System
September 23, 2022 5:13 PM
Selina Skies
September 23, 2022 5:13 PM
Challenge Two: Pots, pans, booms, bangs by Selina Skies
The notice for the second task had offered the following information:’You will all work on the second challenge simultaneously. Come to the front steps at 9am on Saturday Xth. This challenge will take most of your weekend, so please plan your studies accordingly. Bring your wands.
When the students arrived, there weren’t any obvious signs of what the challenge would be. The gardens looked to be their normal selves. Professor Skies was standing on the front steps, and simply waited for them to gather in a group.
“Hello. Welcome to your second challenge. We have decided to host it in the gardens in order to make adequate space for everyone, though you may choose to go and work in other spaces within the school if you wish.
“Whilst our first challenge tested your puzzle-solving skills, this one will stretch your creativity. You are going to create a piece of music, and the instruments on which to play them. Now, some of you may play a real instrument, and have the transfiguration abilities to recreate them—that’s certainly allowed, but for those who don’t have any such person on the team, you are not at a disadvantage. We are not expecting you to turn in a full orchestra. We’re expecting junk musical instruments, creative use of everyday objects, or use of spells you’ve learned.
“You will have access to a pile of materials. These have been collected from different areas of the school.” This included the kitchens, which had provided pans, cups, glasses and so on. There were mannequins, balls and hoops from the pitch, and all manner of other items which did not immediately scream ‘musical instrument.’ “Some of them may well be usable as they are. Others might require transfiguring or charming to meet your needs.
“There are also several portraits from the MARS music room set up in a small booth to provide consultation about composition and any other musical matters.
“You will have from nine to five today, and from nine until midday tomorrow to complete this challenge. At lunchtime today, you will be required to hand in a plan of the instruments you are going to complete. At the end of the day, you should be able to show a rough outline of your performance. Tomorrow will be for tweaks and rehearsal.
“Each group will perform in a randomised order to the staff and other groups. As well as being graded for challenge points, the three best groups will perform at the concert.
“In a minute, you will be led to a workstation in the gardens.” These were grouped in a large, open area around the central bank of resources. Whilst the work stations looked like they had flimsy, fabric walls, they were charmed to be soundproof. They would also do a good job of providing shelter from the weather, although it was, so far, mild and not particularly rainy that day. Each station was also equipped with drinks, snacks and sun protection (unlikely to be necessary).
“We will bring out a picnic lunch at midday. Are there any questions?”
Subthreads: Team 6 with System, Hansel Hexenmeister, Sadie-Lake Chalmers, Eben Sosna, Lyla Holland
Team 1 with System, Oz Spellman, Iris Cobb
Team 2 with System, Lenny Pierce, Yaniel Ayala Velez, Amethyst Brockert
Team 3 with System, Phil Carson, Olaf Brockert, Graham Osbrook, Robyn Lundstrom
Team 4 with System, Christopher Brockert, Cole Pierce, Alexei Vorontsov, Bertie Jackson
Team 5 with System, Esme Brockert, Rosalynn Tellerman, Nausicaa Scapetello, Verdillia Scurlock
Team 7 with System, Valentine Duell, Xarryn Bavol, Leviosa Scurlock
Team 8 with System, Mab, Xavier Lundstrom, Henry Spellman
Team 9 with System, Philippe Delachene, Claire Osbrook, Theo Spurn, Ian Malone
13
Selina Skies
Challenge Two: Pots, pans, booms, bangs
26
1
5
Hansel Hexenmeister
October 03, 2022 6:40 PM
I can't see how snakes will help us with this one by Hansel Hexenmeister
Hansel's team was doing amazing. They'd won the first challenge by a solid five point margin over second place and twelve points over the teams tied for third, which was saying kind of a lot because the other seven teams only had a six point spread between them.He was pretty sure it was thanks to Redrock that they breezed through the labyrinth so fast and collected everyone together much more efficiently than they would have without him. Hans had been sure to seek him out and give him a bunch more mice after the rankings had been posted to thank him for being an invaluable part of the team. He did feel a little bad, though, that they'd had something of an unfair advantage over the teams that didn't have a parselmouth on them.
And he was a little nervous about all of Team Six basically knowing he was one. He hadn't outright said that's what he was but it had been pretty obvious, what with the talking to a snake in front of everybody and all. A few minutes of research in the library probably would get the classification of what he was for anyone curious enough to look. And the usually dark stereotypes that went with them.
He was pretty sure he had already been making some of the younger kids nervous just because he was the sort of person who carried around dead mice with him.
Still, nobody had been outright mean to him so far, and Dad hadn't gotten any letters from the school about not using his talents in front of others over midterm, so he guessed it was fine. It wasn't a secret they'd kept from the administration, so he didn't expect he'd get expelled over it or anything, but he had wondered if they would strongly recommend that he shouldn't be speaking parseltongue when other students were around.
No notice of the sort had come, though, and they'd ranked first place, so he guessed it didn't even count as cheating, just using their assets and talents for a strong advantage, and so he'd been sure to bring along a few more dead mice than usual, along with his wand, to the second challenge, which he thought was prudent since it was being held in the Gardens again.
As Professor Skies explained their task however, he didn't think his ability to talk to snakes was going to come up at all this time.
Addressing the rest of the team once they reached their headquarters for the day, Hansel offered his contribution, "I know some German folk songs? I can't play an accordion, though, and wouldn't know how to even start transfiguring something that complicated. There's a kind of German bagpipe that I might be able to make sound better than a dying cat, but I won't swear to it. It would be creative, though, right? Or I could maybe make a glockenspiel, which is kind of like an two layered xy-xy- the instrument that you have in English that starts with an X that you hit with a little hammer to make the music." It wasn't often that he lost an English word, but obscure instruments were not something he talked about, well, ever. "That one will at least sound okay even when used by an amateur player, but it's not as unique as the Hümmelchen, the bagpipes."
1
Hansel Hexenmeister
I can't see how snakes will help us with this one
1524
0
5
Sadie-Lake Chalmers
October 04, 2022 8:09 PM
Hissing could be percussive by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Sadie couldn't quite believe how the challenges were going. Her team wasn't just doing well, they were coming first. She had been quick to dismiss her own contributions to that, or her ability as a leader - after all, it seemed like most of her team had found each other by the time she had found them - but over break she had been around people who didn't let her dismiss her own accomplishments so quickly. Dathan's positive influence was starting to stick, and Sadie had returned from break willing to acknowledge that she had at least contributed in some way, even if she wasn't fully ready to call herself a leader.She needed to step up and be one though, because it was time for the second challenge, and now there was something at stake. Before, she had been the underdog, and however high she rose would have been a mark of surprise and success. Now though, she was at the top, and she had to prove it wasn't a fluke.
Except, it might well have been.
She wasn't quite sure how they had managed to be faster or more creative, though the post-challenge conversation seemed to suggest Hansel had talked to several snakes and bribed them into helping. She had read about human-animal communication, both because of Jack-Jack and because of her chosen future profession, so she knew that was possible but rare. A few of the things she had read suggested it was evil, but according to some superstitions, so was having red hair, and given that Dathan was the nicest person she had ever met, she was fairly sure the books were wrong about that and about Parselmouths. It wasn't even all of the books that said it, and she had come across enough backhanded compliments about the 'surprising abilities' of Muggleborns that she took all insults in books with a pinch of salt. Still, interesting as Hansel's gift was, and useful as it had been in the first challenge, they were about to be faced with something completely different, so how could she strategise?
She listened to Professor Skies, feeling her spirits sink. The first challenge had sounded... well, challenging, but it had all related to things she had studied and knew how to do. Music was something else entirely, and something you either had learnt or hadn't, and wasn't really something you could pick up on the spot. Except, apparently they had to.
She followed her team, careful to keep her facial expression even and worry-free. She had to find a way to make this do-able.
Hansel spoke up first, and where she had been drifting in a sea of unknowns, she found herself nodding and smiling as his remarks gave her something solid to step off from. It also provided her an easy opportunity to be helpful.
"Xylophone," she supplied gently, giving him an encouraging smile. "And I think those are wonderful ideas. I don't know much about music," she admitted. "But Hansel's ideas really show how we can be unique, and I think that's a great thing to put into our music - unless anyone here is a really strong musician or composer, we might not be the best musically, but we can make something that only we could make. We can be the best at being ourselves, and showcasing what that means in our music." Oh gosh, that sounded so cheesy. But it also sounded right, and so even though she could feel her cheeks glowing a little, she carried on.
"I love animals, and I have a pet Jackelope. I'm probably not allowed to use him in the performance, and he's not much of a singer, but...I'm going to think about that," she finished, not quite sure where that thought was going yet. If she could record different animal noises, she could sample them and that would be... unique. And probably weird. And she had no idea how to do that in the magical world. None of it was a fully formed plan quite yet, but it felt like a direction.
"Let's brainstorm the things that we think reflect our personalities, or that we feel comfortable making and playing, and work out which pieces might go together. Hansel, you can start trying to make both your instruments so you can see which ones are possible. If you need any help, let us know." That sounded fairly leaderly to her... She glanced around for any signs of rebellion, any hints that she wasn't doing this right.
13
Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Hissing could be percussive
1480
0
5
Eben Sosna
October 06, 2022 1:14 PM
UFOs...make a sound? by Eben Sosna
Upon reading the notice for the second challenge, Eben had started planning. It had seemed obvious to him that they were being set up for some kind of survival challenge, even worse than the last one – this time, from the wording, he could only assume they were going to have to camp out all weekend.He was nervous about that prospect, there was no denying it. He’d never been camping in his life, unless a very occasional comforter-tent in the back yard with his brother at home counted (he doubted that counted). Since he had not exactly distinguished himself by performance in the first challenge, he felt the need to make up for it now; since he didn’t really know how to do the thing, he was at a disadvantage, which was never a great feeling. On the other hand, though…they were going to get to break the rules! They might get to find out if some of the rumors about things lurking in the Gardens were true! Though, if they were, it might be due to the teachers manipulating the situation, in which case he’d still have to break the rules on purpose sometime to find out if the Gardens were always dangerous at night, but…still!
So, once the notice had gone up, he had spent all week practicing everything he could remember from Defense Against the Dark Arts, reviewing old Care of Magical Creatures notes, and memorizing charms that sounded useful. He had also shrunk down a notebook enough that he could fit it, a couple of pens, and his instant camera (which thankfully mostly worked around here; what, he wondered irritably, was even the point of wizarding photographs? The portraits at least were interesting, but the pictures? They just…defeated the point of pictures, didn’t they?), along with a book to read in the inevitable downtime, all in his pockets. He couldn’t document things with just his wand, not yet, anyway – from what he understood, when he was older, he might be able to make whatever he needed just with that, but for now, his Transfiguration skills simply weren’t up to par. So he packed his objects of dubious permittedness up on the morning of, went down to the stairs…and ended up stopping in mid-bounce on the balls of his feet as he realized he had, in fact, gotten everything about the challenge wrong.
Music? That was…it? They had to make elementary school-level improv instruments and music?
He still looked a bit embarrassed and puzzled when they split up into their component groups and Hansel Hexenmeister started talking about German instruments. Hansel…was someone who at least made more sense, now; Eben had already been pretty sure the guy carried dead mice around for no obvious reason (maybe he had a pet snake, but…why carry its snacks around school all the time? That was kinda weird, not to mention unsanitary, not that ‘sanitary’ seemed to be much of a consideration in the wizarding world on the whole), and this behavior made more sense now that it turned out he was probably one of those people mentioned in the Care of Magical Creatures book in passing, the ones who could actually communicate with snakes. Which was why Eben was now spending far more time than usual in the Care of Magical Creatures section, looking up different animals at random just in case he needed to become a vegan yesterday, because somehow, it had never clicked before that a very specific, rare kind of snake in the Care of Magical Creatures book being sentient might imply that snakes in general, at least where wizards happened to be in groups, could also be sentient.
He was just glad that his response to the things, on the maybe two occasions he’d seen one on his own in the past two and a half years, had always been to freeze and back away very, very slowly until he could round a corner, at which point he’d always started running as fast as possible back toward indoors. He…suspected it could have been bad if he had been the type to get aggressive when he felt threatened, and if Hans had then asked to work with someone whose father he’d unwittingly killed….
It didn’t sound like Hans’ slithery friends were going to be much help to them this time, though, since ‘a chorus of hissing’ was one of the least pleasant sounds Eben could think of. He wished he had as many definite thoughts about Sadie’s proposal about being themselves, though. He was used to being himself, of course, mostly due to not knowing how to be anyone else. He was also used to finding this vaguely dissatisfactory, and to others doing likewise. As for family history – he was about ninety-seven percent sure that his family had originally been from what was now the Czech Republic, but this had limited to no bearing on his day to day life. He wasn’t even sure he could spell ‘Czech’ right on a consistent basis, much less say anything about the culture.
“My family is a lot less interesting than the name might make us sound,” he confessed when Sadie looked around, which he took as a request for contributions. “It’s literally useless unless you want to know a list of puns you can make about it, and I’d rather not make a song about those.” He assumed the reasons for that were obvious to anyone who’d, well, gone to elementary school. “Something else something else,…uh…people ring bells a lot in the backgrounds of those ghost hunter documentaries I used to watch a lot at home? Bells or – those dangly metal things – windchimes, those might not be too hard to make?”
As for making them sound good, well…one problem at a time.
“Sorry - most of what I know about music involves Elvis-alien theories,” he explained, feeling this offering had been spectacularly weak. There were so many ‘Elvis is alive and was abducted by aliens’ people in the world; why, with evidence like the glow over the house when Elvis was born and the King's habit of sighting UFOs and eating really bizarre things, did everyone always overlook the obvious answer, which was that Elvis simply either was or had been an alien himself? It made way more sense than anything else he'd seen put out there. "Oh - and if we go to MARS to talk to portraits - " a sentence that still made him want to giggle, even after two and a half years here - "I...maybe shouldn't go with you all. Some of the portraits get annoyed with me sometimes. They might sabotage us, if the wrong ones appear."
16
Eben Sosna
UFOs...make a sound?
1538
0
5
Lyla Holland
October 07, 2022 12:06 PM
I'd prefer if other people made the noises by Lyla Holland
Lyla was feeling pretty confident after the first challenge. She had dreaded it beforehand, thinking that there was no way a baby first-year would be able to do absolutely anything, but the organizers had stayed true to their word and given her tasks that, though challenging, were on her level. She was pretty sure Team Six's success in the rankings was due to Hansel and Redrock, though. It seemed like it had taken ages for her to find the Brockert girls, but once Hansel had turned up, his snake-tracking-system had made short work of finding everyone else.So, Lyla skipped down to the gardens on the morning of the second challenge, knowing that the organizers wouldn't give her anything that she couldn't handle. She bounced impatiently on her toes, head swiveling to see if there was anything different in the gardens that would give away what the challenge was.
Then she heard Professor Skies say something about creating music, and her stomach dropped. Her bounces slowed with every sentence until she was still. She glanced around at her teammates, wondering if any of them had any musical ability, because she knew that she did not. She followed the guide to their designated tent, racking her brain on what she could do.
Hans was the first to pipe up, citing folk songs and bagpipes, which wasn't a terrible idea- at least he had an idea. The tricky part would be making the instruments out of whatever the heck was in the pile of supplies. Lyla stayed in the corner, listening and thinking. Sadie talked about being unique, which Lyla somewhat agreed with, although there was a difference between 'unique' and 'a mess'.
It was something that Eben said that offered Lyla a spark of inspiration.
"The portraits," she said aloud, "If we can figure out instruments, they can help with composing. That's what Professor Skies said they were there for. Maybe someone should go ask what instruments sound good with bagpipes, so we can start looking for stuff that we can transfigure into those things?"
Lyla was hoping someone else would volunteer to talk to the portraits, as she had enough trouble speaking up around regular people that she knew. She didn't know if her team would be penalized for using the portraits' knowledge rather than their own brains, but it seemed silly that the organizers would offer it as a resource if they didn't want them to use it. Either way, they needed to get a move on, as Lyla could see out the tent flap that a few of the other teams had already started rummaging through the supplies.
64
Lyla Holland
I'd prefer if other people made the noises
1559
0
5
