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.

So, it's a drinking game? (The Spring Festival, day two)

Yes, Legolas.

 It is.


















Today's post on the Spring festival will highlight one of my favorite things to do in the game - participate in the activities of the Inn League. The Inn League is one of the many reputation factions within the game, but what sets it apart from the others is that reputation with them can only be gained during the seasonal festivals, making it one of the more difficult things to work on. The hobbits of the Shire love their beers and ales, and take great delight in celebrating them.

The basic and most common way to gain reputation with the Inn League is by performing the Shire Pub Crawl (not the official name, ^.^). Today I was lucky enough to run the crawl with Squid, who performed excellently and made it through the entire run. The quest starts at the party tree in Hobbiton, where you are required to drink six tankards in about a minute. Sis managed to pass this portion of the quest, while I was too busy taking pictures and failed.

Next participants have to run all the way from the party tree to Brockenborings, north and east of Hobbiton, to the Plough and Stars inn. There, the formula is repeated and you must drink six tankards of ale before the time limit expires. This time the Inn League is a bit generous and gives you about five and a half minutes to get from the Party Tree to the Plough and Stars and drink your drinks.  This time sis opted to perform an impressive balancing act and stand on the edge of the table while she downed her frothy mugs of beer. The Inn League officiant, that hobbit lady sitting beneath Squid, apparently didn't mind that sis was standing practically in her lap.

Next it was off to the Golden Perch in Stock, right on the banks of the Brandywine River and at the far eastern reaches of the Shire. Thankfully Squid avoided any shennanigans this time and stood firmly on the ground while the hobbit patrons did their best to ignore the fact that an elf-lady was rapidly downing all their best beer. Like a trooper, sis finished this round as well, and with a swift call to our mounts we rode off to the next destination, the Floating Log in Frogmorton.

To me, getting to Frogmorton and downing the beer in time was always the hardest step in the quest, because for this leg they only give you about three minutes to finish. By now any participants should be beginning to feel the effects of the ale, and things in game will start to appear a bit fuzzy. The first time I attempted the quest I was having such trouble seeing (I stupidly ran the quest at night in the rain, which makes it doubly hard to see) and stood outside the entrance to the Inn until my time ran out because I couldn't see through my drunken haze enough to actually find the door. Squid ran inside though and completed her grim task while I waited outside to lead the way to the next stop. Why? I suppose I was acting as a sort of designated driver, so that sis not only found her way but avoided running any poor hobbits over on her horse.

Next, it was a quick trip west to the Green Dragon in Bywater, probably the most famous of inns in the Shire. This is by far the largest and most prosperous of the Shire inns, built on the edge of the Water, just down the road from Hobbiton. It is also the site of one of  Merry and Pippin's memorable songs from the Lord of the Rings films:

After leaving the Green Dragon, we headed off to the Ivy Bush Inn, where sis bravely ploughed on, although her screen probably looked something like this by this point:

I applaud her tremendously for continuing on. By now if you stand still the screen will slowly sway back and forth and everything is at least in doubles, if not triples. It's hard to click on the beers to 'drink' them, so finishing this last stage is always a challenge. Her last stop was the Bird and Baby Inn in Michel Delving, the capitol of sorts for the Shire. After downing her last six beers, she completed the quest with a horrifically silly grin on her face, and collapsed, where I'm pretty sure she is lying still, soundly sleeping off the effects of all those beers in the basement of the Bird and Baby. Here's hoping she doesn't have too much of a hangover.