Aroon Family Pepper Challenge

The Aroon Family Pepper Challenge is a test of endurance against hot peppers, held every hour on the hour at the Spicy Brothers stall in the Canal Markets of Argentum.¹ Vi Aroon hosts it, and entry is free.¹ Vi calls it a mainstay of the Lavalight Night Market. His brother Kasem Aroon calls it a silly old tradition and a gimmick.¹

Rules

Challengers sit at the counter at the front of the tent, each before a basket of colorful, nearly identical peppers, with pitchers of milk on hand.¹ Each eats three peppers, drawn at random. Anyone who gets through all three without leaving, drinking the milk or passing out from the heat wins.¹ Winners may have any one thing the stall sells, and everyone who takes part is offered fresh, cool yogurt.¹ Winners are not obliged to defend the title, though Vi thinks it would be dishonorable not to.¹

Peppers

• The common garden chili pepper, which is not very spicy.¹
• The burning waves pepper, whose heat comes twice.¹
• The flamethrower chili, which bursts in a cloud of red and reddish-orange sparkling dust. A challenger who coughs spreads the powder everywhere.¹
• The sweet heat pepper, hot but delicious, and probably the tastiest pepper on offer.¹
• The skull-faced pepper, the spiciest the stall has. For an instant, every face around the eater looks like a skull. Sold on its own, it costs a crown.¹
• Cherry tomatoes, thrown in to keep things interesting.¹

History

Session 19

Temerity, Luma, Iva and Hazel took the challenge on the evening of 9 Nightdeep, 1714 PSF, while Rhysaene watched.¹ Hazel drew a burning waves pepper and then the skull-faced pepper, and passed out rather than drink the milk. The other three tied for the win, the first three-way tie in quite a while.¹ Iva took a skull-faced pepper as her prize, ate it whole, and drank the milk. Luma gave her prize to Temerity, who took honey-glazed hot chips and a bag of dark roast coffee.¹

References

Footnotes

1. Session 19 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶