Connorsville Swine Festival

Held yearly in the city of Connorsville and organized by the Guel Valley Pig Farmers Association (GVPFA), this festival is a celebration of all things pork. Many kinds of events and games are organized for young and old, all with a pig theme. Serious conferences are held at the same time, all with the goal of improving pig production and processing.

Gobbler’s Knob

This is where the festival is held, close to the city center on a small hill. The path up there holds a number of wooden, upright pig sculptures that flank all visitors. At the entrance a number of signs are put up to direct attention to different events, these might include:

• A listing of conferences held at the Guellian Inn during the day, they are all pig related.
• Tonight: Hog Fest, includes three course meals, two complimentary drinks from the bar, PIGGY Awards ceremony, live music, bachelor auction, buy your tickets early!
• Biggest vegetables & fruits, and best arts & crafts entries close at 10:00. Judging starts immediately after!
• Pig of the Year election at noon!
• Companions of Elric fundraiser at our building; come for the prizes, help support those less fortunate. See feats of strength, gravity defying stunts, and more!
• Free tours of Thomasses Slaughterhouse today, see the latest in pig processing.
• CDC presents: Swine Lake Ballet by the kids of the Connersville Dance Company at Shaffeler Theater, 10:00.
• Matinée performance of Swine Before Pearls, directed by Virgil Honeycutt, staring Virgil Honeycutt & Sandy Maschmeyer, at Shaffeler Theater, 14:00.

There are many pavilion tents and lots of stalls. Numerous musicians play at a number of locations. As the day goes on more people walk around with embroidered sashes declaring things like: “Piglet Parade Winner”, “Bacon Baron”, etc.

Food stalls sell a lot of different festival food and drink, including:

• Pork Scratchings, deep-fried, salted, crunchy pork rind.
• ‘Swine Blood’, a mead colored with beets.
• Boar’s Brew, a specialty made by the local Ash Brook Brewery.
• Mince Mops, a cylinder of minced pork, spiced up a little, wrapped in pastry and then baked.
• The Triple Oink Challenge, a monstrous sandwich stacked with pork belly, sausage, and ham.
• Pig on a Stick, skewer with bacon, onions, and endives.
• Hog Logs, spicy sausages.
• Sow’s Surprise, stew served with bread.
• Stuffed Snouts, roasted pig snouts stuffed with herbs and garlic butter.
• Sugared Boar Ears, crispy pastries dusted with powdered sugar.
• Piglet Pops, cake pops shaped like tiny pig faces.

Knickknacks are of course quite popular as well, they can be bought and are also given away as prizes at many of the games:

• Tiny wooden pig in a blanket.
• A scarf with snout at one end, tail at the other.
• Squealing Pig Whistles, wooden whistles shaped like pig snouts that emit a loud squeal.
• Porcelain Piggy Banks.
• Boar paintings by Laurent Bellec.

There quite a few things to do at the festival, these are some of them:

• A pavilion tent holds the biggest vegetables & fruits, best arts & crafts (including food).
• Pin the Tail on the Pig.
• Face painting.
• Punch & Judy show, with special guest star Miss Piggy.
• Squeal Like a Pig Contest, give your best pig impersonation, judged on volume, realism, and flair.
• Catch the Greased Pig, a small pen where contestants try and catch the animal as fast as possible.
• Guess the Number of Beans in the Jar, 1 sp entry, closest guess wins a free drink a day for a year at the Tip Top Tavern.
• Pork Portrait Artist, draws you as a caricature pig.
• Pig Dip, throw a beanbag at a target to make a volunteer fall into a big through of water.
• Ten Pig Bowling, roll a barrel painted like a pig to knock down ten pig-shaped pins.
• Pig Trivia, show you know your sows from your hogs.
• Piglet Relay Race, teams must carry a squealing piglet through an obstacle course without dropping it.
• Trough Bobbing, catch floating pickled eggs in brine-filled troughs for a prize.
• The Great Pig Escape, a piglet is let loose in a maze, 5 cp bet on which exit it will choose.
• Pork Pyramid Smash, throw beanbags at tower of wooden piglets, topple them all to win a prize.
• Sowsyphus Pork Barrel Push, push a large barrel up a slope, first to the top wins.
• Trough Toss, toss coins into progressively smaller pig-shaped buckets for prizes.
• The Great Princess Hamela Tells Your Fortune, a pig predicts fortunes by choosing between cards.
• The Lost & Found tent.

Event

Having just entered the town, the hail now turned to rain again, our friends soon come across the Cherry Street Inn. It's not very big building but it has a nice, small, faux tower. There are no lights on downstairs, it's past midnight. Next to the door there is a bell pull that runs to the first floor. When the party pulls it, a window opens after a while and the head of a dwarven woman appears. She tells them she'll be down soon.

She opens the door dressed in a dressing gown, carrying a candle, looking about middle aged, and introduces herself as Mrs. Wangainer. "Are you people here for the festival, you’re awfully late," she comments. "The what?" our friends ask, still having no idea where they are. "The Connorsville Swine Festival, of course. It’s a yearly tradition." Both Boldrek and Kieran are well versed in Geography and they now know they have arrived in Dolac, about halfway between Avale and the Otteun border.

Luckily the tower room is available due to some guests not showing up. Our friends are very happy to be out of the rain and take the room, it has quite a nice view down the street at the intersection. They hang their clothes to dry and are soon asleep.

Day 1

The party wakes up relatively early, there is a lot of bustle both inside and out, rain is still hitting the window, the smell of bacon wafts up from downstairs. As our friends make their way down they are met on landing by rotund gentleman with round glasses who asks if they are here for the festival and think the rain will let up.

Coming down into the common room the party get quite a bit of attention for arriving in their armor and weapons. But then the front door opens and two men walk inside, dripping water everywhere. There is a small dialogue between the two: “Man, it’s wet out there.” “It’s been wet out there every day, it’s not summer.” “I hope you have good footwear, people.”

Then our friends are greeted by Mrs. Wangainer who asks if they slept well and seats them at table. There is a buffet breakfast which consists mostly of porridge - one can add salt, sugar, or bacon bit -, day old bread, fruit, honey, and a few other things. As the party is finishing up they are approached by a woman who introduces herself as Melsany Jostins. She asks them if the happen to be traveling to Avale tomorrow. She is going there to deliver some cargo and wouldn't mind to travel together for added safety, she's willing to pay. Our friends are happy to accept, deciding to stay today and check out the festival.

When our friends leave the inn Kieran immediately steps into puddle. There are quite a few people walking down the street towards the city center. Along they way the party sees kids playing, some are building a tree house. They cross a small bridge that goes over Ash Brook, which flows through town.

Closer to the center they pass the temple of Ulaa, the temple to Beory can be seen in the distance. Then they come to the town square, the first thing they see is an old beggar with his hand out. In the middle of the square stands a statue, one side holds the town hall, and many businesses can be found on the other sides; the Tip Top Tavern, the Guellian Inn, a tailor, a book store, a pawn shop, an office for the Guild of Bookkeepers, Notaries & Scribes that holds a branch of the Pursue Hickory bank, an apothecary, a jewelers, and more.

From here it's just a short walk up to Gobbler’s Knob where the festival grounds are. It has stopped raining, due to the elevated location most of the water is gone as well. Our friends try out most of the games with Kieran winning their second attempt at the Sowsyphus Pork Barrel Push. Zayn wins at the Pork Pyramid Smash. And then the paladin and warlock entertain the crowd by playing on their lute and drum, quite successfully, if without a permit

It's not all fun and games at the festival. Around 12:30 the party witnesses a man get arrested for public intoxication. And around 13:30 a halfling girl gets arrested for trying to pick someone's pockets.

The Piglet Relay Race is an easy win for the party, using both the Friends spell and Speak with Animals. Guessing the number of beans turns out to be quite tricky. Boldrek enjoys dunking people at the Pig Dip. Zayn decides to ask Princess Hamela about his mother but the assistant's interpretation of the cards are not too helpful. Everyone but Kieran gets a pig portrait drawn of themselves.

It starts to rain really hard around 15:00 and our friends go back to the city center and go to the Guellian Inn to shelter from the rain, get a drink, and buy tickets for the Hog Fest in the evening. Unfortunately they are told tickets were sold out in the morning. When they go back out into the square at 16:00 they witness a horse losing a shoe as it pulls a carriage. Kieran uses Speak with Animals to calm the horse as Boldrek uses his mason's tools to put the shoe back. The three old ladies in the carriage are quite appreciative.

Zayn gives a gold piece to the beggar and then our friends go to the Wortine district where they've been told is a quite nice restaurant. Going there, at 17:00 they come across a duel between two rich merchants. According to the crowd one called the other's wife 'uninspired'. It is clear neither has ever used a weapon in anger and at first not a single blow lands. But then they both hit each other simultaneous, doing quite some harm. Kieran steps up and heals both of them.

After a very nice dinner our friends return to the Cherry Street Inn, planning on taking an early night as Melsany Jostins told them she'd like to leave not much after dawn, they have a long journey ahead. Soon enough they fall asleep.

Day 2

The party wakes up relatively early, there is a lot of bustle both inside and out, rain is still hitting the window, the smell of bacon wafts up from downstairs. As our friends make their way down they are met on landing by rotund gentleman with round glasses who asks if they are here for the festival and think the rain will let up.

Wait a minute! What's going on, wasn't the festival yesterday? The party asks the man how many days the festival lasts, just one, he tells them. Something is very wrong and when our friends make it downstairs the front door opens and the same two men from yesterday enter, having the exact same conversation: “Man, it’s wet out there.” “It’s been wet out there every day, it’s not summer.” “I hope you have good footwear, people.”

It seems everyone is reliving the same day but only our friends are aware of the fact. Now they also realize they have the exact same amount of money and belongings as at the start of yesterday's morning. Zayn's knowledge of Arcana tells him that there are no spells so powerful as to make everyone here repeat the same day, not since the Collapse, anyway.

They are approached by Melsany Jostins again, who once again wants to hire them for 'tomorrow'. Not knowing what else to do, the party goes out, trying to see if they can make sense of the situation.

As they get to the town square a passerby spots the paladin. “Kieran? Kieran Dawncaller? Den Wheaterdaughter, remember me?” The speaker is a slim, tall, balding human man. “I was going to be the world’s best bagpipist, we spent that week together in Mifora. That didn’t work out, clearly. What about you? You look all fancy in that heavy armor of yours, isn’t it cold in there? Googol! So what’s the great Kieran doing these days? Did you know what this guy did?” The man starts on an embarrassing story about Kieran.

Then he turns to the half-elf again. “Ehlonna though, I told you then and I’ll tell you now, Lirr is where it’s at. I gave up my musical dreams but guess what I am doing now. Wrong, I now work for the Banking Alliance, did you know you can make money just by sitting at home and doing nothing? Googol! Let me tell you about this wonderful deposit plan just introduced, the inlay is a hundred gold pieces but I’m sure that’s nothing for an adventurer like you.”

After finally getting rid of Den, the party buys tickets for tonight's Hog Fest. Then they go to Veller district for the Thomasses Slaughterhouse tour. As they make their way over an explosion can be heard nearby at 10:00. Our friends decide to investigate and find Warehouse #17 where smoke is coming from the open doors. The Abraxis Combine personnel ensure everything is under control and decline any help. Our friends then go back to their original plan.

Then they return to the festival where Kieran and Zayn perform again. They guess the number of beans once more, they weren't at the reveal the last time so still have no idea how many beans are in the jar. The warlock visits Princess Hamela again, now asking how to break out of a time loop. "By breaking it?" is the hesitant answer from the assistant.

Boldrek seeks out the beggar in town and gives him five gold pieces to leave town right now and go as far as he can, Izzy puts in another five. The barbarian's idea is to find out if the beggar will be back the next day or if he managed to travel far enough to no longer be effected by whatever is making things repeat. Of course, the muddy roads won't help.

Around 11:00 a child named Toby goes missing. Fortunately Zayn can use his new Scrying power and he spots the child at one of the upright pig sculptures. After lunch Kieran goes to find the pick pocket at 13:30. Mira “Quickfingers” Kelsh has just been arrested but the paladin asks the Humtache officers if he can talk with her. He first tries to persuade and then intimidate her to make her stop her criminal ways. The latter approach might have actually worked and the half-elf gives both her and the officers some money to smooth things over.

Back at the town square at 16:00, our friends help the old ladies with the lost horse shoe once again. Then when they are back at 17:30 they witness two old guards bringing money down from Gobbler's Knob to the Pursue Hickory bank branch.

Then it's time for Hog Fest; the food is as good as they were told. But the provost is enjoying it a bit too much and starts to choke. Zayn shows a new side of him and uses a Polymorph spell to change the man into a creature with a rather wide mouth. This actually works and after changing back the provost is just fine, though the entire room is rather in shock at the events.

Later in the evening Boldrek asks the lute player if he can teach him how to play and the woman tells the dwarf that she can teach him next morning, giving him her address. Zayn volunteers himself for the bachelor auction and at first the crowd is rather apprehensive, after all that happened earlier but the half-orc starts to play his drums and make a show of it, leading to some respectable bids.

Day 3

Today is again the day of the festival, all their spending has been restored, but more importantly, Zayn has also regained the Scrying use he spent the last day. He uses a Sending spell to contact Maurice and ask for advice. The answer he receives is that this type of temporal magic hasn’t been seen since Balturan times, break the loop.

Boldrek and Zayn go to Warehouse #17, making sure to arrive well before 10:00. They see someone arrive and go into the building, the explosion happens a minute or two afterwards. Our friends burst inside but are soon stopped by the people in there, clearly they want no one to look into their business. Zayn then uses an Invisibility spell and finds a secret room which shows all the signs of the explosion; pieces of vial lay scattered on the floor next to a large blast mark. The room contains weapons and all kinds of items, it's some kind of hidden arsenal. Regrettably it doesn't look to be connected to their repeating days.

Boldrek then goes to the home of the lute player, as discussed, only to not find her home. Which makes perfect sense as she made the appointment for 'tomorrow'. He then decides to test the power of these days resetting and picks a random house, hacking away at it, destroying a good bit of it. This, of course, gets a reaction, people try to stop him but he swings his sword at them. Then Zayn arrives, having heard the sounds of destruction.

After seeing what's going on, the warlock uses a Polymorph spell to change the barbarian into a bear. This does not seem to be appreciated and as the the bear moves towards the half-orc, he quickly Dimension Doors to the roof of the building, forgetting that bears can climb quite well. As Boldbear climbs towards him, the warlock casts a Gaseous Form spell, having to use his Incomprehensible Knowledge to do so, and getting vivid hallucinations, Boldrek, now back in dwarf form, starts to look a lot like his orc sire.

A Humtache patrol arrives and Boldrek is back on the ground. They apparently called in for magical support as a wizard accompanies them and she casts a web spell, trying to contain the dwarf. Izzy has now also arrived and her first order of business is to cast a fireball spell at the wizard, but there is no way to place it without killing an innocent bystander. The wizard survives and casts a less destructive Lightning Bolt spell back at the bard.

By now Boldrek has been fighting guardsmen and the web, and he is winning easily. He destroys more of the house which then collapses but the barbarian can easily take the damage of it dropping on top of him. Zayn has floated over to the wizard and when he gets hit by rubble from the house, he activates his Tomb of Levistus ability and drops onto the mage, killing her.

The remaining Humtache retreat as they wait for reinforcements and our friends find a tavern to have a drink and discuss what they just did. The place is deserted apart from two rather drunk men at the bar. "What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?" Boldrek comments at some point when discussing his latest actions, whereupon one of the two drunks says: "That about sums it up for me."

Knowing another fight will be unavoidable if they stay, the party sneaks away to the edge of town, buys horses and rides off till dusk. They then make camp and around the fire they continue to talk about the day's events. Zayn has been dealing with a lot lately, killing his sire, etc. He asks Izzy; "How do you deal with the darkness? Doesn't it ever go too far? Do the ends always justify the means?" The bard replies: "It's just a way to survive but I can't deny a certain joy in seeing others slip."

Zayn tells Izzy he's always looked up to her. Is it envy or admiration, she wants to know. "The latter," the warlock answers. The bard explains that the half-orc should try to just shrug off those certain feelings, it becomes easier over time. And that might explain why Zayn supported Boldrek in his destructive spree.

Day 4

This morning our friends wake up again in their room at the Cherry Street Inn, nothing has changed. They decide to use another Sending spell and contact Maurice again. He tells them that he hasn't heard from the recently, showing that whatever magic is repeating the day is powerful enough to also affect this kind of magic. Using two spells in total he tells them that the cause has to be some kind of artifact and that to find it, a Detect Magic spell might do it but that will be slow going if they have to go all over town. Other than that; find out what is different about the party, why do they know the day is repeating but no one else does.

At breakfast Boldrek asks Mrs Wangainer if there is a powerful wizard in town. She tells them there's Simar d'Lorah, "The seer of seers, the prognosticator of prognosticators". He lives in a tower outside of town. Our friends then theorize about why you would want to loop time this way and Zayn suggest that maybe you need to fix something and are running out of time.

The party then goes and finds the tower, it's about an hour outside of town. After knocking on the door a small trapdoor opens and a homunculus comes out, telling them that the master is not seeing anyone today. This is not what our friends want to hear and they decide to use their Galder's Tower scroll to gain some height and then possibly gain entry into the wizard's tower that way.

But immediately after using the scroll fireballs and other spells rain down. Combined with the two golems that flanked the front door, the party is very soon brought low, all of them dying an ignoble death.

Day 5

Fortunately they all wake up again in their room the next morning, even death can't escape the time loop. This time they slip a note under the door to the tower: "We want to talk to you, we are stuck in a time loop". Immediately after Zayn uses a Scrying spell on the Homunculus they met before. It works and the warlock sees the creature take the note up the stairs to the top floor where a haggard looking man sits behind a desk that is covered on open books and scrolls.

This allows Zayn to use a Sending spell to talk to the man, telling him they will return every single day if he won't talk to them, even if he kills them every time. The man then replies that he'll have them brought up. And soon enough the party is in the study, face to face with Simar d'Lorah. He explains to them what is going on. His daughter, Callie, is dying.

When it happened originally he used an ancient Balturan artifact, that he was the steward of, to repeat the last twenty-four hours over and over again, in the hopes of finding a way to save her. He found that a tiny sliver of some kind of gem had come into her brain. There's a tiny wound on her skull that shows where it entered.

Unfortunately when the loop started he found out that the sliver had already entered her brain before the start of it. He has tried a number of things so far and learned that if he does nothing she dies at three in the morning, and if he fails at removing the shard she dies immediately. But even when he removes it safely, his daughter still dies at three.

Our friends come clean about their method of arrival and it seems likely that the sliver came from their translocation device as it exploded. This might also explain why they are aware of the loop while no one else is. Fortunately the wizard moves past the fact that they are the cause of his daughter's current predicament and they ask about all the things he's tried so far.

It's quite a lot, the first night he immediately had the head priests of both temples in town over to try and raise his daughter but their magic didn't work. That's when he turned his artifact on and started looking for other solutions, all of them to no avail, so far. Our friends suggest maybe a Reincarnate spell might work, though she would likely no longer be a human in that case. Simar tells them he does not know of any druid nearby able to cast such a spell. Izzy asks if the regenerative properties of certain creatures could help, and shows a troll finger she has been holding on to ever since taking it from the Halls of Herrn.

Many suggestions are made but with the loop starting after the daughter having already been hit there is no real way to stop the event from happening, Simar doesn't have a Wish spell or he'd have used it already. As our friends go through their belongings to see if there's anything that can help, they come across the oneiric pearls. When they ask the wizard if those are of any help he explains those are used for dream magic. Zayn then asks if that might not be an option, go into his daughter's dreams and fix her brain from there?

The wizard says it's more than a long shot and he's the furthest from an expert in it but at this point he is willing to try anything. The warlock then gets very lucky; he runs his fingers across some books in the bookcase and stops at a book where the cover feels like a skin with short, bristly hairs. It turns out to be the diary of a night hag: Teresa Tallowbabbler.

That might certainly help and Simar will contact a few wizards that he knows who are versed in oneiromancy. Hopefully he will learn enough to give this a shot. Boldrek goes out into the forest to try and contact Maior, hoping the entity might be of some help, but he gets nothing but snores. Izzy takes the diary and reads it end to end, Zayn gets the distinct feeling the bard has a special interest in that book.

At the end of the day Simar tells them he has learned enough that he is willing to give it a try; if it fails, there's always tomorrow, isn't there? He brings them to his daughter's room, there's a Cobblar Languid poster on the wall, and introduces them to eight year old Callie. The wizard gets everything ready and then starts the ritual bringing our friends into the little girl's dream which looks like an animated child's drawing.

Dreams are complex and difficult and even manifesting a shape is a challenge. Zayn wants to look like a rabbit but unfortunately it still has the same cruel smile as his real form. Boldrek goes for the shape of a teddy bear, but unfortunately his has huge, sharp teeth. Izzy manages well and shows up as a doll. Callie looks like herself in the dream but with exaggerated features; a large head and huge eyes.

She welcomes them and asks if they want to have a tea party. Our friends ask for a tour, hoping they might find what they are looking for. No luck and then they ask what her favorite spot it. "A wishing well!" she exclaims, "it's new." When she takes them there Izzy sees a typical wishing well but Boldrek and Zayn aren't fooled, they see a hole in the ground, the color of a purple bruise.

When Callie and Izzy break the illusion the little girl starts to cry at the sudden sight of this ugly thing marring her perfect world. Our friends try to console her but nothing seems to work until Izzy eventually manages. The bard manifests a glass of 'magical water' for the girl to drink, that should make everything better, the idea being that if the girls thinks she is fixing things she will actually fix her brain.

Things are seldom that easy and now whatever dark influence is in the hole, fights back within the dream. First clowns climb from the hole, but Izzy manifests flaming, horny horses that burn away the clowns. More scary things appear but Zayn turns them into balloons all colors of the rainbow and they float away. Boldrek, meanwhile has manifested his Soty as cotton candy for Callie to eat and feel better.

As the hole is nearly closed all the way, a huge snake comes out of it. It is bone white with red eyes and red lines in the form of a diamond on its forehead, the appearance is quite scary and everyone succumbs to it, making manifesting things more difficult. Izzy is very persuasive indeed as she tells Callie: "we can change it, together we can make it something else; think of your favorite food." "Marshmallows!" answers the girl and the snake falls into huge pieces of the candy as the hole closes over completely and the carpet like grass looks like it was never there in the first place.

As a denouement our friends have a little party with Callie in her dream and eat candy together. They explain that she did all this, she has the power to stop anything like this should it ever happen again. After heaping praise on her, they look for an exit to the dream and soon find one.

They report their success to her father and he is very pleased but also immediately used Sending spells to have the head priests come over to make sure all is well. When they arrive and cast a number of spells the girl is declared to be just fine. However, with all that has gone on that is no guarantee and so everyone waits till three in the morning.

Simar goes into his daughter's room and it takes a good while before he comes out again, in tears. His daughter is still alive! Still he remains wary, the events having taken their toll. But eventually, past five in the morning, when his daughter still looks just fine, he goes and destroys the artifact, stopping the time loop. And indeed, when the time reaches six in the morning, our friends don't wake up in the Cherry Street Inn, but are still in the wizard's tower.

He can't stop thanking them and promises to reward them however they want, but first he is going to spend some time with his daughter. Izzy quickly asks if she can have Teresa Tallowbabbler diary, and the wizard is more than happy to give it to her.