System
August 12, 2022 5:46 AM
Selina Skies
August 12, 2022 5:46 AM
Challenge One: A-Mazeing by Selina Skies
Selina was excited for the first challenge. Traditionally, this was the closest to a pure ‘strength’ challenge that they got. It tended to either be athletic, or require subverting that need through use of magic. That brought in a problem-solving element, but you still needed fire power of one sort of another to back up your brains.As ever, there were the needs of the specific cohort to consider. Whilst the challenges were designed to push people outside of their comfort zones, they weren’t meant to be downright traumatising or impossible, which meant they had to design them in such a way that students with access needs weren’t at a disadvantage—in this particular cohort, they had to consider how to make a challenge that was equitable for Lazarus, given that his communication method was more time-consuming than other people’s. That meant either limiting the need to talk, making a rule against it, or not making time the deciding factor. Whilst a few different ideas had been bounced about, the one they’d settled on leant more towards the first two options. This was a timed challenge, but one where he wouldn’t be at a disadvantage.
The groups were gathered in the Cascade Hall, although those with a higher number were permitted to wander the rest of the school, save for the Labyrinth Gardens (where the challenge would be taking place) and the MARS rooms (where the teams would go after finishing). They had been given a time to return to the hall by, which was an approximate estimate of when they’d be needed. The posters announcing the task had told them only to bring their wands.
In turn, Selina collected each team, and led them outside. Technically, a labyrinth was a single, meandering path. It was distinct from a maze in that, whilst it twisted and twined back on itself, there was only ever one single route. It was designed to be more of a meditative experience than a puzzle. The labyrinth at Sonora fell somewhere between this and a more traditional maze—it did have branches, and dead ends, but more to create separate areas and a chance for privacy than because they actually wanted students to get truly lost or stuck. However, the familiar paths had been warped and twisted, rearranged into something that was much trickier to navigate. That fact, at first, was only obvious from the large, curved wall they found themselves standing by.
“Welcome to the first challenge. In a moment, you will enter the maze. Although you will all enter through the same doorway, you will all end up in different sections of it. Your job is to find each other. You will primarily score points on how quickly you do that, although you may gain bonus points for the number of obstacles defeated or creativity of the spellwork involved.
“The maze is constructed in such a way that you will not meet an obstacle that is above your grade level whilst on your own.” By which she meant, there were age lines between the various sections, and they could only be ‘finited’ by someone who was old enough to cross them. Whilst that meant that lower years might hit an invisible barrier they couldn’t cross, it meant that they couldn’t wander into danger without an older student to help them. The obstacles in the maze consisted of some ‘combat’ style tasks like those they would find in their DADA classes—minor jinxes that were fired by visible dummies or tripped by less obvious (but still detectable) means, creatures suited to their age range and the fact that they weren’t under the immediate eye of an adult—but also more puzzle solving elements, such as hedges that would close up behind them or gaps that were too small to get through.
“You may use green sparks to try to catch your teammates’ attention, though I’m not sure how well they’ll be able to see them. Please only use red sparks if you feel genuinely unsafe and require intervention from a staff member.
“Any questions?” she asked, taking time to answer anything about the rules of the task, but not giving away any details about what they’d find inside. “Alright,” she smiled, once that was done. “Best of luck. On your marks, get set, go.” She waved her wand, and a doorway opened, which would scatter them to their starting points.
OOC: Welcome to your first challenge! You may make up any reasonable obstacle in line with the above descriptors. Your post will be graded by class standards - i.e. it is about length, relevance and realism, not about how amazingly awesome you claim to be. Your initial or most detailed post for each character will be scored on a scale of 1-5 and every other post you make will gain an additional 1 point.
Unlike normal threads, you do not have to follow a posting order (e.g. keeping the same order of speaking) though try to consult with your team mates in chatzy if more than three of you get back together.
You may not write for other characters. Please give teammates (or staff) room to respond if something happens that would get their attention.
The challenge will run for two weeks, from today until Friday August 26th.
You may also post celebration threads in the MARS room.
Subthreads: Team 6 with System, Isla Brockert, Lyla Holland, Gwendolyn Brockert, Hansel Hexenmeister, Sadie-Lake Chalmers, Eben Sosna
Team 1 with System, Oz Spellman, Iris Cobb, Morgan Garrett
Team 2 with System, Lenny Pierce, Yaniel Ayala Velez, Lavender Brockert, Mara Morales
Team 3 with System, Robyn Lundstrom, Phil Carson, Graham Osbrook
Team 4 with System, Billy Cobb, Cole Pierce, Bertie Jackson, Alexei Vorontsov
Team 5 with System, Verdillia Scurlock, Nausicaa Scapetello, Rosalynn Tellerman
Team 7 with System, Lydia Priory, Valentine Duell, Xarryn Bavol, Leviosa Scurlock
Team 8 with System, Xavier Lundstrom, Mab, Jasper Brockert, Fortune Ardovini, Liesl Brockert
Team 9 with System, Samara Crosby, Theo Spurn, Claire Osbrook
13
Selina Skies
Challenge One: A-Mazeing
26
1
5
Isla Brockert
August 16, 2022 9:29 AM
Depends on your perspective by Isla Brockert
OOC: CW-Briefly talks about misogyny and gender norms. Also, Isla is a fifteen year old pureblood girls so she's unaware of the gender spectrum. And there are spiders. BIC:
As far as the Challenges were concerned, Isla was not quite as excited about them as Esme was but far more so than Olaf. The first year was being extremely negative about the whole experience but then, unless it had to do with books, he was not generally a very positive person anyway.
However, Isla generally did tend to be positive and was trying to overall have a good attitude surrounding the Challenges. Okay, she knew that she might very well have to do something that she didn’t like or wasn’t all that good at since there was more than likely going to be at least one somewhat athletically based Challenge. Which was not one of her strengths. And of course, her main strength was puppetry and that was most likely not going to be very useful in the Challenges. She would get to use it in the Concert though. Isla was not sure exactly how they would be performing “Challenge highlights” exactly, but she wanted to use puppets to do it.
Either way though, she would get to participate, with her puppets, in the Performing Arts club’s act. She was looking forward to that.
Anyway, with regards to the Challenges,she also knew that some people had not had great experiences, in particular Allegra. While Isla remained as optimistic as possible about the event, she had also done her best to be sensitive towards her sister's trauma regarding it. Which, in reality, the Crotalus alumna had already been previously traumatized by Topaz. So basically, an already fragile person was being put in a stressful situation, involving two events meant for overall physically and psychologically stronger people with teammates that Allegra didn’t really know, who were also all male. Not that Isla’s older sister specifically had issues with men, but she had been uncomfortable being the odd one out. The one noticeably different from her teammates.
Actually, the Aladren had noticed something among the teams this time around. It seemed as if only Amethyst’s team was balanced in terms of gender, with three boys-Lenny counted as a boy, regardless of how he liked to dress, he made that very clear- and four girls. Meanwhile Chris’s team had only one girl,Freya, making her the only girl on that team, just like Allegra had been. Similarly, Lorena’s team had one boy and the rest were girls.
Isla didn’t think this was really a fair thing to do to them at all, since being the odd one out was not a pleasant experience. It hadn’t been one for Allegra in the last Challenges. It hadn’t been for one Angelique when she was girly girl in year full of jocks and it hadn’t been for the fifth year when both her friends had boyfriends and she’d had to scramble around for people to do things with for things like the trip to the zoo and had just overall felt like her friends had something in common and she didn’t. So yeah, to put Freya and the first year boy in that position seemed cruel.
For every other team, including her own, there were two people of one gender and everyone else was the other. Isla had to wonder if that was on purpose. Like, if they were trying to turn things into a battle of the sexes or something. Or possibly making another statement about the irrelevance of gender like what had happened with the Head Student position.
In some ways, that was good. While Isla had been less affected overall by Uncle Eustace’s particular brand of toxic masculinity and misogyny than Jasper or Christopher or even Miles, she had still grown up hearing him spew stuff about gender norms, which were also to a degree, ingrained in pureblood culture. Isla did not think girls had to be like Esme, all prim and proper. Nor did they have to be soft and gentle like Allegra or super girly and princessy like Angelique and Amethyst. It was fine to be any of those things, but it was also perfectly acceptable-or should be-to be like herself or Liesl.
Pretty much the one thing her uncle ever said about her was that no man would ever want to marry a weirdo like her. Isla tried her best to take that with a grain of salt considering the source, but deep down, she wondered if it was true. However, she knew that if she changed herself to please others, she would not be happy. And it would take so much extra energy to keep up such a facade. Furthermore, if doing that meant having jerks like her uncle attracted to her, she would stay weird. The Aladren would rather stay alone with her puppets than marry someone like him!
Also, the idea that boys were better than girls at some things and girls were better at other things-ones that were unimportant to Uncle Eustace-based on their gender was ridiculous. Like the idea that boys were better at sports and girls were nurturing, for example. There were plenty of girls here at Sonora, Quidditch players and otherwise, who were more athletic than her brothers, male cousins and pretty much most of her male relatives. Meanwhile, Jasper wanted to help children with special needs and was far more nurturing than his neglectful mother or psychopathic older sister.
Still, generally speaking, if you joined a group of people that you really did not know well at all, and right off the bat there was something different about you, you were going to feel at least somewhat uncomfortable, regardless of what the difference was. You would feel left out and different. It had nothing to do with what someone’s particular skills were as an individual.
Although they had apparently made a token effort in most cases to prevent that. Except for Freya and Lorena’s one male teammate.
Isla, however, was pretty pleased with her group. She wasn’t the only girl or the only Aladren or the only anything really, not even the only pureblood since Gwendolyn and Hans were both purebloods too. More importantly, most of her teammates seemed really nice. Okay, Bonabelle had never seemed like the friendliest person and didn’t seem to like anyone but her girlfriend,but Isla was willing to give her a chance. Perhaps she was just shy. There was nothing wrong with that of course. Some people just had trouble making friends. Sadie was Esme’s roommate whom she seemed to like pretty well. Plus, Sapphire had considered the seventh year her closest friend. And Hans was Liesl’s best friend, so both of them had been highly endorsed.
As for the rest, Gwendolyn was a distant cousin of hers that she knew a little. Eben, she didn’t know well, but Christopher liked him well enough, having hung out with him on the zoo trip. Both of them, as well as Lyla, seemed pretty cool. So all in all, Isla had gotten a good team.
She joined everyone in the Cascade Hall for the first Challenge. As she was on Team Six, she had a bit of a wait. Soon enough, though, it was their turn.
Isla frowned as Professor Skies gave the instructions. How was this going to involve teamwork or encourage bonding or making connections when they were starting out alone? Not to mention there were certain to be people who would become extremely anxious and upset being in a maze full of obstacles all alone and who would end up traumatized, like Allegra had. Yes, her sister had been traumatized previously but who's to say that someone else hadn’t been and now it was going to be made worse.
However, it wasn’t a problem that Isla had personally and hopefully not one that any of her teammates had either. She would just have to find everyone as quickly as possible, not just because it was timed-which was just another way to put pressure on people and stress them out, some people just weren’t fast. In fact, the Aladren was not particularly so herself-but because Isla felt it would be better if they could work and strategize together.
For the moment though, she was alone. At first, all she had to do was navigate the path. Which became harder once a dense fog descended. “ Impervius ” She said, making the mist dissipate.
Unfortunately, as it did, Isla noticed that the ground was covered in spiders! She didn’t have a phobia about them but nor did she particularly like them. Still, how awful for those who were afraid of them. ”Arania Exumai” The fifth year called, blasting them out of her way.
She walked forward, turning a corner, as the ground began to move beneath her. Not like an earthquake, more like…it was just propelling her forward at an increasingly fast pace. Before long, it was going at a pace that was so fast that Isla could no longer stand up. She tripped, instinctively putting her hands down to break her fall. “Ow!” She cried. Her left wrist hurt and she had a few bumps and bruises now…but no time to fix them as she was moving much too fast.
Suddenly, she was ejected and flew into the air, landing in a patch of what appeared to be Flitterbloom…until it started to entwine itself around her arms and legs. Devil’s Snare! She knew to remain calm at all costs. Isla allowed herself to relax and eventually, it let her go. She rolled off to the other side from where she came from. Isla fired off some Bluebell flames to destroy it and then limped off to deal with her injuries. “ Episkey ”.
The fifth year continued on her path, until she heard some movement. She looked around for whatever creature was planning to attack her, only to see a flash of what looked to be human. She rushed towards what appeared to be her teammate, albeit with her wand ready in case it was some sort of trick. Honestly, she was starting to see why Allegra had been so traumatized by the Challenges. She also decided against telling Olaf what sort of obstacles she'd faced because he'd just say that he told her so.
She “called out to the person that she'd spotted. "Hey! Over here!.” Isla shot off some green sparks “ Verdillius ”.
11
Isla Brockert
Depends on your perspective
1521
0
5
Lyla Holland
August 20, 2022 5:08 PM
The sooner we get out, the better by Lyla Holland
It was finally time for the first challenge. Lyla’s team wasn’t due back to the hall until past noon, and although breakfast went down alright, lunch sat like a stone in her belly. She stayed in her seat after eating, just waiting and wondering what was going to happen.Lyla was glad that the organizers had thought to balance the students’ abilities, rather than divide them up by house or by year. She was equally glad she didn’t get thrown in with a bunch of people who were way above her experience level. Gwendolyn, a second year, was in Beginner classes with her, and although Lyla kept to herself for the most part, it was nice to see a familiar face at her table.
In fact, they had one student from every year, with Eben being in third, Hans in fourth, Isla fifth, and Bonabelle and Sadie rounding out sixth and seventh. As far as strategizing, it was excellent to have a spread like that, since you would have one student mastering each set of spells.
Lyla waited in the hall until the rest of her team arrived. Team Six. She hoped it would be like Seal Team Six- a well-oiled, well-trained, ready-for-anything crew that managed to pull off the most daring and dangerous missions. Lyla was confident in her abilities- she’d been practicing her spells diligently for weeks- but as Professor Skies gave the group their instructions, she fretted she’d be the last one found, wandering in circles for ages.
She didn’t have too much time to worry, because almost immediately, everyone entered the maze. Lyla turned around to see if she could see where her team had split off, but all she could see was the path she was on. Right. She straightened her robes and drew her wand.
Advancing down the corridor the hedges had made, she came to a clearing, stumbling over a protruding root.
As she dusted off her knees, she glared at the offending root. It was reddish-brown in color, and as her eyes followed it up to the parent plant, Lyla let out a yelp and scrambled backwards. An enormous Spiky Bush, with big yellow thorns. The bush gave a shiver and began to shoot off its needles, disturbed as it was by Lyla’s mishap.
Lyla squeezed herself into the corner of the clearing, as far from the angry plant as she could get.
“Incendio!” she shouted, flicking the tip of her wand in a flame pattern. A burst of fire shot out, wilting the cactus-like bush.
Lyla peered around the rest of the clearing, finding nothing but a stone bench under an arbor covered in small white flowers. No exit except the way she had come. Lyla slowly approached the bench, circling it warily. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but that didn’t mean much. Likewise, the flowers were a harmless variety of morning glory, and the arbor itself was simply whitewashed wood.
Lyla pursed her lips, thinking. There was nowhere else to go, except back the way she’d come, so the bench must be the way to move forward. Unless…moving back was the answer. She suddenly wished she had placed markers of some kind to signal herself that she’d already passed through a section, although she hadn’t thought she would need them, as her path hadn’t had any turnoffs. Sighing, she grabbed an armful of the large yellow thorns from the now defeated Spiky Bush and marched back down the way she’d come. She staked the thorns straight up along the path, until she came to a dead end. That must be where she had started.
Ten minutes after she’d left, she returned to the bench, and, seeing no other options, sat on it. She felt a pull in her belly and a moment later she found herself in an identical clearing with an identical arbor. The only difference was that there was a pathway to the right-hand side, rather than the left.
“Portkey,” She mumbled to herself. She’d only used a Portkey three or four times through all of the times the Hollands moved to a new duty station. They made her dizzy every time, so her mom had finally agreed that Lyla could drive with her dad to the new house, and Mom and Lena would meet them there, since Lena usually got carsick. Lyla stuck her head between her knees until the buzzing in her ears stopped.
She staggered from the bench, looking for something to mark her place. A large stick would have to do. Lyla tried to figure out how to make it more noticeable, or at least less ‘is-that-my-marker-or-another-stick’. Maybe she could transfigure it into something? What was large and stick-ish? A few moments later, she had a twiggy broom in front of her. Lyla took a few more minutes to drive it into the soft ground handle-first, so it stuck up like a scarecrow in the center of the path she was about to take.
Satisfied, she pressed on.
This path did have options, so Lyla had to face her biggest fear- making a decision. Okay, maybe not her biggest fear, but choosing something without having any information to go off of was terrifying in its own right. She laid out three sticks in the shape of arrows to indicate which way she’d chosen, in case anybody else stumbled across her trail. Or at least she did at the first intersection.
At the second junction, she had three options, but all of them were obstructed by some kind of barrier spell.
Never mind that she’d found out they were blocked off by agonizing over which to take, and then walking pseudo-confidently into the equivalent of a glass door.
Lyla rubbed her nose, which had taken the brunt of the blow, and her eyes watered. She gingerly stepped into the next path, her arm outstretched, only to be repelled again. Same thing with the third branch. Lyla sat on the ground and squinted at the three passages in front of her. There had to be some way to unblock them. She tapped her wand on her temple, trying to think.
Her ears pricked up as she heard a faint shout. Green sparks flew above the hedges, barely visible. Lyla spotted Isla running down the center trail towards her.
“Stop!” Lyla shouted at her teammate. Her nose still smarted, and she didn’t want Isla to share the same fate.
64
Lyla Holland
The sooner we get out, the better
1559
0
5
Gwendolyn Brockert
August 24, 2022 1:36 PM
That's the spirit! by Gwendolyn Brockert
OOC: CW-Very brief mention of stereotyping groups of people. BIC:
Gwendolyn was honestly completely relieved by the teammates that she’d gotten for the Challenges. It wasn’t that she was worried about being bullied like Lydia was,it was much more that she would fight back and shut that crap down. Which was not conducive to a productive happy experience.For anyone.
Fortunately, though, she had gotten one of the more pleasant groups of people. Isla was her distant cousin, and the second year knew the other Aladren a little despite the age difference, since Isla was close to Liesl and Gwendolyn often hung out with the Teppenpaw during the summer. The fifth year was often around as well.
As for the rest, they also seemed fine. Hans was Lydia’s year and housemate and Liesl’s best friend so he was cool. Sadie seemed really nice, although she seemed to generally lack confidence. Sort of like Gwendolyn’s dad, which kind of endeared the older girl to her.
The second year was also looking forward to getting to know the two teammates closest to her in age, Eben and Lyla better. She didn’t really have any close friends yet, besides some of her relatives, and if she was going to bond and make friends with her teammates, it was more likely that it would be the people closest to her age.
Actually, now that she thought about it, Gwendolyn didn’t know specifically who would be an unpleasant group, though, apparently, Lydia had gotten the “meanest girl in school”-which was a direct quote- as a Team Leader. The Aladren was a bit concerned for her cousin with regards to the Challenges in general. The fourth year did not handle stressful things well, and had a tendency to freak out about stuff. Which, if Leonor De Matteo was as mean as Lydia claimed, was probably going to make matters worse and it would just be a vicious cycle.
Gwendolyn did not know why they wanted to torture her cousin that way.It just seemed cruel. Like, when someone was vulnerable, you didn’t put them in a position where they could be harmed. Yeah, she didn’t expect the school to coddle them the way that Aunt Kaylie and Uncle Ian did Lydia, but like, showing decency and not putting them in a potentially humiliating situation with someone who’d bully them. The humiliating situation part might be unavoidable, from what Gwendolyn had heard from her cousins as well as Aunt Hope, Uncle Evan and Aunt Lucille, but you didn’t need to add insult to injury. Or insults to injuries literally.
The Aladren was really glad that her dad had never gone through the Challenges, honestly….and so was he. That was what he’d said when they’d come up. They had been sort of a hot topic among some of the distant cousins that Gwendolyn had been around and then Lydia had been freaking about them to Aunt Kaylie, and Dad said that he was glad that they didn’t start them until after he graduated. While it had come off as a bit of a smart*** remark in the moment, Gwendolyn knew that he wouldn’t have taken the Challenges much better than Lydia was.
Which was basically why the second year had more compassion and tolerance for her cousin than Sophia did. Because her dad had been that way when he was a kid. He was still shy, hence having Cory selling wands and going to alumni/career fairs in his place, but he’d developed something of an attitude as an adult and had a massive chip on his shoulder. Hence why Gwendolyn could be a smart*** too at times.
Which amused Dad to no end. He said he was glad she was more like how he was now than how he was as a kid. Not that he would have liked or loved her any less if she was painfully shy like he had been or like Lydia was, but it was something that would make things easier for Gwendolyn.
She waited for her team’s turn. Finally, Professor Skies came and got them. Then she explained the Challenge to them. Yup, Lydia was going to absolutely lose it. The second year was concerned for her cousin, but at the moment, she had teammates to find. And maybe bonus points to earn.
Actually, come to think of it, how would they know what spells were being used or how many obstacles were defeated in order to give the bonus points? Were the students being watched? However necessary that might be, both in terms of awarding bonus points and making sure people weren’t seriously injured, it still sort of creeped her out. She was sort of envisioning the staff sitting around some sort of viewing device, laughing at the hapless students possibly struggling with the obstacles. In particular, laughing at the pureblood girls, often targets of scorn and derision by people who weren’t them. Or possibly, the Quidditch Coach was laughing at and mocking the non-athletes.
Either way, it bothered Gwendolyn a great deal. She fell into those categories and so did people she cared about. Any stereotype about pureblood girls-or purebloods in general-was every bit as offensive as ones about Chinese people or biracial people or gay people or anything else. And just as false, like the idea that all pureblood girls were prissy or weak. Or mean and snotty. Okay, yes, Lydia embodied the delicate fragile stereotype and her cousin Arianna embodied the stuck-up *broccoli* one, but like had these people met Sophia? Or Liesl ? Or, you know, the diverse group of pureblood girls just in her family?
She set off on her path. Before long, she began to feel dizzy. Which was confusing to her. Gwendolyn was not that sort. She did not tend to get ill just from walking outside a little and she’d eaten today so that wasn’t the issue. Those were more Lydia’s type of thing. Merlin, she hoped that she wasn’t getting sick. That would really suck.
Then she spotted the cause. A clearing full of freaking puffapods. Something with such a cute name that was so misleading. They were pretty enough, but those stupid spores. Ugh.
So, she either had to suck it up, maybe plug her nose-she was too young to do the Bubble Head charm-so she didn’t inhale the spores and try her best to get through without fainting…or she could set them on fire. Or, she could transfigure them into something else.
Now, Gwendolyn had to figure out what was similar to puffapods. After trying to figure it out for a few moments, she decided…that there was nothing similar to puffapods, other than maybe another plant. However, she was wasting precious time….so setting them on fire it was. “ Incendio ” Transfiguration might be the Brockert way, but right now, burning the stupid things was just easier.
Gwendolyn walked on. As she continued on her way, a dummy jumped out at her. Ugh. Dueling. She so didn’t have time for this *orange*.
Of course, before she could draw her wand, the dummy attacked with a Tickling Charm and she barely managed to duck out of the way. She managed to grab her wand and fired off a Full Body Bind. “ Petrificus Totalus ". And….she missed. Which made the second year utter off a string of the kind of curses that were absolutely not going to help her fend off the dummy.
Then she saw the green sparks. There was a teammate nearby! But she had to get away from this *cauliflower*ing dummy! She was going to have to just run away. Running was not something that Gwendolyn enjoyed, but she was going to have to.
She sped away as fast as she could-which wasn’t all that fast-towards the sparks. She arrived, panting, out of breath, just in time to hear Lyla say to Isla to stop. Gwendolyn frowned. There had to be some way to reach each other but at the same time keep them from being on a path with obstacles above their grade level. Having grown up with magic, she knew what this could be. “Actually, I think it might be an age line. So, she has to be the one to take it down because she’s older.” The second year nodded at her cousin.
OOC: Yeah, someone had to figure out the age line thing eventually
11
Gwendolyn Brockert
That's the spirit!
1555
0
5
Hansel Hexenmeister
August 25, 2022 6:05 PM
I'm with you guys! (And I'm totally not cheating.) by Hansel Hexenmeister
Team Six walked into the maze together and stepped out into the paths alone. Hansel looked around, and decided that there was no such thing as cheating in a challenge like this. So he knelt down where he stood, and called out, *Hello? Is anyone here?* in Parseltongue. The Sonora school grounds were surrounded on all sides by desert and he'd already made friends with a lot of the local snakes who came into the gardens to hunt prey and get water, both of which were much more plentiful here than anywhere else nearby, so the Labyrinth had a fair number of wild snakes in it at any given time, and it usually didn't take him very long to find one.Today was no exception. *Hello, Redrock,* he greeted the young rattler who poked out of a hedge at his call with a smile. *I'm looking for a bunch of other two legs, can you help me find them?*
*Did you bring mice?* Redrock asked cagily.
The notice had said to bring only a wand, but Hansel always carried around a few dead mice in his pockets, and hadn't thought twice about doing so today either. *One for you now, and two for whoever can lead me to more two legs.*
*I will find you a two legs,* Redrock promised after gulping down the mouse Hansel offered him as an enticement, and disappeared back into the hedge. While Hansel waited for him to return, he pulled out his wand and regarded the hedges. He would need a quick and easy way to get through them if he was going to follow Redrock to his teammates. He also didn't want to disturb the labyrinth any more than the teachers already had because it was a home to a lot of his more slithery friends.
"Partis Temporus!" Hansel tried, pointing the wand at the closest hedge. This was the largest object he'd ever tried to part, and the space he made was not very big. It would probably be big enough though. Hansel was a fairly slim fourteen year old. He practiced the spell a few more times, and each time opened up the hedge a little bigger. By the time Redrock returned, he was making a narrow opening large enough that he probably wouldn't even tear his robes as he pushed through it.
*I have found a two-legs,* Redrock announced. *It is a small one with long straight black head fur.*
Gwendolyn, Hansel guessed off the description. *Great! She's one of the ones I'm looking for. Lead the way.*
Redrock again went through the hedge and Hansel used his temporary parting charm to open the way after him. The edges of the hedge still pulled at his clothes and hair, and after a few more passes through other hedges, he was reasonably certain he was sporting a twiggy look for his hair, but he was making good progress and not making Redrock wait too long for him to catch up.
After a few minutes, Redrock stopped and tasted the air. *She was here,*Redrock informed, still scenting the air. *She went this way,*he declared after another moment, and started slithering down the path. Hansel followed, keeping his wand in hand though Gwendolyn had probably already cleared the way. Redrock led on a few dozen feet then slowed. *There is a strange two-leg just ahead,* he warned. *It has no heat or smell.*
That sounded strange. Hansel approached with caution, and when he turned the corner, he saw the dummy, and was ready for it. Well, not specifically for a dummy shooting a curse at him, but ready to defend from something and he'd gone to the dueling club enough times that he got his shield up quickly enough to deflect the tickling charm that was fired his way. "Protego!" he cast, and the spell bounced off it harmlessly. In the moment of regrouping the dummy took to see if its spell had work, Hansel fired back, "Expelliarmus!" The dummy flew backwards and its wand flew toward Hansel and he caught it out of the air.
In a duel that would be that, but he wasn't sure if the enchantments on the dummy would let it accept defeat gracefully, so he followed up with a petrifying jinx. "Petrificus totalus!" The dummy went stiff and still on the ground.
Recognizing the threat was gone, Redrock slithered back out onto the path from where he'd taken shelter in the hedge. *Your friend is close.* Redrock announced, *And more have joined her.*
*Awesome!* Hansel cheered, thinking this was proving even easier than he'd expected it to go, and followed Redrock until he could hear talking. *Here,* he tossed the snake two more of his mice. He only had one left. *I have one more today, and three more for you tomorrow if you can find anyone else.*
Redrock happily gulped down the two mice. *I will find you another two-leg.* He disappeared into the bushes again. Hansel followed the path to find not only Gwendolyn but also Lyla and Isla as well. "Nice!" he exclaimed, interrupting whatever conversation they were having. "Half of you are right here! I've got a friend scouting for everyone else. Redrock will let us know if he finds Eben, Bonabelle, or Sadie, and we can follow him to them. Weird question but . . . . None of you happen to have any dead rodents or birds on you, do you?"
OOC: Hans is probably a minute or two behind Gwendolyn, so you can probably finish up your conversation and get the age line dropped just before he arrives.
1
Hansel Hexenmeister
I'm with you guys! (And I'm totally not cheating.)
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Lyla Holland
August 25, 2022 10:01 PM
Let's get this show on the road! by Lyla Holland
Not long after Lyla had spotted Isla, Gwendolyn came barreling down the track. An age line, that made sense, though Lyla thought it might have been a little kinder of the professors to mark them in some way so that people didn’t have to find them with their noses. Still, it wasn’t anything that Isla couldn’t handle, being a fifth year and all.She was rather glad to have the cousins on her team, being purebloods, they had grown up immersed in the magical world, and they were bound to have picked up on things that others hadn’t been taught at Sonora yet- like what an age line was, for example.
Lyla’s round hazel eyes surveyed Gwendolyn and Isla. They were both Aladrens, which was another advantage for tactical purposes, as Aladrens supposedly trended towards logic and problem-solving. They were equal parts similar and dissimilar, both with dark eyes and long hair, though one had black locks and the other had brown. Isla had pale skin like that of a ghost, but Gwendolyn’s darker tone hinted at a mixed ancestry. Nevertheless, the “Brockert” shone through in the way they carried themselves, standing gracefully despite the exertion they’d both just been through.
Lyla stood back as Isla readied her wand. She didn’t know how an age line reacted to being dispelled, and she didn’t want to be standing too close and get sucked into a vortex or slashed with invisible shattered glass, or the million other ways it could go wrong. She partially shielded herself behind the corner of the hedge, not being keen on having a wand pointed at her, even though it wasn’t at her.
“Ready!” she shouted out.
OOC: Just a quick little post before Hans joins the girls.
64
Lyla Holland
Let's get this show on the road!
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5
Sadie-Lake Chalmers
August 26, 2022 3:50 AM
Or stay where you are and let me find you by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Sadie wasn't sure how to feel about the challenges. It was odd to be asked to lead something right after a vote in which everyone decisively demonstrated how they didn't view her as a leader. In some ways, that took the pressure off. Had she been head girl, she would have had something to prove, whereas here she was, the girl who wasn't quite anything enough... She wanted to be a veterinary assistant, not a vet. She was prefect, but not head student. She was quiet, never the centre of things. People probably didn't expect her to do well at this. Whilst that was a little depressing, it was also freeing. It would be better to surprise people in a good way than a bad one, not that she really thought she'd outstrip their low expectations.Her team was… fine? Sadie wasn’t exactly super social within her own year group, so it wasn’t particularly surprising that she didn’t know them very well (or that she hadn’t got head girl…). Oddly, the one she had the strongest association with was Lyla, having spoken to her at the feast. None of them had ever struck her as objectionable, which was a good thing.
She led them out to the gardens, feeling horribly responsible for protecting them from whatever was about to happen. Except, apparently, she wasn’t going to be able to. They were going to be split up. In some ways, that made it worse. As the leader, she was meant to make sure that nothing dreadful happened to any of the younger students in her care, and now she wasn’t going to be with them?
Still, there was nothing to do but plunge into the maze and start looking. She found herself alone, as she’d been told, with only one path ahead, so she took that at a brisk pace—fast enough to be purposeful, but still cautious of what might be around its many twists and turns. She slowed when she got to a corner, peering cautiously around. A mannequin fired at her. She’d quit defence against the dark arts after CATS, and this was precisely why. It made her nerves jangle, which wasn’t going to improve her aim any. Still, protego worked against most things, as did expelliarmus except the latter needed her to hit a target. Much as she would rather not put her shields to the test, she had always been stronger at defence than counter-attack. She threw up a shield, which was enough to let her duck past the mannequin and around the next corner…
Where she encountered a brick wall. As a seventh year, she was used to doing some heavy lifting when it came to vanishing charms, but she was pretty sure that counted as a transfiguration of unusual size, which was usually assigned as a paired task. Still, she didn’t need to get rid of the entire wall, and another thing they had been learning was controlling their effects to a specific area or specific amount of time—something that was useful across subjects.
“Evanesco,” she cast, focusing her thoughts on making a gap in the centre of the wall. It was neither quite as big or quite as neat as she had pictured, but unless Professor Skies was a mind reader, she wouldn’t know that—well, apart from the fact that Sadie did tend to be very neat in all her tasks. Still, it was good enough to let her get through.
On the other side was something much more challenging… A choice of three paths. Sadie had only had one way to go at the start, so the only thing she’d had to do was be quick about it. Now, there was a choice…
“Hominim revelio”, she cast, practicing the same principle as before, of trying to contain her power and her reach down to a specific area. She wasn’t sure quite how far to stretch… if she did it within a certain radius, the areas would surely overlap at some point. She also had no real way of estimating distances… She focused on dividing the maze up into sections in her head, with the paths as cut off points making large wedges in a semi-circle around her. The first segment yielded nothing. Which either meant that no one was that way, or that she was doing it wrong. On the second segment though, she got a blip, which suggested it wasn’t the spellwork at fault. On the third section she got three. So, had that gone wide, and picked up the middle person, or were more of her teammates really in that part of the maze? And should she go towards the group, or strike out for the one person who was left alone? Not to mention the fact that she was still missing at least two people.
It was so hard to know what was the right thing to do (could people sense this about her? Was that another reason no one had voted for her?). But, the section with more people gave her more chance of finding someone, and that was the aim. And any one of those blips could be just as lost and alone as the solo blip. Just because there were three blips in that part of the maze didn’t mean they’d found each other—after all, what were the odds of that?—and the solo blip might have been one of them or might wander into their section whilst she was looking.
That made sense, right?
Still doubting herself, she set off down the path that seemed to lead towards the most people, though she strongly suspected there wasn’t going to be a direct or easy route to any of them…
OOC: Given the way Sadie is using the charm, she could be picking up the group, or she could be picking up other people and only some members of the group. Someone outside the group is welcome to post as if they are one of the blips, e.g. coming across Sadie (or being still out on their own) or the group can go back and forth a bit more, and she can gradually work towards them.
13
Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Or stay where you are and let me find you
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Eben Sosna
August 26, 2022 4:04 PM
I...guess I'm taking a third option? by Eben Sosna
It was, Eben thought wearily as he came to yet another crossroad, a good thing that the outside world had GPS in almost everything these days. If it had not, he was increasingly sure that he’d have just had to barricade himself in his home and never leave ever and order all his groceries despite the extra expense when he grew up, because he clearly had no innate sense of direction.He really hoped nobody was watching this. It was gonna suck if anyone knew how many times he’d run into what were apparently invisible walls that didn’t respond to any spell he’d been able to think of. Could they actually kick you out of a House for lacking ability in one of its defining areas? Because those walls, plus the number of circles he’d been in, were making him develop new doubts about his problem-solving skills.
And this is why I should listen to Euan more often, he admonished himself, thinking of the time his brother had insisted that a corn maze would be fun.
In theory, he’d come into the maze with two pieces of information that should have been helpful. One: since it was a challenge, the way that looked easier was either a) booby-trapped to no end, making it a dangerous choice or b) not the right way to go, making it an incorrect choice. Two: he vaguely remembered reading somewhere that if you were in a maze, turning left every time would eventually take you to an exit, which…was part of the goal, he guessed, and would almost certainly take him far enough around the block sooner or later that he’d be bound to run into someone else. In practice, though, these pieces of information had not been as helpful as he’d hoped. He’d kept running into areas he couldn’t walk into, which made it hard to follow the turn-left plan, and it wasn’t always easy to tell which path was the apparently-easy one – or, for that matter, which one was the more booby-trapped of two obviously booby-trapped options. As a result, after what his watch said had been too long, he was totally lost, skipping on every other step, and wasn’t entirely sure his hair was the same color it had been when he’d gotten up this morning, the result of having gotten distracted and bumbled into a dummy that had shot a spell at him.
Observation: the wizarding world is not the place to be if you tend to think too much. Investigate management strategies. Also, spend more time outdoors in future. This might not happen again, but it’s still embarrassing to have been here this long and still be this lost…even if there is so much more interesting stuff indoors here. For a given value of interesting -
By some miracle, he noticed a hair of movement just below the frames of his glasses, where a line divided the parts of the world worth paying attention to from the parts he couldn’t see well enough to do anything with. He ducked one spell and managed to cast a Shield Charm against the second long enough to retreat – he couldn’t concentrate well enough to both cast a spell and focus on not getting hit by one at the same time, he’d discovered, which meant he was more flustered every time he tried to do it, which then made him even worse at it….
Walking backward, he only narrowly missed bumping into another person and jumped with what totally wasn’t anything remotely close to a distinctly unmanly squeak when he noticed the near-miss. The fact that he had time to turn around and notice that he still felt startled meant that Sadie was probably real, but he thought he’d still better check.
“Are you Sadie Chalmers, or is this another trick-test?” he asked, pushing his glasses up his nose and regarding her warily. He’d gotten lost in one portion where it had been like he’d been in a thick fog, and he’d kept feeling sure that he saw shadowy figures, the right sizes and shapes to be people he was looking for, and only just failing to catch up with them; it had taken a while to realize they weren’t real and start trying to retrace his steps, whereupon he’d had to deal with a gnome. If it was just an illusion, though, it probably wouldn’t be smart enough to answer questions, so…this was an adequate plan, and not just the only one he could think of right now.
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Eben Sosna
I...guess I'm taking a third option?
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Lyla Holland
August 27, 2022 7:52 PM
I'm free! I'm free! by Lyla Holland
OOC: Isla removing the age line approved by her author BIC:
No sooner had Isla dropped the age line (with far less excitement than Lyla was imagining there would be) than the trio heard someone coming down the path behind them. Lyla craned her neck to see around the older girls.
She didn’t have long to wait until a blond mop of hair bobbed into view. Like a beacon against the dark green of the hedges, Hans came through, looking for all the world like he’d won the lottery. It wasn’t until Hans mentioned that they had half of their team-well, over half, now- that Lyla realized that it meant that the challenge was half over already. They’d only had to find their teammates, after all, not get out of the maze. Which seemed strange, as a maze was meant to be solved, but perhaps the ‘powers that be’ didn’t want them to wander out of the maze accidentally before they’d found their cohorts, and so had decided that finding each other was enough of a ‘solve’?
Hans said that he had a friend helping him find their teammates, which didn’t make much sense, and sounded like cheating, besides. Lyla was about to comment on it when he asked if she had any dead animals. Which was possibly the last thing she’d expected anybody to ask her, ever.
Her mouth hung open, her brain trying to make sense of his request. Was this some sort of necromancy-voodoo-something spell that was supposed to find people? Lyla was pretty sure that sort of thing would be frowned upon at Sonora, along with most of the wizarding world. The Princess and The Frog had utterly terrified her, even though she was nearly nine when Lena had become obsessed with the film.
But Hans didn’t seem like the type to dabble in Dark Magic, with his generally cheerful disposition. Besides, who ever heard of an evil Teppenpaw?
And so, Lyla chalked up the strange request to being A Boy Thing.
“No, sorry,” she said, shaking her head.
She had thought she would feel small, surrounded by older students, casting her silly little first-year spells, but the more time she spent with her teammates, the more she felt like a valuable and important part of the team. Nobody had made fun of her at the meet and greet when she’d said she was new, nobody laughed at her for bonking her nose on the stupid age line, and nobody looked down at her because she didn’t know what an age line was.
She was starting to feel really good about winning this challenge.
“What’s next?” she asked her cohorts, “Who’s Redrock? Is that somebody’s nickname, or something?”
64
Lyla Holland
I'm free! I'm free!
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
August 27, 2022 8:43 PM
Option three also good by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Sadie was just stepping around a corner, when something barged right into her. She jumped back, throwing up a quick shield and then felt ridiculous when the ‘threat’ proved to be one of her teammates. At least she was the kind to react defensively instead of offensively to a perceived attack. Imagine if she’d k.o’d one of the younger students she was supposed to be in charge of!Blushing a little, but also smiling with relief, she dropped her shield. Eben seemed… well, slightly orange on top, but also, more concerningly, not to trust that she was who she seemed to be.
“I’m Sadie,” she promised. She tried to think of something that only she would know, that Eben would know that she knew. She quoted back to him a few of the things that he’d told her about himself at their opening meeting, that really being the only interaction they’d ever had.
“You seem like you’ve been through it a bit,” she said, noting his hair and his general demeanour. She didn’t move to fix his new dye job with her wand. One thing Sadie had lots of experience with was dealing with small, spooked out creatures, and you absolutely had to make sure they were settled down and trusted you before you started pointing nasty bang-bang sticks at them, even if what you were firing off was for their own good. Luckily, unlike most of her usual patients, Eben could actually talk back to her. So she went with the simple and straight forward thing that she could never normally do and simply asked… “Are you okay?”
OOC: Sorry, this is gonna get a bit wonky due to not being able to make separate sub-sub-threads. Just gonna have to roll with it. Y'all know who is talking to to who.
13
Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Option three also good
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5
Eben Sosna
August 28, 2022 11:10 PM
Even if it does hurt my ego a little. by Eben Sosna
The entity in front of him knew that he could see almost exactly six inches away from his face without his glasses, that he had read most of the library’s material on ghosts already, and that he tried to learn an extra new spell every week. It was probably really Sadie. It had sounded kind of like too much work to create a fake Sadie at all, but it was definitely way too much work to make one that knew things. Eben nodded, visibly relaxing as this information processed.“Sorry,” he said. “Thought I should probably check – I got stuck in a fog a while back, and I kept thinking I saw other people in it…took a while to realize they weren’t real,” he admitted, feeling perhaps more embarrassed about that than he should have done. He had always prided himself on seeing what was really there no matter how hard other people tried to convince him that it wasn’t real, and while he knew now that it was just because he could literally see things that his family couldn’t because of the whole magic thing, it was still easiest to think of himself as really observant. “Not too long, though,” he added, not entirely truthfully to his own mind, to save nonexistent face.
He grimaced a little when his state was pointed out to him. “Yeah. Turns out reacting, uh, you know, deciding what to do in the moment…little harder than it is in class, when they tell you what spells to use,” he confessed, wondering if today was just Embarrassing Confession Day or something. “I’m getting better at it, though. No worries. I, uh, guess you haven’t seen anyone else, either, though?”
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Eben Sosna
Even if it does hurt my ego a little.
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Hansel Hexenmeister
August 29, 2022 6:26 PM
We can meet in the middle? by Hansel Hexenmeister
Hansel did not realize his mistake until Lyla asked who Redrock was. He abruptly adopted a slightly chagrined nervous expression. "Erm, Redrock is a snake," he admitted. "I rewarded him with the mice I carry around for my own pet snake, and that's how I found you. He's got better senses than us for finding people. And I can . . . talk to him?" That was a secret that was pretty much out of the bag at this point. Nobody who wasn't a Parselmouth could get a snake to go scouting for other people at their request, no matter how many snakes they took care of. That required some pretty sophisticated communication and trust."And I just told him to go find more people on the promise of the one mouse I have left and what I can bring him tomorrow, but I think he'd be more willing to keep helping past the next teammate if we had more mice for immediate gratification. He shouldn't take too long though, so I guess we wait for him to come back?"
He jabbed a finger back the way he and Gwendolyn had come from. "He found Gwendolyn pretty quick and led me back to her. I can show you the parting charm I've been using to follow him through the hedges. It's not super hard." It was probably a little over the Beginners' level, especially Lyla who was still new to all things magic, but with a little coaching and practice they could probably get the basics. They had him and Isla to help them actually get through the hedges, but they had a few minutes to spare while Redrock scouted, and learning a new useful spell seemed like a good way to pass the time.
And in fact, it did seem that it wasn't terribly long after he'd demonstrated it a couple times and given them a chance to try it themselves that the rattlesnake poked his head out of a different hedge and hissed, *I found two over this way. Larger female, smaller male.*
*That's great! Thank you!* Han hissed back happily, then translated for everyone else, "He says he found an older girl and a younger boy in that direction, let's go! Once we find them, we'll just have one left to go!"
He parted the hedge for them to follow Redrock to Eben and either Sadie or Bonabelle. Both of those girls could take care of themselves quite well, he was sure (he based this assumption entirely on their age), and he was glad it wasn't one of the younger one who'd been caught out all by themselves all this time while everyone else seemed to be coalescing together. Maybe if the team was very lucky the other two would find the lone remaining teammate (or the other way around) while this subgroup of team six made their way over to them.
1
Hansel Hexenmeister
We can meet in the middle?
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