DH Skies

August 09, 2019 10:35 AM
There had been an introduction, of sorts, to the first task, posted a week in advance.

‘The first challenge will require a combination of physical skills and ingenuity. Whilst speed will be of the essence, Professors may award bonus marks for use of their subject, and groups will be graded based on everyone participating. You are allowed to prepare resources in advance and may bring whatever supplies you feel may be necessary.’

Selina had to admit she’d sort of had fun writing that. In some ways, it was so obscure as to maybe not be particularly helpful, but she looked forward to seeing what the students came up with - and, as noted, there was a certain amount of credit availability for the ingenuity with which they solved the challenges put to them, thus she thought there might be some interesting results from seeing how they applied their ready-made solutions to the problems, rather than working the usual way round - though those who just opted to throw themselves in would no doubt yield fun of their own kind.

On the day of the challenge itself, the teams were given an approximate time at which to come to the Cascade Hall, as sitting around waiting didn’t seem like it would be much fun for the latter numbers.Selina doubted that many who had completed the challenges would be likely to pass on information, though she supposed there might be some with a loyalty outside their own team who might. The bigger problem was probably them trying to psych out other teams. Thus once teams had completed the challenge, they would be escorted to the MARS rooms where they could get snacks, amuse themselves and trade stories with the other survivors, with the art room designated as a quiet zone for anyone who wished to study.

There was a section of the gardens that had been closed off since the previous evening, and so it probably came as no surprise when they were led out there. As they assembled at the start, they were given the additional information that they would be facing an obstacle course, and that it had four parts - meaning that they should aim for some collaboration or multiple spells on at least one part if they wanted to get marks for all their team members making meaningful contributions.

The first obstacle had a small sign in front of it reading ‘Get to the other side.’ There was a climbing wall of approximately ten feet. It leant away at a slight angle to improve the ease of getting up it, and was dotted with a number of hand and footholds. ‘Dotted’ was an apt word. These were well spaced, and some of them were exceedingly small, or otherwise in shapes that did not offer a good deal of purchase. It was probably scalable as was, but only to someone who had both strength and dexterity, and/or a decent amount of experience in bouldering, as it would be a fairly technical climb. The wall was bounded on either side by dense patches of vegetation, including poisoned ivy and and venomous tentacular. There was a substantial crash mat on either side, for anyone who fell on the way up, and to offer an easier way down on the other side.

On the other side of the wall was a small platform, in which a sign reading ‘stand here’ was posted. Once all the members of a team were on it, it would raise itself to a height of fifteen feet. This no longer represented a safe height for any human being to fall, and this time there was no crashmat available. The students would have to work out to make it safe for themselves, because the sign now read ‘Get down.’

The plus side of their new position was that it gave them an overview of the next two obstacles - there was a forest ahead, and beyond that just the slightest glint of water was visible. Anyone who tried to take a shortcut across the top of these would find themselves hitting an invisible barrier, and a large, angry arrow appearing - the sign had been very clear, after all; from the platform, they were to go down. Predictably enough, the direction for the forest was ‘get through’ - a task which would be made more challenging by the trees’ tendency to push them back or grab at them. They were not as fierce as Whomping Willows, and no student was likely to meet serious harm at their hands (or rather branches) but their behaviour definitely suggested they preferred not to be disturbed by the pitter-patter of human feet.

The river’s notice read ‘get across.’ The staff had at least been kind enough to provide some support - there were various materials, such as planks of wood or plastic tubs, but nothing that was in a good enough state of repair to support a human being. The river itself was deep enough that no one was likely to keep their head above if they tried to wade, but it didn’t seem to be moving very fast or present any obvious dangers. Once the students finished it, there was a simple finish line marked on the ground, and once they had crossed this, their time would be noted and they would be escorted to the MARS rooms.

OOC - welcome to the challenges! These will be marked in accordance with the guidelines above. As per class posts, each team member’s best post will be scored from 1-5, with each of their other contributions receiving a point - so, getting as many members in as possible is important, but being active and vocal within your team will help too.

As per Quidditch, you do not have to stick to a given posting order.

Bonus points may be given for being extra brilliant, or if a team shows particular use of a subject area over and above what other teams do.
Subthreads:
0 DH Skies The First Challenge 26 DH Skies 1 5

DH Skies

August 09, 2019 10:42 AM
 
0 DH Skies Team 5 (nm) 26 DH Skies 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

August 14, 2019 9:07 PM
Some people, Nathaniel had gathered, found the idea of being told to prepare for a challenge they knew nothing about fun. Some people, Nathaniel had concluded, were, therefore, idiots.

He showed up at the team five meeting far too early, the better to check his supplies one last time to make sure everything was in order and fastened up so it could not break. He had brought his Potions kit (despite having no idea what he could possibly use it for), his wand, a potion to treat minor scrapes, several spare handkerchiefs, and the good luck card his mother had sent him. Since he had mentioned his own skill at photography in the first group meeting, he had also brought his camera and a small supply of developing potion and photography paper. All this filled the bag he had shrunk to fit in a pocket to the brim, but it still didn't feel like enough, and he wished he had felt able to ask his relatives what they had thought to gather, or at least that he had thought there was a chance in hell that either Simon or especially Jeremy would have answered that question if he had posed it.

Since he hadn't, though, he just made a point of telling his cousins and brother each good luck, and also of doing the same with his Teppenpaw neighbors. He knew the point of this exercise was probably partially to encourage people who didn't know each other all that well to get to know each other and work together and whatnot, but he didn't see why that should interfere much with the relationships he already had. And truthfully, he doubted that he had enough of a relationship yet with Dorian or Vlad for rankings to matter much there, or that Simon was insecure enough to blame Nathaniel if Nathaniel's team somehow placed above Simon's. Between him and Sylvia, of course, it simply didn't matter. Jeremy, though....

He had to do something about Jeremy. He would talk to Mama about it at midterm - well, maybe Uncle Alexander. Mama didn't need the stress, not when she seemed happier and less frail in her letters lately. He would talk to Uncle Alexander, when he could. For now, though, there was what was before him to deal with.

He rolled his tense shoulders as he looked at the first obstacle in their course. "Here we go, I guess," he said, and, not thinking to ask for better ideas, went to the wall and started to grab at hand and footholds. Their sizes and inconvenient placements, however, quickly got the better of him, and he slipped; unable to catch himself on the tiny holds, he tumbled the still relatively short distance to the ground.

"Ow," he complained, holding a hand up to the left side of his head, which had just whacked the ground. He felt something went. "Good thing I thought to bring this," he added, rummaging in his pocket for his bag, thinking of the ointment.
16 Nathaniel Mordue Jumping straight in. 1412 Nathaniel Mordue 0 5

Kir McLeod

August 15, 2019 9:50 AM
OOC - fyi, there are crash mats on both sides (this was edited from the original when I realised it was a bad idea not to, and mentioned via chatzy). Though, speaking as someone who climbs, it's definitely possible to catch yourself on the handholds on the way down, especially if the wall is inclining forwards and thus encouraging you to lean into it, so I'm in-head-editing to assume that's more what happened.

IC
Kir possibly didn't seem like someone who was taking the challenges all that seriously. As he waited for his team to be called, he was dancing slightly in his seat, clearly bopping along to whatever was stuck in his head. Occasional refrains of this escaped under his breath, although not loudly or clearly enough to be distinguishable unless you happened to be sitting very close by and paying specific attention. He was still doing his best to not alienate and annoy his team members and so was holding himself back from suggesting a rousing sing song to get them in the spirit.

In spite of this outwardly casual/bizarre exterior, he was actually quite well prepared. He was aware that he was, at all times, in competition with Winston and his ilk, and that beyond personal pride, there was the small matter at stake of centuries' worth of institutionalised racism. He wasn't naive enough to think that Winston was going to change his mind about the value of blood if Kir's team beat his. There would be some kind of excuse - teachers playing favourites, or claims that Nathaniel Mordue had steered them through the whole thing. It wouldn't change Winston's political views if Kir won, however, it would sure as heck confirm all of Winston's stupid biases about alleged Pureblood superiority if he was the one who came out on top, not to mention making him unbearably smug. Kir was currently winning at life, seeing as he was both headboy and had a girlfriend, and he wanted to keep it that way. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to beat Ness or not. On the one hand, Ness would be annoying if team eight came out above his. On the other hand, Ness would be annoying if team eight came out below his, and winning was fun. Which he guessed was two reasons for wanting to be the better McLeod.

Kir had spent the week compiling a thorough list of charms and transfigurations, divided by age group. Transfigurations were, he thought, the most likely to be useful, so that they could adapt the obstacles they were facing. So many transfigurations also depended on knowing the precise words - charms were a bit broader, in that a floating charm floated whatever you wanted it to, whereas transfigurations often involved the names of either the object you were starting with or what you were aiming for, and both of those were unknown quantities. He thought that this might put many people off using transfiguration, and thus it made sense as a tactic for trying to earn bonus points, as well as being incredibly practical. He had aimed to find as many spells that referenced the target object rather than the source, because they did not know what they would be working with. Of course, they didn't know what they would be needing either, but he had brainstrormed all the types of physical activity he could think of - there was getting up, down and around things, there was balance and dexterity, there was endurance… All of those could be made easier by changing the thing you were having to scale, balance on or endure. He knew how to conjure ropes, flatten round things into nice flat, even surfaces, and he figured that for anything heavy using a switching spell rather than a featherlight charm was more likely to show they were thinking outside the box. He had looked up the source spells for 'transform rock' 'transform wood' and 'transform plastic'. That was, of course, incredibly vague and would take a heck of a lot of imagination to make up for its lack of verbal specificity. However, Kir was quite imaginative, Parker was a DnD player, and Nathaniel did photography as a hobby, so he thought they might manage to wrangle something out of those spells. He had also brought all his textbooks, because - thanks to featherlight charms - why the heck not? They could look up something more specific if needed. He was treating it like an open-book exam - it would be useful to have his texts available but he also needed a thorough knowledge of them because looking things up took time. He mentioned the presence of his textbooks to the team whilst they waited, as well as subtly sharing the list around so they could get an idea of the spells, but he didn’t do any extra revision from his books because he didn’t want any other teams accio-ing their own if they hadn’t thought to bring them, even though it seemed pretty basic to him. He had also brought chocolate, for morale, and his glitter rainbow DnD dice. He supposed they might come in handy for decision making, but mostly it was because they’d been a gift from Zevalyn, and he thought she’d approve of taking them out questing.

“Okay,” he grinned, when they were called, “To echo the wise words of Olivia Newton-John, let’s get physical!”

The first obstacle was a wall. Kir surveyed it, a new song springing to mind…

Can’t go over it, can’t go under it, can’t go round it - oh, no, we’ll have to go through it!

Which was funny, because it was a wall, though also entirely feasible. None of the options was really ruled out because they had magic, and they could probably make any of those happen. He tried not to be distracted by thinking up every single option for fun. He could do that later. And/or set it as a puzzle-by-letter to Zevlayn. Right now, the clock was ticking. Nathaniel at least seemed keen to just get going. Kir was quite surprised by the fact that he just… tried climbing it. It would have been a great bit of lateral puzzle setting for the teachers to give them something that was very challenging to solve by magic but easy to just… do. He wouldn’t have thought that a Pureblood would be the one to see it that way though. However, this was not such a puzzle (another fun one to think about later). The wall was deliberately hard to climb, and they probably did need to make a solution.

“You okay?” he checked with Nathaniel, though it seemed evident that nothing more serious than a scrape had occurred, for which the other boy was well prepared. “Okay, we can probably go over, under, round or through…” He weighed up the merits of the various solutions, ruling out ‘under’ just because he didn’t have a solid plan for it yet, he just was sure it was theoretically possible. There was also the question of making sure they used all their teammates. “I reckon the latter two would be quicker. And I reckon this is one where you could do the wandwork,” he added to their beginners, “Round, we’re going to need bluebell fire, which you should be able to do but it’s going to be… problematic if it goes wrong. Those plants like to attack,” he pointed out, “We wouldn’t let that happen, obviously, but if you’d prefer to use spells under less pressure… We could just make all the handholds biggish and flattish. Those are beginner transfigurations - you’re just changing the shape. The material, the function, everything else would stay the same. Or if you have a spell you’d really like to use, let me hear it,” he added to Parker and Nathaniel. “There’s going to be multiple ways to solve all of these - that’s the point.”
13 Kir McLeod That's one approach.. 366 Kir McLeod 0 5

Parker Fitzgerald

August 15, 2019 4:06 PM
Parker didn’t know how to prepare for this and that excited him. He was sure he could probably do some of the physical activities, but he wasn’t sure his whole team could, and this was a team event, not a single player one.

So he thought what would his DnD character do. What might a Dwarven Priest need upon leaving on a quest. He’d want his magic item, some healing potions, books, food, some rope, a weapon of some kind, at least two seemingly odd things, which always turned out to be handy and something to carry them all in.

So Parker had brought these things. He brought his wand, a burn healing paste and Burning Bitterroot Balm both of which he had due to… former issues. He brought his Herbology book and Potions book not knowing what to expect, but figured they’d do and he didn’t want to carry all his books with him. He’d found some rope in a storage closet near the quidditch field while practicing and had taken it back to his dorm room. In terms of a weapon, he didn’t feel comfortable with an actual weapon so he brought the pocket knife he’d gotten as a gift years before that he still had with him. He made an extra two sandwiches at lunch. But what he’d been trying to figure out what his two seemingly odd things would be. These were things that would come in handy in someway… or they wouldn’t, either way he wouldn’t want them to be too big. In the end he brought his eagle feather with him stuck in the shoulder strap of his backpack and his gardening gloves. The last part had occurred to him when he saw that part of the Labyrinth had been closed the night before. He felt no matter what gloves might end up being a good thing to bring into the gardens. Though it might all be for not.

Parker laughed at Kir’s joke. He was excited when they got to the wall and took a beat to try and figure out what to do. In that moment he saw Nathan run at the wall. Though Nathan wasn’t necessarily un-athletic, Parker was surprised.

He was less surprised as Nathan fell to the ground. Parker ran over without thinking about how he was supposed to dislike Nathan. He took his backpack off his shoulder and took out the Burning Bitterrot Balm and handed it to Nathan.

“Take it from someone who falls a lot, this will help.”

Parker listened to Kir. Go around. That’s not a bad idea. The idea about Blue Fire was also kind of ingenious. Looking at the plants Parker immediately recognized poison ivy and then kind of recognized the vine. He felt like he’d read about it in Herbology. The only class he routinely did the reading in. Since he already had his bag open he pulled out his Herbology book. A few seconds later he looked up. His finger marking the page.

“Actually I think going around might be a good idea Kir. After all the sign just says the other side. One of us using Blue Fire while the rest of us use...” Parker looked down at the book, “Severing charm.” Pointing to the point in the book he said, “It says it can stun the plants or sever the vines.”

He put the book back and pulled out his gardening gloves and his wand.

“We all ready to use our biggest muscle?”
41 Parker Fitzgerald That's Pretty Brilliant Approach Actually 1402 Parker Fitzgerald 0 5

Kir

August 24, 2019 1:27 AM
Parker was checking on Nathaniel. Parker had textbooks. Kir smiled at him fondly as he did both of those things. He was a special Pecari.

“Our hearts?” he joked, when Parker asked if they were ready to use their biggest muscle. He knew the saying Parker was alluding to, but technically the brain was not a muscle, it was an organ, and that saying had always kind of bothered Kir because it was really factually inaccurate. The heart was possibly not the biggest but it was made of cardiac muscle, and if you put your heart into something, it also meant you were doing it well - or at least enthusiastically, so therefore that was funny. At least, if you were Kir.

“Does it actually mention fire?” he asked, leaning over Parker’s shoulder to consult the book, “I, uh, might be mixing it up with other squeezy plants,” he admitted. Kir liked nature and the outdoors, but more in a wholesome ‘we go on family camping trips’ and ‘let’s hike!’ kind of way. He had, at best, had to learn the tying technique to fashion a tripod out of sticks and make a cauldron stand. And ‘had to’ was probably pushing it. The McLeods had not exactly dragged their kids on near death experiences or thrown them into patches of killer plants that they had to fight their way out of, and the only times he had battled such things were in choose your own adventure books or DnD. “Like, some plants dislike flames so producing heat will help us keep them at bay - but I don’t actually want to set the plants on fire,” he clarified. Fire would, admittedly, get rid of a lot of problems, but it was a pretty terminal solution. “If this is meant to replicate Herbology class, we need to keep them alive whilst not letting them hurt us.

“Okay,” he nodded, consulting the book, “I mean, it does say that the severing charm can stun it. Which seems odd. I would think that the stunning charm would stun it, but like… maybe it’s not strong enough. Or it’s too strong and it just kills it,” he added, deciding that thinking aloud was both helpful for teammates to bounce off and because this was sort of like an exam of some kind, in that they were being marked by the staff, so they ought to show their working, “I guess it’s okay to cut them, and that the nasty bitey bits can grow back, because this is in a book on how to manage these plants.” Cut it all up still didn’t sound like the nicest thing for the plant but it was literally in the Herbology textbook.

“Aim to stun, but if in doubt cut them, I guess, but only with the charm recommended in the book. Sorry plants,” he added. “Protego,” he tried, casting a shield charm and edging nearer. The plant reached out, grabbing at him with its tentacles but it couldn’t penetrate the barrier. That made sense, given that they protected against both physical and magical attacks, so whichever one this counted as was covered. “Shield charms will come in handy too,” he added, though as he said it, a final poke from the vine shattered his defences, “To a degree,” he added, jumping back.
13 Kir Maybe with a few caveats? 366 Kir 0 5