Challenge Two: Pots, pans, booms, bangs on Labyrinth Gardens

System

September 23, 2022 5:13 PM

Team 9 by System

0 System Team 9 0 System 0 5

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 9 with System, Philippe Delachene, Claire Osbrook, Theo Spurn, Ian Malone

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 6 with System, Hansel Hexenmeister, Sadie-Lake Chalmers, Eben Sosna, Lyla Holland

0 System Team 8 0 System 0 5

Mab

September 23, 2022 9:14 PM

You hit a hard no here by Mab

Mab hated the second challenge. The more Professor Skies talked, the darker Mab’s scowl got, the stiffer her posture became. She said nothing to her team before stalking off to the area reserved for their private use.

She was not generally an easy person to read and most of her expressions defaulted to looking somewhere in the range between annoyed and bored even when she wasn’t either. Right now, she looked close to seething mad, though that wasn’t exactly accurate either. That was just how her face showed absolute terror.

There were a lot of things she didn’t like but would bear with grudging resentment. Being a prefect. Being a team leader. Living in the same House as Billy Cobb and Stanley O’Malley.

At the team meet and greet she’d given one thing. One thing that she didn’t want to do. That she had admitted she wasn’t comfortable doing. And that was what this challenge was about.

Her heart was beating too fast. Her breath was coming in sharp shallow hisses. She felt sweaty but hoped she didn’t look it.

Her voice, when she did speak, was clipped and tight. “Is anyone else a hard no on performing in front of other people?”

It wasn’t that she got stage fright or that she was, Oberon forbid, shy or anything, but she had a deep seated fear of people paying too much attention to her. Bad things happened when she got noticed. That was how she got put into foster care twice, got arrested, got into fights, and not getting noticed was how she survived on the streets.

“I will make sure nobody who doesn’t want to perform doesn’t have to,” she promised fiercely. “And if any of you have any other nopes that need to be accommodated, I will fight for that, too. Just let me know.”

1 Mab You hit a hard no here 1473 0 5

Xavier Lundstrom

September 24, 2022 6:02 PM

Too bad, so sad by Xavier Lundstrom

Xavier had mixed feelings going into the second challenge. His team was doing well. Like, ridiculously well, given that it had him on it. He was hoping that his divination skills and his speed in finding Mab had contributed to their high score, and it wasn't just the amazing magical Brockerts pulling him up. Just as he’d feared, the moment Jasper entered, Xavier’s own knowledge and ability started seeming pathetic, and he felt like he’d stumbled through the rest of the maze being a deadweight. Whilst his nose had healed quickly, he was still metaphorically sore about the whole age line thing. Even if his divination had contributed, it wasn’t like anyone else knew he’d done it.

The only things he knew about today's challenge was that it would be a different task, but with the same people. That meant further chances to be forced into doing magic in front of people who easily outclassed him, and who were liable to make all kinds of unkind inferences about him and his family. At least he had Henry and Mab. Even more surprisingly, he wasn't in the position of keeping a secret from Henry. Oz had told him. Xav hadn't been expecting that, and if he'd known ahead of time, he might have worried about how he was supposed to work on a team with Henry if he got weird about it. But he'd only been told about it once it was no longer an issue.

The task description didn't sound too bad. Maybe less fun than the maze, and he was concerned about being in close proximity to the Brockerts all day, and with the expectation of performing magic with them watching. He wasn't sure he was particularly musical, but they had the advantage of a guitar player on their team, and he was sure the rest of them could hit or shake stuff in a vaguely co-ordinated way.

He didn’t immediately pick up on the danger sign of Mab’s scowling because it was Mab. He’d seen her look ready to murder someone more often than any other expression, and even though he now liked her enough to term the high end of her expression range as ‘neutral,’ he was also aware that it could be called ‘resting witch face’ very easily.

He shook his head, ready to reassure her that no, he had no issue, when she took it a step further, and started talking about pushing back, and how she would make sure none of them had to do anything they were uncomfortable with.

“Ha.” The flat, mirthless sound was out of his mouth before he’d given it conscious thought. If she wanted to protect them all from discomfort, she was a little too late. Not that she would have been able to. The school had demanded that he take a skill he was widely known to be below grade level at, and use it to compete with his peers. Not only that, but they’d made other people’s standing dependent on how well he was able to do, and made it so they would directly witness whether or not he was pulling his weight or failing them. And now Mab was offering to save him from discomfort? Not only was it far too late, but there was no way she had the power. The adults here weren’t the same as the officials who had taken him away. Rationally, he knew that. Adults here had helped him, and had his trust but… But ‘adults’ as a concept was different to the idea of Professor Wright, sitting in his office given lessons and listening to his complaints. You couldn’t tell the adults running your life what to do—you could only make them pissed by trying.

“Sure thing,” he said, his voice cold and sarcastic. “I’m gonna find us some stuff we can actually work with,” he said, sliding down from their work area, so he could go look over the materials. He wanted to get in their first, and find the things that would take the least transfiguration to make into workable instruments. He wanted to minimise the risks of being stuck with something he just couldn’t do whilst he had a whole team of people waiting on him and watching him. He wanted to manage and mitigate the situation as best he could, because there was no way the discomfort could be taken away completely.

Not that he could say or explain any of that to Mab with the rest of them right there. Not that he could point out that, apart from divination, this was the one experience he’d had in school where he wasn’t crashing, burning, and failing, and that she was threatening to jeopardise that by being unwilling to stand at the back of the stage shaking a flipping maraca or something! If she wanted to protect him from discomfort, she wouldn’t risk annoying all the people who were in charge of grading them, potentially sending the one thing where he was finally achieving something up in flames.

OOC: I tried to leave it so someone call call Xavier back or proceed with him to the junk area. Etiher's fine by me. Or, I guess, let him go on his own and talk behind his back. So many options.

13 Xavier Lundstrom Too bad, so sad 1529 0 5

Henry Spellman

September 25, 2022 5:27 AM

Taking one for the team. by Henry Spellman

Attention was bad news usually. Attention was the wrong people seeing the wrong things at the wrong time and a missed rent payment turning into DHS showing up at the door, or a flying fist from someone who had too stupid of an opinion about Henry and Oz to figure out which one of them he was aiming at. Considering what Henry knew of his teammates, he was sure he wasn't the only one who felt that way, and Mab's comments confirmed it. For all that she might go to bat for her teammates, Henry doubted there was any real way out of this except mediocrity. They were doing well enough that mediocrity would be fine and Henry certainly wasn't competitive enough to actually care whether they won or not; it was mostly his rule-following nature that made him want to do his best. With a private sigh, Henry spoke up when there was a gap. Xavier had stepped away but was within earshot still, but he probably already knew what Henry had to say.

"I play guitar and write music," he said with a barely concealed grimace. "Pretty... pretty well." Admitting a strength was hard for him, especially when it was a strength in something he generally kept reserved for alone time or time with family. With Oz on another team, this stupid competition was neither alone time nor family time. "I don't like performing in front of people but I can do it if we have to. I don't mind doing that for us."

He glanced towards the junk Xavier was making his way towards and realized that playing guitar might actually not be a helpful skill at all in this case and he was sort of regretting saying anything. "I don't play lampshade or frying pan though. So... we'll need to work on that."

22 Henry Spellman Taking one for the team. 1513 0 5

Esme Brockert

September 25, 2022 6:43 PM

We can do better by Esme Brockert

Esme was, quite obviously, disappointed by the Challenge results thus far. This was something that she had been looking forward to for the last seven years, and her team was tied for last place!

She was happy for Isla and Sadie, really, she was, both were sort of-and she didn’t mean this in a nasty way- underdog types. The sort of person who deserved and needed a win. A sort of person she generally did not consider herself to be. The seventh year was not shy or weird or a victim of some horrible trauma beyond just being unlucky enough to have Topaz Brockert as a first cousin. Nor was she disabled or especially disadvantaged in any way. She was a proper pureblood girl.

Which, actually, meant that people tended not to root for people like Esme. In fact, girls like her were often maligned by people who weren’t them. And not just by misogynist cretins like her uncle Eustace who saw all women as inferior to men, including ones who weren’t purebloods, since he was, of course, also anti-non purebloods. Some people thought that they were silly or weak or shallow or mean or snooty or a bunch of other adjectives that weren’t especially complimentary. People generally both wanted and expected them to fail.

Although, Esme supposed, that would sort of make them underdogs when they stepped outside their immediate circle if they were expected to fail, which was the definition of being an underdog.. However, people tended not to see them that way.

Besides, deserving something and getting something were two incredibly different things. After all, Allegra hadn’t deserved all that Topaz had dished out to her and Aunt Helena surely deserved a better husband than Uncle Eustace. Still, generally speaking, it was nice for those like her roommate and her sister to triumph and get to feel good about themselves.

Still, Esme was the one who’d always wanted this, always looked forward to it. And she hadn’t gotten prefect or Head Student, so there wasn’t much more chance for her to come out on top at Sonora. Sure, she would carry herself with dignity and not allow anyone to see anything affect her but that didn’t mean that it didn’t, deep down.

Also, the Crotalus would have liked to blame the event itself for their poor showing. It had been, after all, something that could be athletic when the Crotalus generally had a team that was more brainy than brawny. Except that most of the obstacles could be subverted with magic, if not were downright meant to be dealt with in such a manner. It had been magic and problem solving, and besides, one of the issues around things that were athletic, was the anxiety one got over the fact that others would see and judge them for being not physically capable of something involving physical strength or coordination or speed, and that had been partially taken care of by the fact that they weren’t all together for part of the time. Of course, not being able to do certain things would trip someone up and make it harder to find people in the time allotted.

Still, it was more an intellectual and magical task than a physical one, so Esme couldn’t really blame the event, unfortunately. Although, she did not understand why so many people, most of whom had at least some history and experience in the magical world, did not know what an age line was. Apparently, having an exclusively magical background was an advantage but the Crotalus was well aware that had anyone mentioned that as a strength it would have been taken the wrong way.

At least, however, the way the first Challenge had been set up, nobody could blame Esme’s leadership for their poor placement. Honestly, the main issue that she had with it wasn’t the sort of skills tested, since it wasn’t really an athletic event, but that it seemed to be more of an individual competition when the Challenges were supposed to be all about teamwork and forming connections with those that you usually wouldn’t spend much time with.

Although, of course, Esme refused to think of herself as inferior to anyone. Okay, maybe she would concede that others had skills in certain areas that were superior to hers. Like Owen being a gifted writer or Miles showing promising artistic ability. She would also admit that there were some areas where she did not particularly excel, such as sports. However, those did not make people superior to her as a person, they just were more talented in those specific areas. Furthermore, Esme refused to admit failure, despite the fact that that was pretty much what being tied for last place meant. She just plain had too much pride.

They would do better this time, they had to. The seventh year was not certain there was still a chance of doing as well as she really wanted to anymore, but they still had to do better than last place. At the very least they could beat the team that they were currently tied with.

Unfortunately, Esme was a tiny bit worried that this time would be an athletic challenge since the last one had been one where that was merely one of the options and far from the best one, even for those more inclined towards them. She had always been a fairly good dancer personally, having had done ballet as a child as well as the typical ballroom lessons necessary for one of her station and so was not completely lacking in gross motor skills but when it came to things like flying, Quidditch and such, Esme found them extremely distasteful, probably because she associated sports with Uncle Eustace for whom that description was perfectly apt.

And seeing as they would be out in the gardens again and knowing about how Allegra had been subjected to multiple events which were either like the first one that they’d had-problem solving where athletic solutions were an option but in Allegra’s case, involved the humiliation factor of being one incapable of them in front of others-or genuinely did involve physical stamina-the survival challenge, Esme was well aware that some especially heinous torture could possibly be inflicted upon them today.

Professor Skies began to speak and the Crotalus breathed a sigh of relief. Not only was today’s event not going to be some unpleasant task involving athletic skills, but she had Rosalynn on her team and the fifth year was the president of both arts’ clubs. Esme had no idea whether or not the younger girl was musically inclined, but surely she’d have some ideas about what sort of junk could be changed into what sort of instrument. And Esme could certainly do some transfiguring.

Once they arrived at their workstation, she looked at her teammates. “All right. Any toddler can figure out that banging a spoon on a pan makes a drum. We need to be much more creative than that. Does anyone have any other ideas?”

11 Esme Brockert We can do better 1479 0 5

Rosalynn Tellerman

September 26, 2022 12:51 PM

We absolutely can! by Rosalynn Tellerman

Rosalynn was a bit disappointed that her team hadn’t done better than it had in the first challenge. Tied for last wasn’t exactly the kind of placement you liked the share with your brother over Christmas when he asked how those challenges she’d asked so many questions about were going. Sully was hardly a competitive person and not inclined to brag even when he had the ability to do so, but Rosalynn was used to scoring better than him on basically everything and his team had landed in the middle of the pack during his set of challenges. His lead was the minimum expectation to beat and, in this, her team hadn’t.

There were still two challenges to go though. They could still catch up. They just needed to do better next time.

As soon as Professor Skies used the word ‘creative’, Rosalynn began to smile. Making her own instruments and arranging a composition to utilize them wasn’t exactly her signature talent, but she didn’t think it was anyone else in the school’s either. She was president of not one but two art clubs in the school, so she felt she was at least on equal footing to anyone else trying to do this, if not actually at an advantage.

She’d already started sort of doing exactly this for one of her concert acts, after all, minus the part where they had to make their own instruments out of random materials.

Rosalynn went with the rest if her group to their workstation and looked around at what they had to work with. One of the frying pans was almost exactly the right shape to become a banjo, with just a bit of transfiguration magic. They could get a drum set out of the pots without any work at all, although a more resonant material would be better.

When Esme asked for ideas, Rosalynn was ready. Her hand shot toward the banjo pan and held it aloft. “I can make this into a banjo, no problem. Banjo’s my favorite and it works well with improvised instruments. My dad and grandfather are both really good banjo players. I think we can make a proper drum set out of those pots, too. I don’t play the drums but I’m familiar enough with them I could recreate a rock band set or something more Irish folk like a bodhran.”

She looked around at the rest of the group. “Those are the obvious ones, but we can probably improvise something for any instrument. Nausicaa, we know you play the violin and harp. We can maybe, um,” she put down her banjo pan in exchange for what was maybe some kind of gardening shovel? “Transfigure this to a violin? Fiddles and banjos pair well. Does anyone else have anything they can already play?”

1 Rosalynn Tellerman We absolutely can! 1520 0 5

Mab

September 26, 2022 4:19 PM

You don’t have to by Mab

Mab blinked in surprise then frowned as Xavier snapped at her then walked off to look over the random stuff they’d been given to turn into a concert musical act. Fortunately, before she could snap back, Henry offered some more pertinent information about his skills, and also that he was likewise reluctant to be the center of attention.

She took a breath to calm down and center herself, and nodded to Henry, “Thank you.” Then she frowned again toward Xavier, then looked back at the rest of the group. “I didn’t say we wouldn’t do the act. We’re going to keep doing what need to do to do well in this thing. I asked who had a problem being in front of people. There are other options. We can play behind a sheet with someone doing light pictures in time with the music for visual effects, or we can just have a lot of fog on the stage and the people who aren’t okay with performing can hide in the back where the audience can’t see them. And if there are any other issues that need to be accommodated, it would be better to know up front so we can make a plan to address them.”

“The school put me in charge of this team, and that means it’s my job to make sure nothing we do traumatizes anyone on it, to the best of my ability. This one hits my triggers. I want you all to feel like you can come to me and I will address yours, too. So, is there anything else we should know before we start putting together our act? For example, I don’t want the audience to see me on stage and I don’t want my name in the concert programme if we do place in the top three. I will do everything I can to make sure those things don’t happen for me and if any of you also have those hang ups, or any other ones, I will do everything in my power to see us through without further psychological damage than what we started with. Please note I am not trying to take credit from anyone who does want it. If some or all of you do want credit on the programme, we can call us Team Eight, starring … and then we’ll list everyone comfortable with having their name there and leave mine out of it. If anyone wants to be seen on stage, you can play in front of the sheet or fog. Ok?”

"And if you're not comfortable sharing to the whole group, you can talk to me while everyone else goes out to rummage. So how about you folks go out and find stuff and I'll wait here for a little bit."

When Xavier did come back, she repeated those points to him, trying not to sound accusatory or defensive, but not sure she entirely managed either.

1 Mab You don’t have to 1473 0 5

Lenny Pierce

September 26, 2022 7:00 PM

Whoo, this will be good! by Lenny Pierce

Lenny's team was tied for third place, which he thought was a great place to be. They were doing well, but not so well that there was huge pressure to keep doing well. There was room to improve, but if they stayed where they were, it was still good, and if they fell, they could at least say they'd been tied for third in one of the challenges.

He gathered with the rest of his team in the Gardens for the second challenge. He'd brought along his wand, like they'd been told to do, and he was again wearing his high-top sneakers. As it was still early in the term, he'd selected a warm pink sweatshirt with sequins and comfortable leggings with unicorns on them, in case it was another challenge with a lot of walking involved in it. This time he had French braided his hair with ribbons to keep it out of the way. That fit under his royal purple knit hat better than the high ponytail from last time would have.

He was from California and was strongly anticipating to freeze to death today if the challenge took place entirely outside.

As he waited for Professor Skies to start the Challenge, the weather was mild enough that he decided he probably wouldn't die today, but he was still glad he'd dressed for cold. It might not be winter anymore, but they were definitely not yet in summer, and it did sound like they'd be outside all day.

Professor Skies did begin speaking then, and Lenny perked up as he listened to the expectations they were working with for this challenge.

"Okay," he said as soon as their group had relocated to the privacy of their work station, "I know we all know I can't carry a tune in a bucket, but I'm not terrible at rhythm, so I call dibs on some kind of percussion!"

1 Lenny Pierce Whoo, this will be good! 1547 0 5

Oz Spellman

September 27, 2022 3:11 AM

I guess I make those sounds... by Oz Spellman

It was hard to feel enthusiastic about challenge two. Even if it was something cool, and even if Oz felt like he was kicking butt, it seemed like that wouldn't be the case at all when it came to scoring, based on his experience so far. Scoring low wasn't a new experience for him. It had happened a lot in class. At his old school, he had usually been low but never bottom, but since coming to Sonora, there had been such a massive leap in expectations, and he had experienced being dead last. At his old school, it had been an intentional defence mechanism - kids who did well risked having their heads flushed, not to mention the teacher who'd accused him of copying Henry when he expressed anything too coherent on his homework. To protect himself from students and teachers alike, he had hovered somewhere in the bottom quarter. He hadn't initially realised that the same social rules didn't apply at Sonora, and had crashed and burned a few times through deliberate lack of effort. Those times had been frustrating, as he was annoyed at the rules suddenly switching, but they hadn't truly wounded him. It had been a tough barrier to overcome to actually start trying his best when there were so many negative associations to doing so. When he had, it hadn't automatically solved his problems. His best didn't necessarily pull him above other people. And that stung. It was one thing to slack off and do badly, but it was another to actually try and still not be good enough.

Right now, the challenges felt like that.

It would have been great if quitting was an option, but it wasn't, and all he knew about the upcoming challenge was that it would take most of his weekend, which was seriously unfair. Whatever else his gripes were with challenge one, at least it had been fast. Just apparently not fast enough in his case...

As he listened to Professor Skies, he didn't feel particularly optimistic. At least, not for himself. Music was Henry's thing. So, here was another thing that played to Henry's strengths. He wouldn't initially have said the maze did - he had spent most of the rest of that day having an anxious stomach ache about Henry versus monsters - but it seemed like working smarter not harder had been the solution, which was very Henry. Judging by their scores, whatever he had done was something Oz was incapable of, which probably meant that it involved thinking. Now the cards were falling his way again and... And it wasn't like Oz didn't want him to do well. It just would have been nice if the gap wasn't so big already, and if this task didn't mean that it was only going to get bigger. But then, Henry had had a lot of crap luck in life, like getting Oz as a brother for one, so maybe this was it balancing out.

He made his way over to his group's work area, wondering how they were going to fill a whole weekend with doing this.

"I'm gonna grab some good junk before all the best bits are gone!" he said. The idea that you had to be quick to get the good stuff was a rule he had not yet unlearnt, regardless of whether it applied at Sonora or not. As soon as he heard 'shared resource' his brain jumped to 'competition' and 'scarcity.'

"Shout if you want anything."

He swung down, willing to take any parting remarks or requests, and made his way to the resource pile.

Okay. So... there were plates. Plates were noisy when you hit them. But they also broke. But they could maybe break them and repair them. Was that like some super original magic instrument? He grabbed some just in case. They also looked kind of like cymbals. Ooh, and a cauldron could be the big drum in the middle, and help him carry stuff. He shoved it around a bit, not trusting that he could take his hands off it in spite of the obvious claim of it having stuff inside. Then he remembered featherlight charms, and after that it got a whole lot easier to carry his cauldron around and add some cups (which could also make noise) and some fabric (it was big, and bigness was a good quality cos it gave you a lot to work with) and bunch of hoops and some Beaters bats and a Quaffle (because those just spoke to him).

OOC: Have tried to leave it open in case anyone wants to come and rummage with Oz, but also you're welcome to assume he comes back if you stay at the work area and a reasonable amount of time elapses. I also made some assumptions about how much people would try to stop him approaching things the Oz way. I assumed 'not much.' If this gets in anyone's way, let me know in chatzy.

13 Oz Spellman I guess I make those sounds... 1514 0 5

Nausicaa Scapetello

September 27, 2022 3:29 PM

Yes... absolutely. by Nausicaa Scapetello

The first challenge had been problematic. Nausicaa had done her best to overcome the obstacles so that her teammates could easily find each other, and somehow they had still tied for last place. That was simply unacceptable, she should be in first place. Until the administration got around to correcting whatever scoring miscalculation had taken place, she would have to just ensure that her efforts were sufficient to bring up the rest of her teammates. She would be glad when these were over.

Nausicaa was delighted at Professor Skies' first statement. She was an excellent musician, this would be a breeze. Her attitude shifted a bit at the Professor's second statement. They were to 'make' their instruments as well? That couldn't be right, any instrument worth playing was handcrafted by a master craftsman. Not… not thrown together with junk found about this school! This was an atrocity! It was a crime against the concept of civilized music!

Nausicaa followed her teammates as they were led to the scene of the soon to be crime. She did not want to look upon the pile of debris that had been conjured up from around the school, but she couldn't help it. It was as bad as she thought. This was going to be worse than the first challenge, at least there she hadn't been forced to compromise her artistic integrity.

The team leader, Miss Brockert, asked for ideas. She had to help, she had to make this work, losing the challenges was simply not an option, but the only idea was to demand proper instruments. She'd been here long enough to know that most likely wouldn't work.

Miss Tellerman was eager enough to jump in with ideas, and she seemed inordinately excited by this 'banjo' instrument. Nausicaa was taken slightly aback with the slightly older girl's minor impertinence, but in the spirit of helping everyone along for the sake of winning, she let it slide. "Yes, I…" she began to respond until Miss Tellerman held out a shovel in her direction. It still had dirt on it. Didn't they even clean these items first? No, why would they?

She did perk up a little at the mention that this banjo instrument paired well with the violin. Perhaps not all was lost, although she did think it strange that she hadn't heard of that classical instrument before. "I'm sure we can find something. Do you know Bartok's Concerto number 2?"

She turned toward Miss Brockert who surely knew of the importance of having a proper instrument, and was most likely the only one who might get it close. "Miss Brockert, if you would be so kind," she began while indicating the shovel, "Could you transfigure that into a suitable instrument?"

2 Nausicaa Scapetello Yes... absolutely. 1561 0 5

Christopher Brockert

September 27, 2022 7:14 PM

Almost as bad by Christopher Brockert

Christopher was really not looking forward to the second Challenge event. In fact, he was downright dreading it.The unknown had always made him incredibly uneasy and he tended to expect the very worst. Admittedly, things did not always turn out that way, but he was still generally anxious about it.

Furthermore, he had heard about the events done in the previous round of Challenges and knew that none of them had been anything that Chris wanted to do, not even the party planning. Granted, that sounded less awful than desert survival, but that did not mean he felt at all confident at something like that. First of all, cooking had been involved and the third year, like most of his age and social status-or,for that matter, probably many who were either one- had no experience whatsoever with doing so. Secondly, Christopher was not the sort who would ever be comfortable at any type of party and considering that, probably had no business planning one either.

Unless it was, like, a block party. As in, a party about making things out of blocks, not one involving people who all lived on the same block as that combination of words usually meant. Even then, Christopher would want a small group of people that he was comfortable with. Which was indeed a very very small group of people. Planning something where whether or not it would go well and people would enjoy themselves depended on him sounded dreadful. Like an extreme amount of pressure that he did not feel he could ever live up to. If there was any way for the third year to make people happy at all, it would not be in that area.

Still, even party planning would be less terrible than something involving something physical, flying and Quidditch being especially heinous tasks. The idea of doing so made him want to regurgitate. Which, if he did in reaction to being asked-or rather, ordered-to get on a broom, would be completely humiliating. Not to mention gross. Or he would have a panic attack. Far less disgusting but just as mortifying. If not more so. Vomiting could be passed off as a stomach bug, a full-blown panic attack just showed how great his anxiety around flying was. It was far more than just disliking or not being good at it.

And that would be a complete disaster. Christopher was terrified of showing weakness or vulnerability in front of others whom he didn’t know well. It was not simply because of Uncle Eustace either. It wasn’t just his uncle who was cruel and insensitive about those sorts of things. The Crotalus genuinely was worried that people would think less of him for not being stronger, and about them making fun of him.

Anyway, with regards to the Challenges, in addition to knowing how they’d gone the previous time around, Chris also had not especially enjoyed the first one either. At one point, he had come across a huge hole that he had to get across, with a broom sitting there. Obviously, he’d been meant to use it for the obstacle and he’d just been like, nope. Christopher had then had the pleasure of trying to build a bridge over the hole using wooden branches that were lying around and a lot of charms and transfiguration. He’d ended up using the broom too, just not in a traditional way.

Admittedly, that had been sort of fun, but it had lost him a lot of time. Hopefully, he had earned some creativity points though.

Still, they were in fifth place, solidly in the middle. It wasn’t bad but of course, Christopher was worried that they would have been doing even better if he had just flown across the pit.

Then again, probably not, because he probably would have had a panic attack and/or fallen off into the hole and lost even more time. And been severely injured. What he’d ended up doing had been a far better choice.

Of course, Chris was still worried that his teammates blamed him that they weren’t doing better than they were. Not that they knew how he had solved that problem exactly, it was just how he instinctively felt about things generally speaking.

Anyway, given his experience regarding the first Challenge and his knowledge of the last time the event had taken place-and just his general personality-Christopher was absolutely expecting the worst today. Especially taking into consideration Esme’s insistence that the previous event had been about magic and problem solving, not athletics. That meant that this time it could indeed involve something more physical.

So, it was with extreme trepidation that the Crotalus joined his teammates in the gardens. He waited with baited breath as Professor Skies began to give them the instructions for today’s event, breathing a sigh of relief when he realized that it would not involve any sort of athletic feats that would be humiliating for Christopher.

However, there was still the issue that he…didn’t especially like getting up in front of people and performing. While playing an instrument wouldn’t be as bad as say, public speaking-something he hated only slightly less than sports-he still did not want to be performing in front of the entire school today, exposed to the potential-and probable- judgment of his peers or perform in front of them and their families at the Concert either.

Especially considering that…”Does anyone play an instrument?”Christopher asked, “ Because I don’t.” This was a deficiency that he felt was acceptable to tell others because it was a skill that people were not necessarily expected to have. That did not, however, mean that he really would want to attempt to do something he wasn’t good at in front of a lot of people that he would have to see for the next four and a half years.

11 Christopher Brockert Almost as bad 1539 0 5

Yaniel Ayala Velez

September 28, 2022 3:54 AM

But hopefully not too good by Yaniel Ayala Velez

They were joint third. That was pretty cool. Yarielis wasn’t super competitive, in spite of being a Quidditch player. The Crotalus played that because of enjoyment – the rush of air, the release from the ground, and the feeling of connection with the baseball skills from Papa’s side of things – but it was hard not to get a little swept up in the competition. Winning wasn’t the main reason to play, but it undeniably felt good, and your blood pumped harder and the crack of the bat on the ball felt more satisfying when it was a big game. This was like that. Okay, Yarielis was doing it because the task was mandatory rather than appealing, but it was satisfying to see team two place so well on the leader board.

They were outside again, which boded well, and gave an excuse for sports clothes (although, frankly, Yarielis was slipping more and more into not needing an excuse, and just wearing whatever was comfortable whenever possible). That day’s outfit consisted of sweatpants (because even if the challenge was full on physical, it was unlikely to get warm enough for shorts—stupid Irish weather), a baseball tee and over it a hoodie that was tent-like enough to almost feel invisible in. Yarielis had even pulled the hood up for further protection.

As Yarielis listened to Professor Skies explain the second challenge, team two’s high ranking seemed unlikely to continue. Yarielis knew a fair bit about improvised music. Coming out of Christmas, the memories of parranda were still fresh. Whilst some people brought along real musical instruments, like Papa with his guitar, there was plenty of picking up something simple, like a shaker, or drumming along on the tables—the main rule was that everyone was making some kind of contribution to the noise. But that was home. That was where everyone expected it, and you stood out more for not doing anything than doing something, but where you could casually clap and sway along and there was so much else happening that that was enough. So long as your heart was in the party, so long as you were doing something there were enough other people to raise your effort, even if it was only a very small one.

This wasn’t a cosy living room party. This was the six of them, exposed on a stage in front of everyone. Yarielis really hoped they didn’t come within the top three this time, so that they didn’t have to perform in front of even more people at the concert.

Fortunately, they had Lenny Pierce. Words Yarielis had never thought before. Lenny was the least musical, most attention-getting person Yarielis had ever encountered. That vastly reduced their chances of placing in the top three, and vastly increased the chances that everyone would be looking somewhere else when they did perform at the end of the challenge. The only issue was the humiliation-by-association if their entire performance sucked, but perhaps the rest of them could do a passable enough job to not get laughed at, whilst the Lenny dragged them down safely out of performance reach. It sucked to think of their overall position on the table dropping, but there was nothing that would persuade Yarielis that public performance was ever the lesser of two evils.

The group made its way over to their prep space, and Lenny immediately jumped on percussion. Yarielis repressed a sigh. That was the area Yarielis felt most confident in, but now suggesting it would mean pairing up with Lenny. In all likelihood, many of them would end up on percussion, because it was simple, but the Crotalus wanted to see which way the wind was blowing before making too many suggestions, just to be on the safe side.

Still, wanting to be helpful, Yarielis pulled over a pencil and paper. Sitting with feet planted comfortably apart, the Crotalus wrote ’Lenny – percussion. Underneath, Yarielis began brainstorming, based on the objects that were visible, and the instruments that sprung to mind either from looking at them or because they should be easy to recreate and play. The majority of the notes were in English, because words like ‘tambourine’ and ‘guitar’ were obvious enough from doing music at school. However, more of Yarielis’ music knowledge came from home, especially for the rough and ready percussion that anyone could make good use of. 'Guiro' and 'cencerro' went on there too, with small sketches. There were a couple of glass bottles visible from where Yarielis was sitting, which would be a simple transfiguration to a guiro, as it would mostly need a change of material. The basic shape could stay the same, though it would need some ridges. Though who knew what the spell was, or whether there even was one that specific. Maybe they could focus on the ‘transform bottle’ type of spell, rather than what they were turning it into and just pour in a whole load of visualization and willpower… Which might be a little challenging given that Yarielis still didn’t really want to do this.

13 Yaniel Ayala Velez But hopefully not too good 1554 0 5

Xavier Lundstrom

September 28, 2022 4:48 AM

But I do? by Xavier Lundstrom

Xavier took his time picking through the junk. No one had tried to stop him leaving, and no one had come after him. He had thought Mab might - after all, she was on a mission to care about all their problems, and he didn't think it was easy to miss that he had one right now. He’d thought Henry might too. Okay, Henry didn't have to care about him, just because Oz did, but he'd thought they had some Muggleborn solidarity. It seemed that everyone was very willing to let him go though, which didn't do a lot to solidify his sense of value.

He dug around, trying to find something useful, both in the props heap and his own head. At first, he gravitated towards the simple things that he could imagine actually transfiguring - a coat hanger could make a triangle (the world's most humiliating assignment, but if Mab was going to be talked into anything, it would have to be something simple), and pots that could make basic drums. There were packets of seeds from the greenhouses, which already made a noise but could be made into proper maracas for the sake of showing off. That was probably a big part of this actually... Yes, they needed simple things for the beginners (and him), but Mab, Jasper and Henry probably needed challenges to fully stretch their skills and gain the team the most bonus points. He was tempted to leave it, let that be their issue t solve, but they were bound to point it out, and he was doing his best not to draw attention to his ineptitude, even though everyone already knew it existed.

He could find stuff though. He could be the ‘find it’ guy, and could fetch and carry, and he didn’t have a bad sense of rhythm and maybe he could do something with that, and if he just made himself constantly look busy maybe no one would notice or mind that he couldn’t transfigure his way out of a paper bag and wasn’t actually making anything.

That could work.

He was just wondering whether turning a broom into a guitar constituted a proper challenge for the likes of Jasper Brockert, when he saw his teammates moving towards the heap. So… there went his role. It had probably been a stupid idea anyway. There were probably spells to find whatever they needed without someone manually looking through all the stuff.

“Hey. Guitar maybe?” he said to Henry, thrusting the broom at him. “I’m just gonna put these down then I’ll come help some more,” he added, indicating the other items in his arms. They weren’t really enough to justify needing to go put stuff down, but it’d give him a second’s breather.

He was halfway back when he realised their work area wasn’t empty. He skidded to a halt, but between that and doubling back with his arms full to the rest of his teammates, this was the lesser of two evils. He proceeded, though much more slowly than before, to the work area.

“So I got this to make a triangle,” he dropped the coat hanger by Mab’s feet, figuring that if just filled the silence with ideas then it would all be fine even if his voice was cracking slightly. He could pretend that was puberty. Heck, it was puberty, choosing a really inconvenient time to assert itself, but he could pretend it was just puberty and not also feelings.. “Which is so simple even a first year could do it.” Which was the kind of thing everyone was going to be saying. They were going to all come back and talk about how easy and basic all these things were, and yes, he probably could handle making a triangle, but he was meant to be way above that now, and he had to leave some things for the actual beginners to do. “And pots-and pots and things can be drums.” And if he just filled the silence—except he’d stalled, and that was when Mab gave him The Speech. And she sounded pissed.

Which made him pissed. Because she was supposed to care. Even if she hadn’t ever been very good at it, he’d thought she actually did, but now she was telling him off like a child when she should have understood more than anyone except Oz (and by proxy Henry, because he assumed most things he told Oz weren’t considered confidential from Henry) because he’d actually told her some of his problems before!

“You can’t protect me from the stressful parts of being in a forced group work magic competition when the stressful thing IS the group work magic competition. I suck at magic. I get reminded of it all day, every day, in every single class I’m in! And now I have to have that rammed down my throat in my free time, with other people’s success tied into mine. I can’t compete using magic. And I am in a magic competition. And you know that! So stop telling me you can help!”

OOC: Made some assumptions about people's movements based on what seemed likely from Mab's post. I figure there's some flexibility in how fast everyone comes over if anyone else wanted to linger back and talk to her a bit first. If it's not compatible with what you'd do, let me know via chatzy. I haven't been able to get on tonight but I can check it tomorrow morning.

13 Xavier Lundstrom But I do? 1529 0 5

Verdillia Scurlock

September 30, 2022 7:58 PM

I can! by Verdillia Scurlock

When the team lists had gone up, Verdillia had thought she had hit the jackpot. A Brockert as team lead! But then the first challenge had arrived and it had involved being split up from all these people she was supposed to be making a good impression on. Then the challenge one scores had been released, and it had all got substantially worse. The only thing worse than not being in a position to impress, was being in one and failing miserably.

Still, the advantage of the anonymity of challenge one meant that Esme couldn’t be too critical of any one person (she hoped), although Verdillia felt she and Rosalynn had been reunited fairly promptly, so hopefully the older girl would vouch for the fact that it hadn’t been her letting the side down, if any such endorsement became necessary.

For now, the only thing to do was focus on challenge two, and make a good impression both on Esme and on the staff who were marking it. They were going to the gardens again and Verdillia hoped it wouldn’t be anything rough and nasty. As a precaution, she’d dressed in short kullots with a cute bow waistband, paired thick tights to help her withstand the cold, whilst still looking sweet, feminine, and presentable. On the top, she had long-sleeved t-shirt, which was entirely obscured by a practical but cute sweater in a dark shade of red, lined with warming charms. Her long dark hair was braided to keep it off her face, though the braid stopped two thirds of the way down to show off her curls.

As she listened to the challenge, she felt she had dressed more or less appropriately—they would be outside, so she needed the layers, and whilst they wouldn’t be doing anything too dirty, they did have to dig through this scrap heap and do a lot of moving and handling. Tomorrow sounded like it would be more refined, and she mentally began adjusting her outfit accordingly so that it would be fit for giving an outdoor concert performance. She had a black velvet dress which might be nice for the occasion, whilst being suited to the season…

They moved to their work area. It seemed they had a few musicians amongst their number. Verdillia counted herself amongst that number, as music lessons were part of a proper upbringing. Nausicaa seemed to be laying claim to violin, which was one of Verdillia's instruments. Nausicaa was the kind of proper person that Verdillia was supposed to get along with. And, on the surface, there was no reason why she shouldn't. Nausicaa was a talented witch, had a proper appreciation for magic, and had generally been polite to them. Except, in spite of all of that, it didn't feel like they could quite be friendly with each other. Of course, part of good manners was being well measured and reserved... But Christopher Brockert managed to be both reserved and warm at the same time. With Nausicaa, that just wasn't the case...

Also, all the attention was revolving around Nausicaa, like she was the best for being able to play violin, when Verdillia could do that too!

"Actually, we have to compose our own piece. Professor Skies said so when she introduced the task," Verdillia reminded Nausicaa. "And I play violin and piano." She had stated 'music' in a more general way as one of her strengths during their introductions, so it made sense that the group didn't know her exact talents, but that didn't mean everything should go automatically to Nausicaa.

"I doubt we can make a piano, but perhaps we can make something with a similar range and style, like a xylophone. Or we could come up with a piece that requires a second violin," she said, with a glance at Nausicaa that she hoped implied who that would be. Just be Nausicaa had spoken first, didn't mean she got to have her way. Verdillia was older, after all.

She had also only come close rather than actually passing her last violin grading exam, and been told that she was best placed using her talents to amuse her family. However, she had not read into the subtext of these remarks, and saw no reason not to share her abilities with the group. Her piano playing was a little better, because it was harder to make a piano screech like it was a cat having its tail pulled, but overall her playing was mechanical - she had learnt to hit the notes in the order she was told to, with approximately the right degree of force, but she lacked the smoothness or passion of someone who naturally took to music. However, she had very little insight into any of these flaws.

OOC: Comments about Nausicaa based on the way she seems to conduct herself in general. If anything seems inaccurate, let me know.

13 Verdillia Scurlock I can! 1541 0 5

Valentine Duell

October 02, 2022 5:34 PM

Music, right. by Valentine Duell

Valentine was uncertain how to feel about this challenge round. She'd listened to Professor Skies give the instructions and had felt a few feelings throughout. On the whole it sounded like a fun idea, they could have some fun making up some instrument similar objects and then hang out practicing with them until something that almost sounded like music was produced. The problems were in the details. The first detail was that Val hadn't had any sort of musical training in her life at all. She certainly wasn't against music, but it just hadn't been something she had done. Which meant she probably wasn't going to be a big asset with making these objects make nice sounds... or trying to create some sort of original musical score. Unless having the objects make random noises counted as original music, but she thought there was probably more to it than just that.

The other detail was that while she had improved, and was still maintaining her position in the advanced trasfiguration class (barely), she wasn't sure how well she would do in turning the pile of things before them into actual objects that could make music like sounds. Now, that in and of itself may not have been all that terrible, except that she was the second oldest student in the group and certainly should be able to do such things with relative ease. She would just have to do her best, there was nothing else to do.

Val did her best to hide all of her concerns behind her normal cheery disposition. She smiled at the group, "Alright, let's see what we can do! Does anyone have any particular musical aptitude and want to take point on a general direction? Other than that we should probably delve in and see what items we can get before everything good is picked from the supply pile. Let's go see what we can find!" With that she headed towards the central repository of resources to see what she could find that maybe looked vaguely like an instrument.

2 Valentine Duell Music, right. 1490 0 5

Phil Carson

October 03, 2022 6:00 PM

It could be worse. It could be a lot better, too. by Phil Carson

Phil was finding the challenges to be pretty interesting. The obstacle maze had not really been what he'd expected, but then he hadn't really known what to expect. It had met the criteria of being challenging, without being tedious or horrendous, and he'd kind of enjoyed it. Their efforts had landed Team Three right at the bottom side of the middle of the pack, only two points ahead the two teams tied for last, so it really was still anybody's game even if the top two had a pretty solid lead so far. the others didn't have an insurmountable lead though, and the middle teams would almost certainly jostle around a bit with only a six point difference between third and last. First and second place had a solid lead, but that just made it rather exciting, with everyone so close. They'd need to keep trying hard to break from the pack, but even at seventh place out of nine, they were definitely still in the pack. First place overall might look somewhat out of reach, but third wasn't.

Phil arrived in the Gardens with his wand as he'd been told to bring, and again didn't know what to expect since they'd been told the teams wouldn't be taking turns this time.

Professor Skies explained, and Phil couldn't help a slight grimace. His elementary school had a music class, of course, so he knew some basics, but he had opted not to join the band, the orchestra, or chorus, so he wasn't sure he'd be a whole lot of help for this one. Unless if some of the others on the team were much more musically inclined than him, he didn't think this was the challenge that would put the closer to the top of the leaderboard, and he strongly doubted they'd make the top three to showcase their act at the concert.

As Team Three gathered in their area, Phil opened the discussion, "Sorry, guys, I know next to nothing about music. Best you're gonna get from me is doing that thing where you run a stick over a wood thing with ridges." He didn't even know what that instrument was called, but he mimed doing the motion to help explain what he was talking about.

He hadn't even ever played a bard in D&D.

1 Phil Carson It could be worse. It could be a lot better, too. 1536 0 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

Xarryn Bavol

October 03, 2022 7:01 PM

Does anyone want to do sea shanties? by Xarryn Bavol

Xarryn's team was tied for third, which he though was great! They were doing well and he hadn't dragged them down too much despite having addressed the maze challenge by cannoning his way physically through the hedges to the tallest tree he could find and just throwing sparks from there. Unless the professors were counting the hedges themselves as an obstacle, he hadn't earned the team any points for successfully overcoming anything, but maybe he had at least helped earn them a pretty fast time in gathering everyone together?

As he listened to the instructions for the second challenge, he thought maybe he might be a little more help here. He had listed sea shanties among his list of talents during their meet and greet, and even if they wanted to go in for a different style of music, he was still born into a cruise ship that basically existed to entertain people. A lot of the skills carried over.

Val opened the discussion with a question about qualifications. Xarryn was quick to respond, "I know a bunch of sea shanties!" Admittedly, many of those were designed to be sung acappella as the singers hoisted sail in time to the rhythm, and didn't exactly meet the criteria of Improvised Band that Professor Skies had tried to encourage, but most of the shanties had gotten musical accompaniment added later, and the Wind Harness' cruise itinerary always included several music nights to keep their passengers happy. "And I can play a pennywhistle!" he added, to identify his instrumental talent.

1 Xarryn Bavol Does anyone want to do sea shanties? 1560 0 5

Amethyst Brockert

October 04, 2022 2:00 PM

Yeah, probably not that good by Amethyst Brockert

So far, the Challenges were mostly going fairly well for Amethyst. For starters, she found her teammates to mostly be okay, aside from the fact that Stanley was the sort of person that she found annoying. Well, one sort of person that annoyed her. Arguably, he was the sort that most irritated her. However, while the typical loud and obnoxious Pecari, Stanley was at least pretty nice, not really like Uncle Eustace at all. That was at least something.

Everyone else, Amethyst liked well enough. And she knew it could be worse. Iris was with Oz Spellman, Olaf was with Ray and Jasper had mentioned feeling some tension with Xavier Lundstrom. Her brother felt that the Pecari had some sort of contempt for him, which the sixth year assumed was because of his lack of athleticism. Amethyst was not the least bit surprised, given how her classmate had treated Billy,who while no prize himself-although, she probably would have put him in the same category as Stanley, had he not been her friend’s irritating brother-was just trying to be nice, from what she understood.

And Billy had much more in common with Xavier than Jasper-or Liesl-did, so Amethyst could have told her brother to expect this. Although, she had no idea whether or not the reasoning was because of why the Teppenpaw thought it was. The odds of it being so were entirely possible but since Xavier had been rude to Billy, a Quidditch player, as well, Amethyst assumed that the other fourth year was just a jerk.

After all,some people just were not nice. Look at Topaz. Or Uncle Eustace. She didn’t think Xavier was as bad as either of them-which was admittedly a pretty low bar-but that didn’t mean there was an excuse for his rudeness to her friend’s brother or, especially, his contempt for her brother.

Actually now that Amethyst thought about it, it annoyed her. How could he be contemptuous of Jasper who was an amazing older brother-Iris’s relationship with Billy made her appreciate him even more-and just an overall nice person? Honestly, the Crotalus would need to be an expert in psychology to figure out what made the other fourth year tick, and he just wasn’t worth the effort.

Anyway, the tension must not be getting in the way of Team Eight’s ability to be successful since they were in second place. As for Amethyst’s own team, they were doing pretty well themselves, being tied for third. That was pretty cool. She remembered how her older sisters had done. Topaz and her team got fourth, so, being tied for third was doing better than she had.

Of course, that could also be a bad thing, considering what the former Aladren was like. She might very well decide it was a reason to torment Amethyst, as well as Jasper and Isla, whose team was in first place.

Although, where each team placed could change from where they were currently. Which actually meant that maybe Amethyst’s team could do even better. It depended on what the next two Challenges were. Hopefully, they would play to her team’s strengths-and would not be anything icky, like the desert survival Challenge that her sisters had done. Which would not play to their strengths, actually. Amethyst couldn’t imagine it would really be something that Lavender or Lenny would excel at or enjoy something like that either.

Of course, she did not see the fact that they were gathering in the gardens again as a particularly good sign. The Crotalus had never been very…outdoorsy. Although, she did fine in Herbology, so maybe this Challenge was focused on that. That was probably the best possible outcome for something that would take place in the gardens. Of course, since they had already done sort of an obstacle course sort of challenge-something that Amethyst noted seemed to come up every time they had done the Challenges in one form or another, even though they were supposed to be different each time. She supposed that they were but there still seemed to be an obstacle course based event every time the Challenges came around-it probably was not going to be that again.

However, given that they always did some sort of obstacle course, there was still the possibility of another sort of survival-based challenge and while Amethyst felt that she was stronger psychologically than Sapphire or Allegra, and probably would not find something like that traumatic, she still really really did not want to do something so unpleasant.

Maybe it was a scavenger hunt? That would not be too terrible, she supposed. That would test intelligence rather than athletic ones and be unlikely to traumatize anyone. Amethyst did not really wish that on anyone. Well, at least not anyone at school, even people that she otherwise disliked.

She didn’t have to theorize much longer as Professor Skies addressed them. The fourth year had to admit, she was relieved. No survival, no sports. She considered that a win,regardless of how well they actually did. Although, she supposed that this could still be traumatic for someone. While both Amethyst and Lenny were members of the Performing Arts club, she knew there were people who hated getting up in front of crowds, especially crowds of their peers.

They arrived at their workstation and Lenny spoke up first. She had to hand it to the Teppenpaw, he definitely seemed to have a positive attitude. “Does anyone actually play an instrument?” Amethyst asked. “I don’t. “She could sing fine, better than Lenny-although that was basically the equivalent of saying you were a better person than Topaz-but that was about it. “I mean, I know that there’s probably going to be a lot of percussion overall.’

OOC: I know Stanley hasn't posted anything, but based on his personality and Amethyst's, this is her likely reaction to him

11 Amethyst Brockert Yeah, probably not that good 1532 0 5

Philippe Delachene

October 04, 2022 5:08 PM

Second verse, unlike the first by Philippe Delachene

As Philippe listened to Professor Skies explain the second challenge, he was both glad this one was actually about teamwork, and a little anxious about how well they would do in a music based challenge. Theo was not the most organized of people, but Philippe could help make sure they turned in everything they needed to turn in when they needed it turned in, but he didn't remember a single one of them mentioning any kind of musical talent when they went over their strengths and weaknesses.

He had brought his wand like he was supposed to, but they hadn't said not to bring other things, so he'd brought a couple snacks since the notice warned they'd be here all weekend, and a small notebook and an a pencil in case they proved useful in whatever time consuming task they were assigned. It was the later two items he was glad for as Professor Skies said what they needed to do and when they needed to do it. In his little notebook, he wrote down the action items they needed to keep aware of.

Noon: List of Instruments
5 pm: Performance outline
Tomorrow: Rehearsal & show

When she asked for questions, Philippe raised his hand, and upon being called on, he asked, "You said we'd be working on the challenge from nine until noon tomorrow. Is that the rehearsal time, and then the show is after lunch, or is all of it before noon tomorrow, including the performances?"

He had no further questions after that was clarified. He made adjustments to his notes, and then followed everyone over to where their workstations were. "Huh, soundproofing," he said, sounding impressed, when they walked into their little tent like room and he abruptly couldn't hear the other groups going into their own stations. "Nice. So we've got some privacy in here for practicing."

Philippe looked out toward the central area where the piles of items available to them were located. "Does anyone have any ideas already, or do we just want to go wander around and see if we get any inspiration?" He glanced toward Theo to see if he either had a stroke of creativity or had anything leadership-y to add to what Philippe had already said as the team's second in command and on-topic-focus-redirector.

1 Philippe Delachene Second verse, unlike the first 1489 0 5

Iris Cobb

October 04, 2022 6:24 PM

I'm sure you do. by Iris Cobb

Okay, time for the second challenge. Iris knew she could do this, or at least her part. Her team was in last place… well, tied for last place, and she assumed it was all Oz's fault for cheating in the first challenge. Climbing on the walls and burning everything around you was not how one solved a maze. Everyone knew that.

It wasn't at all her fault for deliberately moving away from a teammate when the goal was to find each other. That was a ridiculous thought. She had found others, eventually. Iris just hoped this challenge wasn't one that Oz could mess up again. Then they should have a chance. Maybe she should keep a closer eye on him, just to be safe.

To that end, when it was time to meet up and listen to Professor Skies' instructions, she was as far away from him as seemed reasonable. The instructions however, did not fill her with a sense of hope. Living up on the mountain had made her more than a bit skilled in the practice of 'making do with what ya got', so making things out of other things didn't bother her to much. Instruments and music though... she didn't want to revel in her experience there. There had been music back home, and 'instruments'. Frankly, they may be the type of 'instruments' that Professor Skies was looking for. But there was no way she was going to be able to make and play some of them and still be able to associate with her friends. Amethyst and her family would think she really was no more than the poor, backwoods, mountain girl with no claim to any level of proper society.

They were right of course, despite whatever plan was that Billy had in mind, and she really, really, really didn't want to go and prove it to them beyond a shadow of a doubt. Not after all the work she'd put into trying to put that life behind her at least while she was at school. Iris went out along with the crowd, doing her best not to look at the pile of stuff in the middle. All along she wondered what was she going to do? Help out and destroy everything she had worked so hard for, or save herself at the expense of the rest of the team? Maybe it wouldn't be so dire. Maybe someone else would be really good at this and everything would be fine. Maybe.

On the plus side, she didn't think Oz should be able to mess this one up to bad. They arrived at their work area and she examined it, noting that Oz had run off to 'Get good junk'. That was the plan, so that was fine. She did not shout back anything that she wanted from him. She didn't want anything from him. While he was gone, she participated in any discussion, hinting out at possible ideas without digging herself into to much trouble. Always prefacing anything with a "I've heard that..." or "Maybe we could try....", because she obviously hadn't ever had any first hand experience with anything like this sort of activity before. Nope.

When Oz returned with his items, she had little choice but to see what he had found. It looked like he had actually done rather well. The cauldron, fabric, cups and plates could all be put to good use. Especially with a little bit of transfiguration. Iris couldn't help but give him a hint of an encouraging smile, "Looks good, do you have any thoughts on how to use them yet?"

2 Iris Cobb I'm sure you do. 1526 0 5

Cole Pierce

October 04, 2022 7:27 PM

As bad as what? by Cole Pierce

Team four was in fifth place, but since third place was a tie, they technically had the fourth highest score (not counting duplicates) which he thought was nicely appropriate for their team number. And that score was only one point behind the third highest score, so they were in easy reach of rising up the ranks if their next challenge was more in line with their skills than the first had been. He didn't think they had been badly suited to the first exactly but, given their score placement, they hadn't been much better or worse than anyone else, other than the top two teams who seemed like they must have been very well suited to finding one another in a maze full of obstacles.

Arriving in the Gardens for the second challenge, Cole was hopeful that this time, maybe it would be them who got the runaway success. They had a good team. Chris was cool and Alexander was awesome and Bertie was brilliant and Billy was brave and Alexei was amazing and Freya was fun.

He wasn't sure any of them were musical though, he realized as Professor Skies revealed their second challenge activity.

Sure enough, when they got to their work station, the first thing that came up was Chris admitting that he didn't play an instrument. Which was fine. It didn't sound like they were being expected to produce the next Beatles or anything on one day's notice.

"I took trumpet in elementary school," Cole said hesitantly, but felt it was necessary to add, "But I was never really good at it and I haven't practiced it at all since I started at Sonora." He could probably still do the Fox fanfare, but anything more complicated than that was very likely beyond him.

1 Cole Pierce As bad as what? 1546 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

Olaf Brockert

October 05, 2022 7:12 PM

You could not be more right. by Olaf Brockert

Olaf was glad that they had the first Challenge out of the way. Admittedly, it hadn’t been that bad, mostly because he’d been on his own for a good portion of it. He could say that most of his teammates were tolerable, but he generally still preferred not to be around people at all. It was not personal, for the most part. Olaf just didn’t like people in general. To use a cliche in a way that it wasn’t usually used, it was him, not them.

That did not mean that there weren’t specific people that he found especially obnoxious. The first year was not fond of loud hyperactive people, troublemakers or Neanderthal jock types. So basically, the vast majority of Pecaris. However, most of his teammates did not fall into those categories, minus Ray of course, and Phil’s…overly chipper introduction. They were just the normal amount of irritating that was the majority of the human race.

Oh and Robyn didn't seem to like him much. Which was fine with him. Her brother didn’t seem to like Jasper and Liesl. Which initially seemed to be Nerds vs Jocks-or possibly Weirdos vs Jocks, the younger Teppenpaw was more a Weirdo than a Nerd, which Olaf did not mean as an insult, just as a statement of fact-but given Robyn’s seeming distaste for him maybe it was more of a family thing. The Aladren knew there were people who just did not like purebloods. Which was their problem, not his. He didn’t need to be liked.

Anyway, the other thing about the first Challenge that Olaf noted was that it wasn’t all that..challenging. Considering that this was the same sort of thing that had stressed Allegra out so much, an obstacle course, he’d expected it to be much more vile but every obstacle could be solved by magic rather than athleticism. Olaf hadn’t had to climb anything or fly or do anything so…low.

And as a first year, his path through the maze had been ridiculously easy. They had not been taught much yet, so in theory they couldn’t do much, giving those who designed the maze very little to choose from for first year tasks. However, the Aladren was the sort who took it upon himself to go beyond what they were taught in class and the maze had been dumbed down for those who didn’t so the obstacles along Olaf’s route had been rather boring.

Honestly, the hardest part of the whole thing for him had been that looking for people was an anathema to him since he generally found them annoying and wanted to avoid them.

Aside from that, he had been surprised by the fact that nobody seemed to know what an age line was. Olaf, being a first year, had not been able to cross them or a take them down, but he’d been able to figure out that was what prevented him from entering certain areas especially taking into consideration how Professor Skies had specifically said that they wouldn’t meet an obstacle above grade level on their own. Thank Merlin that Gabriel also understood what they were and was able to finite them when he found Olaf.

Really, the first year understood that not everyone was a pureblood but…half-bloods also grew up with magic. And older Muggleborns had been in the magical world for a long enough time that they should have learned about them.

Anyway, despite how simple the whole first Challenge had been for Olaf they were not doing that well overall, being in only seventh place. He was still doing better than Esme though. He actually felt a little bit bad for her since she had wanted this so much. She cared much more about this whole thing than he did. Olaf really wouldn’t care if he got last, because it wasn’t all that important to him, like it was to his sister. So, he’d really be okay with it if her team pulled ahead.

Although his teammates might not agree. Still, the first year cared more about his sister than he did them. However, he would not do anything in particular to make that outcome a reality, Esme and her team would just have to do their best. Olaf just didn’t want her to lose since it was so important to her.

He was happy for Isla though, who was in first. Good for her and her team.

Olaf waited with his usual scowl for Professor Skies to tell them what today’s task would be. He wasn’t even especially annoyed-at least not any more than he usually was when his reading time was interfered with-he just had what his family termed “Resting Mortimer Face” meaning that he and his grandfather were constantly scowling-to this day, Uncle Zachariah insisted that Grandfather was born scowling- even when they were in a fairly neutral mood.

Of course, there were things that Olaf was really hoping they wouldn’t have to do, mostly anything athletic, which was something he found distasteful. He had never approved of using brawn over brains, hence using intellect and magic in the previous challenge. Physical challenges were just the most basic thing for cavemen like Uncle Eustace who weren’t that smart. Plus, that sort of Challenge wouldn’t do either himself or Esme and their teams any favors. Or Isla either.

What they were to do was a bit better. Except that Olaf did not play an instrument and, oh yeah, did not want anything to do with the concert. He wasn’t even planning to watch it, he was planning to read with it going on in the background.

As it turned out, he wasn’t the only non-musical person. Phil apparently knew nothing about music. “I don’t play anything either.” Olaf added. “But if it helps, I know that some of the people on the other teams aren’t either, so that probably evens things out a bit. “ Honestly, this whole thing was going to be painful , now that he thought about how they would be subjected to what was not likely to sound good at all. Even if there were people who actually played instruments, they’d be likely drowned out by the utter disaster of everyone else.

11 Olaf Brockert You could not be more right. 1564 0 5

Claire Osbrook

October 05, 2022 9:00 PM

Hopefully they don't clash too badly. by Claire Osbrook

The introduction to the second challenge had not filled Claire with glee when she’d seen it – a whole weekend? She wasn’t a fan. She doubted she would have been a fan even had her team lead not irrationally had a problem with her, but that definitely didn’t help matters at all. And then it got worse.

Music. Oh, wow. Music was…a whole thing. She had seen her maternal grandparents play piano before, and she knew reading music was something that had to be taught, something that looked like it might take a long time to learn. In light of that, writing music had to be…next to impossible without studying it. And making their own instruments…!

Strangely, after a second, that last thought actually became comforting. The audience was going to suffer, no doubt, but there was no way they could expect a bunch of kids to somehow figure out how to make instruments that worked properly and sounded good…at all, much less in a weekend. If anyone did pull that off, then Claire was going to write down the names of every member of that group so she could keep an eye on them in future and try to make friends with as many of them as possible, because the group that could do that would have some impressive people in it. That, or someone in the school spent all their free time learning to be a luthier, but that…seemed unlikely.

She began to feel even better when Phillipe promptly took control of the meeting. He at least sounded like he knew what he was doing, was paying attention to details like the timeline and thinking through any possible ambiguities. That was good. Unfortunately, she…didn’t really have a good answer to his question. All she knew about music was how to sing a few Christmas carols, and she doubted she would ever get famous doing even that. Seeing his glance at Theo, she didn’t say that or anything else, though, for now.

16 Claire Osbrook Hopefully they don't clash too badly. 1540 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

Alexei Vorontsov

October 06, 2022 1:39 PM

It could be worse. by Alexei Vorontsov

Alexei had not speculated too much about the second challenge before going down to the front stairs to find Team Four and face it with them. Between his habitual calm and the lack of information to really work with from the short notice, he didn’t see what the point of speculating would have been. It seemed like a safe bet that it wouldn’t be the same as last time, even though they were both being held outside, but beyond that…who knew what the teachers could have come up with? There was nothing to do but take his wand and wait.

Professor Skies did not keep them waiting too long. They were being tested on their creativity. The test was that they had to make music.

Alexei raised an eyebrow as he processed what she was saying, relating it to his own abilities. His family was not without musical talent, and they sang together, sometimes, but singing didn’t sound like what they were being asked to do exactly. Plus, he didn’t know if he could even do it right without his sisters and parents and brother, or if he could sing at all in English (teaching the others a whole song’s worth of Russian was dismissed out of hand; that would take forever, time they didn’t have). The time of year was also all wrong for most of the songs he knew. There was another thing, but the catch with that came in with the part where they had to make the instruments themselves….

He gathered with the others with his usual mild, faint smile in place, consoling himself that there was no use in thinking too far ahead before he found out what everyone else could do. Which…seemed to be a mixed bag. Christopher knew nothing, and Cole knew a little trumpet, which he hadn’t practiced for a long time, but which was still more than nothing. This was going to be…interesting.

“I play balalaika,” he informed them. “Not so much at school, but sometimes. But….” He shrugged helplessly. “To make the balalaika correctly? I can try, but it may not sound so good as my real one,” he warned them. “Eh…you do not know what that is…it is a small instrument of wood, with strings. It is Russian. I do not know how it sounds with the trumpet, but we can try it,” he concluded, deliberately neutral in his tone as he contemplated the odds that this would go well at all.

16 Alexei Vorontsov It could be worse. 1531 0 5

Graham Osbrook

October 06, 2022 2:19 PM

Can't really argue, honestly. by Graham Osbrook

This is gonna suck.

Graham glanced sideways just in time to see that thought blatantly flash across his sister’s face, and he stifled a grin with an effort. He also thought this was gonna suck, so he sympathized with her on that level, but…it was always kind of fun, on some level, when Claire ran into something she couldn’t master with the indifferent ease which, as far as he could tell, had characterized her academic performances since they were little kids working with their grandmother. The challenges looked set to be a solid run of things she had that kind of luck with, and it made him feel less inadequate than usual.

Well, usually. Today, he thought it was probably going to make him feel like he’d broken even at best. Because…sibling pseudo-rivalries aside, he knew that this really was most likely gonna kinda suck.

He didn’t accept it as a total fact, though, until they got together and he started hearing what they had to work with besides his own lack of musical talent. He did have to raise an eyebrow, though, at Olaf Brockert’s idea of a bright side. This kid…was weird; Graham honestly couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

“I can attest,” he said. “My sister’s on team nine, and unless you count our grandma teaching her to grow honking daffodils, I’m pretty sure neither of us has done anything musical since we stopped making drums out of oatmeal canisters.” He tried to remember anything about the bang-on-things-and-pretend-it’s-music phase of his life; it must not have sounded too bad to them, right, since they’d done it so much? But had that been because they had some sense of rhythm, or was it because they’d just had an appalling lack of taste?

“But hey, oatmeal canisters make a noise if you hit them hard enough,” he said, hoping to save the general mood from despair. “And from what I've seen of live music before – horns look like they might be a little more complicated, with the, you know – “ he mimed the sliding-back-and-forth thing that horn players did. “That thing, but if we have some things to beat on and some basic, basic pipes and stuff, we…might not sound too good from an artistic point of view, you know, to people who study music or something, but we might be able to make up for it with enthusiasm in front of an audience.”

16 Graham Osbrook Can't really argue, honestly. 1498 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

Theo Spurn

October 08, 2022 1:11 AM

Speaking of which... by Theo Spurn

It didn't matter how well you did compared to others - you just had to do your best, and that was good enough. That was a lesson that Theo had internalised very well over the years. It applied to classes. He wasn't sure it applied to literal competitions where the whole point was to find a winner and where he couldn't compare himself to how he had done previously because he had never done this before and never would again! His parents had tried to tell him he was doing well, and they were proud of him regardless but he wasn't really sure that sixth out of nine was all that good. True, out of their gang, only Stanley was higher up the leader board, but Theo still wanted to do better.

Their second challenge was long, which made Theo anxious. Long things were often complicated things where you had to put together a whole big thing. Theo wasn't sure that played to his strengths. But then, he wasn't sure thinking on his feet did either... Maybe he didn't have strengths to play to. Maybe his best had to be good enough because he was never going to be outright good. He could feel those thoughts clinging around his chest, like hands that were grabbing and pulling him back as he made his way to challenge two. They came and went, sliding and losing their grip, then catching up to him again a pace or two later. Whether they got a more solid grip depended a lot on how challenge two went down.

Professor Skies began to speak, like a ball being thrown into the centre of carefully standing rows of dominoes, setting off multiple chain reactions in different directions all at once. Music was fun, and there were all the songs he liked, and the things they could work with, and the memories of all the times he’d made shakers with tiny little pebbles because his mum didn’t like using rice in them because food was for eating not for playing with. He imagined coat stands turned upside-down, their bases blooming into double bases, and all of team nine in sunglasses or building a whole piano of different sized cups which could chime when struck even without being transfigured. He was excited by the many prospects… but was that the same as being good at them?

Professor Skies was reciting times, and Theo did his best to commit them to memory. Intermittent deadlines and breaking down big tasks were helpful strategies, and they were something he was always supposed to do for things that were more than one session of work. Or ask an adult to do for him. It was okay to ask for that help, and it was good to know the specific kind of help you needed to ask for. This was one of his types of help and it had been done for him, and he wished he had a pencil, but he was pretty sure she’d say it more than once over the course of the morning, and he had a rough idea. He clung to the intermittent deadlines, using them as a shield to fend back the grabby hands of the drag-you-down thoughts. He could do this. A plan had been laid out and he could follow it, and lead everyone else along it, and it would all be fine.

He led his group to their work area, noticing that once they were in, Philippe spoke up first. At first it was just… talky talk, but then Philippe kicked off the discussion about their project. It was just to ask for everyone’s ideas but… but Theo would have done that too. He knew that much was important.

Being angry with people in the group wasn’t very leaderly though. Shouting or Making Accusations wasn’t good. Except when someone had really wrong you, you were supposed to speak up.

He took a deep, shaky breath, trying to answer Philippe’s question, because that was polite, even though Phillipe had switcherood things so they were all backwards and Theo was on the wrong side of the question which really wasn’t very polite at all because suddenly making things backwards or upside down was rude at the best of times, and especially when Theo was the leader.

“You can make a glass sing by dipping your finger and running it around the edge,” he began, his tone off kilter, wobbling with a gravity that the sentences didn’t warrant, “except I don’t like the dipping your finger part so my mum taught me a spell because actually all you’re doing is making the glass vibrate because all sound is just vibrations so you can do that with a wand instead and if you get lots of glasses and put different amounts of water in each one they each make a different note and we could make a whole piano and I’m meant to be the one who asks!” His voice had sped up throughout his explanation and it managed to brake, teetering on the edge of completely crashing as he reached the end of his sentence.

“So,” he said, drawing in a sharp breath which didn’t do much to dissolve the frown on his face. “What are everyone’s ideas? I will listen,” he added, with a sharp emphasis that suggested Philippe had suggested he wouldn’t.

13 Theo Spurn Speaking of which... 1476 0 5

Leviosa Scurlock

October 08, 2022 1:42 AM

One hundred percent yes! by Leviosa Scurlock

Challenge one had been dreadful, and very unfair, and not well-suited to people of a proper disposition. That was the line Verdillia and her sour grapes had maintained ever since the results came out. Of course, she didn’t want to seem bitter or mean in public, so it was mostly in private that she had vented these thoughts, which meant that Levi had heard plenty of them. Which said something about what Verdillia thought about her… Things that Levi already knew her sister thought, because she’d said them plenty of times directly, so it shouldn’t have hurt so much when it was only indirect, and when Verdillia was obviously just being a sore loser but… But Levi didn’t get to be the first or the best or the anything very often. Verdillia was older, which meant that she was always one step ahead. She got to go to school first, and every time Levi mastered a skill from tying to her shoes to casting her first charms, it still felt like being miles behind because Verdillia had done those things ages ago and moved onto bigger, brighter things. Levi knew most of that was just age, and she was every bit as good as Verdillia had been at her age, but sometimes it was hard not to feel like she could never do anything truly unique or impressive. For once though, she was the one ahead, and Verdillia just had to go and diminish it. Levi wondered whether it was being bottom or being beaten by her little sister that was getting to Verdillia more… She liked to think it was just the former, and that Verdillia just wasn’t thinking about how her remarks could be hurtful. Whilst that wasn’t great, unintentional meanness was still better than deliberate malice.

Whichever it was though, Levi was determined to keep outdoing her. She made her way to challenge two, wand gripped firmly and jaw set ready to bring all her fierceness to… making junk instruments. Huh. That was a very different thing to the first challenge. Which she perhaps should have realised, as obviously they didn’t want to just test the same skill over and over. Music wasn’t one of Verdillia’s strengths, and Levi really hoped she didn’t embarrass herself by trying to play violin in front of everyone. She wanted to beat her sister, but she didn’t want her utterly humiliated. Or to have to listen to her performance. She also wanted Verdillia to do well enough to climb the leader board and stop trash talking the whole experience – for both selfless and selfish reasons – just so long as she didn’t end up higher than Levi herself.

She followed her team to their work area, although their stay there was short lived as Valentine seemed to think that getting straight into examining the junk was the best way.

“I took some lessons in a couple of instruments, but nothing really stuck,” Levi admitted. She had enjoyed the dance and painting sides of ‘being a well-rounded lady’ more than the music, though even those she found a little staid and stuffy. She wanted dances where she could really move her body and be lively and free. She wanted paints splashed boldly across the canvas in ways that showed feeling rather than form… She wondered what the musical equivalent of that would be. Something loud and little wild? That might suit them well… It also seemed like the kind of thing Xarryn was suggesting.

There was wood of all sizes and shapes in the pile, from neatly sawn and square planks to huge, rough branches. She pulled a short but substantial stick, holding it out to Xarryn.

“Would this work?” she asked. “Do you think we’re allowed to use a song that already exists and just change the words? So, we could use one of Xarryn’s sea songs but make it all about the Sonora life,” she asked. That sounded like a rule check that they’d have to run past an adult, as the word ‘composition’ had been mentioned, but it was worth seeing if everyone else liked the idea first.

“Could this be a handbell?” she suggested, turning over a small cup. “And would that sound nice with the whistle? Maybe we could make a few in different sizes – that way we’d either be doing a charm and a transfiguration, or at the very least, a more complicated transfiguration, so that might be good for points?”

13 Leviosa Scurlock One hundred percent yes! 1545 0 5

Ian Malone

October 09, 2022 4:46 AM

Silence is golden by Ian Malone

They were sixth out of nine teams so far. Which wasn’t very good. Ian did really not care much for himself, since he had other things that he needed to focus on, mainly with regards to CATS and his regular schoolwork. As he’d wanted to be a Healer pretty much his entire life, that was more of a priority for him than the Challenges were. Not that Ian wasn’t doing his best, but it didn’t matter as much to him as other things so he was not really all that put out by their current placement.
He was just glad nobody had been seriously hurt. Samara had taken a tumble but fortunately had landed in some muck. While that probably had not been pleasant-muck, after all, being germ filled and generally icky-at least it was sort of soft and she hadn’t hit her head or anything on something hard, or broken a bone or anything. Not that there weren’t easy fixes for broken bones,but Ian just did not want that to happen to anyone.

However, even though doing well on the Challenges was not that important to him personally, the Teppenpaw still felt kind of bad about their placement. After all, it would be nice for people like Theo and Lazarus to be successful, especially Theo since he was the leader. The fifth year really couldn’t help but root for people with disabilities, since he identified those people with his mother. While his teammates did not have the exact same issues as Mom, he still felt for them and wanted them to feel good about themselves. People with disabilities often had it even harder than others with disadvantages, because they had to contend with the disability itself as well as the stigma around them. If all the stigmas around everything disappeared tomorrow, the disabled would still be disabled. Mom would still have an immune deficiency, Lazarus still wouldn’t be able to talk, and Theo would still …have his problem, whatever it was.

And then there was Samara-and the issue of her mother. Ian knew of Tawny Crosby’s reputation as basically an angry, scary person. He was utterly terrified that if they didn’t succeed, she would blame her daughter’s teammates. And-being that Ian was more likely to be around her than Theo or Phillipe-take it out on him . Which was a truly horrifying thought. He’d actually had nightmares about it ever since the results of the first Challenge.

He couldn’t help but blame himself just a little. Like, literally could not help it as that was basically Ian’s personality. Even though he truthfully had managed to do the obstacles just fine, despite brief moments of panic here and there-the brief part being truly remarkable, given that panicking was an even bigger part of his personality than blaming himself-over an obstacle that looked dangerous or seemed like it would take more athletic skill than the Teppenpaw possessed-as in it would take any at all-before figuring out a magical solution instead.

Ian hoped that today’s event would go better for his team as a whole. The fact that they were assembling in the Gardens again did not thrill him. Especially since this Challenge went all weekend, which in addition to taking up valuable studying time, very well might mean they were going to be doing some sort of survival camping type thing.

Which was something that sounded completely horrible to Ian. He had never been very outdoorsy, associating the outdoors with dirt and germs and bugs and just all sorts of dangerous, deadly things. What if they had to forage for food and someone ate the wrong thing and died? The fifth year knew first aid, but that would be the extent of his ability to contribute to that sort of Challenge.

And even that could only be so helpful. Like if there was some dark creature that attacked or someone got mauled by a bear, first aid wouldn’t exactly help much. It wasn’t as if Ian could reattach a limb if it got torn off and a bear ran off with it and ate it, leaving the victims bleeding out. Or what if someone got bit by some wild animal and got rabies?

So, he was incredibly relieved to find out what they were actually doing. Well, he was relieved that they weren’t camping. Ian did not actually play a musical instrument. And he really did not want to perform in front of his peers. The idea kind of made him queasy. He hated the idea of all those eyes on him and the idea of performing at the concert seemed like more of a punishment than a reward.

Once they arrived at their workstation, Philippe began the meeting…to Theo’s apparent displeasure. Things had just gotten really awkward and Ian was unsure what to do next. He wanted to tell the Pecari that his ideas for an instrument were a good one but the last few comments about him doing the asking and a tone that implied that basically Philippe had done something wrong had made the fifth year freeze. Had it been Olivia who had reacted in such a way, then Ian might have done something to soothe her, but Theo was older than him and he wasn’t entirely sure that treating him the same way he’d treat a five year old was a good idea, especially considering how the seventh year was already reacting to what seemed like his authority was being usurped. So, Ian just looked silently between the two older boys waiting to see how this would play out.

It wasn’t as if he had any ideas anyway, at least not any especially creative ones.

11 Ian Malone Silence is golden 1522 0 5

Robyn Lundstrom

October 09, 2022 6:36 AM

Hey, we all agree about something! by Robyn Lundstrom

Robyn couldn’t stop going over the maze challenge in her head, wondering what she could have done differently. She could have ‘finited’ the confusion mist, and that would have made her a little faster, but then she’d have still just been stuck at the age line waiting for Phil. In fact, if she’d got there sooner, she might have given up and gone back out of sight before he arrived. All of which suggested there was nothing she could have done differently. Far from making her feel better though, it made her feel small and powerless. She had done her best, and it hadn’t been good enough. The only small silver lining was that Xavier wasn’t too inclined to rub it in her face, even though his team was second, because the one team below hers contained his best friend and when he’d tried to be smug about it, Robyn had called Oz a loser.

Now it was challenge two, and she really hoped they could turn their fortunes around. They were going into the gardens again, and she wondered if they were going to be doing something to do with herbology. She’d brushed up, just in case, although it could equally be something that they needed a lot of space for, like… well, she had no really good ideas, and she’d had a herbology test coming up anyway, so it had felt like the smartest option to invest in.

As Professor Skeis explained their task though, it appeared that herbology was not going to be very useful—along with any other skills Robyn possessed. She’d had some piano lessons as kid, but they had been something to keep her occupied after school, or make her ‘well-rounded’ or whatever. It had never been a passion, and it had showed in the level she’d reached. She had plunked out some Christmas carols over break, but nothing more complicated than playing ‘Jingle Bells’ for fun, and in this challenge, she wasn’t even going to have a piano unless she could make one from cauldrons and coathangers or whatever else was being offered.

Feeling less than optimistic, she followed her team to their work area.

As the rest of her team started talking, it seemed like they were feeling similar, though perhaps had even less musical experience than she did. She wasn’t sure whether that was reassuring or not. On the one hand, this seemed like a potential disaster from start to finish – and if they hadn’t been able to do well at the maze challenge, which had suited many of them much better, then how could they possibly excel at this? On the other hand, Robyn wasn’t the only one totally out of her depth, or the weakest link in the team. That felt pretty good.

“I can play very basic piano,” she said, determined not to oversell it but feeling fairly confident that ‘very basic piano’ still outranked any skill that had been offered so far. “And I can read music and stuff. I mean, I know we have to make up our own, and make our instruments—and pianos are big and complicated—” So, really she wasn’t sure she could help but… she trailed off with a shrug. At least it was something.

13 Robyn Lundstrom Hey, we all agree about something! 1558 0 5

Bertie Jackson

October 09, 2022 6:50 AM

We could not have access to a library, then we'd be in real trouble by Bertie Jackson

Team four was middle of the leader board. Given that that was based on a challenge that had been all about problem and puzzle solving, Bertie was not very satisfied with that result. Of course, there had been other people, and the utterly random element of trying to find them all as they wandered around a maze, which meant it was about running and random luck as well as brains.

As they were sent to their second challenge, he wasn’t sure they were likely to improve their standing, although perhaps a fancy Brockert upbringing would come in handy here… Or not. He was mildly surprised when Christopher said he didn’t play any instruments, as Bertie had thought that was a requirement for all society types. He kept his face neutral as he listened to this and the other contributions. It seemed like they had one real instrument player amongst them, and he wasn’t confident of his ability to recreate his instrument.

“There’s an instrument called a pentatonic drum,” he informed the group. “It’s a steel drum with different sections, tuned to a pentatonic scale.” He didn’t know enough music theory to be able to explain that well, but he could try just sounding confident and using it like it was a word everyone should know. The ‘sounding confident’ part was impacted a little by his attempts to smooth the stammer out of his speech. It was something he could do, but the trade off was softening and slowing his voice, so he sounded almost languid and lazy. Maybe it came off as nonchalance. He could only hope so. “Those are notes that work well together, so regardless of how or what order you hit the notes, it sounds good,” he offered the sum total of his knowledge on the subject, his stammer tripping into more of his words as he got impatient and hurried a little more. “I think good music is just good math. Maybe we can research more about pentatonic scales, and pleasing sound combinations, and then try to base our instruments off things that have a complimentary set of notes. That way it will make the composition part easier.”

Whilst he wasn’t a musician, there was a simple solution here, which could be applied to almost any problem… Go and research.

13 Bertie Jackson We could not have access to a library, then we'd be in real trouble 1497 0 5

Oz Spellman

October 09, 2022 5:53 PM

Thanks? by Oz Spellman

Oz didn't care what anyone else thought of him, and especially not anyone as tragically uncool as his barely acceptable friend's nerdy little sister. He didn't need her approval. Except, they did have to work together for the next two days solid, and for the next challenge beyond that. That was the only reason why he felt gratified when Iris told him he'd done a good job. And, like, it was better than being yelled at or whatever the alternatives were.

"Thanks," he said, sitting a little straighter as they looked over the heap of junk.

"Well, this seems like it would be a good drum." He slapped the side of the cauldron to demonstrate its already thumping qualities. "And, like we could even make a full kit." He held the plates aloft to show how they could sit as cymbals. "The fabric... I wasn't really sure, but it's big, and big things are always useful. Plus, some instruments have soft bits, like strings, so maybe having something soft to start with is helpful? I dunno. What all do you want to make?" he asked the group, figuring they'd done some of the sensible/boring talking/planning stuff whilst he was grabbing junk.

13 Oz Spellman Thanks? 1514 0 5