, or a whisper when none are near. Nothing dire (for now) but consequences do ripple, however small.
This week, the path softens—on the surface, at least. The adrenaline has faded, leaving behind echoes: of choices made, instincts followed, and lessons hard-won. Do not rush to bury them.
There is power in looking back. In studying your own battles. In noticing what tried to warn you, and what helped you endure.
Some signs are only visible in hindsight. The pattern is there, threaded through soil, shadow, and memory. You’ve seen pieces already. Now’s the time to make sense of them.
For grit and glory,
Sir Kadean
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May 2025: The Prophecy Stirs
It does not offer clarity, only invitation. Threads begin to twist into patterns. Symbols surface in dreams, in patterns of behavior, in the timing of events. What have you gained so far? What trials this year have shaped you? And how will you answer the summons ahead?
May is a threshold. A chance to reflect on the first part of your journey and take stock of the tools, allies, and truths you now carry. But it is also a warning: challenges lie ahead. You will need to be ready—not only in strength, but in purpose and determination.
Prepare to decipher. To adapt. To name what you’re truly seeking. The realm does not yet demand your final form—but it does begin to ask who you are becoming.
Week 20: In the Wake
You have passed your foe, the web no longer ties you down, but something still sticks…
Now comes the part many skip.
This week is for processing what just happened.
After adrenaline fades, the mind races to rewrite events. We rush to move on, to survive, to prepare for the next threat. But in doing so, we often miss the signs we were given. We silence the instinct that flared up too late. We forget what we just learned.
Slow down. Go back.
What choices did you make?
What did you feel in your gut—and what did you ignore?
The prophecy still stirs. But you are the one who must make meaning of what it's shown you so far.
Resources for ye:
(main quests are essential to your journey) -
🕸️If you did not complete last weeks quests: you were caught in the web!
You must double one of this week's quest or lose all legendary items in your reward bank.🕸️Tangle and Thread
Not everything that happened made sense at the time. Now’s your chance to piece it together.
Action: Recount a moment where your instincts said one thing but you did another. What was the outcome? What did you feel in the moment—panic, pressure, confusion? Write it out as a field report and consider sharing what would you tell the next traveler headed that way?
Signal Lost
Sometimes the signs were there, we just didn’t know how to read them.
Action: Choose a moment from the past few weeks where you missed a cue or gut feeling. Draw it, map it, or list the signals now in hindsight.
Reroute
Reflexes are not always wisdom.
Action: Identify one personal “autopilot” response—something you do by habit under stress, even if it doesn’t serve you. For the next two days, try a different response when that pattern arises.
Sit with It
No fixing. No forcing. Just noticing.
Action: Choose a daily ritual this week that helps you listen better to yourself (past and present): a cup of tea, a walk, a song you repeat. Stick with it for at least three days, and use it as a space to pause and observe what’s rising.
Fisherman’s Tale
Sometimes there is more truth in the theatrics than the facts
Action: Take a past moment from your life and recreate it as a legendary tale. You could write a play, song, make a comic strip, doodle out a rudimentary animation— just add art to whatever the experience was.
Rewards for this week’s quests: 🫁
(a note- you may want to keep track of these, they could be of use to you later in the guild)
(Strengthen your skills, build your arsenal)
One Day This Week
Journal or share with someone a story from your past
Two Days This Week
Engage with your chosen guild
Three Days This Week
Perform one of your chosen trainings (physical or language)
Four Days This Week
Engage in a quiet but stimulating morning routine
Five Days This Week
Have some designated reflection time
Rewards for this week’s trainings (all five to succeed) ⚓️
(a note- you may want to keep track of these, they could be of use to you later in the guild)
(toll bridges must be crossed weekly in the realm)
Week of: 05.19.2025
ATTENTION: All those currently under investigation are not permitted for crossing.
Minders: Woodland Nymph Infantry
Accepted Pittance:
Complete daily side quests as posted by Sir Kadean 4 days of the week
OR
Check your security system
Schedule and important appointment
Donate to a good cause
Retaliation:
-Three green items removed from inventory
(side quests are optional to your journey, but may aid you in the path ahead)
The Naming Rite
Task: Before any tale can twist, the first part must be sealed. A chapter unmarked may try to repeat itself.
Action: Look back at what’s unfolded since the turning of the year. Trace the pattern in your steps, the lessons left in your wake. Then name this span—whether in solemn tones or strange riddles. Just a few words. A title, not a story. Etch it in your journal, whisper it to the wind, or carry it in silence. The page turns next.
Self-Fulfilling
Task: The signs are swirling—but no one else can interpret them for you. This month, you are the oracle.
Action: Write a three-part prophecy for yourself using what you know, feel, and intuit. One line for what is being left behind. One for what is forming. One for what you are being asked to become. It can be poetic or plain, cryptic or clear. Return to it when the road narrows.
May Guild Trials
Task: Complete the quest for the month as outlined in your guild’s charter
Scholars: “The Hidden Link” – Gather scattered notes, curiosities, or half-formed thoughts. Find the hidden link between them.
Artisans: “The Maker’s Mark”- Revisit something you’ve made this year. Then, create something new to mark who you are becoming.
Bards: “The Spoken Omen” -Write or record a short personal prophecy. Let it be strange, symbolic, or sincere.
Sentinels: “The Sigil of Holding” – Reflect on one moment you held firm this year. Create a symbol, word, or mark to honor that strength.
Alchemists: “The Transmutation Script”- Write a cryptic recipe, ritual, or formula that describes what you must become to meet the trials ahead.
May Guild Badge Design Challenge
Task: Create a design for the May Guild Badge, a symbol that we may all look back on to celebrate the month’s success. Each month, a winning design will be selected that best represents the theme and highlighted on social media. Challenge partakers will be able to collect them all.
This month’s theme is “The Prophecy Stirs”
How to Submit: Share your badge design in the Discord by May 30th
Rewards for this month’s quests: 🔮
(a note- you may want to keep track of these, they could be of use to you later in the guild)
Strange Crops Cropping Up
Farmers, foragers, and travelers alike have begun reporting the sudden appearance of a strange new growth across the realm. These plants are easy to spot: a single reddish, withered-looking leaf, curled like old parchment and reeking of something sweet and spoiled.
No flower, fruit, or root has yet been unearthed—though some swear there’s something pulsing just beneath the soil.
Whether this marks a new species, a curse, or another turnip-related incident remains unknown.
Until our Kingdom Representatives and scholars can determine their nature, all citizens are urged to leave them untouched by themselves and their grazing creatures. Do not harvest, burn, stew, sniff, or dare your sibling to lick one.
Further updates to come.
Realm Advisory: No New Developments, Resources Redirected
The blocked road between the Gilded Mare and the High Council offices remains closed, with no new information released regarding the discovery beneath the cobblestones. Canvas barriers are still intact, and Kingdom Representatives continue to guide travelers along the eastern woodline.
The Toll Bridge remains open, though guards have grown more visibly present in recent days. All restriction and detainment protocols remain in place.
Streetlamp outages persist across several districts, particularly along unpatrolled paths and garden corridors. Reports now suggest entire stretches remain unlit past the third bell, with no formal explanation provided by maintenance crews.
While no update has been issued on Fionnán’s whereabouts, Kingdom Representatives have confirmed that resources are being quietly reallocated to support a new missing persons investigation. Details remain sealed.
Reward for Bonus Quest, Week of 05.11.25
Submitted by NOT the Master of the strings, puppeteer of theatrical fate, spinner of sagas, troubadour of ten thousand tales, whisperer of forgotten ballads, herald of heroic misadventures, jester to kings and counselor to fools, wielder of the enchanted lute Melodithril, sworn enemy of silence, conqueror of awkward pauses
Hail fair travelers,
Ah, you’ve done it! Yoour calendar is clean, the chaos contained, and the double-booked disasters narrowly avoided.
Thank you for sparing the realm such confusion. Now if only someone could go back in time to fix my own.
May your dates be accurate, your times remembered, and your venues real.
Reward: later…
Bonus Quest, Week of 05.19.25
Submitted by Mr. Hawthorn, retired high mage
My dearest travelers,
With strange growths emerging and the ley-threads fraying at the edges, I’ve reason to believe that stagnant magic is settling into unmoving spaces—and unmoving bodies.
I ask you to choose one room or space you frequent. Walk it in a five-pace circle (or square, if you prefer geometric rigidity) three times. At each turn, perform a small physical gesture: a shoulder roll, a stretch, a shake of the hands.
This resets both the space and the self. It need not be graceful, in fact I encourage it not be, only deliberate.
If your pet witnesses this, they are now part of the ritual. Offer them a nod or bow and continue.
Moral rot loves stillness. Let’s not make it comfortable.
Yours in adventure,
Mr. Hawthorn
Hello! I just joined and signed up for the Adventurer’s Challenge for 2025… but I don’t see weeks prior to week 12 in the archive… I was hoping to go back and at least review earlier weeks… are they available somewhere? Thanks!