2 - Celebration
<p>For the evening meal, Arun, Talur and Nira had decorated the barroom for Griegg's birthday. It was a party of special magnificence, and the whole town showed up, so the whole thing had to be moved outside and the interior decorations became pointless.
 
Since Jericho and his band were away, a few other local quasi-musicians gathered up at the central park to entertain the town. Though most people did their best to ignore the noises.
 
Many people from the town brought food to share: meats, fruits, nuts, pies and cakes. The baker on the other side of town brought a very large cake layered with the sour yellow filling that Griegg loved most. Though as the cake was brought out, and the birthday wishes were given to Griegg, Tedd's horse managed to free himself from the stable, joined the party and tried to eat the cake. Tedd had quite a challenging time trying to drag Lemon away from the sour yellow cake.
 
Nik watched Griegg the whole evening, looking for a sign that Arun had delivered the message, but Griegg gave no evidence of knowing, he never looked for Nik. Arun also never approached Nik to inform him of a response to the request, Arun seemed to have forgotten. So Nik finally decided he would have to just approach him and make his own introductions.
 
Griegg was having his mug refilled by an overweight man with dirty beard and clothes from one of the other breweries in town, Nik thought this would be a good point to approach him as we was not engaged in conversation at the moment.
 
"Excuse me, sir," Nik said as he was close enough to get Griegg's attention.
 
Griegg looked up, gave a curious look at Nik.
 
"I'm not sure if the message was delivered, I asked your young friend, Arun, to arrange a meeting between us. I can tell by your continued look of confusion that it wasn't delivered."
 
"Nope," Griegg said. "Arun can be a bit forgetful. I seem to have a moment, what can I help you with. I take it you're traveling through town?"
 
"Yes, I came down from Lælyin. I arrived last night, shortly before you did. I found your story this morning interesting, I became interested in meeting you in hopes you could help me with something unexpected."
 
"Unexpected?" Griegg asked.
 
Nik reached into his pocket and pulled out the medallion. "When I awoke this morning, this was laying across my armor, it wasn't mine."
 
Griegg looked at the medallion in the light. The silver reflected the party lights so well that it seemed to glow. 
 
Raain walked up to Griegg and Nik. "Sorry, couldn't help but be curious about the conversation and that medallion. Sorry, I'm Raain."
 
"Pleasure, I'm-- I guess I forgot to introduce myself to you as well, I'm Nik, Worther," Nik gave an extra pause between his own and his family names, to see if they would react the same way Arun had. Both perked up their ears and raised their eyebrows a little at this information. "Yes," he said to confirm their thoughts. "Please, the medallion."
 
Griegg handed it to Raain, and as her eyes met the etching, she almost dropped the medallion, she did drop her jaw. "My dream," she said.
 
"Your dream?" Nik was astonished, and even more intrigued, and sure that he'd found the right people to talk to. Raain's response was more than he could have hoped for.
 
"Yeah, I had a dream this morning. Three men and a dragon talking under two trees in the middle of a field. Just like the etching here. But...." she trailed off.
 
"Yes?" Nik said with curious impatience.
 
"They all died."
 
"That's ominous." Nik said with a near laugh.
 
"Indeed. I think all three of will be going up to the Sanctuary tomorrow." Griegg said.
 
"Sounds like the beginning of a grand adventure." Nik said looking at the other two.
 
"Arun should come too." Raain said to Griegg.
 
"The four of us, a really grand adventure indeed." Griegg said with a hint of sarcasm. 
 
Raain smiled, placing her hand on his elbow. "He needs this," she said.
 
"Needs this? What is it that he needs? I know I've been gone a while, but has he really improved that much?" Griegg asked with skepticism.
 
"He's grown plenty, he's not perfect, by any means, but he's at the point that he needs a mentor at the sanctuary, or to travel." Nik began to feel like he was intruding on a more personal conversation that Griegg and Raain had probably had more than once, he took a small step backwards.
 
"Sorry, I'll leave the two of you to this conversation. Thank you for your assistance, I'll be staying at the Inn, I'm sure we'll meet tomorrow morning and can discuss the Sanctuary." Nik bowed himself out, as Griegg and Raain apologized and said a goodnight. Nik walked over to one of the food tables, grabbed two sausage links, and caught the growing argument out of the corner of his eye. He considered his own doubts about Arun, especially considering the message he'd been entrusted with was not delivered. He looked around the crowd for the Hobb, but couldn't see him, probably because everyone else was twice as tall, and Arun would have blended fairly well with the children of the Humons.
 
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