"I challenge you to a duuuuuuuet!"

Colm challenging Nyx

After returning from the Mine, we had a few days downtime before we had to meet with Gunter again. He suggested, as there was no accommodations available at the Barracks, that we make our way down to the "Hammer and Anvil", the local tavern. Kriv, the Dragon Born Paladin, bought the first round.

Kriv (formally John) was a human for the last two sessions, but the DMs suggest to John (the player) that he change his character to one that speaks Draconic (as the party had none, and the campaign is going to rely on it.)

Taking the mead from Kriv, I took a seat in front of the makeshift stage. There was a Halfling on stage playing a lute; not anywhere near as well as I can. The people around seemed to not be paying too much attention, it was more background noise than a main attraction.

My attention was drawn to my Knight companion at the bar. The waitress had a very surprised look on her face. Turns out the Knight had ordered a whole gold's worth of mead, four jugs, and drank it all. Either fighting the Dragon has taken its toll on him, or he just likes the sauce.

As I was watching the Knight attempt to order more mead, I notice that the Halfling from the stage is at the bar. Seizing my chance, I climbed on stage with my lute and played a little number. It was about a minute before I earnt the attention of a few patrons; and the Halfling. Making his way towards the stage he yelled, "Sir, I challenge you to a duuuuuuet!"

If memory serves, it was at this point the table erupted in laughter.

Introducing himself as Colm, he climbed up onto the stage. He started playing; a lot better then he did before. Completely taken aback, when it came to my turn to play, my fingers slipped a little and I played a wrong note. The crowd indicates that he won this 'round'. "Picking up the slack" he started to play again. He got few notes in and then snaped a string on his lute. The crowd leant in my favour. As I played I looked out onto the crowd, every person in the tavern was crowding around the stage now. I lost concentration for a few moments and ended up breaking a string.

It was getting to the end of the song, only about a minute left. Colm started to play his final phrase, it all came down to this. He was playing wildly, building up towards a crescendo, but snaped another string! He put his lute down in defeat; I looked up to his face and he was wearing the biggest smile. I started playing right where he left off, building up the crescendo and almost reaching the end of the song before I too broke a string. The crowd erupted in laughter. Putting my lute down I grabbed him into a embrace, it'd been a long time since I'd had that much fun.

This was one of my favourite moments at the table in a long time.

Joking, we walked towards to bar; many patrons stopped us to congratulate or thanks us. The bartender gave us a round on the house.

We spent the next few hours taking and joking; swapping stories of our past. Just as I was about to leave he handed me a coin. He told me it is a lucky coin and that it lands heads up more often than not. I thanked him and headed upstairs to bed.

The DMs said to record on my sheet as "Colm's Coin" -- I'm curious to find out what it really is :)