Headmaster Regal

July 26, 2011 6:42 PM
David Regal was excited about this particular activity. He had always fancied himself as a great jouster, he was certain he had been a knight in a past life. With great excitement, he prepared the broom jousting tournament for his students. The Headmaster had looked into the school’s rules to make sure that what he wanted to do was actually legal, he didn’t want a horde of parents’ sending him howlers, or the Board breathing down his neck for organizing fun activities for the kids. After he was completely certain that everything was legal, he started researching about what jousting entailed. It was a rather easy sport to master, and quite entertaining to be a part of. He wished he could participate. It was going to be fun! He hoped the students liked the activity.

Once again, the Quidditch Pitch had been transformed for the festivities. It amused David the multi-uses of the pitch. The bleachers stayed the same, but the goal hoops were gone. A big horizontal post cut through the middle of the pitch dividing it in two equal parts, and two other ones were on top. Each post had distance between them. Each one was for each group. The ground had been charmed to be soft, if any of the students were unfortunate enough to be dismounted of their brooms. The students’ safety was a priority for the Headmaster. The lances that would be used were also charmed to cause no injuries. If you were it by one, it would be like being hit by a pole with something really fluffy covering it. Also, the lances were flexible. No major damage could be caused by them. Quidditch players were more at risk during a game. Everything would be controlled by the Headmaster; there was no way for any of the participants to suffer something terrible.

He smiled as the people of Sonora began entering the Pitch and taking their places. “Welcome to Sonora’s First Broom Jousting Tournament!” David greeted once everyone was in their place. He used a sonorous charm on himself; it would make it easier to be heard. “Glad to see everyone has come out to support one or several of our participants.”

The rules of the tournament had been sent to everyone that had signed up. They were simple: No cheating, play fair and it was a 2 out of three to win. David had deemed important to separate the participants into three groups. It would be foolish to have a sixth-year joust with a first-year. It didn’t take a genius to figure out the outcome of that match. So, the jousters were divided into Group 1 (1-2), Group 2 (3-4), and Group 3 (5-7). It evened the play field for most of them. At the end of the tournament, Sonora would have three champions, one for each category. Each of them would receive a Trophy and big bag filled with an assortment of candy.

“Let’s the tournament begin!” he exclaimed with obvious excitement. He took his seat and anxiously waited for the kids to do their thing.

OOC: Posting rules apply. No godmodding. This is just like when a Bludger is after you. You decide what happens, but be realistic! Have fun!
Subthreads:
0 Headmaster Regal Let the jousting begin! 0 Headmaster Regal 1 5


Headmaster Regal

July 27, 2011 12:51 AM
 
0 Headmaster Regal Group 2 (nm) 0 Headmaster Regal 0 5

David Wilkes

July 27, 2011 7:44 PM
It was, David thought gloomily, official. Certain relatives were right. He was nuts. They needed to lock him up in a padded cell and throw away the key, because the illusion of passable sanity he had upheld for most of thirteen years had just been shattered beyond repair.

At least, with all the Headmaster’s elaborate safety precautions, he didn’t think he had to worry too much about his sternum being subjected to the same treatment. Maybe if he’d been going up against one of the big guys, then that could have happened even using fluffy lances, but he wasn’t the shortest or scrawniest guy in the class, so he thought he should be okay only going up against other third and fourth years in their group of players. A little bruised at the end, maybe, but okay.

He hoped. It was too late to get out now, so hope was about as much as he could do for himself and his faint sense of being sick. Nerves, he guessed, because he’d been feeling that way for the past two days.

The whole set up, with groups running at the same time, seemed a little chaotic to him, but if anyone missed his likely abject humiliation, that was fine with him. He tried to be interested in the mechanics, like the handling of the lances when they weren’t mounted on horses – he had sort of picked up a few things about how this worked in the Muggle world from his historical fiction phase. He also tried to remind himself that he was actually jousting, with a lance, even if it was all charmed up. How many people did he know who could say they had ever done that? He was guessing the number was somewhere between zero and none.

It was his turn. Great. He tried to think what he knew. Different things could happen – someone could get unhorsed, or in this case unbroomed, in which case the one still standing was the winner, both players could totally miss each other, or every now and again, there was a Henry II situation where something went through a visor and hit someone in the eye and then it hit their brain through their eye and they kind of died horribly over the course of days, only that wasn’t really a problem here. At least, he really hoped it wasn’t. Something fluffy hitting him in the eye didn’t sound too fun, but hopefully no one would be aiming that high, and they couldn’t have random bits break off and fly up, could they?

He mounted his broom, handling the lance a little awkwardly from lack of experience and wondering if real knights had ever felt like this – a little foolish, perched up here like this, wondering what in the world they were doing and why they were doing it, because wasn’t this sure stupid? It was ridiculous to run at each other like this. Then, hoping to the skies that he was doing it right, he started flying as fast as he dared toward the other contestant anyway, aiming as best he could and figuring it was best to get the first round over with as quickly as possible so he could see what was going on and either get into it or else just get the whole thing over with faster.
16 David Wilkes Here goes nothing... 169 David Wilkes 0 5


James Owen

August 03, 2011 8:25 AM
It was very strange to be doing something for the first time while being observed by most of the school. True enough, James' own yeargroup must have seen him fly in their first year, but he hadn't been spectacularly good or bad enough that he suspected he'd be memorable in any way. His sister, Josephine, had of course seen him fly before at home, but she had never seen him joust - simply because James had never jousted on a broom before. Luckily, the lance was sort of spongey and there seemed to be enough safety pracuations in place that should James be knocked from his broom he shouldn't suffer any sort of serious injury - in fact the tournament seemed to be safer than a game of Quidditch (which, considering the past few Quidditch games at Sonora, was definitely for the best).

As he prepared himself on one of the school brooms (they were of better quality than his own broom, which had been left at home for that very reason), James realized that he had been matched up with his roomate. That was sort of good, in a way, because a little healthy competition wasn't likely to do any damage to their acquaintaceship, and they were more or less matched in physique; true enough that James was all skin and bone to the eye, but he had well-concealed muscles and was stronger than he looked. In terms of skill, David had been drafted as reserve for the Aladren team for a couple of years, but that didn't really prove anything - for one because James hadn't even tried out, so couldn't be sure David was any better than him at Quidditch, and for another, Quidditch wasn't the same as jousting, anyway. It was almost impossible to predict which out of the two of them would be successful in their round together.

There wasn't much time left to make that prediction, either, as the boys readied themselves on their brooms and tried to figure out how best to hold a lance. James had just about gotten comfortable with his grip before it was time to fly. He set off at speed, and thought it best to look at his opponent. He managed it for just a moment befor he had to look away again, because he'd never been so intimated by David as right now, when the other boy was directing a lance at him and approaching rather more quickly than James would have liked. He'd had to look away, but just for a moment - he forced his gaze back to his target, as he could hardly expect to hit something he couldn't see. James aimed his lance, readied himself for a blow, and cowardly closed his eyes and the last second. He felt a firm but not painful brushing collision against his shoulder; it was sufficient to distract him from noting whether or not his own lance had made a connection.

Reaching the other end of the run, James collected himself, checked himself over to ascertain no actual damage had been done, and turned his broom, ready to go again. He could feel adrenaline pumping through him, and as this registered, he concluded that he was having fun.
0 James Owen Here goes something... 168 James Owen 0 5

David Wilkes

August 05, 2011 2:31 PM
David felt a slight shock through his lance a second before he felt a firmer blow to his chest, not too far past where his arm connected to the rest of him. His torso went back, but he held on to the broom with his legs and a second later with his other hand and wondered what, if anything, this situation of them both being hit meant for the game. Was it a draw since they were both still on their brooms, or was one hit maybe being worse than the other enough for a winner of the round to be called? He had no idea.

For now, he decided to assume it had been a draw and that the next round was going to be taken as the one that counted toward the final score. This one and the next one. They had said best two out of three, so maybe if it was a dead tie, with the first not counting and maybe one of them winning the second and the other the third, they’d both get chocolate or whatever it was they’d been promised in exchange for winning this. Then, no animosity in the dorm, which was great.

Or maybe they’d just make them have a do-over. That, too, was possible. It was really all up to the guys above his rank, he supposed, and he’d just have to go along with that. Which was fine with him, really. David didn’t really have a burning desire to be the guy who made decisions. He wanted to win, and didn’t want to take orders from someone too much dumber than he was, but the staff was smarter than him and it was not a loss to have them be the ones flying this plane. Or broom, whatever. He wasn’t picky about terminology when it made things a lot easier not to be that way.

He reached the end of the lane and turned, adjusting his grip on his lance a little. The worst of it was over, that was the important part. The first pass hadn’t gone fantastically, but it had gone well enough that he now knew he could do this without making too much of a fool of himself, though he would have still felt this was more impressive and less clownish if he’d had at least a breastplate to wear. It didn’t feel quite like a joust without that sort of thing, more like a semblance of a joust with just the bare outline and a few touches without full attention to detail. That part, he might have liked to have been the guy in charge of, but no one went around asking third years their opinions on things. He guessed it was generally assumed they were too slack-jawed to have opinions; if confronted, he guessed he would have been too intimidated by the presence of elders to voice any he had, which would have only confirmed the theory, so maybe it was just as well.

“For death and glory,” he muttered, lacking the nerve to say anything so melodramatic out loud, under his breath, deciding King Théoden and Peter Jackson had better grasps of the dramatic than he did for adding some sense of occasion even if both of the things mentioned were impossible here. Then he pointed his lance, set his mind to the fact he was a fantasy knight instead of just plain old David Wilkes so he wouldn’t do something weird like try to twist out of the way when he and James met up and end up whacking his roommate across the face with the shaft of the lance because it turned too or something stupid like that and charged again.
16 David Wilkes And now for something else. 169 David Wilkes 0 5