Team 6 on Mirage Chamber

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:15 PM

The Second Challenge by Professor Mary Brooding

The goal of the challenge was straightforward: survival. Of course, students would not be allowed to perish, nor really in any threat of doing so, but it did make for an exciting event.

The sprawling deserts of the Mirage Chamber were warm and inviting in many ways, despite the sand that picked up on a magical wind, and the creatures that burrowed beneath the dunes. It was far from a barren desert, but not an oasis either. It was the sort of place that someone might settle were they traveling a great distance across this place and needed to camp out for the night, or for a few days while they took time to reflect. In fact, that was the most common reason for anyone to spend such time in the Mirage Chamber, and precisely the inspiration for the challenge.

With brilliant blue days, fiery dawns and dusks, and cool black nights where every star could be seen above, even the chirping of wildlife amidst the scrubby plants indicated a certain level of tranquility. A weary traveler was as likely to find a glittering hummingbird or a lumbering tortoise as they were to find themselves.

It was also a desert full of opportunity, and there was plenty of material to be collected and used for shelter, food and water, clothes, and potions. The students were asked to do just that. Although they hadn't known exactly where or what environment they would be doing this challenge in, they had been given enough information to know that they would be facing a natural environment with only their wands and each other. The beauty of it all was that students already had it in them to tackle this sort of thing.

Herbology had long since taught them how to find and handle the flora and fauna of the desert, while Care of Magical Creatures had taught them about any other living things they might encounter. Defense Against the Dark Arts had them readied for any less pleasant engagements of either type. Potions meant they were ready to brew for themselves whatever was required for such basic survival - wound care, health care, and even some nutritional care would be possible here. Transfiguration and Charms were ceaselessly helpful in any of these sorts of tasks.

This was an opportunity for every student, whatever their skills or interests, whether they enjoyed the physical activities that went into a challenge like this or the more quiet activities that would be important for any team to work together effectively, to prove themselves. What had they learned so far? What were their abilities? What was their potential? Everyone had something they could do here, and everyone's contribution was critical.

With three hours on the clock and only their wands to help them, students were tasked with collecting materials for and producing a stable shelter of some sort, and enough food (or the means to acquire it) and drink for their entire team, as well as brewing whatever potions they felt would be helpful. Although the students would not be staying overnight or for any extended duration in their fortifications, they had been asked to prepare as if they would be and their scores would come partially from their success in that regard. It was a perfectly feasible task with teams of this size, and the goal was more about how they did it and what they did than whether they could do it at all. With the Mirage Chamber charmed to ensure that multiple teams could enter at the same time but not find each other within or alter anything for the other teams, all of the students were released at the same time.

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:

Team 13 by Professor Mary Brooding with Allegra Brockert, Felipe De Matteo

Team 12 by Professor Mary Brooding with Simon Mordue, Johana Leonie Zauberhexen, Beau Tate

Team 11 by Professor Mary Brooding with Topaz Brockert, Winston Pierce, Jeremy Mordue

Team 10 by Professor Mary Brooding with Zara Jackson, Ivy Brockert, Jezebel Reed-Fischer

Team 9 by Professor Mary Brooding with Katerina Vorontsov, Sophia Priory, Sylvia Mordue

Team 8 by Professor Mary Brooding with Tatiana Vorontsova, Ness

Team 7 by Professor Mary Brooding with Natalie Atwater, Jessica Hayles, Hilda Hexenmeister

Team 6 by Professor Mary Brooding with Isaac Song, Dorian Montoir, Heinrich Hexenmeister

Team 5 by Professor Mary Brooding with Nathaniel Mordue, Kir McLeod

Team 4 by Professor Mary Brooding with Cleo James, Anya Delachene

Team 3 by Professor Mary Brooding with Ellie Alperton, Ruby Brockert, Jasmine

Team 2 by Professor Mary Brooding with Amelia Layne, Peyton O'Malley, Evelyn Stones

Team 1 by Professor Mary Brooding with Freddie Zauberhexen, Caitlin Pierce

***Closed for points.*** (nm) by Professor Mary Brooding-Hawthorne

22 Professor Mary Brooding The Second Challenge 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 1 5

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:16 PM

Team 13 by Professor Mary Brooding

Connor Priory
Gary Harper
Allegra Brockert
Felipe De Matteo
Theodore Flores

22 Professor Mary Brooding Team 13 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:18 PM

Team 12 by Professor Mary Brooding

Simon Mordue
Beauregard Tate
Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Sapphire Brockert
Nerida Sound

22 Professor Mary Brooding Team 12 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:18 PM

Team 11 by Professor Mary Brooding

Winston Pierce
Loren Aalto
Topaz Brockert
Malikhi Hill
Jeremy Mordue

22 Professor Mary Brooding Team 11 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:18 PM

Team 10 by Professor Mary Brooding

Salali Bly
Ivy Brockert
Zara Jackson
Bridget Ferguson
Jezebel Reed-Fischer

22 Professor Mary Brooding Team 10 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:19 PM

Team 9 by Professor Mary Brooding

Victor Callahan
Sylvia Mordue
Katerina Vorontsov
Sophia Priory
Martin Crosby V

22 Professor Mary Brooding Team 9 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:19 PM

Team 8 by Professor Mary Brooding

Luke Powell
Tatiana Vorontsov
Jehan Callahan
Michael DiCaprio
Ness McLeod

22 Professor Mary Brooding Team 8 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:20 PM

Team 7 by Professor Mary Brooding

Natalie Atwater
Vladimir Brockert
Jessica Hayles
Hilda Hexenmeister
Emilia Lewis

22 Professor Mary Brooding Team 7 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:20 PM

Team 6 by Professor Mary Brooding

Isaac Song
Dorian Montoir
Heinrich Hexemeister
Julius Astley
Beatriz Coulthon

22 Professor Mary Brooding Team 6 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:20 PM

Team 5 by Professor Mary Brooding

Kir McLeod
Parker Fitzgerald
Nathaniel Mordue
Jake Daniels
Dathan Fischer

22 Professor Mary Brooding Team 5 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:21 PM

Team 4 by Professor Mary Brooding

Gwen Fintoc
Cleo James
Lyssa Fitzgerald
Anastasia Delachene
Ahria Wells
Elizabeth Smith

22 Professor Mary Brooding Team 4 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:21 PM

Team 3 by Professor Mary Brooding

Florence Newell
Jasmine Delachene
Ruby Brockert
Christabel Davidson
Ellie Alperton

22 Professor Mary Brooding Team 3 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:21 PM

Team 2 by Professor Mary Brooding

Amelia Layne
Eden Manger
Peyton O’Malley
Evelyn Stones
Isabella Harrington

22 Professor Mary Brooding Team 2 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding

October 04, 2019 2:22 PM

Team 1 by Professor Mary Brooding

Emerald Brockert
Brett Newell
Caitlin Pierce
Nicolas DiCaprio
Friederike Albert Zauberhexen

22 Professor Mary Brooding Team 1 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Allegra Brockert

October 08, 2019 11:04 AM

Not another one by Allegra Brockert

Allegra had not at all enjoyed the first challenge, even though they'd mostly used spells to get through. If anyone had suggested otherwise, Connor put them back on a magical track. In this way, she knew her distant cousin was looking out for her. This was likely how she had avoided setting them back too badly. They were solidly in the middle, even if all her first cousins were ahead of her aside from Sapphire.

That did not , however, make her any less panicked about the second challenge. Allegra knew full well that she did not have any survival skills, unless one counted keeping her head down and avoiding Topaz whenever possible, doing nothing to possibly make things worse for herself in that regard. Topaz wasn't exactly the wild monster that was going to be stalking them in a survival situation. (She was probably worse, but that did not matter because actual wild animals were not something the Crotalus had experience with outside the controlled environment of COMC.)

And the idea that "they all had skills that would come in handy" was not something Allegra found comforting or encouraging. Because it just plain was not true in her case. The suggestion that she did was not only ludicrous but was also basically saying that she was being whiny and overdramatic and completely invalidating her feelings. Not to mention if "everyone" had something to contribute and she actually didn't, she would look even worse. And her teammates might say something nasty about what a burden the third year was and criticize her for her lack of skills. Even Connor might potentially turn on her.

Also, even if she would have had any skills that were helpful, the fact remained that the third year really couldn't do the physical aspects inherent in a survival challenge. Allegra had never even been camping and rarely even played outside. Most of her playmates-her cousins and sisters- had also been the sort of girls who preferred indoor play with dolls and tea sets and princess dresses. The only exception was Jasper-there was a large enough age difference between herself and her next oldest male cousin that they hadn't really played together much on the same level-who had been vastly outnumbered and Topaz, whose ideas of "play" were vastly different from those of every decent person on the planet but still were not the sort of rough and tumble outdoorsy kind.

It wasn't even all that comforting Allegra didn't have to spend the night out here-camping alone with four boys would have been completely indecent and the idea of sleeping alone in the wilderness was utterly terrifying- and that they were in the Mirage Chamber where there was no real danger. Bottom line was that she would still be useless, since any non-magical skill she had-Connor and Gary would certainly be better at magic, even Transfiguration-involved quilting and other handicrafts. While a quilt would most likely be useful in this situation since the desert got cold at night, it wasn't as if Allegra would have been able to bring one.

Obviously, Allegra didn't know where to start with this survival challenge so she asked her teammates."What do we do first?" What can I do at all ? .

11 Allegra Brockert Not another one 1426 Allegra Brockert 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

October 09, 2019 9:07 PM

You CAN do this. by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe enjoyed the outdoors a great deal, but his experience with the wilderness was limited largely to book knowledge. While he spent more time outside than he suspected the average pureblood did, it was mostly in the neatly trimmed gardens of his home, or else working with the domesticated plants that made up the farmland. Animals of any real threat rarely came near populated areas, and his family home was in a largely muggle area, which meant there weren't many magical beasts to worry about. Still, he was hardly one to get nervous. Crotalus was the house for those with a prepared mind and that was about all he could bring today anyway.

His teammate, however, seemed less enthusiastic. Allegra had been quiet during the first challenge and either staunchly refused to participate in any physical capacity or was merely relieved not to have to. Felipe was generally sympathetic towards people with disabilities or other barriers, but it was difficult to say for sure whether that was the case for Allegra. He reminded himself that he should be kind either way, and set about making sure she was helpful - both for his sake and for hers.

"Water and shelter would be the things I would prioritize," he decided, looking around to confirm this with his teammates. "We can go the longest without food, and water will make it easier to stay active if we need to, and we can concentrate better if we're hydrated." Aware that he was not the team captain, he made a point of checking with the older student before looking back to Allegra. "You know your charms well? They aren't my strong suit. You could levitate some wood over here for a shelter or fire, and you could set up some repellent charms to keep animals away. Repello bestiam should keep animals out without keeping any of us away. What sounds good to you?"

OOC - Repello bestiam based on the hp-lexicon information for the Repelling Charm. It suggests to use the appropriate Latinate for the thing you're trying to repel, so I went with the accusative case for "beasts." Yolo.

22 Felipe De Matteo You CAN do this. 1434 Felipe De Matteo 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

October 09, 2019 10:09 PM

No. by Nathaniel Mordue

OOC: Slight warning, Nathaniel's mental state is...not good. (Shocker, I know)

Nathaniel Mordue was not someone who usually went to any lengths to draw attention to himself. His natural place was just behind Sylvia's shoulder, attentive, always watching, but never leading. However, part of that role required him to be as dapper as if he did want attention for himself, and so he had always taken appearances very seriously.

Nathaniel Nobody, the man without a country, was not sure if he could have given less of a damn if he'd tried, and it showed as he slowly shuffled toward the others on team five, already burning with impatience to get this over with so he could go work on another Howler - as sending one a day to his mother had produced no obvious results yet, he had decided to increase the frequency to two, plus one specially for That Man, just to cover all his bases.

He didn't make eye contact or greet anyone as they gathered for the droning bits before they were put to work. His light brown curls were matted and dull. The dark circles he had brought back under his eyes from midterm had only grown deeper and darker, and his skin, already leaning greyish from poor or missed sleeps, had a slight, unflattering sheen of oil to it, accompanied by a couple of small red patches on his chin that were clearly going to turn to spots unless something was done to them fairly quickly. Even his shoes were not, he noted, up to standard as he stared at them and tried to ignore the others; the toes were lightly scuffed. For a moment, this caught his attention to the point that he almost drew his wand to polish them, but then he decided it would be too much effort, and pointless besides. Like everything else.

Survival. What a joke. What was the point of survival, anyway? All living was, as far as he could tell, was sitting around waiting for the next bad thing to happen, for the next person you loved to stab you in the back. It would be kinder to just throw them out in the real desert and let them all die before things got any worse, but no - the school had to mock them about how life was rubbish and yet they all made active efforts every day to keep on lifing! Obscene.

And these idiots probably didn't even see it, which was really sad, considering their lives were by default and definition even more pointless than his. They were negative numbers as far as having good reasons to do anything went. Perhaps he could point this out and convince everyone to go on strike and just sit and stare at a wall until the staff let them out again.

That, however, would mean being in company when there was a clear and easy way to avoid company, which was his current policy. Looking around their campsite, he was struck, just for a second, by the beauty of the location. He wished he had his camera, so he could preserve one more beautiful lie in the world, but he hadn't even unpacked it, and wouldn't have been allowed it anyway. Because everything was so far out of his control that he couldn't even decide for himself whether to carry a freaking camera, never mind take any meaningful action to take care of anything that mattered....

He blinked hard and picked up a rock. "Anyone care if I turn this into a bucket?" he said. "I can take it and go look for water." By which he meant go off and find somewhere to lie down and study the false sky until time was up.

16 Nathaniel Mordue No. 1412 Nathaniel Mordue 0 5

Simon Mordue

October 09, 2019 10:28 PM

Let's get this over with. by Simon Mordue

If Tate says one word - if Tate gives me one look - I will hex his teeth to the outside of his mouth and do my absolute best to stick them there.

This was the only real thought Simon Mordue had as he waited for his group to gather for the second challenge. The others on the team were not really problems. Fraulein Zauberhexen was a foreigner, presumably unconcerned with the American news and also, if the other foreigners around here were anything to go by, not someone likely to have the English reading skills to know what had happened to Simon's family anyway. The other two were even more burdensome, and while Sapphire Brockert was in a position socially where she could say something, the unwritten laws for dealing with age gaps as large as theirs on top of her only being a girl meant that he expected her to keep her mouth shut, too.

Beauregard Tate, however, was another matter. Beauregard Tate was old enough to fancy himself something akin to Simon's peer, and he was from an impressive enough line to know things. Unless he outright insulted the Mordue family, there was nothing Simon could do, except hope that he escalated things to the point that Simon could take out his frustrations on Tate's dental anatomy. Except not, because that would be even worse for the family reputation, which was pretty bad at the moment...

If he starts it, though, I will finish it. I will not have us all spoken down to because of a few bad seeds.

Why, he wondered absently, was he so angry today, though? Generically angry, that was - he had been thinking about turning Nathaniel inside-out and making his bones dance for the entertainment of the Hall ever since he had seen what all this was doing to Sylvia. Nathaniel wasn't even in his eyeline right now, though, and neither was poor, poor Sylvia, and yet, he still just wanted to bite something.

He carefully kept his face straight as he turned to face his team inside the Mirage Chamber, though, paying little heed to their surroundings. "All right," he said. "We're all going to have to chip in to get all these things done. Does anyone want to volunteer for a task, to get us started?" he asked, trying and mostly succeeding in being the dispassionate manager despite his stress about what they might snicker about behind his back.

16 Simon Mordue Let's get this over with. 369 Simon Mordue 0 5

Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

October 10, 2019 2:25 PM

Okay! by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

Johana Leonie was a bit surprised by the challenge set before them, in part because it seemed like no challenge at all. Granted, the Zauberhexens had a house and some things were established at home, but much of their day-to-day life sounded exactly like some of what was being set before them now: find food, find water, don't get sick, keep up a shelter. She felt particularly well-prepared for it in that regard, although rural Germany certainly had little in common with this desert landscape.

When Simon, one of the older boys on the team and one of the people that Johana Leonie knew by face and name but hardly by personality, despite having been on his team since September, spoke up first, Johana Leonie was pleased to understand it. Mostly. She understood the point of it at least, although she wasn't sure how to answer first. She took a moment to look around, taking in the plant life and deciding that she would only offer to gather plants if no one else wanted to; she wasn't familiar with these and it would take her longer than it might take others.

"I can shelter build," Johana Leonie suggested with a shrug, confident in her ability to build something that would suffice. She and Friederike Albert had spent many a day building forts and shelters in the woods. "I maybe need help with the carry of things though."

22 Johana Leonie Zauberhexen Okay! 1432 Johana Leonie Zauberhexen 0 5

Simon Mordue

October 10, 2019 6:06 PM

...Okay then. by Simon Mordue

OOC: Simon is a jerk and does not represent his author. His author disapproves heartily of xenophobia and assumptions that one's own culture is The Bestest. BIC:

"I can shelter build."

This was not something Simon had expected to hear, and his surprise showed clearly on his face. He blinked at the little German girl.

"You know how to build a shelter?" he asked. "Are you sure that you understand what the instructions mean?" Foreigners. Why did he have to have one? She probably didn't even understand what they were talking about. "It's got to be like a little house that's big enough for all of us?"

Of course, if this were real, they would need multiple shelters. Girls and boys could not share a shelter, that was indecent, and the last thing Simon could afford was to be within screaming distance of anything the least bit improper. Being near something actually indecent would be a nightmare and he would not have done it for all the challenges in the southwestern world. Plus, as the leader, he would need to be separate from everyone else anyway, in a real scenario. However, they were not actually going to be left in here over night, so building one house would be enough, he imagined.

"Can you levitate things? You can help float over...whatever is out here to make a shelter out of." What were shelters even made of, as a rule? "My house is made of stone mostly, I think," he added, looking around as if expecting neatly cut blocks to appear out of nowhere for his merry band of underlings to levitate into a house shape. "Wood would be more complicated even if we could find it, with cutting down trees and all...."

16 Simon Mordue ...Okay then. 369 Simon Mordue 0 5

Amelia Layne

October 10, 2019 6:38 PM

Let's go again, Team Two! by Amelia Layne

“Gosh,” said Amelia, almost without thought, as she led her team into the Mirage Chamber for the second task. “Isn’t this gorgeous?”

That was, of course, beside the point, but it was still worth mentioning. Whoever had designed this had not, she thought, skimped on the details. It was tempting just to find something scenic to sit beside and stare off at the sky, watching clouds and then sunset and then stars.

That, however, was not why they were here, so she put her hands together quickly to get to business. “Okay,” she started to say, then closed her mouth as some sand blew across her path, whipping the end of her golden-brown ponytail across her face. She coughed and squinted her eyes shut, raising her hand to rub them clear. “Oof. That was not gorgeous,” she joked to the rest of the group. “Augh. That was not even pleasant. Guess they had to give us something wrong with the environment, didn’t they?”

It wouldn’t be much of a survival challenge otherwise, she supposed. “We should probably keep our eyes open for, like, booby traps and things,” she advised the rest of the group. “They’ve probably thrown in some surprises just to trip us up, make it more...survival-y. But we’ll show them! Right ladies?”

She looked around. “I can brew pretty much anything, if we have the supplies, and I’m decent at Charms and Transfiguration. I can probably just charm us up enough water to drink, actually, once we find something to Transfigure into a bucket. We’ll need to make a cauldron out of something, too. For now, we should probably split up and start gathering...whatever we can find that we can get back here to work with. I’m pretty sure things should be in a pretty close radius, so we have time to do it all,” she reasoned out loud. “Just be careful with anything - cast some simple charm at it from a distance if you can, to see if it’s going to do anything you don’t expect, then bring it back, and we can Transfigure and Charm things to get the tasks done. Sound good to everyone?”

16 Amelia Layne Let's go again, Team Two! 360 Amelia Layne 0 5

Katerina Vorontsov

October 10, 2019 7:06 PM

This is not something my mama would approve of. by Katerina Vorontsov

OOC: Information about Sylvia's appearance provided by her author. BIC:

Katerina was a little worried about Sylvia. Ever since they had come back to school, the other girl had looked sad and unwell - or at least as though she might become unwell at any time. Her cousin with the camera, Nathaniel Nikolaevich, looked even worse than she did, and she had noticed, too, that one did not see Sylvia with him as much as was usual.

Katya was not sure if she should observe anything about this out loud. Her best guess was that they had had a death in the family over Christmas break - the dedushka or babushka, maybe, since they didn't have the same parents. Not for the first time, she cursed her relative lack of detailed information about American society. If she knew what was what, then she would know what the right thing to say was, but she didn't, and it seemed rude to point out to another girl that she looked sick and sad....

This was the main thing on Katya's mind as team nine gathered for the second task. She half-smiled at Sylvia, not thinking it appropriate even by American standards to be too enthusiastic when Sylvia had been looking less than her best lately, but also thinking it would be rude by American standards to greet her with a straight Russian face.

She did not think much about the task, because she did not have enough information to think about it in any meaningful way. This time, they had been told they could only have their wands, so what was she supposed to think about? She knew the spells she knew, and there was no point just listing spells in her mind when she didn't even know what it was they were going to face. There was also no point in fretting about her clothing, as she still didn't own a pair of trousers and therefore would, once again, just have to do the best she could in a light skirt meant for more physical activities. Her blonde hair was in a single braid down her back and the fringe over her forehead was pinned back with a pair of bobby pins. She was as ready as she could be.

She looked around curiously as they entered the Mirage Chamber. When she thought of challenges and survival in terms of the outdoors, the first thing she thought about was Siberia. She had never had to do anything like that, of course, but she had heard tales from her family about the Difficult Times after the magly began their Great War - after Tsar Nikolai's starets adviser had been murdered, things had gotten so bad for a while that even their people had been forced to flee into remote, secret places where they couldn't be found by the rampaging magly, and even some of their own - mostly half-bloods and lower - who had joined in the rebellion against the tsar, and against all order. Times had been very difficult for some of Mama's ancestors; Papa's had been among those who left altogether and ended up in Volshebnaya Derevnya.

Siberia, however, was hard to survive because it was very cold there. There was a lot of snow, trees exploded when the very sap inside them froze, and so on. This was not like that. There was stuff on the wind, but it was sand. The plants were low and scrubby. The weather was warm. She did not think that what she remembered from the old stories would be of much use here...

...Or maybe it would, she realized. Survival was, to a point, survival. She had always preferred reading stories about ladies and gentlemen to Tatiana's adventure novels, but Tatiana had made her play Adventurers In The Wild enough that she remembered a few things there too. Maybe.

"I can make the fire," she volunteered. "We need the fire if we make all the potion. I make some of potions, too, if we find right things."

16 Katerina Vorontsov This is not something my mama would approve of. 1418 Katerina Vorontsov 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

October 10, 2019 8:22 PM

I am full of ideas! by Tatiana Vorontsova

Tatiana Vorontsova did not, of course, own trousers, and during the first challenge, it had occurred to her that this was a problem. However, where there was a problem, there was generally a solution, and in this case, it had not been difficult for her to figure out what that solution should be. The only question had been in the execution.

At home, there was one person who wore trousers with some frequency these days, and that was her little brother Alexei Andreyeevich. Lyoshka was still young enough to fall in that middle period where trousers as day wear were common, the period between being a small child in short skirts (to make nappy-changing easier for the maids) and being a grown man in full robes most of the time (as an active child who was not big enough to think very clearly could get tangled up in his own feet and hurt himself too easily in them). Unfortunately, though Tatiana was by no means either tall or fat, Alyosha’s trousers were still too small for her to wear as-was, so some last-minute magic had been necessary. An Engorgement Charm had fixed most of the size issues, and hopefully, the Fixing Charms she had put upon them would hold the first enchantments in place long enough for her to get through the challenge. She had tried it out a few times in the past few days and had been able to keep the garment the right size and shape for several hours at a time, so she thought she would at least, in the worst-case scenario where the charms did not hold long enough to finish the challenge, realize her improvised culottes were shrinking and have time to fix them again before they actually cut off any circulation.

They swirled awkwardly around her calves (it had been so long since she had had loose fabric encircling each leg that she had almost forgotten how it felt) as she joined the team, otherwise dressed much as she had been for the first challenge, including the streaming red ribbons in her brown hair. This time, though, she had worn her favorite gold chain bracelet, reasoning that if she was supposed to survive something, she should be as undistracted as possible, and having completely bare hands and arms had been very distracting last time. Her fingers still felt all wrong without her rings, so she had also put on her white cotton gloves, hoping these would sneak past the line between ‘attire’ and ‘supplies’ on the grounds that she often wore gloves outside and could therefore pass it off as a cultural thing if pressed, and could charm them into something more durable than they really were if that became convenient, which she expected it would. She had also worn, perched at a rackish, dramatic angle on her head, one of her broad-brimmed, ribbon-trimmed sun hats, on the grounds that survival would involve being outside and therefore needing to protect her complexion. Her hats often fell off when she ran around outside, or had when she was younger and not forced to wear a girdle that slowed her down, but Mama had at least drilled the practice of putting one on into her whenever she went to face a natural environment.

“Hey all,” she said, trying out an English casual phrase she had picked up on her teammates, greeting them with a modest smile. “All happy? Ready?”

Inside, she looked around, and clapped her gloved hands in delight. “It is like my book in Egypt!” she exclaimed happily, but entirely in Russian, and so incomprehensibly to everyone else except possibly, for a few words, Jehan. “We must have voda - vater,” she amended, mangling the pronunciation. “Is hot, we get dry. Need vater. Maybe we make my hat a bowl. Or make it - eh, I don’t know word. Cloth house?” She held her hands up over her head in a triangle shape, hoping to convey the idea of a tent in the absence of the English word. They had been told to find supplies, but, she reasoned, her hat was in here, and therefore could be argued to be fair game.

“Probably make a better bowl, though,” she amended. The group was not large, but it would still put a strain on her hat to be enlarged that far, she thought. “Hat probably destroy, if we make a whole cloth house from it,” she acknowledged with a laugh. “We get sticks, make them a - house like a cloth house?” She raised her hands again. “Only with stick? No cloth. Need many sticks. Maybe we engorge charm sticks. This is good idea?” she asked, stopping for breath at last.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova I am full of ideas! 1396 Tatiana Vorontsova 0 5

Kir McLeod

October 11, 2019 11:22 AM

I have to agree there by Kir McLeod

Kir was well aware of the fact that other people could be complicated - and, for complicated, that one could often subsitute 'crap' - and that the real challenge of the challenges was not going to be what the staff set them so much as holding everyone together and making them function as a team. However, he had not predicted the fact that Nathaniel would become challenging not due to his prejudices but due to the fact that he was basically falling apart.

Nathaniel's request to essentially wander out into the desert and be left alone was a conflicting one. On the one hand, Kir got that what Nathaniel thought he needed right now was space - and, in this context, he was quite probably right because trying to force himself to deal with people he did not know or particularly like on top of everything else he was already dealing with sounded like far too much. On the other hand, there were any number of reasons why letting Nathaniel wander off alone and unprepared into a hostile environment with nothing more than a bucket was a bad idea. It did not sound particularly safe. Kir wondered, given Nathaniel's general state right now, whether he cared about that, or whether he was half hoping he'd find an obliging wild beast to carry him off. Not that that could actually happen - by Kir's understanding, there were limits to what the creatures here could do, and he was also sure the staff would intervene if anything deadly was about to happen. However, there were factors like dehydration and sun stroke to consider. Kir was going to look hella irresponsible if he just let Nathaniel wander off. He knew that whatever Nathaniel needed right now trumped whatever was going on in the challenge, but he still didn't want to look completely terrible to all the staff - he was also pretty sure he was right to be worried about those risks to Nathaniel as a person, not just a source of points. Making himself ill on top of everything else he was going through was not going to help. Treat this like it's real... In the real world, he would not let Nathaniel go out on his own. He would insist on patrolling and exploring as pairs. But there was a layer of artificialty here that he couldn't just ignore when it was so obvious that Nathaniel wanted space.

"I think some foraging and some scouting out would be useful," he acknowledged, making sure he was presenting the agreeable news first, "I'd like to make sure you're kitted out a bit better first, so you don't get sun stroke or anything like that," he added, hoping that this was reasonable enough and that Nathaniel had enough self-preservation to also care about preventing that, "If you make that a water bottle, I can fill it for you," he reminded him. Water was not food, after all, and the water produced by aguamenti was perfectly potable. "And you're going to need some kind of protection from the sun."

The stifling heat had been the first thing he had noticed when he walked in. It wasn't just the temperature but the way the very air itself stuck to him. He was sweating already. He definitely did not fancy moving a muscle in this heat, let alone trekking around looking for anything, or casting complex spells. But they were all going to have to.

"I'd say, for a first recce, and given the weather, I don't want you gone more than forty five minutes. Whilst you're gone, we should probably work on some kind of shelter. That way, when you get back, you can have a rest, if you need one," he added, wanting to make it clear that Nathaniel would still not have to deal with people. This challenge was definitely starting to feel like how to usefully keep Nathaniel busy so he didn't have to interact with others. That at least would use up an hour. And if it went okay, he supposed Nathaniel could go on another mission.

"Send up sparks if you get into trouble," he added, happy - for a given value of happy - to let Nathaniel get going once he had water, some kind of sun protection, and a verbal agreement that he would be coming back. That last one wasn't much of a guarantee, but Kir was pretty sure his tracking skills were up to finding a specific person in a closed environment - he did take Advanced Defence, after all - though he would rather not have to use them.

(OOC Note to Parker, remember that the stuff with Cleo is happening after this)

13 Kir McLeod I have to agree there 366 Kir McLeod 0 5

Nathaniel

October 11, 2019 12:44 PM

Good for you. by Nathaniel

Seventh years could charm up water. Right. He had forgotten that. Made sense, with the only one of those he knew not speaking to him....

Frustrated tears tried to rise to his eyes at the thought of being foiled yet again when he didn't even want to do anything that involved another person, but he still had just enough self-control and self-respect to shove them down. Nevertheless, his face creased in visible anger for a moment as he also fought down the urge to snap why do you care in response to Kir's comments about having a sunstroke. The next thought he had was if you want me to carry a parasol like a pretty princess, you can figure out how to make one yourself.

What came out of his mouth, though, was just, "Whatever," muttered more than spoken.

He really didn't need to have sunstroke, he supposed. That would probably leave him alive, but just not able to do even the tiny things he was allowed to do anymore. Plus, if he was in that state, then growing up wouldn't do him any good, either....

"Ampulla," he said, pointing his wand at the rock, which began to bend and stretch into a rough bottle shape. He glared at it. Was spending half his life trying to get a gentlemanly education going to turn out pointless now, too? It wasn't fair, for all that work to be undone by something as stupid as not sleeping well. "Ampulla!" he snarled, trying again.

The rock-bottle exploded into several pieces. One hit his shin. "Argh," he gasped, reaching down to rub the spot. That would leave a mark....

"I can do it," he snapped before anyone could say anything. "Reparo."

This time, thanks be unto Merlin's second favorite dungarees, the spell worked. His third attempt to turn the rock into a bottle went better than the first had, and for good measure, he tore a branch off a scrubby plant and made it into a crude hat.

"Happy now?" he asked Kir. "And what am I supposed to be looking for, anyway?"

Now why had he asked that? He should have just slumped off into the desert and found somewhere to wait the rest of them out. Kir made a lot of noise, but Nathaniel imagined the rest of the group would be as happy to let him lurk somewhere out of sight as he would be to do so for the rest of the challenge, unless he was supposed to contribute something specific. He'd had a much better chance of not having to come back before he'd had to open his stupid mouth, as though he actually cared about contributing....

16 Nathaniel Good for you. 1412 Nathaniel 0 5

Natalie Atwater

October 11, 2019 2:59 PM

The importance of magic by Natalie Atwater

When Natalie had seen the challenge teams, she'd been sort of annoyed. It was great that she got to work with Vlad and bond with him and stuff, since he and Ivy had always seemed closer to Peyton than her, but it was just plain unfair that she had three beginners-one of whom had enough trouble with English that she'd brought a portrait to translate the first time on top of it-while Luke didn't have any.

Not that it was their fault they were young- or Hilda's fault she wasn't a proficient English speaker, if Natalie went to another country, she would be having the same issues but it did make communication harder- and they seemed to be perfectly nice girls-though Jessica gave off a bit of a princessy pureblood girl vibe even though she wasn't even a pureblood- but unless the older person was out and out incompetent -which neither Natalie nor Vlad was- or the younger was a prodigy like Kira-which as far as the Pecari could tell, the younger girls were not-people with more magical education tended to be able to do more magic. That did not take an Aladren to figure out.

It wasn't even as if Natalie cared that much about winning. It was just that she cared about fairness. An even playing field. To not be handicapped from the get-go by having a team with less combined magical skill levels than others.

However, somehow they were ahead of Luke's team-which Natalie wasn't specifically trying to beat, it was just the most obvious imbalance in skill levels, Amelia Layne's team was fairly superior to hers in this respect too though Natalie's was beating hers as well-and his team not only had no Beginners to her three but a fairly athletic team that would have been advantageous for the nature of the first challenge.

And magical skills were what was needed for a survival challenge. That or actual wilderness skills which Natalie herself didn't have and didn't think her cousin did either, and sincerely doubted that Jessica did.

Which, unless Hilda or Emily had grown up living in the wilderness foraging for food, brought her back to her previous point.

Natalie surveyed the area around her. "All right, so we can use magic to provide water and fire, so should we search for food?"

11 Natalie Atwater The importance of magic 371 Natalie Atwater 0 5

Jessica Hayles

October 11, 2019 11:07 PM

Skincare is also important. by Jessica Hayles

Jessica was, in her own estimation, a person with many facets. She was a poet and an heiress, a scion of beauty and politics, a future leader of the South in a less...Southy direction (as racism and homophobia were bad for business). She was a good Methodist girl and a lifelong secret-keeper, a sister and an only child, bilingual - a lot of things.

However, no matter how many other attributes she obtained, there remained one thing that made her woefully unsuited to anything that involved the words 'survival' and 'natural environment': she was very, very white.

Heat was something she was used to - in Atlanta in the summer, there were more days that the air was literally unhealthy to breathe than not, so that her parents kept her either on her maternal grandparents' plantation down in the country or else out of Georgia altogether during a lot of that season. Even in spring and parts of autumn, though, she sometimes felt as though her skin were so many layers of tissue paper floating in water, she sweated so much, and her Very English and Otherwise Gloomy Corners of European Genes felt so out of place in the environment she'd been born in. Heat she knew, even though she had always taken care to avoid the sun as much as possible, because cancer was not a good look and the delicate layers of tissue paper that made up her face were sure to catch fire if they spent too much time outdoors in bright sun.

As far as she could tell, she had only one thing going for her going into this challenge, and that was a very thorough knowledge of skincare. Her parents had obvious reasons to insist that everyone needed sun protection, but they had always been zealous about putting it on themselves and her from the time she was born, because, well, cancer was not a good look. Jessica meticulously applied sunscreen every day of her life, and so when presented with the idea of needing to survive outside, she had simply added even more. She had on both chemical and physical sunscreen, and while that meant she would look ridiculous if photographed - she'd look like some kind of demented reverse albino raccoon - she was prepared to make that sacrifice if it meant not spending the next week in agony from sunburns while her mind ran around like a hamster worrying about whether she was going to die even after the pain stopped.

Since more coverage couldn't hurt, though, she had also worn jeans, a cute pair of sneakers, and a long-sleeved light pink t-shirt with the word 'Socialite' emblazoned across the front of the chest in curly darker pink script. Most of her coppery hair (some pieces around her face had been curled, combed into waves, and carefully pinned to make fake side bangs to keep her face from looking too stark and angular) was bound up in a high ponytail which let air reach the back of her neck while the end of the ponytail still offered the back of her neck a little shade. She had slipped her tube of tinted balm into the pocket of her jeans, not out of any desire to disobey instructions, but because it had simply never occurred to her to go anywhere without it.

She made a point of smiling at Hilda. "Hallo, Hilda," she said, remembering to change the first vowel from the one she knew. "Wie gehts?" She had always practiced Spanish on apps on her phone when she had downtime at home, and since she had had virtually nothing but free time this Christmas, she had learned a few basic phrases in German for the heck of it. It still felt natural to try to find out things about people so she could somehow make connections with them - it was something Mommy and Daddy both did so well, making people feel special and so attached to them, which made her feel awful about not being able to do it consistently perfectly - and since she and Hilda were in the same age group and a thing had just been dropped in her lap there....

Of course, one of her phrases was 'I don't speak German,' but that was probably already known - nobody could learn a whole language in the short time they had been on the same team. So she wasn't too worried about having to let Hilda down.

She was more worried, once inside the Mirage Chamber, about dying, despite all her careful precautions. She had put on lots of sunscreen, but it seemed entirely possible she would sweat so much here that it would all run right off her face. She guessed it could have been worse - what if they had been put into a tundra? Her clothes had been picked with the idea she'd be in Arizona, because it was still hard to remember how artificial this whole world was - but it was hard to see how. She thought she might have even preferred freezing to death to melting, the more she thought about it....

She was pretty sure her eyelids were sweating, making them heavier than usual, but she still stared at Natalie when the other girl casually remarked that they could use magic to make water and fire, but needed to go find food. Partially, this was because the very idea of fire was kind of abhorrent at the moment. Mostly, it was because this world was being weird again.

"I think we need shade and water more than anything," she said. "This sun is really bad for our skin. It's too hot to eat anyway."

16 Jessica Hayles Skincare is also important. 1442 Jessica Hayles 0 5

Sophia Priory

October 12, 2019 3:42 PM

That is understandable by Sophia Priory

Sophia honestly didn't understand the point of having a survival challenge. Well,okay, she generally didn't understand the point of the Challenges period, but she had no general qualms about doing them,other than them eating into her free time, now that she knew who her teammates were and found them rather non-objectionable.

The thing about a survival challenge in particular was that it was highly unlikely that anyone was an experienced survivalist. At best, there were people who had camped or hunted. Why would they have a challenge that basically nobody was good at? Because it was technically fair given that almost everyone was inexperienced as opposed to the obstacle course which involved athleticism when some people were athletic and others weren't? Yes, they could get through using magic and got bonus points for using a subject particularly well, but the thing was, if you were unathletic, and let on that you had to use magic, for example blasting through the wall instead of climbing because someone physically couldn't, that person who couldn't, was automatically made vulnerable to bullying due to not being athletic.

Honestly, Sophia did not understand-and never would- why people placed so much blasted value on something as unimportant as sports and athletic ability. There was an entire subset of people who thought themselves special and superior and entitled and could break easy to follow rules-it had been extremely satisfying to see Anya Delachene called out at the Returning Feast for not wearing her robes, even if the Headmaster, to his credit, did not use her name- because they were good at sports while people who sucked at them were more likely to be bullied.

And people bought into it too, feeding the egos of athletes. For Merlin's sake, Sophia had figured enough about the Muggles in her city to realize that they basically built a cult around their college's sports teams and even her own brother liked watching Quidditch some.

So the fact that the Challenges so far had been largely physically based-survival, while not exactly the same as an obstacle course still used an awful lot of physical skills-was sort of, well, obnoxious. Like the school was favoring the athletes even though there wasn't even enough interest in Quidditch for every house to have their own team and basically pandering to them because of it. They were contributing to these people's sense of self-importance at the expense of the self-esteem of the non-athletes and putting them in a position for humilation, failure and bullying.

And this was coming from someone who was herself a good flyer and generally considered "tough" by her family. (Probably because she was being compared to Lydia.)

Anyway, not only was this particular challenge ridiculous because probably nobody had the requisite survival skills but also....it wasn't a real survival challenge, even though that was generally a good thing given the aforementioned lack of skills and experience and the potential for lawsuits and ruining people's lives if their children got hurt and well...people actually getting hurt. Still, why search for food when they could presumably go three hours without eating and why build a shelter when they weren't going to be sleeping here? As for water and fire surely the older students could do that simply with magic.

As they entered the Mirage Chamber, Sophia noted that Sylvia did not....look well. The Aladren was unsure if the fourth year was sick-which would not be good either for their score or for Sylvia herself-or just plain was uneasy about this sort of Challenge. Either way, Sophia felt bad for her.

Katerina offered to make the fire and Sophia nodded. "Maybe a couple of us could go looking for food and materials for the shelter? I'm willing to do that if that's what everyone thinks is best." She felt lucky once again to have team of people she could tolerate going on a mission with.

11 Sophia Priory That is understandable 1447 Sophia Priory 0 5

Isaac Song

October 12, 2019 4:23 PM

Brooding but surviving by Isaac Song

The past several days had been taxing on Isaac. He felt sad or mad all the time, and it was hard to stay focused on tasks and schoolwork. His favorite classes felt like a drag, and all he really wanted to do was lay around in bed moping. He couldn't help wondering about Cleo, and he worried about her a lot. There was something going on, something he couldn't help with, and she wouldn't let him help with. He hated these conflicting feelings of caring about her but also wanting to cut her out of his life. It would probably just be easier to be alone for the rest of his life instead of going through a breakup like this again.

When the second challenge came around, though, he knew he needed to get himself back on track. His team needed him and Isaac wanted to stay on top. His team had ended the last challenge in first place, and he really didn't want to give that up. Throwing all of his energy into this challenge could help ease the pain too, or at least distract him from it. Thank goodness he and Cleo weren't in the same group.

As usual, the challenge was ambiguous until they got there. Survival in the wilderness didn't seem that horrifying; in fact, it was kind of exciting. Isaac had gone camping a few times before--glamping, actually--and thought he could probably build a shelter or recognize food if necessary. Water would be essential too; that he had learned from watching TV. Once they entered the Mirage Chamber, Isaac turned to his teammates.

"First thing: let's find a source of clean water and make our camp there." Isaac looked around. "But if it takes too long to find a river or something then I guess we can just set up wherever there's a lot of foliage. Then we should see if we can find dittany. And we could make an antidote against poisons too, if we can find all of the ingredients here." It was a strange place, he thought as he looked around. It was tranquil yet deserted; empty but full of surprises. The closest Isaac had ever been to the desert was Sonora, but it wasn't such a bad place. There were probably going to be some tricks, however, so Isaac wanted to keep his guard up and his wand ready for anything.

"After we find a place to set up, I'll find some things we can eat and maybe make potions with," he continued, making eye-contact with his teammates. "Potions is my best class. I can also cook meals to feed us. A couple of us could find something to build a shelter, and we can build it together if you guys want." He paused, thinking for a moment. "Anything I'm forgetting?"

19 Isaac Song Brooding but surviving 375 Isaac Song 0 5

Dorian Montoir

October 13, 2019 5:10 AM

Surviving because of Brooding by Dorian Montoir

It only taken a handful of days for the news to reach Dorian that Cleo and Isaac had broken up. Given that he did not particular know either of them, outside of being on Isaac's team for the challenges, this slightly alarmed him. It showed just how quickly gossip spread around the school, and that any action on his part, other than one aborted attempt to kiss Jehan in third year and constantly crying to Professor Brooding about his poor confused head and heart, was virtually the same as standing up and screaming it across the Cascade Hall over breakfast - a thought which occasionally crossed his mind, as both a dizzyingly freeing notion (just get it over with, like ripping off a bandaid) and something he was half afraid his mouth was just going to do one day without conscious thought or permission. It was a little like when you stood too near the edge of something high, and you experienced the irrational fear that the notion to throw yourself off it was somehow going to creep unbidden into your thoughts and actions . But then, he had always known that admitting things was dangerous. That was part of the reason why he didn't. Even if, every day, the urge to scream got a little louder. He wondered at what point his lack of interest in girls would become rumour-worthy, even if he didn't act on the feelings he had for a boy. He didn't know that the rumour mill was working in his favour there, and that a lot of people assumed he was dating Tatya.

He had no idea how to deal with the fact that Isaac was presumably broken-hearted right now. It was not a circumstance he had foreseen working through with a relative stranger. His go to solution for any problem was to offer tea but he would not be allowed to bring any with him. This struck him as barbaric and somewhat ridiculous. He thought it highly unlikely that he would ever find himself in a situation where he did not have at least three types of tea about his person, and that allowing them the typical contents of their school bags, or at least their pockets, was fairer and more realistic. Still, he had complied with the rules and brought only his wand.

He stepped into the Mirage Chamber with his team, and felt the instant thickness of an air so cloying it felt hardly breathable. It was not unfamiliar, though it was deeply unpleasant; his grandparents' home in Xi'an was every bit as sticky when he visited them over the summer months. His typical ways of dealing with said oppressive heat were not to move too much, to laze around in a house imbued with cooling charms, and to be brought glasses of iced fruit juice by family servants. This, he suspected, was going to be rather different to that. His immediate reaction was to cast himself as useless - he was quite sure nothing about him, from his pristine button-down to his soft little rich boy fingertips, said 'survivalist.' But equally, none of that had said 'athlete' and had they not aced the first challenge and taken top spot on the leaderboard? They had. And he had helped. It was all just problem solving, and he was good at that. He had spent weeks of his life at a time dealing with temperatures like this, he just had to sort through and see whether there was anything from that he could apply here.

”Umbrus,” he muttered, in lieu of having any kind of a hat or parasol with him, whilst he waited for Isaac to start planning. It seemed that his mother’s lifetime of nagging and fretting about his skin had paid off, because his immediate instinct was to shield himself from the sun’s rays. The spell was not totally practical, as it would tie up his wand and prevent him doing much else, and casting a continual charm was going to be wearing in this heat. But whilst they worked out what to do, it at least provided some relief. However, he had not deployed it for more than a second or so before he reconsidered, shifting it to cover Beatriz and motioning Heinrich to join her in the small patch of shadow if he so desired. He couldn’t really create something that was big enough for everyone, but their need was probably the greatest - he would probably burn eventually in this, but the risk was much greater to those two - and Julius, but well, Dorian couldn’t protect them all, and he was at least a brunet to Beatriz’ red and Heinrich’s blond (though, he supposed, they did manage the exposure of being on a Quidditch team, but with the artificially Irish climate of Sonora, that seemed to demand being rainproof more than any other trait).

He listened as Isaac laid out the plan. Break-up-wise, Isaac seemed to just be wanting to act as if nothing was bothering him and throw himself into this, and Dorian was more than happy to follow this lead seeing as he’d had no ideas how to deal with that situation. Isaac’s plan also sounded pretty reasonable, or at least he sounded fairly confident and commanding and Dorian had very little clue about what was a good plan or not, so he was willing to go with it. They would be able to conjure drinking water, and hopefully keep themselves hydrated as they went, but having a natural source of it was going to be much better and much less draining. It would also be potentially pleasant and refreshing. The thought of diving into a pool of cold, clear water sounded very appealing right now… Though unfortunately he also thought it might be a fantasy, and that the staff would not have made it that easy for them.

“I like this plan,” he confirmed, wanting to start with agreements and positives. A… while back he thought he probably would have left it there. He wasn’t quite sure when he had turned into someone with the confidence to add more. With his friends, it was easy. And he supposed Isaac was friendly. And maybe it helped that he, Dorian, was next oldest… But it definitely felt like it had taken less time to feel sure of speaking his mind than it usually took him. “We shall need some sun protection for us all while we are looking,” he added first, fairly sure he would have spoken out about this under most circumstances because the need to look after other people somehow always trumped any nerves he felt at what it took - he had, after all, confronted Professor Wright for calling Tatya a cheater. “I think the environment is probably big, with the things we need hard to find,” he added, after all it would not be much of a challenge otherwise, “I think there are some spells for assisting to find water, but I am not sure of them?” he opened it as a question to the rest of the group. At a guess, he thought it might be a variation on the locator charm, and probably something like ‘locator aqua’ but he had never had to worry much about that, because water was always just there, right where he needed it. “It will be good if we can use this, or to have a decision about how far we will look before stopping, so that we use our time correctly, and make everyone not too exhausted. Heat like this will make you tired very quickly - I know from China,” he added, lest it sound like he was speaking from the position of being an unathletic little wimp and not from the experience of long, draining summers.

13 Dorian Montoir Surviving because of Brooding 1401 Dorian Montoir 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

October 14, 2019 8:43 AM

I can do both by Heinrich Hexenmeister

A few years ago, Heinrich would not have been capable of learning that Isaac and Cleo had broken up. His English would have been too rough to just casually overhear other students gossiping, and when he tried to speak to his classmates at all, which was rare, it was almost exclusively about classwork rather than other classmates. Last year had marked a turning point. Not only had he developed a small social network (admittedly, one was his sister who spoke far worse English than he ever had, and another was a professor and therefore unlikely to indulge in idle gossip, and the last was a person he normally discussed deeper moral and philosophical matters with rather than something as trivial as who was dating who), but he was also proficient enough in the language that he was starting to learn details about other people's lives as much from osmosis or something as because he was intentionally eavesdropping on conversations occurring nearby (though he did do a fair amount of that, too, if only to gauge how well he could follow two native English speakers talking to each other - which, by now, was getting to a point where he followed almost all of it).

So this year, he had caught wind of the rumor that Isaac and Cleo were no longer seeing each other, though he wasn't going to bring it up because he wasn't 100% sure that there hadn't just been an Advanced class mishap and they were literally invisible to each other. In any case, Isaac seemed perfectly able to see all of the team group and lead them through this challenge.

'This challenge' being an effort to see if they would survive in a desert, albeit it just the act of preparing themselves for doing so rather than the actual implementation of a few days living off the land. Heinrich felt he had a better position than some on this one.

He had moved under Dorian's umbrella for the shade, because it was immediately available and he didn't want a sunburn (or to lose points for exposing himself to sunburn conditions, as this was the Mirage Chamber and he wasn't sure if they could actually get a real sunburn in here), but after Dorian mentioned living in China, Heinrich added, "I live in the dessert, in Utah," which probably came as a surprise to most of them (except Dorian, who he'd personally told already), as most people seemed to assume his accented English meant he was an international German student rather than an immigrant. "Water is where many plants are. Animals come there for water, and food, too. We can look for tracks. But first, we should all transfigure hats so we do not get sunburn and Dorian can have his wand back."

He looked around to find something to transfigure into one, but did not immediately see any obvious hat-shaped choices.

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister I can do both 1414 Heinrich Hexenmeister 0 5

Hilda Hexenmeister

October 15, 2019 11:19 AM

Englisch ist auch wichtig. Unglücklicherweise. by Hilda Hexenmeister

Hilda was upset. She was only allowed to bring her wand to the challenge this time. Her English was better than had it been at the first challenge, but it was still nowhere near fluent, and she really wanted to bring Professor Schmitt along again. He was far too large to attempt to sneak past the school authorities, but she would fight anyone who tried to take the German-English dictionary from her left robe pocket or her deck of flashcards of useful words and phrases from her right one.

Other than those necessary language aids, she had abided by the rules and only brought her wand.

Her mood improved and she smiled in delight when Jessica greeted her in German, with an accent about as terrible as Evelyn’s, but the effort was appreciated even if Jessica probably wouldn’t be able to understand her if she’d given a truthful rather than polite reply in the same language. Instead, she’d ignored the question entirely and declared, “Oh! You learn small Deutsch! Sehr gut! Danke!” At least one person would follow if she forgot to use English for basic statements. That helped take some of the pressure off, even if Jessica was still clearly a beginner.

Once the challenge began, Hilda listened carefully to their group leader speak. Something about magic and water. A question about food. Jessica also talked about water, and also the sun and ‘too hot’ and more about eating.

Hilda guessed they were talking about the things they would need to address to pass the challenge.

She wanted to tell them she knew a little bit about how to live in a dessert. That she’d lived in the badlands of Utah for more than four years now. She wanted to warn them about the heat during the day and the cold at night. She wanted to tell them about the predators that could be out there, both magical and mundane, and the danger of poisonous snakes and how to spot them before they struck.

Her vocabulary failed her and all she could offer were broken sentence fragments that she could only hope made a little bit of sense to somebody. “Live Utah. Hot sun. Cold night. Watch out, snakes. Bad bite. Sick. Together. Group safe.” She grimaced in frustration, knowing she wasn’t make as much sense as she needed to make. She didn’t know how to say predators could pick off anybody who left the group, but that few would tangle with all of them together. She didn’t know how to recommend that they needed a protected area that could insulate them from the wildly fluctuating temperatures, the burning sun, and hide them from danger. She couldn’t express that food and water would be found together, because the one allows the other to thrive, but for that same reason, it would be dangerous because the predators know that, too. But this was neither the time nor place to be flipping through a dictionary.

She huffed an annoyed sound and shaded her eyes. She was a blonde and was likely to burn quickly out here. She could already almost feel the freckles starting to pop out. She looked around and pointed to a clump of scraggly little desert trees. “There?” she questioned, hoping the sparse shade would be inviting enough to the others that they could move their discussions out of the direct sun, at least until they had a more solid plan of where they wanted to go.

1 Hilda Hexenmeister Englisch ist auch wichtig. Unglücklicherweise. 1433 Hilda Hexenmeister 0 5

Jessica

October 15, 2019 12:49 PM

I am also a little unglücklich. by Jessica

"Gern geschehen," said Jessica, pronouncing this probably even worse than her first attempts - the 'sch' thing broke her tongue - with a friendly smile which concealed a little relief. Wizards were so weird that it was hard to say if one would actually like her trying to be polite in said wizard's (or witch's, or whatever) language, or if they would punch her in the face for it. Hilda, however, seemed pleased, so that was good. "Aber...sehr small Deutch," she warned, as she didn't know the word 'small'.

Jessica was used, to a point, to non-native English. Her nanny had lived in Georgia for about two years before Jessica was even born, and had learned English in school in Colombia, but there were still...hiccups, sometimes. Slang in particular could baffle Carmela, which Mara sometimes had fun with, even though Jessica told her sister that it wasn't very nice to do that. However, Mel's language was still miles and miles better than Hilda's, and German was different enough from Spanish that Jessica wasn't sure how much help it was going to offer her in parsing Hilda's sentence fragments after she began with 'live Utah.'

Things got clearer from there, though, probably because of the extreme simplicity of the fragments.

"Snakes are definitely bad," she agreed, speaking slowly to increase her chances of being understood. This had the effect of bringing out her Southern accent a little - it was harder to mask when she was deliberately adopting an unnatural rhythm in her speech - so she hoped it didn't actually serve to make her less comprehensible. On the whole, however, Mommy and Daddy had always corrected her so quickly whenever she threatened to develop too much of a twang or habit of dropping end syllables that she thought her accent was probably negligible as a problem here. "I don't know what to do with them, though, if we see one. If we jinx it, that might just make it mad - we have a lot of venomous snakes in Georgia, too," she added. "Robert always told me that it might make it worse if I make a copperhead or something mad. He deals with it if any snakes get into our yard at home."

She squinted, too, toward the trees Hilda spotted. Yes, her eyelids were definitely sweating. So was her neck, so much that she would have given the 14k gold hoops in her ears for a very dry towel to wipe off with. Her shirt was sticking to her back and her legs were columns of misery inside her jeans.

"It's better than nothing," she agreed. Shade was probably still going to feel like an oven out here, but better an oven than a crematorium, she supposed. Or boiling alive inside her own skin. "Unless anyone sees anything better? Is there any...magic thing that can make us cooler until we get over there?" Logic said that if there was such a thing, it would have already been used, but Daddy said that one way to get ideas from outside the box was to solicit opinions from parties outside the box. Maybe an outsider suggesting it would make someone think of something.

16 Jessica I am also a little unglücklich. 1442 Jessica 0 5

Peyton O'Malley

October 15, 2019 4:24 PM

Not without water. by Peyton O'Malley

Peyton had absolutely not enjoyed the first Challenge at all. Just because she wasn't as girly as Jasmine or Ruby did not mean she was the athletic sort. More importantly though, Eden was , so therefore, while advantageous, made the Teppenpaw look better than her. Again. Even though Peyton certainly contributed magically.

A survival challenge didn't really seem like her sort of thing either. Honestly, why couldn't they have a cooking contest or something? Why couldn't the fifth year have a chance to shine in the challenges and make her siblings proud? Of course, only Ryan would be specifically proud of her . Considering the nature of the Challenges thus far, the rest would credit any of their success to Eden probably.

It was a moot point anyway, given they were in an unimpressive ninth place. That wasn't going to impress anyone though Peyton firmly believed that Ryan would be proud of her no matter what. It did make her wonder what Carrie had gotten after all as the fifth year would at least like to do better than her .

Then she realized that she might have something to contribute after all. Finding food was one of the aspects of this challenge so surely if they could find it, Peyton could make some sort of dish out of it. Not to mention, she was really good at Potions too given the similarities between brewing and cooking.

No sooner did she feel encouraged though, than Amelia spoke. Peyton's heart sank. The older girl said she could brew most anything which took away the one thing the Crotalus had to contribute. If Amelia could do it, they didn't need Peyton to do so and she wasn't very good at anything else in regards to this particular challenge. She knew nothing about surviving in the desert-yes, Sonora was in the desert, but it was a building with ample food, water, bathroom facilities, places to sleep and weather charms on the grounds- or building shelters or anything like that.

Nor did she feel like she would be able to make it very far in the heat if she didn't have water. However, she was reluctant make suggestions. While Amelia might accept her feedback, Evelyn might end up being really rude about it like she had been towards Ivy in regards to the paper.

Still, if Peyton didn't say something, she could very well pass out in the heat. Any of them could. Which would not be good for their score or their general well being. "Um, can we transfigure something into a water bottle and use a water charm first? I don't really want to go out in the heat and risk dehydration."

11 Peyton O'Malley Not without water. 1403 Peyton O'Malley 0 5

Zara Jackson

October 15, 2019 11:29 PM

Reinventing the cellphone by Zara Jackson

Survival. Cool. Or rather, scorching, burning hot, in this particular case. Ouch. Zara was a sun-worshipper, loving the warmer weather and needing the sun on her skin to feel happy and energised, but this was extreme. This would have been the perfect weather for sitting poolside with a mixed juice fancy enough to warrant being called a 'mocktail' and getting a little paper umbrella stuck in it. Instead, it looked they would be getting sweaty and dirty, doing some exploring. Which was a different type of fun, and one she was somewhat prepared for. Zara had been a scout. It was a rich and vital experience which was a fascinating encapsulation of a society's values and what skills and traits it deemed important in educating its youth (according to her magical anthropologist father, as he flicked through the badge book) and a way of keeping her busy and quite good fun (according to her pragmatic non-magical mother).

It was hard to say whether or not this experience was going to be more hardcore than scout camp. On the one hand, they were in a desert, with almost no resources. On the other hand, the resource they did have was magic, which was going to make for a heck of a lot of short cuts. Scouts had, for example, provided them with tents but they had had to put them up. Now they could... Well, she was not exactly sure. Could the older students magic up a tent out of nothing? They could do some conjuring, but tents seemed kind of complicated, with lots of interconnecting pieces that you might need some understanding of in order to visualise and make a standing, working version of. Perhaps. She was never totally sure how those kinds of things limited or affected magic. Her dad was way more into the human and social elements of magic than the hardcore theory, though he liked exploring it a bit to be able to compare and contrast magical and non-magical. Also, whilst wands were undeniably powerful, the non-magical part of her brain did think that, if they had ended up out in the desert, as non-magical people, they most likely would have had cell phones and then they could have called for rescue or at least looked up whether there were any towns nearby before they founded a new desert settlement.

"They said pretend it's real, right?" she reminded her team, "Well, if I were for real stranded in the desert, the first thing I'd want is some hope of being rescued. I know it's going to sound crazy, given how hot it is, but I think we might need a fire. That would maybe attract attention, plus it's also likely to keep away animals, and am I remembering wrong or do deserts like... drop to freezing as soon as the sun sets? Not literally freezing, but... y'know. Cold."

There was a stick lying near by, and she picked it up, attempting to start taking notes in the sand as she was sure ideas would be flying fast. However, the light powdery sand didn't really take a message too well, her letters having to be too big to be efficient and the occasional breeze scattering and oblitering the superficial efforts she had made.

They needed communications. It probably wasn't the number one biggest priority, but it was the direction her brain was spinning in, trying to work out how to compensate for the lack of a smart phone. She remembered when she was little and they played the game with two paper cups on a string, learning about soundwaves needing something to travel through, and the confusing notion that this meant air, which she moved through so freely, was a solid object (she appreciated, looking back, that that may not have been exactly what her parents were trying to communicate, and it was more that it was not a vacuum). And then her dad had cut the string and linked the cups with magic instead, and he and her mom had had a very long and confusing conversation about what that meant, whilst Zara and her siblings ran untethered, marvelling at speaking to each other from room to room. It was a little like having walkie-talkies only, now she thought about it, kind of worse because you didn't get a signal if someone was talking to you. There were some things non-magical people were just better at, and instantaneous distance communication was one of them. Still, if they had to go out on missions from whatever base camp they set up, it would be something... If she could remember the spell, and could execute it...

13 Zara Jackson Reinventing the cellphone 1444 Zara Jackson 0 5

Kir

October 16, 2019 10:06 PM

Yup, excellent by Kir

Ecstatic. It was very tempting to drop in the sarcastic response as a shouty, moody, but finally bottled and behatted Nathaniel asked if he was happy now. Kir firmly reminded himself that Nathaniel had every reason to be in a mood right now, even if it wasn't fair that he was taking it out on Kir, whereas Kir's only real reason was Nathaniel. And that it was hot. He was not really a fan of it being this hot, and the longer he stood here, the less he was convinced that letting Nathaniel wander around in it was a good idea. But still, some of them had to, he supposed. He held out his hand for the water bottle, filling it up and passing it back.

"Yep," he answered, as if Nathaniel hadn't spoken as rudely as he had done. Well, almost. He couldn't resist the slightest flick of lifted eyebrows, one that underlined how very polite he, the nobody, was being right now next to the alleged gentleman.

Nathaniel did not seem to actually have any kind of plan, which just served to confirm Kir's idea that his main goal was to get away from all of them. He wondered whether he should let the group know, whilst Nathaniel was gone, that he was having a rough time. It seemed sort of obvious from looking at him, but Kir supposed it might be hard to distinguish his behaviour from being a general snob or from having had some kind of personal altercation with Kir between the challenges, though that would not explain the dark circles under his eyes. He would cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, he had a mission to set.

"Anything you recognise as a potion ingredient," he instructed "and that you know you can pick without incurring any unpleasant side effects. Keep a note of anything you're not sure about. And just, some general observations of what's out there. We'll get started on a shelter, but also try to brainstorm what would be useful, and what we think is likely to be available. Then we can put all that info together later to work out our options."

13 Kir Yup, excellent 366 Kir 0 5

Evelyn Stones

October 16, 2019 11:02 PM

I'm glad you two are on my team. by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn was oddly relieved to be on a team of all girls, although it really wasn't that odd all life things considered. However, it was sometimes an odd reminder that she was a bit more tomboyish than she would have thought. For all the colored lipstick in the world, Evelyn had spent more time climbing and hiking and camping than most girls her age apparently. In any case, she was certainly more comfortable outdoors than some of them seemed to be. That aside though, she was only good at the outdoors on the Oregon coast, and she never used magic at home. With that in mind, she was grateful both for Amelia and Peyton's initial comments.

"I'm glad you said that," Evelyn said with a nervous smile, looking at Peyton. "I've never been in any sort of desert like this and I wouldn't want to get dehydrated." She also didn't want to sunburn, but was less worried about that in this particular situation. She wasn't even totally sure whether a sunburn was possible in the Mirage Chamber.

"I'm not so great with Charms or Transfiguration," she admitted, feeling small but brave. She was working on owning up to her abilities as part of the fixing process, even when it was crappy. "But I am best with Herbology. If you can tell me what ingredients you need or what sort of things you'd like to eat, I think I could get it. Or I can look around to see what's out here first."

22 Evelyn Stones I'm glad you two are on my team. 1422 Evelyn Stones 0 5

Ness

October 17, 2019 8:17 AM

And surprises by Ness

Bring only your wand. That was an intriguing, rather ominous statement, in a way. They never even went to class with only their wands. They always had books and parchment and ink and quills. In some classes, they were told more or less that these things were not particularly necessary, but Ness almost always found something to look up or write down, and the Aladren did not really like the idea of leaving all of these behind. Ness rarely went anywhere without some kind of book, just in case – even Quidditch training usually involved walking down to the pitch, nose buried in the latest library find, just because it otherwise felt like wasted time.

“Privet,” Ness responded to Tatiana’s greeting, giving a thumbs up to indicate that all was more or less well. Ness was certainly in a cheerful enough mood in spite of the lack of book, because it was hard not to be curious about what they were about to be facing, and curiosity was – in spite of its alleged feline slaying potential – a really quite wonderful and rather tingly sort of feeling.

“You’re wearing pants,” the Aladren observed approvingly, nodding to Tatiana’s attire. Normally, Ness would not have found pants remarkable or worthy of comment, but Tatiana had seen fit to show up to an obstacle course in a skirt and ribbons, so this was a decided improvement. It also showed Tatiana was capable of improvement (or what counted for it in Ness’ eyes) in that pants on a Pureblood girl really were kind of an unusual statement, and showed that Tatiana was not so bound to archaic gender norms that she was incapable of sacrificing some of her frills for the sake of practicality. That was good. This sounded practical, judging by the instructions they were being given.

Once they were in the fake desert, Tatiana said something in Russian (she seemed excited so Ness guessed it wasn’t a slew of swear words about the temperature, even if that seemed exactly what was warranted) and then switched back to English as she chattered away. Much like with the first challenge, Tatiana seemed actually full of good ideas, and equally not shy about sharing them. Ness had to admit that she at least had energy and… well, Ness’ idea of a Pureblood girl being shoved into a desert and told to survive it involved a lot more melodramatic fainting and a lot less being enthusiastic about getting sticks to live in.

“Tent,” the Aladren supplied, when Tatiana worked her way around a vocabulary hole with explanations and gestures. It was said in a neutral tone, not patronising or correcting. Ness just thought knowing things was nice. “But only for cloth ones. A stick one would be… a hut? Or a shelter?” the Aladren shrugged, “It sort of depends what it looks like.

“They are good ideas,” the Aladren confirmed, not managing to completely disguise the note of surprise, though it was balanced out with plenty of approval. Ness almost wanted to spend time with Tatiana after this was all done. Tatiana thought and that was interesting to Ness.

“We could also use the doubling charm on it, then we’d all have hats,” Ness added. Ness was just about rebellious enough to not want to wear a hat outside just because an adult had said so, but just about hot and sensible enough that right now it did seem rather reasonable. “We could transfigure each of our hats so that they… suit us,” the Aladren added, aiming for tact rather than saying the hat was outright horrible, presuming that Tatiana could at least reason that probably-cis-gendered boys did not want to wear anything with ribbons on it, and that that was not an offensive notion to someone whose concept of the gender binary had only seen them just venture into the realm of wearing trousers. From there, it was hopefully a small enough step to accept that Ness also did not fit such a hat, assuming that Tatiana hadn’t already assumed the short haired, t-shirt and jeans wearing Aladren to be a boy in the first place.

13 Ness And surprises 1419 Ness 0 5

Tatiana

October 17, 2019 1:06 PM

Boredom's not really my aesthetic. by Tatiana

"I take them from brother," said Tatiana, recognizing that her attire was being commented on. "Aleksey. Must do much charm to make fit." She supposed her prowess at making trousers fit her was a strange thing for a young lady to lightly boast about, but she was more pleased with her cleverness in thinking to begin the project at all than anything, really.

Hut. That sounded a lot like the English word 'hat' and she thought the German word for hat, so that one would be either easy or impossible to remember properly, though she would try. A hat to live under was a hut; perhaps that would help her hold onto the new vocabulary word.

"Hut," she repeated. "Hat for the ground. I remember this. And we need one." She saw some scrubby trees. "Maybe we cut...tree arms off," she suggested. "Use stick charm, make them stick, stay hut for us."

She nodded agreeably to the idea of her hat being doubled, repeatedly. "All need hat. Otherwise, Doryamama say we are little bad egg. I know spell. Not used too much, but I know. I try to make a hat."

She put her hat on the ground, then wiped her hand on Alexei's trousers to ensure a better grip on her wand. Point and flick - it was stopping the replication before they literally suffocated under the weight of hats that was the slightly tougher bit. "Geminio," she said, and one hat appeared. So far so good. She used her foot to edge her real hat a little further away from the identical copy, so she didn't get them confused, then tried, "Geminio trio."

The hat duplicated again - but then the second copy seemed to multiply from the first copy, and the third copy from the second. "Finite," said Tatiana hastily, remembering again the idea of suffocating in straw hats. This wasn't altogether unexpected, but even if each fake hat broke down a little faster than the fake hat before it, she doubted that would happen in the length of this challenge, bar something bad enough to destroy her original hat in the first place. "Here we go," she crowed, pleased with herself. "Now all have a hat - you make look how you want, if you want," she said, remembering Ness saying something about 'suiting us'. Seemed a bit impractical to her, really - a hat was a hat, and it was wasting time - but if it made her teammates happy, then she was fundamentally okay with it. Who was she, of all people, to object to more pretty things?

16 Tatiana Boredom's not really my aesthetic. 1396 Tatiana 0 5

Ivy Brockert

October 17, 2019 1:09 PM

Can you invent one that cools people off? by Ivy Brockert

So far, Ivy's team wasn't doing that well in the Challenges and she was unsure that this next event would do much to improve things. She didn't know about anyone else but she did not have any survival experience. Ivy was a wealthy pureblood girl who lived a cushy life. Bridget was probably pretty much the same.

However, the Teppenpaw reasoned that even though she had very little experience with this sort of situation, there was a lot that she could do. For example, Ivy knew quite a lot about plants so she would know which were edible and which were poisonous, even if she didn't know how to blend them in a way that would be delicious like Peyton did. She could brew potions that they might need though. She was also quite good at both Transfiguration and Charms.

The first thing Ivy noticed as they stepped into the Mirage Chamber was that it was hot . Which she should have expected given that it was the desert. The things was though that even though the sixth year had lived in Arizona when she was little and her dad still worked at Sonora, once he no longer did, they'd moved to Minnesota where it was much much colder. Between that and the weather charms here at school, Ivy was not at all acclimated to heat.

She was going to have persevere though. Ivy still really wanted to show the staff her good qualities, especially if she wanted to make the Head Girl ballot. She realized her class was small and that increased her chances but it wasn't a guarantee like it was for the boys. There were only two of them so they'd likely both be on it because they couldn't just hand it to one of them but they could very well leave one or two girls off and given what happened with prefect, if someone was left off it would be her (and possibly Loren).

It was the first time in her life that she'd been basically told she wasn't good enough and that stung. Ivy really felt the need to prove herself so she couldn't pass out due to heat exhaustion.

Zara mentioned building a fire which sounded quite awful but was likely part of what they were required to do. "That's a good idea." Ivy agreed. "We'll need it to cook and what not." She felt the sun baring down on her, like it was hitting her in the head. "We also need water, so I can transfigure something into water bottles and fill them up." She really really did not want to get close to a fire right now so she hoped that Salali was capable of doing it.

11 Ivy Brockert Can you invent one that cools people off? 394 Ivy Brockert 0 5

Amelia Layne

October 17, 2019 1:43 PM

Glad you're here too. by Amelia Layne

"Yeah, good point, Peyton," echoed Amelia after Evelyn said much the same thing. "Dehydration's a thing at home, but we're in a swamp at home, so I bet it's a different rate of dehydration or...something."

Verbal communication had always been a slight weakness of hers - she didn't think she did a good job of sounding as smart as she actually was - but she couldn't imagine the heat was helping. She was suddenly glad her hair had darkened from the relatively light blond of her early childhood to its current less interesting shade of almost brown.

"First things first, everyone find something you can make into a water bottle, and I'll charm us up some drinking water," she ordered.

She listened as Evelyn explained her strengths and weaknesses. "Herbology is super-useful," she said encouragingly. "If you and Peyton could go out - together or separately, whichever you prefer - to look for useful potion ingredients or anything edible, that would be great. Just don't get too far out, and drink lots of water, and when you get to less than half your water supply, bring what you have back and get a refill. We don't need anyone passing out out here at all. The rest of us can get to work on some kind of shelter."

16 Amelia Layne Glad you're here too. 360 Amelia Layne 0 5

Topaz Brockert

October 17, 2019 3:16 PM

I will survive. by Topaz Brockert

Topaz's team was in sixth . That was so not okay. Especially given her older sisters were beating her . True, she was glad it wasn't Allegra or Sapphire or Clown Lips or especially Snotti-Ness but still no, just no.

And how in Merlin's name was Ruby's team tied for second? Ruby was about as girly as they came and Jasmine Delachene was possibly even girlier and it had been a challenge where athletic ability could have come in handy. They had to have magicked their way through it. Which was the superior way to go but surely that lot had to be too afraid of breaking a nail. Plus Topaz had never been impressed with her older sister's intellectual capacity-Ruby wasn't as dumb as Sapphire or Clown Lips or Slimey or Uncle Eustace but she wasn't brilliant, not even as smart as Emerald let alone Topaz-and Jasmine seemed like she was...even dumber. Like something was missing in her brain like there was with Sapphire. Maybe she was epileptic too. Florence Newell and the little Aladrens must have carried the team.

Or they cheated. Maybe Topaz's team should find a way to cheat. Nah, Ruby was too much of a goody-two-shoes to do that.

It wasn't Topaz's fault that this had happened, she knew that. She just had to decide whose it was. The easy to blame ones would have been Loren and Slimey because they were Pecaris and not purebloods but logically it was probably Winston's fault. Or Jeremy's. Yes, Jeremy's. After all, Winston had apparently been ready to listen to her and Jeremy took off flying over the wall so therefore they all flew and missed out on bonus points.

And to make matters worse, Allegra's team was tied for seventh so even though they were behind Topaz's, they were right behind them. Which meant they were in a place to surpass them. Which was not okay.

Thank Merlin that the next Challenge was about survival and Topaz knew that her cousin was not going to handle that well. The other third year certainly did not have what it took to survive in a harsh desert environment. Or rather, any harsh environment. Topaz had personally seen to it that as while alive-she wouldn't kill a human being. Well not on purpose anyway though Snotti-Ness sometimes made her want to reconsider that stance. Or rather, often reconsider it, like all the time-Allegra was a fragile shell of a human being.

And Ruby's team was unlikely to do well either. Bugs and dirt and scorpions and snakes. They were so going down!

As for her own survival skills...well, Topaz had never had to survive things, unless one counted her current rooming situation. She was the one creating situations for others to survive! But in a real situation, she would do absolutely anything to survive. Anything . Like, as in at the expense of her teammates. Even if it meant killing a human being who wasn't Snotti-Ness on purpose. Probably Loren or Slimey first, followed by the other, followed by Jeremy. Actually, Topaz might have sacrificed Jeremy first if he wasn't a Mordue given it was his fault they placed so low.

Unfortunately, she wasn't sure if she could do that to Winston though because if she killed Winston to survive, Emerald would likely kill her . Emerald threatened to kill Topaz if she entered the seventh year's bedroom without permission so she could only imagine what her sister would do to her if she murdered Emerald's precious fiance. If Topaz didn't manage to decimate her first in that situation.

So, for her, the real challenge would be working with other people when in reality, she would see it as everyone for themselves.

This time though, they were getting those bonus points. "Okay, so fire and water are no issue whatsoever. I can do the fire one." Topaz stated. Winston and Loren should, by now, be able to do the Aguamenti charm. If not, they needed to be in that remedial program with the foreigners and Sapphire and in the case of the former, well someone who wasn't up to magical snuff did not deserve to marry her sister. While Topaz cared very little about Emerald's well being, she certainly did not want nieces and nephews who were magically incompetent. After being stupid, that was the worst thing one could be. It was embarrassing enough that her little sister was in Academic Support due to poor memory and other learning difficulties due to having untreated seizures for so long. Topaz blamed her parents, particularly her mother, for this humiliation.

" Incendio " Topaz said and a small fire flicked into existence. She continued " So we need a hut and some food and potion ingredients."

11 Topaz Brockert I will survive. 1427 Topaz Brockert 0 5

Nathaniel

October 17, 2019 4:30 PM

I'm the slave of duty. by Nathaniel

Look for potions ingredients. Simple enough. Unless this game was completely rigged again them, there had to be something within a reasonable distance which Nathaniel could break off a handful of, call it a potion ingredient, and therefore argue he had contributed. Then he could flop down somewhere and be left alone.

He didn't really want to be alone, he thought as he set off with a grumbled noise that might have been an acknowledgment of his directions. He just preferred it to being with other people. On his own, he wished he had something to do, anything to do to quiet the noise inside his head. With people, though, the noise increased because he wondered what people were thinking or saying behind his back, and it was so hard to control himself when he did anything at all. So it was easiest just to be alone and brood.

Maybe, he thought, with a gleam of borderline humor, the heat was so bad, it would chase the funeral band out of his head for a while. Maybe he could just be...empty.

He could almost understand his mother, for an instant. Her death was only figurative, but...what Uncle Alexander had said. Things were at the point where she no longer had a life or a reputation to come back to. How freeing, to know that Cynthia Mordue was dead. Nothing to keep her grounded anymore. No family she needed to keep living for. On his second day in this nightmare, he had noticed that she no longer wore the wedding ring his father had given her - something she had, as a faux-widow, kept on all these years, to remind them all that she was one of them despite his father's bad behavior. But now she didn't have that reminder anymore, just like Dad....

Mama had to be better than Dad. She had to. Otherwise, why had he spent his whole life working to protect her, support her, keep her calm and happy? But...on the surface, it looked like she had done almost as much as Dad. She hadn't cared enough about him and Jeremy, about family, to put her own desires aside and do what was right. Nobody but him was willing to, and nobody would let him to do what was right...so really, what was keeping his feet on the ground? What did he have to live for?

The further he walked, the faster his thoughts raced, and the faster his thoughts raced, the faster his feet walked, until he realized all at once that he was burning up. His breath was coming in short bursts. Sweat ran down his face and plastered his hair to his head. His robes felt like sodden wool. Greedily, he drank from his improvised water bottle and glanced over his shoulder back toward the group.

They were gone. Good.

He considered just sitting down, but figured he was still within close enough range to be caught not doing anything fairly quickly. He began to walk more slowly, looking for any trace of greenery, fairly sure that such a trace would lead him to more in short order - seemed logical enough, anyway - as he tried to remember everything he knew about desert herbs.

The first useful thing he found was something which was probably agave, but possibly yucca. If it was agave, he remembered reading that that could be used to treat infections and kidney problems and scorpion bites, so that seemed useful. He took off his outer robes, noting with distaste that his neat white shirt was already sweat-soaked too - and used them as a rough bundle to collect some leaves, carefully removing them from the plant with his wand.

For a moment, he almost felt better. He had been asked to do something useful, and had done it. Simple. Straightforward. So artificial.

He wiped his face and kept pushing forward. Arnica...that was actually in season right now. Leopard's bane, they called it. It made good poultices, but was not safe to ingest. Should he count that as a potion ingredient? Topical potions were a thing. He severed a clump of yellow flowers, added them carelessly to his green bundle, and walked on.

He had no idea how much time had passed, and did not really care, even as he felt the backs of his hands and the back of his neck turning red, and began to feel as though his feet were swelling, becoming heavier and heavier as he pushed them along. His shoulders ached, despite his burden being relatively light.

His knees, at last, wobbled, and he was just considering taking a break when he saw a flash of something blue. Curious, he squinted, regretted it as it sent sweat running down between his eyebrows, took another swig of water, and pushed on a little further, only to find himself staring at a bush pushing out of a section of whitish rock and sand, covered in the most striking dark blue flowers.

Absurdly, he smiled at the sight of it, delighted by its brazen inappropriateness. Indigo, that. He walked around it, admiring it from angles, trying to remember if it had any conceivable usages before deciding it didn't matter. Instead, he sat down, removed the herbs he had collected from his robe, and thought for a moment before waving his wand.

"Accio sticks," he said.

He narrowly avoided getting clocked by one as two branches flew at him, but after he finished ducking and swearing, he found the sticks - from who knew what source - were just what he wanted. He used a Severing Charm to slice each in two, then Engorgement charms to make them long and broad enough to form crude short poles, which he used his wand further to place in a fairly small square. Then he spread his robes out on top of them and crawled under the shelter to rest and think about how much he wished he had his camera right now.

16 Nathaniel I'm the slave of duty. 1412 Nathaniel 0 5

Katerina

October 17, 2019 4:53 PM

Still, necessity is the mama of invention. by Katerina

Katya had to admit that Sophia's ideas, what she understood of them, were more immediately practical than building a fire. Now that she had laid claim to the idea, though, she hoped that would hold until it was time to build a fire, so there would be one thing Katya could do to ensure she got her checkmark for appropriate participation.

Unfortunately, the other thing about Sophia's (ah, how nice to have someone who had a name that was totally normal in Katya's ears!) ideas was that they did not sound very much fun at all. Katya did not really want to move in this heat, never mind go search for something. However, reason said that it must be done. They had nothing here to work with, and if they didn't find a way to get things about them, then they would get a bad report from the teachers.

"I will help you," she agreed. "Do we think summon charm would work? Or do we must know what is here before we can put summon charm on it?" She grimaced, hating her mangled English sometimes. She thought she had made the point in a way that could be understood, but the Americans might have to stop and think for a moment, and this was not something Americans were known, as a culture, for doing. "My thought is, the teachers, they know all of what is out here," she tried to clarify a bit.

16 Katerina Still, necessity is the mama of invention. 1418 Katerina 0 5

Cleo James

October 18, 2019 8:20 AM

Surviving by Cleo James

CW: sexual assault (referenced briefly)/depression

They had to survive. Fine. Funny, even. Because surviving was exactly what Cleo felt like she had been doing since the incident with Anna’s brother. Little else. It was an effort to feel physically present in the world, even as its weight seemed to drag down at her. She periodically put food into her mouth without tasting it because that was required. She tried to show up and walk and talk when people looked and expected it, in the hopes that they would pass her as still here, still alive, and move on.

She did not have the energy for this. For a group. For people. For whatever was about to happen, and had seriously considered trying to claim illness. Except it was hard to have anything serious enough that the medic couldn’t just fix her up and send her back out. Apart from what she had, of course, but she wasn’t able to label her feelings as an illness, or think about asking for help in fixing them. They were just… there. A thing that was happening to her. And it was hard to try coming up with an excuse because it was hard to do anything. It was sort of easier to be carried along on the inevitable wave of inertia, where she just put one foot in front of the other for as long a period as possible, and where today that had led to her being here. Here with all of them. Here with Lyssa.

On the plus side, her team was all girls, so she didn’t have to feel threatened by their presence, uncomfortable if any of them got too close to her. On the other, she really didn’t want to see anyone who knew her well enough to think they ought to get into whether or not she was okay. She knew everyone knew she wasn’t. That wasn’t really news. In spite of trying to keep it out of earshot, everyone knew she had broken up with Isaac. Maybe it was because he looked miserable, and she looked worse. They must be assuming he had somehow done this to her. It was yet another reason why she was a terrible person – or would have been, had she been a person. Terrible at being a person. She hoped that not enough days had gone by yet for Parker to form a pattern from her behaviour and call it avoidance. He had said it last year, the way to hurt him was by disappearing. She had slapped on, if not a happy face, then a neutral one, scraping her way through a breakfast with him, not answering his questions about what had happened with Isaac. She sort of knew it wasn’t a good enough show, but would he have had time to call it a pattern yet, or complain to his sister about it?

Cleo joined. She did not take note of Anya, and whether she was running off into the desert. She did not come up with a plan. Let it all be Gwen’s problem. Gwen was team leader. Or heck, let Lyssa or Anya call the shots. She honestly didn’t care. She was too busy just… surviving.

13 Cleo James Surviving 389 Cleo James 0 5

Anya Delachene

October 18, 2019 10:00 AM

Oh! Me! Let's do this! by Anya Delachene

Anya was totally ready for this next challenge. The first one was totally fun and she expected nothing less from a survival one as well. She was on top of this. She had totally lived in a desert every day of her life (or at least the ones she remembered), so this was going to be easy. Okay, yes, she had a house there, too, with all the normal modern conveniences of a half-and-half family (or at least a two magical parent household with one of the parents being a muggleborn who still liked muggle things like television and dishwashers) and she hadn't ever really needed to sleep anywhere but her own comfy bed and Mom or Dad did all the cooking and food acquisition and . . . okay, so maybe Anya wasn't completely ready for roughing it in a survival challenge, but she was willing to give it her all anyway.

Now they were here in the Mirage Chamber. They got a desert for their environment, which was pretty cool, but it wasn't exactly like the desert she knew at the ranch. There was more sand. Less rock. More plants. Fewer horses.

Still, she could do this. She looked around, surveying the area. "Desert plants have water," she said, having learned this in Science at home. "Eating those is how a lot of desert animals get all the water they need. We're not desert animals, though, so we're probably going to need real water, too. Have a natural supply will help with cooking and washing too, not just hydration. And we'll need a good place to build a shelter. I'll scout!" she volunteered herself and ran off toward a high dune to get a higher perspective, without waiting for any of the older girls or her classmates to approve the self-appointment.

She scrambled up, her feet slipping on the loose sand more than they did on the solid rock of home, but the incline wasn't as steep, so she just dropped to use her hands as additional grips and that got her up to the top. She stood again, looking around and shading her eyes, noting the important landscape features and where the plants seemed most numerous. There was a snaking line of lusher greenery which told her there was likely a stream over that way. Following its path, she located a spot with a thicker copse of taller vegetation, either small trees or large bushes. She thought they could maybe make that into a den of some sort.

She scrambled back down the dune to her group. "Come!" she declared, running past them with only a slight pause to inform them of her findings. "This way, I found us a good spot to set up base! We've got running water and enough plants we can use to use as a foundation to fashion us a shelter. Follow me!" She took a turn to set off in the right direction and scampered on, only checking over her shoulder occasionally to make sure the other were keeping up and not getting lost.

Once they all reached the spot, she spread her hands. She'd been right. There was running water. It was a small stream, but it would be easier to wash in than constantly conjuring water into makeshift containers. "Whaddu think? Can we make this work?" The trees weren't quite as thick as she'd thought they were from back on the dune, but she thought some kind of hut could still be managed. "We can take off our robes and maybe transfigure them into canvas or something and hang them between the trees to make walls and a roof?" she suggested.

1 Anya Delachene Oh! Me! Let's do this! 1453 Anya Delachene 0 5

Ellie Alperton

October 18, 2019 11:00 AM

Cowgirl at the ready! by Ellie Alperton

Christmas had been, if Ellie was honest, kind of a little scary. Her parents still hadn’t moved house, and she wasn’t sure how firmly that was on the cards right now. Her brother, Seth, was doing pretty well in his elementary school. Doing well in school wasn’t something that always came that easy to him. He’d never had Ellie’s love of reading, mostly because reading was something he just didn’t find that easy. She remembered trying to help, because to her, books were everything, and she felt so sad for Seth, living in a world that was closed off from stories and escapism. She had done some good, she liked to feel. She had patiently helped him sound out letters, and pointed out what things began with when they played together, and he didn’t seem to mind it so much when it was a game, not a lesson. Over the years, she had realised other things too though… Reading wasn’t his escape, like it was hers; it was his prison. It was the thing where he felt trapped and pressured, forced into a little box he didn’t belong in. His escape was soccer, and now he could read enough to get by, trying to force books on him wasn’t something that helped. Whether Seth was having a good or a bad year at school sort of depended on his teacher, and whether they liked lots of reading and writing, or whether they let people learn in different ways. Right now, he had a really good teacher. Ellie liked to call her Miss Honey, like the teacher in Mathilda, because she was kind and patient, and that was good for Seth. Ellie could see it wasn’t good for him if he had to change schools, and so it really wasn’t fair if her family upped sticks and moved just for the few weeks of holiday that she was going to be home for each year. It would have to wait. She wasn’t sure how long. There was one more year before Seth would be old enough to join her at Sonora. She couldn’t wait for that! Sure, there were a lot of long words here, and she was worried that would put him off, but she was sure that when he realised he got to play with animals and fly a broom instead of sit in English class, he’d be on board. The curriculum here was so much more practical oriented. She just wasn’t sure what would happen in between… If Seth got a bad teacher next year, would her parents chance it and move, because then it might benefit both kids? Except, she couldn’t wish for that because that would make her a horrible big sister. So, she supposed, she just had to suck it up and keep going back to her old hometown for the time being.

It hadn’t been the worst. She could say that much. That was because, honestly, the worst was being treated like a boy, and there was a line drawn there. It felt scary not to pretend and to be honest about who she was, but it felt way scarier to think about going back to how things had been. She supposed the fear was of something in between – of people refusing to accept the new version, of insisting on her old pronouns and her deadname. They couldn’t force her back into the box she’d occupied, but they could pretend like she was still there, and be angry that she refused to agree. It hadn’t happened, but that was down in part to how little she’d seen of people. She had refused to go on any family errand that wasn’t strictly necessary, and it was weird how much she missed normal, stupid things – things she would have thought were a chore before – like going to the grocery store. It was always fun at Christmas, as the candy took over and spread out through all the aisles, and there were toys she’d put on her letter to Santa to look at and dream about. It might only be the grocery store, but it helped with the Christmas magic. Still, there hadn’t been much of that. They’d gone to stay with various relatives, shuttling between her grandparents and her various aunts and uncles. She guessed that was normal Christmas behaviour, though she thought they might have done slightly more visiting than being visited, compared to usual.

Now they were back at school, and Ellie was really excited and sort of nervous for the first challenge, though not for any of the reasons that one might expect. As usual, she had spent most of her Christmas money on clothes, and agonised for absolutely forever over the decisions. It had been basically near impossible to find one of the items she’d wanted, which had been really frustrating. She had set her heart on a pink plaid shirt and a cowgirl hat. Jasmine was just about the coolest person Ellie had ever met, and as they were on a team together, Ellie thought she could maybe get away with… well, shamelessly copying Jasmine without it coming off as too cringey. Maybe. She hoped. Jasmine had looked so well kitted out for the first challenge, and even if Ellie could still not bring herself to own pants of any kind, she thought that having a plaid shirt and a cowgirl hat would help her rock any future challenges. The shirt had only been semi-difficult to procure (all shopping was difficult – that was just a fact of finding making decisions difficult and actively having to stave off feelings of dread when approaching a changing room or confronting the bare flesh of your own body or yourself in a full length mirror – luckily plaid shirts could actually be tried on over a t-shirt on the shop floor, thus avoiding everything except the first issue). It was made of a medium weight cotton, in shocking shades of fuchsia criss-crossed with tans, blacks and lighter pinks, and had little ruffles across the chest pockets. As a not particularly genuine cowgirl, Ellie had not felt she had a particular claim to an actual cowgirl hat, much less any clue where to buy such a thing. In her mind, she had pictured getting a straw one that had a kind of cowgirl style/shape but didn’t look like she was exactly trying to be one. More inspired by. However, it being winter, sunhats weren’t exactly on sale. She had tried on a few in costume stores but they looked way too costumey. Luckily, ebay had come to the rescue, and the pink straw hat with its curved edges and rhinestoned ribbon had arrived just before she’d had to board the wagon back to school.
She met Jasmine (and the rest of her team) wearing her plaid shirt, hat, and a look that absolutely craved approval. The super vague challenge notice had said be prepared for the outdoors, which gave her the perfect excuse to wear the hat that she absolutely would have worn anyway. They had been told to only bring their wands, but Ellie figured that dressing for what they’d been told was just sensible, not rule-breaking. Wearing a hat was just like showing up in sneakers instead of heels, even if her hat wasn’t really suitable for the current climate. And if they disagreed, then… well, she would take it off and probably go a shade resembling a tomato because she hated the idea of being told off, but she would, in her head, very strongly disagree with that decision. It was hard to know what constituted ‘appropriate clothing’ for the outdoors when they didn’t know what kind of outdoors. It being cold even though they were technically in the middle of the desert had reminded her that magical people could create whatever kind of ‘natural’ environment they wanted (although unless the school was throwing them all out of the gardens and into the desert, the term ought to arguably be taken with a pinch of salt) Ellie had guessed the labyrinth, and so was dressed for the Sonora winter. Compared to Southern California, that was very, very cold, given the weird weather charms. Ideally, she would have had a woolly hat to go with her gloves, coat and scarf (currently held over her arm cos they were meeting inside, and she wanted Jasmine to see her plaid shirt) but she had wanted to wear her cowgirl one, and had told herself something about team unity in order to rationalise how very impractical she knew her decision was.

As they lined up for the challenge, it appeared they were not going outside after all, and indeed she was told to leave behind the clothes that weren’t already on her body. As they stepped into the artificial desert, she was pretty grateful not to be lugging a coat. Although the irony did not escape her of being told they were facing a natural environment when, in fact, they were apparently in a mirage of a natural environment whilst contained in an artificial weather bubble, outside of which the actual real version of this illusion existed. She didn’t comment on this though, merely waiting for her instructions from the older girls.

13 Ellie Alperton Cowgirl at the ready! 1456 Ellie Alperton 0 5

Winston Pierce

October 18, 2019 11:10 AM

We all will by Winston Pierce

Winston was winning life, having secured a betrothal to Emerald Brockert, but winning the challenges would be nice, too, if not as important to the entirety of his future. As such, he had done some research on how to survive in extreme conditions once the basic outline of the challenge had been revealed. They'd also need to work on those bonus points. He'd ignored them too much in the last challenge, intent on finishing quickly, but they had apparently made a significant enough difference that despite a very good time, his team had only ended up ranking sixth.

It was not a mistake he intended to repeat today.

He planned to use every subject he could think of a way to use to pull in those points and fly past That Teppenpaw on the scoreboard. Unfortunately, they were only allowed to bring their wands, so his checklist of what he wanted to do for each subject had to be left on his desk in Crotalus. Hopefully, he'd remember most of it.

As they began, Topaz seemed equally set on doing this quickly and efficiently. "Good," he approved. "Charms for fire and water. Once we get the shelter set up, we can make a tub to keep a water reserve in. First, let's find a place to set up. Underground might be best, as that will protect us from extreme temperatures." He had learned yesterday that this was true for both hot deserts and cold tundra, since apparently caves stayed a pretty constant temperature all the time, though getting past the permafrost would have been a little harder. "For digging, we can use use either displacement charms or wingardium leviosa to help move the sand until we have a nice burrow. Once we have a good enough hole, we can shore up the sides by transfiguring the walls to rock so we don't risk a cave in." That should be a creative use of both charms and transfiguration, he thought, and it didn't involve any of them needing to dig with a shovel.

"If anybody doesn't want to help dig, you can go out and look, using herbology to find anything we might want to have for brewing potions or eating." That gave the younger kids two options that shouldn't be too hard, though he suspected the leviosa charms would stop being very helpful after they got down past the top layer of loose sand, and from there it would be on the older kids who could cast displacement charms to do the burrowing. "Look for dittany, especially, that'll help if we get hurt or sick, so get that if you can find it, and maybe prickly pear. That's supposed to be edible."

1 Winston Pierce We all will 370 Winston Pierce 0 5

Freddie Zauberhexen

October 18, 2019 5:57 PM

Nobody told me Sonora was this cool. by Freddie Zauberhexen

Freddie grinned at his surroundings, satisfied with the work his team had done so far. They'd spent less than half their time and already accomplished a number of things, although Freddie wasn't entirely sure what they all were. He was just happy that there was movement - the hustling and bustling of busy people - and progress - the smells, sounds, and sights, all promised that. Freddie had relegated himself to the task of finding food, as he was confident in his ability to either hunt or gather. He had already had some success and brought back his prizes to the location his team had chosen to set up in, but it was his main task so he thought he may as well continue working on that. In any case, he hadn't yet managed an animal and that was his goal.

With another armful of edible plants that he'd found in his forays, as well as pockets full of herbs and other ingredients he'd been asked to collect or thought might be helpful for some potion or another, Freddie made his way back to "camp" to put everything down before trying another section for meat. He was well aware that teams got bonus points for special uses of magic and now that he knew the severing charm pretty well, he was confident he could use it to clean and prepare an animal the way he'd seen his parents done so many times before. Of course . . . their magic was a bit different than what he was learning here. Whatever.

"Have you seened animals?" he asked his nearest teammates, noting that most or all of them were present. "No time for . . . ah . . . no time for make catches. I can do my own catches though," he added, making a grabbing motion with his hands. He was well-equipped to track animals, a fact which must have been clear to his team at this point, but tracking lizards through the desert was a bit harder than tracking squirrels or deer through the forest, and time was not on his side.

22 Freddie Zauberhexen Nobody told me Sonora was this cool. 1452 Freddie Zauberhexen 0 5

Jezebel Reed-Fischer

October 18, 2019 6:07 PM

Hey, I know what cellphones are! by Jezebel Reed-Fischer

Jezebel could not have been happier to be on Zara's team for a whole slew of reasons. At the same time, she couldn't have been happier to be on basically anyone's team. She was getting better at this whole magic thing, but she really wasn't confident enough in it to survive. Her first thoughts went along the same lines as Zara's and she hoped she didn't sound like a fool when she chimed in as well.

"Water sounds amazing," she agreed with Ivy first. "My first thought was what they do in movies and stuff with mirrors. If we could make something really shiny - I think I can transfigure something maybe but I might need help - then we could get the attention of a plane or . . ." She looked up towards the sky and realized that she wasn't sure if magicians and stuff needed planes. "Or if there was anyone else out here. That might not be so important. . . "

She regretted speaking up, although she was sure that it would've been a fine answer back home. Of course, there were no deserts back home. Not like this.

"I know how to build a fire," she murmured a little more quietly. "Do they have to be built the same way if you're going to light them with magic?" Hopefully that would clear up any doubts about whether she was actually thinking like a magician.

22 Jezebel Reed-Fischer Hey, I know what cellphones are! 1454 Jezebel Reed-Fischer 0 5

Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

October 18, 2019 6:15 PM

Ich verstehe just fine danke. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

Johana Leonie cocked her head, not sure whether Simon was trying to be helpful or not. She didn't think she needed help but if he was trying to be helpful, she still wanted to be nice about it. "Ja, little house for all of us. Just one? I can make."

She had a hard time saying the word "levitate" but she did know what it meant pretty well. She'd been working very hard to learn English and understood it when other people used it most of the time. Plus, the spell was literally called a Levitation Charm. That helped. "Ah, yes. I do a magic. Little house will be wood," she said as firmly as possible, trying to express that she knew how to build a very good little wooden structure. She wasn't sure why on earth anyone would want a stone one for just a temporary place to be, and stone would be much harder to find out here.

Wood was in cacti she was pretty sure, and there was bound to be some sort of small oasis or something near enough for them to take advantage; any empty desert wouldn't be a very fair challenge. "Big wood on ground," she added, making a pushing gesture with her hands to indicate when trees fall over. "Or the charm . . . the one that does a cut. Wood is not sehr hard to get."

22 Johana Leonie Zauberhexen Ich verstehe just fine danke. 1432 Johana Leonie Zauberhexen 0 5

Sylvia Mordue

October 19, 2019 6:55 AM

Why is any of this necessary though? by Sylvia Mordue

It had been weeks. Sylvia had never, never gone that long without spending time with Nathaniel. Not even when they’d had dragon pox, seeing as they’d passed it from one to the other and been ill at more or less the same time. She didn’t know what to do. She had always thought that descriptions in books seemed melodramatic, when people talked about it being like they’d lost a part of themselves, but it was true. She and Nate had grown up, separate little seedling but twisting and twining together their whole lives. When you ripped one of those up by the roots, how could the other one survive?

She kept telling herself that it wasn’t over yet. They had killed off Aunt Cynthia but they hadn’t mentioned Nate. That meant there was still time. Father had warned her that she ought to distance herself from him. Sylvia had no idea how to react. She didn’t particularly want to speak to Nate. He had rejected her. He had betrayed her. Sylvia couldn’t fathom how both the people she had always loved and trusted the most could both have let her down so badly. Father couldn’t make Nate change his mind, and he shouldn’t have had to, because why had Nate not chosen her in the first place? But equally, any suggestion that he was lost to them was met with fierce rebellion and denial on her part.

Unfortunately, she had no idea what to do. She had cried. She had refused her food. And it wasn’t even pretend, she genuinely didn’t feel like eating. She had been utterly distraught and no one had been able to fix it. By the end of the holidays, she looked like she’d been ill with the flu, or something similar. Her cheeks looked a little sunken and her hair was losing its shine. At first, she considered trying to make it up with make-up but she found she had little motivation. In fact, when she considered it, why shouldn’t she look every bit as dreadful as she felt? Father had said that the obituary for Aunt Cynthia was a passbale reason for her not being herself if anyone asked. She would haunt Nate. She would make him sorry he had hurt her, and he needed to know it and to suffer the guilt of what he had done. He should have chosen her.

Rather than covering up the changes to her face, she had contoured to emphasise them. It had a double benefit of improving her complexion so that to untrained eyes she looked less pallid and sickly - she really didn’t want to be unpleasant to look at, after all - but to Nate, it would show. Nate who knew her face almost as well as his own. Nate who had been her shadow, her reflection. Who had been by her side since she was born. Nate who had abandoned her. He would look on her face and know how she was altered and what he had done. She was not sure if this punishment was working. He looked worse than she did. Her vanity wanted to say she was doing it to him, that it proved he did care, but it just made everything worse. Nate was suffering, clearly, but he wasn’t relenting, and she was also being given no opportunity to help him. There was a danger that people were going to start feeling more sorry for him if he continued to look so awful.

She was vastly unimpressed by the second challenge, which was going to involve scrubbing about in the desert for several hours. She rather wanted to snap at Katerina that a fire was the last blasted thing they needed right now until she pointed out a perfectly logical reason for having one. She was quite confident she could do any of the things required. Building a den was quite literally child’s play (something she had done many a time, she recalled with a painful stab, with Nate until they’d had their treehouse - and something they had from time to time done when it needed fortifying, or when weather made it wiser to stay inside). Making potions etc, that was all a reasonable part of being a competent witch. However, Sylvia expected to do any of her brewing in a classroom or, later in life, on a fine marble topped counter in her nice country house. She did not need to scrub about in a desert, foraging for ingredients and cooking over an open fire. Almost all types of magic were required of proper young ladies, but the circumstances under which they were executed made the biggest of differences.

“If I understand you correctly,” she replied to Katerina, “we must have the ideas clearly in our mind before we try to summon things.” She did not particularly care to contribute to a nuanced definition of what this meant, and what the limitations of a summoning charm were. She was concerned for her standing with the other girls, and was more interested in how much Katerina would still quell and be biddable to this diminished version of herself. Katerina had always seemed slightly less domineering, less like she was fighting for a place to be top dog and more like she was waiting to be told that the rest of them liked and accepted her. Over the years, Sylvia had delivered a careful blend of sweetness and friendship with clear backhanded compliments and implications that Katerina should never take her position as someone liked for granted. This had partly been intentional and calculated, in as much as she could see that the tactic was likely to work, although its origin was organic in her assumption that Katerina, as an outsider, should be grateful, and should have her fate hinge on whether the rest of them deemed her acceptable or not.

“I don’t think it’s wise to split up,” she added, she was sure there was an inherent logic to that statement, so much so that she didn’t need to explain it, even if she was mostly concerned about giving them a chance to pair off and gossip about her.

“The heat is unpleasant though. And the sooner somebody does something about it the better.” A few fans and hats, she thought, would not go amiss, and she hoped Victor would conjure them up something useful along those lines, or even provide a decent-ish shelter because she was certainly not going to go trekking off and hauling bits of this and that into something house-shaped.

13 Sylvia Mordue Why is any of this necessary though? 1413 Sylvia Mordue 0 5

Katerina

October 19, 2019 5:18 PM

shrugs by Katerina

"Yes," said Katya, relieved, when Sylvia accurately summarized what she was trying to say. "I have never used this without knowing exactly what I aim for."

Sylvia did have another valid point, talking about the heat, but Katya was less sure how to respond to that one. She could probably transfigure a leaf into a simple fan - probably; they had learned a little about adapting spells to situations already in classes, but Katya was still unsure enough about the concept that she was also unsure how far past the exact things she had memorized she could go - but should she do so? That remark had not been addressed to her, after all, and if she tried and succeeded anyway....

It was a bit unfair to Sylvia to assume that the other girl would expect Katya to fan her, but Sylvia did seem to see other girls as less than herself. She seemed to see herself as a grand princess and them as ladies-in-waiting. Katya was content enough as a rule to go along with that - Sylvia seemed to be a person of importance among Americans, or at least expert at convincing other people to believe it, and Katerina was an outsider - but there were limits. She was a Vorontsov, for goodness' sake. There were very few women in the world she would defer so far to. An American girl was not one of them.

"This would be very good," she agreed. "Is there the Advanced spell, to make clouds?"

16 Katerina *shrugs* 1418 Katerina 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

October 19, 2019 11:50 PM

I'm fine by Jeremy Mordue

Jeremy was ~~scared- confused~~ - FINE. Jeremy was fine. That was the message he had been given. He had to be fine. His… his family had said so. He wasn’t really sure what labels he was supposed to be giving people any more. Was Uncle Alexander still his uncle, now that he was living with him as if he were a parent? According to the papers, his mother was dead, so he supposed it might make sense that he had been adopted but wasn’t actually their son but… It was complicated, to say the least. And Nathaniel wasn’t there to- well, that didn’t matter. He’d never liked Nathaniel telling him what to do anyway. But Nathaniel wasn’t dead, so maybe, just maybe, he was going to reappear at some point and… Well, Nathaniel would just interfere, and decide how things should be and how everyone ought to behave, especially Jeremy. For once, he thought, he might not actually mind that…

One thing had been made clear to him, which was that he needed to not piss off Winston. That had been the case since he made it onto his team, but apparently the degree to which Winston was willing to treat them as good company was a strong indicator of how their fortunes were going to go, and - after Simon - Jeremy was the one best placed to observe and influence this. (He had not been made privy to the pervasive opinion of his family that this meant they were all doomed).

So. Challenge time, and he supposed that he had to show up and be the same person he always had been. He thought… Or he was allowed to be upset because his mother was “dead” only she wasn’t really, and it was better if he wasn’t upset? Anyway, he wasn’t. He didn’t care - she had let them all down and, well, he cared about that but that made him more angry than sad about her fake death. Anyway, challenges. They were in sixth, which wasn’t great, but was better than Sylvia and Simon. It was, weirdly, worse than Nathaniel and his team of misfits. Jeremy was rather annoyed about their poor placing. He was pretty sure Topaz was going to try and blame him somehow, because she had seemed to disagree with the way they’d wanted to do the last challenge (the way Winston had wanted to, actually but he bet she was going to try and make it his fault). As their strategy had been speed over bonus points, and many of the teams in top position had reaped plenty of the latter, it was arguable that she had a point. However, misogyny and ego were a powerful enough combination that Jeremy was quite sure she couldn’t be right, and that he and Winston had basically done an excellent job by being such good fliers, and their speed had been brilliant, and would have been enough if the teachers didn’t insist on playing favourites.

Now they were out in a desert. And Winston was suggesting digging? Winston wanted them to dig and burrow into the ground? That sounded dirty, and sweaty, akin to the work that common gardeners did. But it was Winston suggesting it. A more paranoid mind (Nathaniel’s) might have wondered whether this was a trap to lure him into ungentlemanly behaviour in order to point and laugh. Jeremy was blessed in some ways in just not being that complex.

“Great idea,” he smiled at Winston. He had been told to make sure Winston liked them, and even if it was painful to suck up and say he wanted to dig a hole in the dirt, it wasn’t like it was hard to do.
“I’ll help dig,” he volunteered. Jeremy did not stop to consider the politics of sticking by Winston vs working solo. In fact, had he done so, he probably would have reached the opposite conclusion to most of his family - yes, sticking about and making a good impression, or checking you weren’t being talked about was generally good (and thus Jeremy might have concluded it meant it was good for him too) but in his case, the most diplomatic thing was probably to remove himself from someone else’s presence so he didn’t risk making an idiot of himself. That, however, would still have been firmly on the cards. Jeremy wasn’t the best at Herbology. He hadn’t really factored in what he would be good at in his decision though. He was more concerned with what he wanted to do. He couldn’t say that digging was up there, but wandering around looking for flowers was lame, and digging was at least manly. And he’d be on a team with Winston.

13 Jeremy Mordue I'm fine 1443 Jeremy Mordue 0 5

Dorian

October 20, 2019 9:51 AM

I hope we can all do at least one by Dorian

Ah. Yes. Heinrich was from Utah. Dorian had known that, but he hadn't thought about it when offering shade. Still, just because Heinrich was used to the desert did not mean he was invulnerable to it. Dorian suspected that one of the things Heinrich had learnt very early upon moving to Utah was to not go outside without taking precautions. He had also taken up Dorian's offer of shade, so presumably this had not been patronising or unwelcome. Heinrich's experience, however, probably meant they should defer to him, unless Isaac was a desert expert (which he had not claimed to be).

"This is probably more similar to yours," he acknowledged, with a small nod. He wasn't sure whether it was the lack of familiar vegetation (or indeed, lack of vegetation in general) or whether the air itself was a different kind of hot... There were things he thought he still knew though. He expected that white still reflected this kind of heat, and that stone helped keep cold in, and that colour changing some rocks to white, placing cooling charms on them and then lying across them like some kind of reverse lizard that wanted to cool itself sounded really appealing right now... But first they had to make hats, in order to be equipped for trekking off to find somewhere suitable. There was... almost nothing available. The only thing that sprung to mind was their own clothes, and those were at least in the same broad category of thing as hats. Except it wasn't like they really had spare. Normally, he would have had a handkerchief in his pocket, and once again he felt somewhat robbed by the rules he had diligently followed, and which had led to his person being devoid of all manner of things that he absolutely would have had in any situation. He literally just had the clothes he was wearing though, and he was definitely not removing his shirt - for one, there would then be the problem that his back was exposed instead of his head (he was pretty sure he should ignore the instinctive voice in his head telling him to roll up his sleeves right now, because keeping his skin covered was definitely better, even if it was hotter). Bigger than the issues of sunburn and heatstroke though was the fact that it meant other people would see him without a shirt on. The thought of removing any of his clothes in front of other people made him want to die of embarrassment, even before you factored in that these particular other people played Quidditch and probably had actual muscle definition. And that one of them was a girl, and he was sure she was just as loathe to remove her shirt in front of them as he was to learn more about what girls looked like in their underwear, which was very much a thing he did not need more information on. If they found a source of water to bathe in, he really hoped he could get away with jumping into it fully clothed, or claiming that he would take some kind of guard duty whilst others bathed, and take his turn "later" because later wasn't real, and he would be safely back in the privacy of Teppenpaw by then. Of what he was wearing, he supposed socks were the most expendable. He could probably turn a sock into a makeshift hat, and could even duplicate the remaining one so that his shoes would not rub and... Even in his head, that did all sound a little ridiculous. Maybe not totally beyond reasonable, given the sheer lack of resources. He had had to choke down his fair share of boys' adventure books as a child, in between pleasanter reading, and there really were some roundabout ways of achieving things, or ludicrous solutions. Still, he thought he might just wait and see if anyone could find anything better, or if Isaac could just conjure them up a few hats, before he started suggesting putting socks on their heads.

13 Dorian I hope we can all do at least one 1401 Dorian 0 5

Zara

October 20, 2019 10:15 AM

You know lots of things by Zara

"Or whoever," Zara nodded encouragingly, when Jezebel seemed to give up on her idea just because there weren't planes to signal to. She honestly doubted a plane would reroute itself or take too much notice of that kind of signal, but other travellers more likely would, "Someone on a broom, for example," she supplied out loud, "I think it's a good idea," she encouraged the younger girl. She also seconded Jezebel's endorsement of Ivy's idea with a grateful nod.

"And yes, that will be really helpful," she added, when Jezebel mentioned building fires, "I mean, the little blue flames we use in potions aren't going to be much good - unless we are actually brewing something. For a signal fire, we'll need something big and old fashioned, and it's still going to need fuel and oxygen to survive," she explained. Zara firmly believed that two heads were better than one, even if those two different brains were contained in the same skull - using magical and non-magical knowledge together made both parts stronger, and if they came out of this challenge with her having shown Jezebel that, it would be time well spent. "And if we can get or make them, damp leaves and grassses will be good - they make the most smoke.

"Where do we want to make camp?" she asked.

13 Zara You know lots of things 1444 Zara 0 5

Ruby Brockert

October 20, 2019 6:50 PM

Girl Power! by Ruby Brockert

Ruby couldn't believe her team was doing so well so far.There was nothing about them that really said they were the sort who excelled at physical challenges. Thank Merlin that there was basically an alternative to use magic to get through, otherwise they probably would not have done so well. At least, she wouldn't have. Ruby hadn't really blamed Allegra or Sapphire for being upset once she saw those obstacles.

However, they had made it through, they were tied for second and she was proud of them. Now if only they could keep it up and maybe even overtake the first place team. Yes, a survival challenge really did not seem like something that played to their strengths but neither did the last challenge. So now, Ruby had every confidence in them to succeed.

It was sort of empowering, given that there were people out there who thought if a girl was was, well, girly, she was somehow less than and it wasn't just Uncle Eustace. Topaz had given the impression that her roommate felt that way, especially if the girl was also a pureblood and Angelique made it sound as if those from even partially Muggle backgrounds didn't value femininity at all, even though that very much did not seem to be the case with Jasmine or Ellie.

And even if girly girls weren't as good at athletics-or, more likely, as inclined towards taking them up-that did not mean they did have other talents such as art or music or even being extra good at magic. Why was one superior to the other? Everyone had their strenghs and weaknesses and there were a lot worse things than being unathletic. Such as being cruel.

Actually, come to think of it, it was sometimes worse for boys who weren't athletic. While Ruby and the other females in her family were thought to be useless by her uncle just because they were female, he also acted like it was to be expected and primarily ignored them, while she'd heard him refer to Owen as a weakling probably thousands of times. As if Owen could help being asthmatic.

However, Ruby wasn't about to put pressure on her teammates. If someone assumed that anyone could do anything, they would make those who genuinely couldn't feel worse about themselves and make them feel as if you thought they were faking it or refusing to participate. Take the wall in the last challenge. There genuinely were people who would not have the upper body strength to climb it, herself included.

The heat washed over Ruby as they entered the Mirage Chamber. Suddenly, she was worried about heat related illnesses. "I think we should find shade and water. Plus, where we find shade, we find wood to build a shelter with. Or we could make one out of sand which is obviously the most abundant thing out here. " Ruby paused "We could also use cooling charms to keep the heat off us until we find other materials."

11 Ruby Brockert Girl Power! 1405 Ruby Brockert 0 5

Beau Tate

October 20, 2019 8:53 PM

Yeah, that. by Beau Tate

Beau did not really care too much about the Challenges. If Arianna was still at Sonora and he'd been competing against her, maybe, probably, he would have cared about beating her as she always acted like she was superior to him and everyone else on the planet but as it was, he found it to be a rather annoying waste of time so as with most things, Beau was putting in the bare minimum effort.

He had no idea whether or not his teammates felt the same way. It seemed to him that Sapphire just was trying to get through it and he couldn't understand half what of Johana said. Beau didn't have a problem with foreigners given he was a white American boy who lived in Jamaica and although he and his parents and sister had dual citizenship, was often considered one himself. He even empathized with the Teppenpaw in that respect but that did not mean he spoke German or understood her accent, though he did try with regards to the latter.

They entered the Mirage Chamber and Beau slipped on his sunglasses. In all honesty, even though the Pecari was tough and strong and not even that bothered by the heat-Jamaica wasn't exactly chilly-he had misgivings about this challenge. After all, he was a rich pureblood boy who was used to comfort. And preferred it.

Simon asked them to volunteer for a task and Johana offered to build a shelter. The older boy then asked if she understood the instructions and suggested that they should use stone rather than wood. Johana countered that wood was preferable and easier to get. (Or rather, that was the gist of it even if that wasn't the exact wording.) Beau knew he was supposed to agree with Simon, but he didn't. "We can always use a spell to make it bigger on the inside, if we can't find enough wood."

" Accio branches" Beau said. Several came towards them. "There you go." He told the second year. He looked at the first year girls. "Would one of you like to build a fire?" Incendio was a beginner level spell and Sapphire, at least, had to be aware of it even if they hadn't learned it yet. Obviously, the Pecari could do it himself, but he wanted them to feel useful and contribute. Then he looked at Simon. "If we're going to have water, you have to make it. You're the only one whose learned that spell. Or we'll have to go find it but that would be easier." Beau wanted to move as little as possible.

OOC- While the Sonora spell level list has Incendio as a "late intermediate" spell, the Harry Potter wiki lists it as a first year level spell. Also Sapphire is written by me so if Beau moves her or vice versa, it's not god modding.

11 Beau Tate Yeah, that. 1416 Beau Tate 0 5

Jasmine

October 20, 2019 10:32 PM

All of the above! by Jasmine

Jasmine was a little bit concerned about the next challenge. A survival challenge did not sound appealing or something her group would be good at, but then, neither really had an obstacle course, and they were tied for second after the last challenge, so who knew? She was wearing her cowgirl clothes again for good luck and she smiled when she saw Ellie had done likewise, if not quite so authentically. She'd been sure to compliment the outfit anyway, because she felt kind of flattered that Ellie had chosen her challenge style to mimic.

After getting dropped off to a desert in the Mirage Chamber - one with more sand than the one she was used to. Her desert had dust, especially when galloping on muggle horses, but not sand, and while dust got you dirty and could make it harder to breathe . . . sand just got everywhere, if her experiences on the beach were anything to go by. Maybe not being attired in swimwear would help.

Ruby made good points, and Jasmine agreed with them. "I absolute agree. Cooling charms first." She helped the youngest members with those before putting one on herself. That helped immensely. Her cowgirl hat and Ellie's provided protection from the sun, but did nothing for keeping their heads cool. With the charms on, though, they were in good shape. The rest of the team would need shade soon, though.

So Ruby's suggestions of water, shade and shelter were on the top of the list to address next. "We're also going to need food, so as we look for our shady area, preferably with water nearby, we should keep an eye out for plants we can cook and use for potions. And we can maybe use stunning spells to take out a rabbit or snake or something, if anyone thinks they know how to cook that?" a doubtful note crept into her voice for the last part, as she herself had no idea what the intermediary steps between dead animal and meat ready for cooking were, nor did she think many people in this day and age did. Meat came from the grocery store, prepackaged and no longer looking anything like the animal it had once been. Or it was made out of soy or something and never had been an animal at all, but was just pretending.

"I'm totally willing to go vegan for the purposes of this challenge though," she added quickly, because she wasn't entirely convinced she actually wanted to be involved in that particular process. Frankly, it sounded kind of gross. Potion ingredient preparation was bad enough, and those didn't bleed.

"Anyway," she continued, pointing down the sand dune they were currently standing on. "Water collects in low areas, so let's see if we can find any if we keep trying to go downhill."

1 Jasmine All of the above! 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Caitlin Pierce

October 20, 2019 10:33 PM

Cool is the last word I'd use to describe this by Caitlin Pierce

The second Challenge had not been any more to Caitlin's liking than the first one had been. It was hot and dirty out here. Honestly, it was like the staff wanted to put proper young ladies at a disadvantage. The first challenge had favored the athletic-at least in theory-which were likely to be the boys and the muggleborns and the more unladylike girls, most of which would surely be whining if anything favored girls like Caitlin. Fair enough that boys did not want to do feminine things like embroidery but the other two groups clearly thought their pursuits were more worthwhile and important than those of young pureblood girls.

The thing was though, even though Caitlin understood where the boys were coming from not wanting to do feminine things because she didn't want to do decidedly masculine ones, she and other proper pureblood ladies still had to bloody do them! And it wasn't just one challenge, it was two now! She felt as though most of the staff was having a good laugh at her and others like her and that, coupled with the heat, made the Crotalus rather angry. People like her were not supposed to be object of mockery. It was just plain sadistic.

Honestly, if it were up to her-well, if it were up to her, they might not have had the Challenges in the first place, given what a pain they'd been so far-the Challenges would have been strictly magically based, with zero pandering to athletes. Of course, that would have given purebloods bit of an advantage but magic was what they were there to learn and people who weren't as good needed to suck it up and get better at it.

It only barely helped that they were doing fairly well so far. It didn't make Caitlin any less uncomfortable.

Of course, Freddie seemed to think this was all tremendous fun and it irked the fourth year greatly. He had a warped idea of what was enjoyable. Honestly, they should have summoned edible plants to them but if he wanted to risk his general well being, that was his problem. Then again, if he passed out in the heat, it would affect their score. Caitlin almost didn't care though. Fortunately, Emerald had made sure he had water first.

"No." Caitlin responded, doing her best not to scream. Part of the reason they'd build a fire was to keep away dangerous animals. "What did you find to eat? Did you find anything to help with wound care?" Even if they didn't get injured, surely they'd get extra points for it.

OOC-Emerald is mine as well

11 Caitlin Pierce Cool is the last word I'd use to describe this 1415 Caitlin Pierce 0 5

Heinrich

October 20, 2019 11:11 PM

Let us go with surviving if we can only have one by Heinrich

Right conjuring was a thing. As a fourth year, it wasn't a thing Heinrich could do yet, but it was an option if Isaac could do it. In the meantime, he could do the umbrella shade thing with his wand. It was unfamiliar to him - in Utah, they just wore hats, and he didn't recall having it in Charms yet - but he thought he could remember the incantation and motion Dorian had used. The first try didn't work, but the second - after getting some feedback from the older students - worked, well, like a charm. After that, he moved a bit away so he wasn't crowded in quite so tightly with the others trying to share the same small bit of shade. Of course, now they had two wands otherwise occupied, but he guessed the umbrella could be dropped easily enough if they needed to use it for a higher need.

"Snakes live in the desert," he informed the others as he began walking, both in search of a place to set up their shelter and for materials to transfigure hats. Standing in one place talking would do them no good and he trusted them to follow him instead of letting him wander off into the desert talking to himself. "Snakes have much uses, for potions, for stew. Mein uncle raises snakes for these purpose. I help during summer. I can find snakes. I can immobilize snakes using hex. I can harvest ingredients, and we have food for to cook." The same hex would work for catching other animals as well, probably, at least for the purpose of getting food, but he was less practiced in finding them, so that would happen more by luck than intent.

"We get food from store, not desert, so what plants be safe to eating, I know not. Some is not safe, I know."

1 Heinrich Let us go with surviving if we can only have one 1414 Heinrich 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding-Hawthorne

October 21, 2019 2:42 PM

Closed for points. (nm) by Professor Mary Brooding-Hawthorne

22 Professor Mary Brooding-Hawthorne ***Closed for points.*** (nm) 1424 Professor Mary Brooding-Hawthorne 0 5