The Spring Festival: A Maze-ing We Will Go

Just north of the city of Bree lies the festival grounds, a sprawling expanse of tents and stages full of merry-makers and feasting. A race track for skilled horseman encircles the tents, testing the unwary with hedges and ditches. But on the southern side, near the grounds, stands the Hedge-maze, and to those blessed with strong internal compasses there is a series of challenges to be completed.


 The simplest challenges of course are timed runs, where you must navigate the maze within a certain time limit. Each successful run opens the challenge to run the maze faster and faster. On the sillier side of things, occasionally chickens wander into the maze and it is up to the player to catch them all before they escape.

There is also a challenge by the Inn-league, assuming you have completed the pub crawl and been initiated, to find the "artefact" and use it. The artefact turns out to be a huge keg. I saw no danger in it, until as I was approaching the keg a hobbit lying on the ground warned me in a slow slur, "No. Go away. S'bad fuh yew." Slightly confused, I poured myself a tankard and downed it in one long draught. Instantly my vision blurred and I was told to make it to the end of the maze within two minutes.... or else. Or else what? I was so drunk I couldn't even walk properly, and began hobbling my slow way toward the exit. I confess, I didn't make it. I collapsed within sight of the exit and passed out. When I awoke, I was hundreds of miles from Bree, in Forochel, stranded on the middle of an ice-berg, and missing my pants. However, I am never one to be turned away by something so simple as that, so I made my way back to Bree and tried it again. And again. And again. I believe I mentioned before that the maze is for people with strong internal compasses. I am not one of those people. Finally I made it and was rewarded with a replica of the artefact for my own home, which produces the same effects - extreme drunkeness, a hangover the next day in some far-off place, and missing pants.

Not all who enter the maze emerge safely though, even if they never take one sip from that horrible keg. Several elves entered the maze at the start of the festival and have yet to emerge, so you are charged with locating all the elves and making sure they are still... alive. Thankfully, they are all fine, and some defiantly refuse any help at all. One of the elves I found to be a bit...strange. He claimed that he was "just so distracted by each and every leaf" that he could not find the time to leave. I kindly suggested he move to a desert where there are no leaves to be distracted by. Heaven help him if it ever rains.


A dwarf standing outside the maze takes great pleasure in the fact that the elves are lost, and he gives what I found to be the most light-hearted of all the challenges - to post confusing signs throughout the maze so that the poor elves remain lost. I posted his signs for him, and he chuckled and clapped his belly in mirth, his deep laugh rolling across the festival grounds as I walked off towards the dance-arena.


The maze challenges are fun, to be sure, and can provide you with about ten leaves or more in the space of thirty minutes, if you manage to complete all the quests without any failures. I also remember the maze as being the first festival activity I participated in back when I started the game over a year ago now. Ah... memories.