The second challenge, Can you succeed in a game without dice?

Shiffit (war-forged) - played by Clint
Zyva (gold-dragon-pixie) - played by Ron
Glauca (old man wizard) - played by Maija
Hesperose (human mariner) - played by Scott
Aramil (elven wizard) - played by Eric
Kita (kenku) - played by Shawn

The team goes back to the Celeste.  Hesperose goes fishing.  Glaucus joins him.  Zyva, Aramil and Shiffit go back to town the next day to learn about the second round of the invitational.  They get some advice and blow it off.  :)

Not much happens until the tournament.  Shiffit fails a climb check (another natural 1), which is the highlight of the training period.

The team arrives at an empty stadium and they enter.  They are instructed to go to a tent at the center of the arena and await their turn to be judged.  They see a team exit the tent bickering at one another with criticisms.

When they go in the tent they find a circle of elves including the King.  They are then asked to choose two members to perform the first task.  Kita and Zyva bravely volunteer.  They are seated back to back and Zyva is told to describe three shapes to Kita who then attempts to draw the figures.  One turns out pretty well.  (This challenge was to test team communication.)

The team is then asked to describe the vision of a successful group.  Somehow the vision statement revolves around taking orders from Glaucus.  (This challenge was to test team unity in achieving goals.)

The next phase of the challenge involves a hypothetical situation where the team must choose who would live or die in a drastic situation and then decide the importance of the survivors.  The team mostly chose the survivors using moral judgements of good "people" and even allowed a wealthy merchant to live after negotiations and compromise within the group.  (This challenge was to test the heart of the team and their values.)

The team is the put in a zone of truth and draws cards.  Each card requires the team to describe moments in a character's past.  The team has yet to really learn about one another so the answers were mostly guess work.  (This challenge was to test team intimacy.)

Finally, each team member was asked to act out their favorite animal.  Shiffit played a keen role in identifying animals, except for animals that he has recently summoned.  Nonetheless, the team flew through this challenge like an African swallow through European swallow airspace.  Or something else that was fast and unimpeded.  (This was to test how well the team members are willing to go out of their way to succeed in a group effort.  "Would you die for one another... even if it's dying from embarrassment?")  The team was then asked to leave.

The council of elves then exited the tent and announced to all the teams which team won each round of team challenges.  Team One and Team Shiffit each won two of the challenges in the council's eyes and they will advance to the final round which involves combat.

Rules: Players on each team can choose when to retire from the battle.  Combatants may not attack a player who has retired.  Elven clerics will heal the retired combatants but they will not resurrect players from the dead unless cheating is involved.  All combatants must stay inside the arena.  If a team loses all team members to death or retirement, that team loses the battle.  The team that doesn't lose, wins!

Team One consists of  a human cleric, a wood elf ranger, a high elf wizard and a half-orc barbarian, an elven druid and a shape shifting sorcerer.