The tension in the air could be cut with a claw as the judge walked to each of the assembled contestants and pairs, counting carefully the number of eggs each brought back. Fenek's gut was playing up, as is usual in the situations like this where he was nervous, but it was surprisingly faint given the circumstances. Not that he'd wanted it to hurt more, but it gave him some solace that maybe they're not the lowest team on the ladder. Still, the judge not counting aloud did bring a reasonable amount of doubt to that.

When they approached him and Calypso, she seemed way more pleased than him, but both kept their cool and presented the eggs. The judge looked them over and counted carefully, then nodded and continued on their merry way. Fenek was basically kneading the wooden floor of the platform at this point, causing the female to move one of her claws over to stop him, flashing him a bright smile "Don't worry, it's not good for you!" she whispered, and it didn't make him feel any better if he was honest, but he tried to hide it a little better so the drakaina wouldn't feel insulted or disheartened at that.

They had been collecting eggs mostly by the river, which proved to be extremely fruitful as Calypso could dive for quite an admirable length of time and his small size and careful nature let him find quite a couple of eggs buried in or around the reeds. He was nervous at first because they had found quite a bunch and neither of them brought any sort of pouches, but the colorful sapiere informed him that they can just ask for someone to come fetch their eggs when they're done in the area via an enchantment on the eggs themselves. It was a little odd to him that they'd take that much care to make sure the event went smoothly, but then again this was a country spanning event so he let it slide.

It didn't take long for the judge to go over the rest of the contestants, mostly because most of the remaining dragons were less that fortunate in their hunting. After counting the last batch, they calmly walked over to the small raised part of the platform. "It is my great pleasure to see that so many of you had fun collecting our eggs, and that so many had luck finding them as well. However, there can only be two winners sadly, and it is my job to announce them, but why don't we start with a little ranking first?" They teased, turning around for a dramatic reveal.

"For our third place, we have.... Lucifer!" They pointed at a dark, glowing sapiere and Fenek immediately felt his gut go wild, causing him to double over in fear and pain, much to Calypso's confusion. The sapiere stared down the judge, and it looked like she was ready to kill, but she instead turned around and left without a word, the judge giving her a sly smirk. "For the second, it would be our lovely friend Cassian and his partner Pete!" This pair of dragons was a beautiful golden ravager with way too many wings and a pink fluffy sapiere. The ravager's feathers seemed to poof up at the attention, while the sapiere muttered a quiet 'dang it', but didn't seem nearly as murderous as the last one.

"And for our top dragons..." The judge smiled as they looked over the expectant crowd "The dragons that get to pass to the next stage... Calypso and her friend from bellow!" The colorful female immediately yanked onto his wing to pull him into a victory embrace, which was very embarrassing for him, but he was happy to have managed to get something out of this after all. "Please come to the egg hunt center afterwards to confirm your victory and whether or not you'll be entering the next round or leaving with this one's rewards. Happy hunting and may luck be on your side."

With that, the judge simply vanished, leaving Fenek quite a bit confused, and the rest of the group slowly fell apart as the dragons left to go about their days. Calypso let him go as well, and waved him goodbye as she left to go get her signup for the next round and bath, and only then did he realize.

He'll have to go asking around to find the egg hunt center, wouldn't he?