Team 1 on Library

Selina Skies

October 22, 2022 4:52 PM

Challenge 3 by Selina Skies

After two challenges in the garden, the poster for the third offered a change of pace—one that would probably be met with mixed reactions.

For Challenge 3 please meet in the library on Saturday at 8.30 am. You can expect to be there until dinner time (with a break for lunch). Bring wands.

It had been tempting to say ‘and books’ as extra copies of the school textbooks wouldn’t be a bad thing to have, especially with everyone drawing on the same resources. However, Selina didn’t want to prejudice them against the task before it even began, any more than the location might already. Besides, many of them probably had books that would be of use besides the school textbooks, but they wouldn’t know it until the challenge was announced. It would be better to let students gather their own resources once they knew what they were working on, which was part of the reason for meeting in the library in the first place.

The other was that it offered a large enough space to spread the teams out, but a small enough space to keep an eye on them. The first clue that they would get when walking in was large tables with their team number on, only some of them immediately visible. What was not visible about the tables (but would be easily guessed based on how their classrooms were set up) was that they were extremely fireproof and had shielding charms around them so that any stray spells didn’t go hurtling across the room.

“Please gather here,” Selina called, from a space between tables one to four. “Welcome to your third and final challenge. We are very impressed with all the work you have put in so far. Every team has shown strength and creativity, along with a wide range of other skills.

“Today is something of a construction challenge, using magic. You will each be given a type of attraction, for example a water park or a tea room. You will have to draw out a plan for the whole attraction, and design and make one element for it. It could be a ride, it could relate to serving food, or any of the tasks needed to keep your attraction running. For some attractions, you will be able to make it to scale, for anything that would be larger than your table, you should scale it down and make a miniature model. It should be unique to the attraction you are given, and should use magic in its creation and operation.” Whilst the main focus was the latter, the beginner students would probably be best suited to mostly cosmetic elements, although there might be a few cases where simple charms of motion could help.

“You will keep a reflection log throughout the task. That means writing down everything you try, and why it worked or didn’t work. You will be judged on the quality of your final product, but also your process and the reflections you make about how you got there. As usual, your ability to include everyone in your team and have them make a meaningful contribution is also important. You will be expected to note who did what.

“With that in mind, it’s suggested that you get into the making and doing as early as possible. You should have a reasonable plan when you make your first spell attempts, but you are aiming to problem solve as you go.

“You may have access to any basic material you like, such as wood, wire, or objects that are in everyday use at the school. This task is more about how you enchant those objects and make a magical experience, so don’t be afraid to ask for materials that will help you save time in construction and focus on your magical elements. Of course, most of our basic school supplies won’t look very aesthetically pleasing and on theme, so you are encouraged to manipulate them to suit your project. You can use library books, or return to your rooms to gather any books you have there, or any materials you feel may be useful.

“Staff will be walking around during the event, and you are free to call on us for help. We can’t fix things for you, but we can recommend things to look up, and we can supervise and correct if you’re trying new spells. The usual safety rules on that apply - test your pronunciation first, don’t try anything too far above your grade level, and practise first on something small.

“Are there any questions?” Once these had been answered, they were dismissed to their tables, where they would each find an envelope with their assignment.

Team 1 - Water park
Team 2 - Arcade
Team 3 - Children’s museum
Team 4 - Escape room (an escape room is a room in which a team must solve a series of puzzles in order to reveal further clues, access materials such as keys etc, and ultimately open the door to get out of the room).
Team 5 - Tea room
Team 6 - Formal garden/park
Team 7 - Petting zoo
Team 8 - Haunted house
Team 9 - Mini golf

Subthreads:

Team 1 with System, Iris Cobb, Piper Wilson, Oz Spellman, Morgan Garrett

Team 2 with System, Lenny Pierce, Lavender Brockert, Yaniel Ayala Velez, Amethyst Brockert

Team 3 with System, Phil Carson, Gabriel Wilson, Robyn Lundstrom, Olaf Brockert

Team 4 with System, Bertie Jackson, Billy Cobb, Cole Pierce, Christopher Brockert

Team 5 with System, Esme Brockert, Rosalynn Tellerman, Nausicaa Scapetello, Verdillia Scurlock

Team 6 with System, Hansel Hexenmeister, Lyla Holland, Sadie-Lake Chalmers, Isla Brockert, Gwendolyn Brockert

Team 7 with System, Xarryn Bavol, Valentine Duell, Lydia Priory, Leviosa Scurlock

Team 8 with System, Jasper Brockert, Mab, Liesl Brockert, Fortune Ardovini, Xavier Lundstrom

0 System Team 9 0 System 0 5

Jasper Brockert

October 23, 2022 9:27 AM

Still Second. No Performing. No Flying. Yay. by Jasper Brockert

OOC: CW-Emotional abuse BIC:

During the second Challenge, Jasper’s team had experienced a bit of conflict,because Mab did not want to perform and Xavier wanted to…win, he guessed. Which figured, as being competitive seemed to be an inherent trait of athletic Pecari types. Not that the sixth year was against winning, of course, but he agreed with Mab that not traumatizing people was more important. Jasper honestly appreciated that, because while performing in front of the entire school wasn’t a problem for him personally, it also meant that if it came down to it, the seventh year would not make him fly .

Of course, if they had to do so and Jasper objected-as in froze up, panicked-Xavier would probably get all pissy about it like last time as well as be critical of the Teppenpaw for his hang-ups around it. Because, apparently, winning was more important to the fourth year than the psychological well being of others.

Which meant that it had been easier for Jasper to be on Mab's side when Xavier had snapped at her-and not just because she would not make him fly if that especially heinous torture was asked of them. First of all, the Teppenpaw was really in favor of the position of not traumatizing people. After all, with a sister like Topaz and an uncle like Uncle Eustace, he knew about trauma, having experienced it himself, and was pretty much against it. That was much more important than winning and Jasper would have happily taken a tumble in the overall rankings to prevent someone from psychological distress-and of course, the possible mocking that could be associated with it. Like if Mab had screwed up performing in front of others, they might make fun of her-although, to be honest, woe be it to those who did so. A better example was probably the potential of Xavier making fun of Jasper if he freaked out over flying. Which obviously, the Teppenpaw did not want.

And yes, Jasper felt bad that Xavier had to be in a magic competition when he clearly wasn’t good at it, which the sixth year was sure could not have been easy-after all, the Teppenpaw would have felt that way in an athletic competition so it might very well be the same for Xavier when he had to compete using magic- but it was unavoidable to have to use magic at a magical school and there had been other aspects to the events where the Pecari’s contributions could be valuable. He could still contribute ideas and do non-magical things. Like the last Challenge had also involved playing music, not that anyone besides Liesl and Henry, who both played the guitar some was really much of a musician either-and Liesl was pretty much a beginner at the guitar- but it was an example of a non-magical aspect.

Furthermore, it had been easier to take Mab’s side because, well, since the beginning of the Challenges, Jasper had felt some tension with Xavier. Like, the younger boy looked down on him for some reason and felt contempt towards him. He could only assume it was because of his lack of athletic skills. Since the fourth year seemed to feel this way towards him-and Liesl-and Mab only seemed to have the regular amount of contempt for him that she seemed to have towards most people-she was not unlike Olaf in that respect-it was easier to side with her. Yes, it would be nice to win or at least place well, especially for Liesl who didn’t think she was good at anything, but not at the expense of someone’s mental health.

Which actually really bothered Jasper the more that he thought about it. Because it showed a lack of empathy on the part of the Pecari. Which of course, made him think of Uncle Eustace-and Topaz too, but he was pretty sure Xavier was not a sadistic sociopath, he'd give him the benefit of the doubt there-and how he had not cared one little bit about his nephews' well being when they were children and he'd forced them into Quidditch and flying and berated them for not performing up to his standards, which had given both Jasper and Christopher life long complexes.

Not that he was saying Xavier was quite as bad as his uncle-after all, the fourth year had not said anything misogynistic at all and he was going to assume the younger boy was not okay with abusing children-but there was the same hyper-competitive, win at all costs regardless of the well-being of others, all about me self centered attitude that Jasper also saw in his uncle.

Anyway, in the end, they had not placed in the top three in the previous Challenge, meaning they did not have to perform at the Concert but had still retained second place in the overall rankings. Jasper considered that an overall win. Plus, he was really happy for Esme whose team had tied for first in the second Challenge and moved up in the rankings. Isla’s team was the other first place team, and retained their overall first place ranking, and he was happy for her too but Esme was the one who really seemed to care about the Challenges and was leading her team.

The other team who had finished in the top three was Olaf’s and the Aladren was not the least bit pleased about it. Fortunately, Jasper didn’t think he was going to be traumatized, just irritated. Which was basically his natural state of being anyway.

Apparently, Challenge Three was going to be in the library. The sixth year found this to be rather comforting, in that it meant that today’s task was probably not going to involve flying or any other athletic feats.He joined his teammates at their appointed table.

Professor Skies began to tell them about what this final Challenge would entail. Which, while he was glad would not entail doing anything with sports-unless they had a sports-based attraction but he hoped that would not be the case, and even if it was, it wouldn’t be that bad because they were just planning an attraction not playing sports or flying-still sounded like it would entail an awful lot. And an awful lot of magic.

Which for Jasper would personally not be so awful. However, it would likely be an issue for Xavier and despite the apparent disdain the younger boy seemed to have for him, and the fact that the Teppenpaw had been triggered by his attitude he really did not want him to feel like he couldn’t contribute or to struggle. Because while Xavier apparently only cared about himself and what he wanted, Jasper still couldn't help but still care that he didn't feel bad. Because the Teppenpaw did care about the mental well being of others.

Besides, if Xavier wasn't unhappy, he wouldn't take it out on others, Jasper and Liesl in particular.

Of course, while magic was the main skill on display, it seemed like there was a lot that needed to be done that didn’t use it. Like, one did not need to use magic to come up with ideas or write down the log or even to look up and suggest spells for others to do.

However, Jasper was kind of afraid to be the one to suggest this to Xavier, because he was sure it would be taken the wrong way, like he was being condescending or something-while the sixth year thought the younger boy thought he was better than him, being condescending was the natural wrong way to take a suggestion of there being things that could be done without magic to someone not good at it. He decided to address the whole group. He cleared his throat. “Well, this sounds like it’s going to be very complex and hopefully we’ll all find a way to contribute something.” The Teppenpaw waited for Mab to open the envelope, as he didn’t want to step on her toes.

11 Jasper Brockert Still Second. No Performing. No Flying. Yay. 1496 0 5

Mab

October 23, 2022 5:39 PM

Fey luck is with us by Mab

Mab had hated most things about challenge two. The challenge itself. The performance. The tension it had created within her team in general and between her and Xavier in particular. The way she'd had to admit she couldn't always help everyone avoid all trauma that might present itself under her leadership. That blasted triangle and its annoying ding! that she hated beyond all reason.

Despite all of that though, they'd done all right, managing to take fourth in a closely scored challenge, which kept them in second place over all and spared them the horror of performing at the concert. In all truth, Mab couldn't have been happier with how that worked out. She'd been almost afraid that their smoke and visual effects that hid those that didn't want to be seen by the audience might have been too good, but their absolutely mediocre musical ability must have mitigated the visual appeal sufficiently given that music was the point of the challenge.

The third challenge was in the library. Mab was almost glad for that, despite a preponderance of Pecaris on her team, and complete lack of Aladrens. Libraries spoke of research and quiet, the antitheses of challenge two, which was perfectly fine with her.

As she walked into the room, she took note of the table groupings. She didn't spot the one for Team Eight, but guessed it wasn't too far away. Before she could go looking for it, Professor Skies called them together to give them their instructions. Listening to those, she felt herself grimacing because it again showcased magic, which was exactly what Xavier did not want.

The task itself was also not initially appealing to Mab either, as she knew very little about either tea rooms or water parks, and had no interest in learning more. At least they didn't need to do a presentation about what they'd made afterwards, just submit a log detailing their process and proving everyone contributed.

There was nothing in there that said everyone had to contribute with magic, just that they needed to contribute, so hopefully they could use that to get around making Xavier do magic.

When they did get to their set of tables, Mab picked up the envelope with their 'attraction' with something like dread. Please don't let this be anything too bright and cheery, she pleaded with fate.

As she slit it open with a wish to her fairies, Jasper spoke up. She nodded agreement as she took out the paper with their task on it.

Something happened then that some people seated at the table might not have seen before.

Mab actually smiled as she read the two words written on the slip of paper. "You're going to like this, Liesl," she said, looking at the younger Teppenpaw. She moved her look around the table to include everyone in the group. "We're doing a haunted house."

She gave them an appropriate amount of time to react to their given attraction, voice their initial broad ideas, if they had any they immediately wanted to suggest, and then got right into organizing what they needed to do.

"Alright, they put us in the library for this, so clearly they want us to do some research, and we are definitely going to need to need someone to keep notes and write the log. So volunteers for the positions of 'lead researcher' and 'archivist'? We'll also create positions for 'aesthetic coordinator'," Mab looked at Leisl for this one with a raised eyebrow, not forcing the position on her, but figuring her for the best choice to make sure everything looked properly spooky, "'lead architect' for actually building it, and 'chief operator' in charge of all the moving parts." That was five positions and seven group members, and she figured the last two would probably be her and Jasper as the Advanced students in the group.

She figured they may as well round out the positions so everyone had something they were officially in charge of. "We could also have a 'resource manager' in charge of collecting all the materials we'll need to build this. We'll need one more position for each of us to have a named role. If nobody has any other ideas, we could have an overall helper who just assists with whatever is the biggest job at the moment and we'll call them the 'troubleshooter'. Any of those in particular that anyone wants to claim? Or something entirely different that you want to claim as your specialty? Things like . . . I don't know. Slime wrangler. Fog coordinater. Whatever sounds interesting to you for your role in bringing together a haunted house. Obviously, we'll probably all have to chip in at various points to support each other because I'm not going to put the responsibility of building the whole thing on just one person, but that person can take the lead on that part of it."

"Also, we need ideas for exactly which part of the haunted house we're going to be making. A demo of one room? A scaled down model of the whole outside? One particular haunt that we make in full size?"

1 Mab Fey luck is with us 1473 0 5

Esme Brockert

October 24, 2022 11:51 AM

We got this! by Esme Brockert

They were no longer in last place. In fact, they weren’t even in second-to-last place. Esme’s team had moved up to seventh, which while still not great, was an improvement. Besides, they had tied with Isla’s team for first in the last event which pleased the Crotalus immensely. Okay, she probably would have liked it better if they had not tied but at least if her team had to share the honor with another team, she was glad it was her sister’s. Besides, Esme still felt a sense of pride, even if they still weren’t doing great in the overall rankings.

At least they weren’t in last place anymore though. That was something. She had honestly been sort of disheartened by that, not that she had let on that she felt that way about it. Even though the seventh year had refused to consider herself a failure, being in last place when she’d spent the last seven years looking forward to the Challenges and being a Team Leader, stung a bit. She could not help but worry that others were secretly laughing at her and Esme could not stand the idea of being the subject of mockery. While some of her relatives wanted to be liked, she wanted to be respected .

And, admittedly, the seventh year did not necessarily think she had the respect of others. She worried that the staff did not respect her because she had not gotten prefect, and she worried her peers did not respect her because she had not gotten Head Student. Then they’d been in last place which made her worry that maybe her team would not respect her. And she could not lead them if they did not respect her.

However, since they had been primarily on their own in the first Challenge-where they had gotten last place-and then tied for first in the second one, that had to be at least something of a testament to Esme’s leadership abilities. She was not so egotistical as to think that was the sole difference, especially since Rosalynn’s creative skills were a huge contribution the last time around but she wanted to believe that she’d made some difference in the outcome.

Also, her parents were very excited about the fact that all three of their children who were currently at Sonora would be performing in the concert as Olaf’s team had gotten third place. Of course, Olaf was less than thrilled about it. It was unfortunate that the Aladren would have to do something that he didn’t want to do but at least it wasn’t a thing where he was anxious over it. It was still kind of nice that they’d all be performing.

Granted, Esme was not sure that putting a bunch of people who weren’t especially musical on stage performing music with instruments that were transfigured and charmed from a lot of junk was the best idea ever-and if it was someone’s best idea ever, she felt really sad for that person. It hardly seemed like the sort of performance that most people would enjoy. She was lucky that her group personally had a few people who actually could play instruments. In hindsight, they were likely to all be humiliated in front of everyone’s families just less so in the case of Team Five. She didn’t think, based on what her siblings said about their teams, that they had any particular musical skill. In fact, Olaf had said that supposedly nobody on his team did so they must have come up with especially creative instruments.

They would, at best, come across like a bunch of five year olds playing simple songs on instruments they’d just begun practicing, and at worst sound like a cross between nails on a chalkboard and a herd of dying cats. Maybe she should have her team get together and practice before the Concert. Esme would suggest to her siblings and Sadie that maybe they should do the same. After all, she didn’t really want to see them humiliated either.

The third Challenge was being held in the library, which Esme took as a good sign. She knew that meant that she would not have to worry about it being a physical challenge. Hopefully, it would be something that would play to her team’s strengths and they could rise even further in the rankings. At this point, the Crotalus was aiming for fifth place. Higher than that might not be realistic, although she never knew.

Professor Skies gave the instructions for the third Challenge. It honestly sounded like it would involve a lot. They had to come up with an attraction, add some sort of magical element, make a model of an aspect of the attraction and keep a log of what they tried.

Fortunately, Esme was up to the task and she believed that her teammates would be too. While there were a lot of parts to this particular task, it also involved different skills that she believed her team possessed, such as creative, intellectual and magical ability.

She opened their envelope and addressed her team. “All right. Our attraction is a tea room.”The seventh year smiled. Tea rooms were generally elegant places and elegance was something that she could certainly do. Esme was certain Nausicaa and Verdillia were definitely up to the task as well. And Rosalynn was just plain creative and Quincy and Connie were brilliant. She was sure that they would all be able to come up with some great ideas.

There was just one issue. “I’m not sure how to work in the magical part. Maybe self filling teapots? Or something like how the food in the Cascade Hall just appears?” After all, a tea room was sort of like a restaurant, it wasn’t like a water park where they had to figure out how to make a water slide work.

11 Esme Brockert We got this! 1479 0 5

Bertie Jackson

October 24, 2022 4:16 PM

Best. Challenge. Ever. by Bertie Jackson

The final challenge would take place in the library. Those were comforting words. Whilst the first challenge had bent the gardens out of shape, and the second had had little to do with them, Bertie doubted either such fate awaited the library. Firstly, whilst no one minded if a few hedges got messed with, but it was very different to abuse books in such a fashion. He was sure Mr. Fox-Reynolds wouldn't allow it, and that most magical folk wouldn't suggest it - they might have cavalier attitudes towards bones, fire, and the lives of tiny creatures, but most magical folk respected books. Secondly, if they had just needed a big place to gather, they could have put them in the Cascade Hall. Which meant they needed the library's resources, which meant that Bertie was confident about his ability to do well. He had the numbers of all the sections memorised, and could navigate to a topic with maximum efficiency.

He listened to Professor Skies' intro speech, feeling this could go either way... The task was not purely research based, but it sounded like that would form a large component of it. And, whilst she had recommended getting started and problem-solving as they went, she had also said their ideas had to be thought-through. He took the directions as more a reminder not to get so bogged down in details and hypotheticals that they never completed their project. That was a useful reminder, and real scientists came up with plans, tested them, and revised off their inevitable mistakes. He was sure some Pecaris would take it as a directive to throw everything but the kitchen sink at their project and worry about explosions when they happened, but he trusted his group to follow the instructions properly, at which point it could be quite enjoyable.

Depending on what attraction they got.

Bertie supposed that, as they weren't actually going there, anything could be interesting. Neither a tearoom nor a water park sounded fun to him, but pulling them apart to find out how they worked was... Still, it was hard to get inspired about them, and to think beyond the obvious, which was something he always wanted to do, even when it wasn't the task at hand.

He joined his team, waiting for the reveal. He was bouncing on his toes before the explanation was even finished - because who needed to hear that because of course he knew what an escape room was! For once in his life, he was actually desperate to speak.

"This is going to be great!" he beamed, with the most genuine enthusiasm any of his classmates would ever have seen on his face. "I love puzzles! I write and solve them all the time! There's spells you can use to crack basic, formulaic codes, and spells you can use to make codes unbreakable using magic so that people have to actually solve them with their brains, not to mention codes that don't have a spell to break them at all because they rely on knowledge or logic or a key." He was tripping over his words all over the place, but he didn't care. And he wasn't getting stuck. Yes, his speech was messy and he was repeating sounds all over the place, but they slid out of his mouth as readily as the words. The full force of his enthusiasm gave his speech a momentum that his stammering couldn't hold back. "And code-cracking is just one type of puzzle! We should look up some of the Egyptian tomb protection stuff. It's under 932. Codes are 652.8. I also have some great books in my room." His knowledge wasn't that specific for every area of the library but Egyptology and codes were two of his favourite subjects.

His mind was whirring whilst he listed references, thinking about things in those books. There was one you could use on a typewriter so that it would type in a basic shift cypher. You could specify the number of places the letters moved or let it select at random per document or per line depending on how complicated you wanted to make the code. But that was something he could achieve by hand, and much as he wanted a magical code writing typewriter, it wasn't the kind of thing they could put into the room. Unless it was... What if there were typewritten sheets of code, and a typewriter with the same settings to produce them? That way if the puzzle solvers typed in 'Hello' and it came out as 'Khoor' they might start to realise what was going on with the papers. Of course, a simple shift cypher could be solved with logic, so maybe all of that was unnecessary.

He noted down 'coding typewriter' just in case because it was better to have as many ideas as possible, seeing as they had to plan the whole thing.

13 Bertie Jackson Best. Challenge. Ever. 1497 0 5

Rosalynn Tellerman

October 24, 2022 4:19 PM

Keep on moving up! by Rosalynn Tellerman

The second challenge had gone very well for them, and if Rosalynn was allowed to say so, they'd had the best act, whatever the scores said. Team 6 had certainly been . . . unique, but Team 5 was the only one, in her opinion, that had been good, from a musical standpoint. Between her and Nausicaa, they'd had people actually able to play their instruments. Verdillia . . . knew what a piano was and had played her part technically correct on the simplified version of one that they'd come up with (building a piano was probably one of the ways they had held their own in the points given for constructing the instruments, she thought). Alone, she would have been somewhat musically uninspired, but she'd done far and away better than some of the other teams had been able to do even with their lead players.

Esme had been great at making the instruments, and the rest of the team had done well enough with their percussive background support that they'd actually sounded . . . maybe not ready to go on the road with their act, but quite decent for a school talent show, and she was excited to perform the piece they had composed themselves for her dad at the concert (that was three acts now that she was in - the musical muppet play with the Performing Arts Club, the band with Team 5, and one of just her and Lenny doing some juggling and telling jokes).

The third challenge was in the library, and that was good for them, too. They had three Aladrens and only one Pecari on their team, so as long it was actually related to being in the library, she thought they would do well. Connie, especially, probably knew where to find just about anything in the place.

As Professor Skies explained what they would be doing for this challenge, Rosalynn nodded along, thinking this could work well for them, depending on what they got for their attraction. They were dismissed to their tables and Rosalynn leaned forward with anticipation as Esme opened the envelope telling them what their attraction would be.

She slumped slightly when it was read out as the tea room. That sounded a bit laid back and dull in her opinion, but she was from Las Vegas, so she knew she was more accustomed to glitz and theatrics than most people were. It seemed to suit the rest of the team pretty well anyway, other than the two boys.

She perked up again pretty quickly though, as Esme's words reminded her that it was supposed to be a magical tea room.

"We could think of some kind of theme for our tea room - The Peppermint Unicorn, maybe, because peppermint is a kind of tea and unicorns are magical - and have a mural on the wall of unicorns walking around doing unicorn things."

1 Rosalynn Tellerman Keep on moving up! 1520 0 5

Lenny Pierce

October 24, 2022 4:54 PM

Arcade, huh? by Lenny Pierce

Challenge two had been all right. He'd had fun, but they'd only come in seventh out of nine, two points ahead of the pair of teams that tied for last. Of course, they'd also only been three points behind the three teams that tied for fourth, so it was a close scoring round of challenges. Still, they'd definitely dropped out of third after that. Teams 4 and 9 had pulled ahead and team 3 had caught up, so they were now tied for fifth. Cole was on the team that had pulled far enough ahead to claim their old position of third place, so Lenny couldn't feel too bad about that. It would have been nice to be only one position behind his twin though. Still it was close, with only one point difference between them and fourth place and two points to third. And seventh place was just one point behind and eighth one point behind that so . . . middle of the pack was still anybody's game.

They'd just have to do better again in Challenge Three. With luck, maybe his singing voice wouldn't come up this time.

As it turned out, luck was not with them. Not because of his signing voice, thankfully (hopefully), but because challenge three was making him spend an entire Saturday in the library.

He arrived in the library with little time to spare and dragging his feet a little bit. Nothing that required the library was going to be in his favor. He listened to the deputy headmistress explain and he became a little more hopeful, but if they had to do a tea room, he was going to go mad.

They collected at the table marked for team two, and he waited politely while their lead opened up the envelope with their attraction in it.

An arcade. Arcades were cool. He took a deep breath and let out some of his tension. Okay. He could maybe give this challenge another chance to be fun.

"So are we all thinking air hockey with cool magical effects or is that just me?"

1 Lenny Pierce Arcade, huh? 1547 0 5

Billy Cobb

October 24, 2022 5:44 PM

Well, it ain't the worst I guess by Billy Cobb

So far the challenges hadn't been terrible. Running around the maze had been pretty fun and cobbling together instruments out of random things pretty neat. Heck, even performing hadn't been terrible, even though he was pretty sure he hadn't been the most musical person in the group. Anyway, as such he was all ready to head out to the gardens again for the last challenge. Except they were going to the library. That couldn't be right, could it? What sort of interesting challenge could they have in the library? The library was generally quiet and boring and the place you had to go to do boring studying stuff. Maybe Professor Skies had gotten confused and meant to write 'Quidditch Pitch' instead of 'Library'. Sometimes that happened. The rest of his group didn't see to think so, so he followed them to the library.

The Professor was there waiting for them, unfortunately it looked like the rest of his team had been right. Her opening wasn't to bad, a construction challenge sounded somewhat interesting at least. Then she started talking about keeping a log of stuff while they were working. Ugh, that sounded terrible. The log was going to be graded as well? Fantastic. This was starting to sound a lot more terrible than he'd initially though. She talked more about plans and materials and things and then he moved with his group over to their table.

Billy blinked in confusion at their task. An escape room? Puzzles that led to more puzzles so that you could leave the room? If he was understanding this right, people would lock themselves into a confusing room just to try and get out again? That sounded like some crazy wizard nonsense to him. He glanced around at his teammates to gauge their reactions to this concept and he stopped nearly immediately at Bertie. The usually quiet, stuttering boy looked like he was about to explode with happiness, and the words just began spilling out of him as Billy had never heard them do before. He just watched dumbfounded, not sure what to do or what to even make of the words that were flooding out of Bertie.

"Okay...." he said slowly once the other boy had paused. "I'm not sure 'bout any of that, so you just tell me what you want me to do and I'll see what I can do." Puzzles weren't really his thing, so maybe he'd just take some grunt work for this task. That may make for easier logging as well.

2 Billy Cobb Well, it ain't the worst I guess 1519 0 5

Phil Carson

October 24, 2022 7:00 PM

Time to entertain the children, I guess by Phil Carson

Phil was not really sure how they had placed third in the musical competition. They'd worked well together, tried their best, and pulled something together that had not been awful given how little all of them knew about music, but in the end, they'd leaned heavily on some advice from the portraits, learned a ton of things that he'd never known he didn't know about composing music and improvising instruments, and they'd pulled it all together to a third place finish.

And they'd get to play their song in front of all of their parents at the concert, too, which was . . . something. Still, third place was nothing to sneeze at and he was pretty proud of himself and the rest of the group for pulling it off, so why shouldn't they show it off in front of their families? Phil was almost looking forward to it.

Overall, they were middle of the pack but when the last challenge was announced to be taking place in the library, he thought this was their chance to shine! Half their team was Aladrens and they'd proven well enough last time that their other three members were fully capable of keeping up and shining. As they gathered together in front of Professor Skies, he felt pretty confident, and that didn't lessen as she explained their task for the third challenge.

It sounded like all of their best strengths in Challenge Two were going to be pulled to the forefront for this one. Research. Building. Pulling things together into a whole. "We got this, guys," he told the rest of them as they sat around the table designated for team three and Gabriel opened up the envelope.

That confidence stuttered for a moment when he heard what their attraction actually was, but it rebounded quickly. "Okay, okay, we got this," he said again. "Listen. There's a children's science museum near where my dad lives. We went there a lot. The best part was playing with the water table, so we could make a big water table right here on this table as our exhibit. It teaches about water physics, flow, and gravity. So we can make the table, make posters about the keys things kids should be learning when they go here, and we'll get to make a splashing mess. In the one at home, it featured iconic local scenery, so we could do something like that here, too, but for Sonora. It could start in the Cascade Hall with the water coming down the water falls as the starting point , then it flows into maybe the library where you can try to dam it up with library shelves, and then into the potions room where we can have dyes for the visitors to drip into the water and see how it flows around obstacles like desks and cauldrons, and then into the Gardens to water the plants and explain how important water is. The ever flowing waterfall at the top would obviously be our first piece of magic. Not sure what else we'd do though for that. Any other thoughts for what we could add to it, or different ideas entirely?"

1 Phil Carson Time to entertain the children, I guess 1536 0 5

Gabriel Wilson

October 25, 2022 4:20 PM

At least we don't have to dress up like clowns by Gabriel Wilson

Gabriel was completely baffled as to how his team had taken third place in the last Challenge and now would be performing at the Concert. After all, they were a team with seemingly no musical ability whatsoever. Okay, Robyn had known some piano, but for the most part, the extent of their musicality was the fact that Gabriel personally knew lots of random facts about instruments. Like that the bongo drum was invented in Cuba in the late nineteenth century and used in salsa music. They were usually covered in calfskin and the smaller drum was called the macho meaning male, and the larger drum, the hembra which meant female. Or that a concert grand piano generally weighed over 1,400 pounds and were just under nine feet tall.

While those were interesting facts, they had not been especially relevant to the previous Challenge in that knowing those things wasn’t necessary for success. And Gabriel did not understand how they had been successful. Was it just like Olaf had said, that everyone else was just as lacking in musical skills as they were? Lavender played the oboe and her team hadn’t done very well at all so it was puzzling.

And Gabriel didn’t like being puzzled, unless it involved an actual puzzle, which were fun to figure out. Actual confusion seriously bothered him and made him retreat further into trivia, which made him feel safe and secure. Not that he felt unsafe and insecure normally, he was generally someone who had a happy upbringing with loving parents-something, he knew from the experiences of some of his cousins, made a huge difference-who did well in school and even had a group of friends.

However,sometimes confusing situations could arise, like when some sort of muggle thing that Gabriel had never heard of came up. Or when he and his unmusical teammates did well in a competition that was at least partially musical. He had to believe that they’d come up with some especially clever and innovative instruments and that put them over the edge. Plus, he had to admit that his talents in Transfiguration had likely come in very handy.

Besides, despite the fact that Gabriel was confused and didn’t like being confused, finishing in the top three in the last Challenge was a good thing. Well, sort of. Like it was nice to have done well, but there was also the fact that they now would have to perform in front of everyone’s families at the Concert. The Aladren was not sure that was a good thing since they were not very musical. He generally was not the sort to get anxious about performing-it wasn’t something he’d go out of his way to do, but he wasn’t usually anxious-but this sounded like it had the potential to be humiliating. If Gabriel was going to get up and tell people interesting facts or transfigure stuff, that would be one thing, but something that he wasn’t all that good at with people who also weren’t that good at it? Yeah,slightly more nerve wracking.

Still, they’d risen up the overall ranks slightly, so that was pretty cool. They went from seventh place to being tied for fifth with Lavender and Stanley’s team. Unfortunately for them, it meant they had fallen in the rankings, which was too bad. Gabriel knew that Lavender was none too pleased, but he got the impression that it was because Bonabelle Row, whom the Crotalus disliked immensely, was on the first place team.

And by “had the impression” the seventh year meant that his cousin had flat out told him that she didn’t care how well her team did, as long as they beat Bonabelle’s team. Lavender had a tendency to confide such things in him, because of his being a bit more…neutral in the whole Wally-Stanley-Val-Bonabelle thing. Val was his friend too but Gabriel had wisely decided early on to just stay out of the whole thing and had suggested to Lavender that it might be in her best interest to do so too.

However, the Crotalus still needed a person to talk to about how she felt, primarily about how she was bothered about how little time she got to spend with her friend, and he was the person she trusted most who was also the least involved. Well, arguably Graham was less involved, since Gabriel also considered Val a friend but Lavender was afraid if she showed her less pleasant traits to him-such as her not so positive opinions about Bonabelle- he wouldn’t like her anymore.

Anyway, today was the last Challenge, and Gabriel felt…well, to be honest, he had grown kind of fond of his teammates. Even Olaf. He might actually miss working with them. It wasn’t like he was going to get to hang out with any of them next year, although he probably would see Olaf around being distant cousins and all and hopefully he would keep in touch with Phil, but he would be graduating soon and going off to Dofmore.

Which should be exciting, but truth be told, he was really not that eager to leave Sonora and have to make all new friends. He would not know anyone there. Ivy had gone to Dofmore but unfortunately she had already graduated. There would be no cousins-a truly weird concept, Gabriel had cousins everywhere-or Morgan or Phil or Gaming Club. Which…made him a bit sad.

They gathered for the instructions for the last Challenge. This one…sounded kind of fun, actually. Like it would use a lot of intellectual and magical skills, and would probably play to their team’s strengths. Besides, if they could get third place in a musical challenge when they had no musical talent, he sort of believed that they could do just about anything.

They returned to their appointed table. Gabriel cleared his throat. “Before I open the envelope and tell you what our attraction is, I just want to say that I’ve really enjoyed being on the same team as all of you.” He ripped open the envelope. “We will be planning a children’s museum.”

No sooner had Gabriel said this than Phil made a fairly well thought out suggestion. He looked at the younger Aladren. “That’s an amazing idea.” He looked at the others. “Does anyone else have one?” After all, while he loved the third year’s idea, he had to be fair. “I think we’re supposed to like, plan the whole museum but make a model of one of the exhibits. I think that there should be exhibits that encompass a wide range of disciplines. I personally think there should be one involving magnets. Those are fun.”

11 Gabriel Wilson At least we don't have to dress up like clowns 1481 0 5

Nausicaa Scapetello

October 25, 2022 6:04 PM

There is no other direction by Nausicaa Scapetello

Nausicaa couldn't believe the way this was going. Her team was not in first place. How was that even possible? Something must definitely be wrong with the judges and scoring. True, she had been hampered quite a bit in the horrible second challenge. Trying to perform on the 'instruments' that they had made. Also, thanks to Ms. Tellerman, she now knew fully what a 'banjo' was. She never wanted to experience one again, and she may need to seek vengeance.

Now they were in the library, that was perhaps better than the garden again. Perhaps this would be a proper intellectual challenge. Nausicaa was on the fence throughout the explanation. One the one hand it was an interesting challenge, on the other…. If she had to make an 'amusement park' or 'water park', she would not be happy.

Nausicaa took a seat at her team's table and waited politely for Ms. Brockert to unveil their assignment. She breathed a very slight sigh of relief when she learned they would be working on a tearoom. That was at least within the realm of acceptability. She was mildly concerned that Ms. Brockert didn't know what magic should be present in a magical tearoom.

However before she could make some suggestions, the banjo wielding Ms. Tellerman jumped in with some rather inane jabber. Honestly, The Peppermint Unicorn? What was she, five years old? Why not just name it baby's first tea house? What sort of 'unicorn things' did she exactly have in mind?

"Self-filling and heating tea pots are a necessity. Also floating trays that deliver the available pastries." Nausicaa thought affirming her team leader's ideas was the best place to start. "We should also have charmed sugar bowls and such ready to react to the customer's wishes." What else had she seen? "Perhaps table linens that clean minor spills and crumbs by themselves." Not that she'd ever spilled anything at tea before, but she had seen others.

As for Ms. Tellerman's idea… "A magical mural covering the walls is a good idea, but I was thinking of something a bit more sophisticated. Perhaps 'Sogni di gelsomino', or 'Jasmine Dreams' in English." She was not going to assume that everyone at the table was cultured enough to know Italian. "We could still use your unicorns," she offered to Ms. Tellerman, "but it would also open up the design styling a bit. If we wanted to use more disciplines than simply charms and transfigurations, we could use some fairies for decoration, and perhaps salamanders to keep the pots warm."

2 Nausicaa Scapetello There is no other direction 1561 0 5

Hansel Hexenmeister

October 25, 2022 6:26 PM

Formally flourishing by Hansel Hexenmeister

Team six was killing this challenge thing. They'd ruled over the obstacle maze and took a substantial lead right from the start, and challenge two had not played to their strengths quite so completely, but they'd not only held their lead but taken first place again. Tied this time, but it was still an astounding win given how little all of them really knew about music. They hadn't even needed to borrow a secret extra legless teammate to do well this time.

After two first place finishes, Hansel was feeling pretty confident going into the third challenge in the library. Winning again would be nice of course, but they really just needed to maintain their fairly large lead. That wasn't going to stop him from giving this challenge his all, of course, but it did take a lot of the pressure off.

As Professor Skies told them what they'd be doing, Hansel nodded along, thinking they were a pretty well rounded team that should be able to handle designing some kind of attraction. He wasn't counting on himself being able to offer much in the way of experience or ideas for this one, unless they needed to design a snake ranch, though they didn't get too many tourists coming out to theirs. Hansel himself was not particularly well travelled. He'd been born in Germany (which he obviously didn't remember) but he'd grown up in Utah and only left once to visit Hilda's friends (also in Germany). There had not been a lot of sight-seeing or attraction visiting along the way. The only tourist areas he'd ever gone to was Tumbleweed and the zoo, both with the school.

If they got a zoo, that wouldn't be too far off a snake ranch. There'd just have to be a much larger variety of animals.

They did not have a zoo, he discovered a few minutes later when they were sitting around their table and Sadie read out that they were going to be designing a formal garden or park.

Okay. Not terribly exciting, but it should be easy to pull in herbology at least. He had no brilliant ideas, though. He lived in a desert. Sure, they had a few habitats for snakes that needed greenery and water, but they were fairly wild areas and certainly couldn't be considered anything close to 'formal gardens' or anything. He waited to see what the others said first, in case it sparked an idea.

One thing he could do, though, was volunteer. "I can take notes and write the log, unless somebody else wants to do that."

1 Hansel Hexenmeister Formally flourishing 1524 0 5

Iris Cobb

October 25, 2022 6:30 PM

Yay, another one. by Iris Cobb

Iris was ready to be done with these challenges. Her team scored last, well tied for last, on the second one and she knew it was mostly her fault. She could have helped a lot more, but hadn't. So as a result, they were now in last place overall. Billy's group had a 10 point lead on hers and she didn't see anyway of making that up. As a result she slipped into the mindset of 'does it really matter?' This was the last one, then they would be done and all this would be behind them. They could get back to normal school things, and the concert. She didn't know what she was doing about the concert yet either. Fortunately she wouldn't have to preform with her group for it.

She listened to the Professor as the final challenge was explained, mainly because that was what you were supposed to do when professors spoke. Depending on what sort of attraction her group got, she wasn't sure how much help she would be. It seemed unlikely that the magical folk would assign a rodeo or anything like that.

Upon sitting down at her table with her team she found that she had been correct. They were making a water park. Iris had heard of them by this point in her education, but she'd never been to one, or seen one. As she understood it, there was pools of water and slides with water and such. The closest she'd come to anything like that was swinging from the rope into the lake back home. Still, she should at least try to make an effort. "Anyone got any good ideas?" She asked in general to the table.

2 Iris Cobb Yay, another one. 1526 0 5

Xarryn Bavol

October 25, 2022 7:02 PM

Tourist Trap by Xarryn Bavol

Xarryn's team was not doing particularly well after the second challenge, which they'd bombed and tied for last place in. In the overall rankings, they'd dropped out of tied for third and hit second to last. It was a bit disheartening, but it also meant a good showing in the third challenge might bring them back up, maybe not all the way back to third, but at least higher than eighth.

When the third challenge was announced to be a whole day in the library, though, Xarryn's hopes crashed. Maybe the others would do okay in a library based challenge, but libraries were not his happy place. He could barely read.

As Professor Clouds detailed what they needed to do, though, Xarryn perked up some. It sounded like they were making a tourist attraction. Xarryn lived in a tourist attraction. Surely, he couldn't be entirely useless for this after all!

When she got to the part about the log though, he caught his leader's eye and shook his head emphatically and made a No Way, Not Me! gesture with his hands. He said at the meet and greet his handwriting was abysmal and this was now relevant and important to impress upon the older students that this was definitely not a job that should be foisted off on their youngest Pecari.

When they got to the table and Leonor told them what their attaction was, Xarryn could not help a slight bit of disappointment that it wasn't something more closely related to sailing ships or historical re-enactments, both of which he had eleven years of experience in. (Well, maybe less than that because he doubted he'd been terribly helpful as a baby, but he'd sailed his first voyage before he was one and he'd learned to walk on sea legs.)

Still, a tourist attraction was a tourist attraction. "In addition to the obvious, we'll need a gift shop, probably selling shirts and plush toys that reference the animals in our petting zoo. There should be a first aid station, a break room for the employees, and somewhere for guests to go if they have complaints or questions."

1 Xarryn Bavol Tourist Trap 1560 0 5

Theo Spurn

October 26, 2022 5:25 AM

FOUR! by Theo Spurn

Theo entered the library bouncily. It was how he entered most rooms (unless things were soul crushingly dreadful or disgusting) but he was extra happy to be here today for this.

After the rocky start to challenge two, team nine had pulled together. Philippe had apologised, in a very nice way where he just wanted to be helping, and Theo had (with consent) hugged him, and they were going to work on how things worked. And then team nine and their incredible singing glasses and bits and bobs had done an incredible job! They'd been joint fourth in the music challenge but that made them independently fourth overall!

He listened to the instructions for the last challenge. This sounded like using their imaginatons! He was great at that. And it also sounded like working to a schedule, which Philippe was great at. And using magic, which they were all different levels of great at but could totally do.

"HELLO!....i mean hello," he greeted his team in all capital letters before remembering they were in the library. "Hello team nine, or should I call us team four? Because we are in fourth place! Except I shouldn't call us that because it would probably be confusing but WE ARE IN FOURTH place and that's awesome, right?" He looked around, checking that they all agreed. He knew fourth wasn't the absolute best, but it was very good, and he was okay with being very good. He hoped everyone felt just as happy as he did. He wanted team nine to be a happy, comfortable place for all.

"Okay, we have to plan something. This thing." He picked up their envelope and tore it open, excited to see what they would be working with. "MINI GOLF!" he cheered, jumping on the spot. "YES!

"Okay, we have to have a windmill. That's a basic rule. And we could make it. Or we could make something else. There are always nine holes or multiples of nine, so there is lots of room for everyone's ideas." He wasn't sure how they could fit fair sharing of ideas for seven people into nine holes, but maybe that depended on how many ideas there were and which ones went together. Maybe the windmill didn't count, because it was essential, so then he could have another idea, and they could each have one and then find something else that was non-negotiable to make up the nine. "Let's share ideas!

"Philippe can be time keeper." Which meant he would tell them if they were spending too long talking about ideas. Because apparently other people could just know exactly how long a conversation about seven people's ideas for minigolf design should last, which sounded very weird to him, but other people's brains being weird wasn't new.

OOC: For reference, discussion with Philippe's author about wjat would have happened next:

Philippe: Philippe would have apologized easily for overstepping, explained he just wanted to be a helpful deputy, and promised to let Theo asked the first questions next time.

Later, when there were fewer people around, he would have apologized again and said he was more accustomed to working with Anya and he won’t assume again that what his sister needs in group work isn’t what Theo needs and he’ll ask more directly how he best be a helpful second.

Theo: Phillipe would probably get a lunge and then a freeze and a 'Do I have your consent to hug you?' during the second chat

13 Theo Spurn FOUR! 1476 0 5

Lyla Holland

October 27, 2022 1:08 AM

Really Rosy by Lyla Holland

Lyla couldn't believe that Team Six had managed to pull off getting first place again. As exciting as it was to be winning, she dreaded actually having to perform in front of people. At least there were two other bands- and she used that term loosely- to draw some of the attention away from her team's presentation.

Challenge three was feeling more comfortable already, sitting in the cozy library. Once Sadie had read out that they were in charge of creating a formal garden, Lyla breathed a sigh of relief, happy to dodge the 'amusement park' bullet, as roller coasters made her ill. Flowers were fine, and trees and bushes and other shrubberies. She'd never been to a formal garden, but she'd helped her mom in her garden, and she'd been getting decent marks in Herbology, so growing plants was definitely something she could do.

She had no objections to Hans being the note-taker, so she gave him a little nod. She normally would volunteer for that position, but she was confident that she'd be able to contribute to this challenge in a hands-on way. First things first, she needed to know what direction to think in.

"What makes it a formal garden?" Lyla asked the table, looking around at her teammates, "Is that like in movies where they have twinkle lights in the trees and a big fountain that you throw pennies in? Or is it more like a museum for plants?"

64 Lyla Holland Really Rosy 1559 0 5

Piper Wilson

October 27, 2022 3:10 PM

Whoo! by Piper Wilson

After two Challenges, Piper’s team was in last place. And it wasn’t as if they had placed well and just didn’t earn enough points in the last one to move up in the overall rankings, they had actually gotten last place again. It was disappointing, but she realized that someone had to be.

It was too bad though, because while she was okay with last place and was just concerned that she did her best and had fun, she was worried that Wally would be upset that Stanley beat him. From what she understood, the two of them had been fighting at one point and Charlotte had been really upset by it. Piper hated to see either of them unhappy. She hated to see anyone unhappy, but especially when it was someone she really cared about. And maybe they wouldn’t fight again, but Wally might still feel bad if his brother beat him.

Not that Stanley’s team was excelling either. They had previously been tied for third place but were now tied for fifth with Gabriel’s team. Who had actually improved. The seventh year’s team had actually somehow gotten third place in the last event. With a bunch of supposedly non-musical people. While Stanley and Lavender’s team had...done pretty badly, despite the Crotalus being an oboe player.While this was confusing to absolutely everyone, Piper was really happy for her brother and proud of him.

Anyway, today was the third and final Challenge and then it would all be over. She was a bit sorry to see it end, to be honest. Despite that they had not done well-and they still had today to, at the very least try to make one last attempt to not finish in last place-the Teppenpaw really was having a good time. She had not gotten as close to her teammates as she would have liked, but she was still enjoying the experience. It wasn’t something that Piper got to do ordinarily, and would never get to do again.

However, she was excited for Charlotte, who would get to lead a team just like her dad next time around. Although, she hoped her cousin did not feel pressure to do well because of it. The second year knew that Ryan wouldn’t put it on her, he was not like Aunt Jillian, but that didn’t mean Charlotte wouldn’t put it on herself in order to be like her dad.

Although, it wasn’t as if Charlotte was a perfectionist sort-and Piper was happy about that, since being a perfectionist was not really healthy. Perfection was normally not attainable so trying to do so would cause someone nothing but problems as with Chaslyn. Honesty Amity’s “screw it” attitude had been the better one to take rather than trying to live up to impossible and unreasonable standards. Not that she had not been damaged by Aunt Jillian’s insane pressure on her as well.

Today’s Challenge sounded like a lot of fun. Of course, most things sounded like fun to Piper. She wasn’t much for Quidditch or other sporty things, but most other things, she enjoyed trying even if they weren’t hobbies that she had, such as with playing music last time. It had still been fun trying to figure out how to make instruments out of random junk, a real chance to be creative, which was something that she enjoyed. Piper enjoyed crafts, and that was part of the last Challenge too. Even trying to figure out how to get through the obstacles in the first Challenge had been fun, although being a second year, her path had not been all that hard.

Of course, there seemed to be an awful lot to this last Challenge. They had to come up with ideas, draw out a plan for the whole thing, come up with one thing that they could build a model of, figure out the spells to make things work, and keep a log of it all. It sounded…like it was definitely meant for someone who was detail oriented, which meant probably not Oz. Piper did not mean this as an insult, but more like…an observation. There was nothing wrong with not being so and she didn’t mean this as an assault on his character or anything, she was sure he had lots of other strengths. But he’d probably find doing the log boring so one of the others would probably have to do that.

Anyway, they were apparently making a water park. How fun! Well, maybe not as much fun as actually going to one, but still.

Iris seemed rather over this whole thing though. Admittedly, Piper could not really blame her since being in last place throughout it all was a bit demoralizing and not caring, whether it be her own version of doing so or the fourth year’s, was probably better than being a sore loser about things.

The older girl asked if they had ideas and Piper spoke up. “Actually, I do. First of all, I generally prefer the slides that twist and turn to the speed slides that go straight down. Although we can have those too since there needs to be a wide range of activities to appeal to various tastes and age groups. We should also have a kiddie pool with activities in it, like small slides to go down, a wave pool and a lazy river. That’s where you get on tubes and float around. It’s relaxing.” Piper added. Admittedly, not something that would appeal to someone like Oz, but Amity loved them.

“And for one slide, we could have, like, designs on the inside that move around, like you’re going through a portal or something. Or it could be pitch black inside or have twinkling spots that look like stars.” The Teppenpaw suggested.

11 Piper Wilson Whoo! 1556 0 5

Liesl Brockert

October 28, 2022 3:36 PM

Haunted House? Yeah, hold my pumpkin juice. by Liesl Brockert

OOC: CW-Murder. Horror. Gore. It's Liesl talking about a haunted house . BIC:

The Challenges were almost over and Liesl did not know how to feel about that. Like, she was pretty happy that they were in second and even felt like…she’d made a decent enough contribution despite her lack of specialness. She had even probably been the second most musical person last time, since Uncle Cory had taught her how to play the guitar a little bit. And she was likely the second best transfigurer too. Although Liesl did not know who had more natural talent at Transfiguration, her or Jasper, he was older and had learned more so far.

She had also enjoyed getting closer to the older Teppenpaw, which was probably the best part of the Challenges so far. They had never particularly spent all that much time together before, and she was super glad they had now. Jasper had become sort of like a big brother to her. And he was much nicer to her than her actual brother.

Speaking of which, Desmond would be coming to Sonora next year and Liesl…could not say that she was looking forward to that at all. First of all, there was the fact that he basically reacted to her the way the rest of the Gemstones did to Topaz-someone who, ironically, had not ever been all that mean to the third year. Like she was a future serial killer because she liked creepy things. Never mind that Liesl had never intentionally hurt anyone and was a freaking Teppenpaw for Merlin’s sake!

There was also the fact that her brother was super smart and would probably outshine Liesl in every academic subject. She was good at the practical side of magic, at actually doing spells and potions and stuff and not bad at the theory stuff, if it was interesting to her, but like, Desmond was good at both. So, he’d be better than her, their parents would gush over him and she’d still be that disappointing other kid like she’d always been.

Liesl really wished it was her sister coming instead.Her parents liked Krisalyn better than her too, but at least the younger girl liked her. And the third year would only get one year being at Sonora with her, only two years with Uncle Cory’s oldest child Jason, and none with his other children, Sam and Lorelei or her other cousins Ella and Roland, who seemed to like her too.

But four years with Desmond here. Yay.

Anyway, regarding the Challenges, Liesl was glad they were doing so well and had enjoyed spending time with Jasper. Mab was cool too, she really respected the seventh year both because the older girl would stand up for them when it came to not making them do things that traumatize them and because she was a little scary. But then, Liesl liked scary things.

She also hoped she could become better friends with Fortune, who was pretty nice and she really wished they had bonded more. But he’d still be here next year.

On the other hand, since the very beginning, the Teppenpaw had felt tension with Xavier. She really did not think the fourth year liked her or Jasper much. Like, he looked down on them, probably because Liesl was weird and creepy and they were both bad at sports-and in Jasper’s case, they were like, hard nos, the sort of thing Mab would protect them from doing. The third year had sort of expected this, that someone normal and sporty would look down on them and her in particular. That was what happened in books she read. Of course, being that Liesl was into horror, the ones she read often ended up with people like her getting revenge on people like Xavier, who generally bullied them, in what was often a fairly gruesome demise. Either the people like her snapped or the mean popular kids just somehow got what was coming to them by some other means.

Not that the Pecari had bullied her, and-despite what her brother seemed to think-Liesl would never ever hurt anyone. She just liked horror and that was what happened in some of the books she read. Also, the popular kids in the stories sometimes seemed to resemble Amethyst more than Xavier, only much more evil.

And while Xavier had not bullied her, she was still certain he looked down on her for being different. And he looked down on Jasper too and it just made things super uncomfortable. Liesl was admittedly used to being looked down on by others, sometimes by people whose approval was much more important to her than her teammate. Still, it made her feel bad,having to be around someone who didn’t seem to like her.

Plus, last time, Xavier had even snapped at Mab when she didn’t want to perform in front of others and said she would stand up for them if they hit any hard nos, as the seventh year had with that. Liesl personally had had no issue with it and couldn’t think of any hard nos she personally had but did not think that Mab or anyone else should have to do anything that would traumatize them.

Apparently though, Xavier had thought differently and wanted to win at all costs. Or at least not do anything to jeopardize their standing. Of course, Liesl wanted to do well too. She wanted a chance to shine, even though she likely wouldn’t because, well, when it came to accomplishing things and being special and talented, she was mediocre and ordinary and the only things she had for talents were either things that her entire family excelled at or things that people said to cheer up people when they weren’t actually good at anything special. She was never going to be brilliant like Desmond or an amazing writer like Owen or be able to talk to snakes like Hans. Yes, maybe Liesl was a good person like her uncle had told her-something she wanted to believe she was and basically believed because Uncle Cory had been the one to say it- and yes,that was more important than being talented, but it was obviously not necessarily conducive to winning.

In fact, in the case of the previous Challenge, it absolutely had not been given that a good person would not want to make Mab perform when it was something she really objected to regardless of whether or not it made them not do as well. Not that Liesl thought Xavier was a bad person really but maybe in that case his priorities had been screwed up.

Anyway, it ended up not mattering. They had stayed second but had not finished in the top three for Challenge Two. Everything had worked out and now it was time for the last Challenge. The fact that it was in the library was comforting, it meant that they probably weren’t going to do anything that was too strenuous. Liesl was pretty sure if the staff tried to hold an athletic challenge in the library, the Aladrens would rebel. And they had probably read books about how to do so effectively and would do so very well.

Professor Skies gave out the instructions for the task. It sounded like it would involve an awful lot of parts to it, but there was no flying and no performing and there would even be non-magical things for Xavier to do, as it was no secret that he really wasn’t so great at it, which did make her feel kind of bad for him.

They went back to their table, Jasper echoing Liesl’s own thoughts about this being complex. Then Mab opened the envelope and did something…weird. Well, weird for Mab that was. She actually smiled >, an event not unlike Uncle Mortimer doing the same thing.

However, the Pecari smiling was nothing compared to how Liesl’s whole face lit up when the seventh year mentioned they were doing a haunted house! Oh, the Teppenpaw so totally had this .

Mab started mentioning all the different roles they could do, looking specifically at the third year when she mentioned an aesthetic coordinator. Liesl took the hint. “I’ll be the aesthetic coordinator” She volunteered. After all, if she was good at anything, better than anyone else at anything, it was being spooky. Not as impressive a talent as say, being smart or athletic or musical or a writer or a parseltongue or oh, just about anything else but it was her thing and for once it would come in handier than any of those normally more impressive things.

Liesl continued. “And I’m not sure what we should do for our model but I have ideas for the sort of things we can put in the haunted house. First of all, we absolutely need the exterior to look old and crumbling. Nobody looks at a new modern house and thinks it’s haunted.” Although why they were titling it a haunted house when ghosts were a fairly normal part of magical life was a tiny bit confusing, but she got the general drift that this was supposed to be about being spooky and creepy and all the things that Liesl was an expert in.

“The interior should be similar,with peeling wallpaper and cobwebs. And we need there to be dancing skeletons at some point, although maybe not for the model since those use necromancy.” The Teppenpaw could not imagine Jasper being into that. Topaz or Uncle Mortimer maybe, but not Jasper. She turned to Mab. “Unless you know it? I don’t mean to assume that either way or as an insult by asking you, I personally think it would be cool to do that, but it’s way above my own skill level right now.”

“Oh and how about a killer doll? Or a decapitated one? Or a decapitated doll who's looking for a head? I actually have such a doll upstairs, her name is Headless Heather” Heather wasn’t like Allegra’s bear Bernard, who had lost an eye to Topaz, Liesl had bought her that way. “ She’s not actually running around looking for a head but someone could reanimate her to do that and she could carry a huge ax, though probably not a real one since that would obviously be dangerous.”

“Also, maybe a spooky mirror of some sort with an apparition in it of some kind.” Liesl added. “Oh and in addition to Headless Heather, I have all sorts of Halloween decorations we can use. Oh! And skulls are a must Maybe ones that talk or sing or try to bite you. We also need to do something with eyeballs. Perhaps a dark hall where eyeballs blink at random intervals and it feels like you’re being watched. Or like, you mentioned slime, Mab, and maybe slime could ooze down the walls and the slime could have eyeballs in it! And snakes and bats and rats!. Like fake bats could fly around.”

She paused, remembering something else.”We can get torture instruments too and have a torture chamber. I actually have a few models already And.” Liesl looked at Jasper. “We could also ask Uncle Mortimer if we need more.” He was the older Teppenpaw’s grandpa but he seemed to somewhat like Liesl too, so he might actually be amenable to the idea.”Although that might be cheating, but, like I said, I have some too.Or we could have an actual blade that comes down after someone goes through a door. Well, not an actual one, because that would be too dangerous too but still.” Liesl’s eyes shone brightly and she flashed her teammates a huge smile “What do you guys think?”

11 Liesl Brockert Haunted House? Yeah, hold my pumpkin juice. 1537 0 5

Valentine Duell

October 28, 2022 6:22 PM

That's a type of trap I haven't used much by Valentine Duell

If she was being perfectly honest with herself, Valentine was not doing well with the challenges. They were fun and she got to hang out with some people she ordinarily didn't get the chance to see much, but... they were making the year a bit more difficult than it really needed to be. She was eternally grateful that they had fallen on her sixth year, right between her CATS and RATS, however it did feel a bit like stepping gingerly through a trapped hallway where one wrong step would be the end of her. To say she was struggling through her academics would be a bit of an understatement. While the challenges didn't technically take a lot of time away from ordinary schedule, they were being discussed all the time. They were the focus of the year, and everything else just seemed to go by the wayside. It was just something else to process, and she was running out of steam.

The other interesting thing that had happened this year, was that she had turned seventeen. She had become a legal adult and that had brought about all sorts of new things to process. In short, she would be glad once today was over. Then it would just be classes, her twoish remaining clubs, the concert, her friends and the rest of her life to worry about.

She listened to Professor Skies describe their final task, and she didn't think it sounded to bad. She could help plan out some sort of attraction, and help make a sample, and maybe keep a journal of their process. Simple. Val smiled at he team as they took their place at the table. Leonor revealed their task. Despite the gesturing she had caught from Xarryn about the writing part he sure seemed to have some ideas about what they would need in their petting zoo that wasn't cute animals.

At first the thought of needing a place for people to register complaints took her off guard. If they made their attraction right, people wouldn't have anything to complain about, right? No, as much as she liked to look on the positive side of things, she knew that people could always find something to complain about.

Val pulled out a notebook and quill. "I can keep our log if no one else wants to," she volunteered and began jotting down notes of what Xarryn had suggested. "We will need some animals as well." She smiled and looked around at her teammates ready to note down more suggestions, "And maybe a theme?"

2 Valentine Duell That's a type of trap I haven't used much 1490 0 5

Cole Pierce

October 28, 2022 6:43 PM

They've all been pretty good by Cole Pierce

Cole had actually enjoyed the second challenge. They hadn't taken any of the top three spots, but they had tied for fourth, and he'd gotten to play his trumpet again (which he'd forgotten how fun that was when he wasn't forced to practice the same piece ad nauseum for three months), and they'd somehow come out in third place over all despite a fifth and fourth place finish in the first two challenges. They'd swapped places with Lenny's team, rankings wise, and he wondered if, after this third one, they'd split the difference and end up tied for fourth. That would be pretty cool.

Or better, with scores as close as they were, maybe all of the Teppenpaw second years could tie. Levi's team wasn't looking great in the rankings but they were actually only four points behind his. Though Piper's was pretty far behind and he wasn't sure they could come back after two last place place finishes. She didn't seem too crushed about it, but it would maybe be better if they were a bit more scattered and not make her feel bad for not tying with the rest of them.

The chances of that happening were probably pretty astronomical anyway and definitely not something they could control.

So he arrived in the library ready to just do the best in could in their third and final challenge.

... It sounded very challenging indeed, with a lot of complexity and moving parts and Cole was just glad he was one of the youngest kids in the group and nobody was counting on him to pull this together.

He followed Alexander and the others back to their table, and after his cousin read out their topic - Escape Rooms - and explained what they were (Cole had heard of them in a vague sort of way before but had no first hand exposure to them), Bertie proved he was on top of this with an excited spill of words the like of which he'd never heard from the older boy before. Cole grinned at him, happy that one of them was so happy.

Billy seemed game to follow Bertie's lead, and Cole felt he was pretty much in the same boat. "Those are great ideas!" he said enthusiastically, though he didn't really have too much to add to them.

"So does this need to be, like, a coherent story line, or is it just a series of puzzles? I've heard of some of these having themes, too, do we want to so something like that?" Obviously, it wouldn't be a television show or a movie, like he'd seen as themed 'escape room games' sold alongside board games or anything, but if they wanted a plot or something, it might be easier to put it inside a specific framework.

"Like, you said Egyptian tombs used puzzles like these, so maybe the premise could be a group of archeologists who triggered a curse and now need to find their way out of the pyramid before it kills them?"

1 Cole Pierce They've all been pretty good 1546 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

October 29, 2022 8:04 PM

Blooming marvellous by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

Sadie had previously been of the opinion that it was unfair that alumni/boyfriends couldn't come to the concert if they wanted to. She hadn't been planning on performing but she would take any excuse to see Dathan. Now that her team had done so well in the music challenge that they would be performing, she was very glad he wouldn't be there. Allegedly, getting into the top three was a mark of quality, but... The best improvised music by unskilled people on junk instruments was its own very special category. Apparently, they had somehow been the best in their school at doing that one particular thing but she still didn't think that meant they had been good. Especially when there were points for things like being 'inventive' and 'unusual.'

She thought she might have picked up some of those points with her contribution. She had just finished a paper on the trade of live Jobberknolls. The birds' ability to recall all the sounds heard in their lives made them a hot commodity. They were useful in memory potions, but it was widely believed that the most potent feathers came from live birds—in theory, the older the better. Whilst, in some cases, this led to well-cared for Jobberknolls, the standard of ‘alive’ could also be met without the birds being happy or healthy. Jobberknolls from feather farms were making up an increasingly large proportion of the residents at bird sanctuaries, which had previously dominated by augureys, who were still often mistreated, regardless of how many times people tried to dispel the myth that they were unlucky. All of which had Sadie wanting to volunteer at a bird sanctuary, or at least adopt a few augureys and jobberknolls after graduation. It has also led to a piece of knowledge which had seemed like a throw-away side note when writing her essay, but which had become essential during the music task; along with potioneers, composers and instrument-makers valued jobberknoll feathers for their ability to take on enchantments relating to sound.

It had taken a fair bit of digging to make use of that fact. So much so, that Sadie had wondered whether she was wasting her time in pursuing it, as most books only ever seemed to give surface level reference to this fact before moving to memory potions. However, years of Google-less existence had taught her how to get the most out of a bibliography, and to really hunt down books, and efficiently check them for what she needed. Eventually, she had found charms which helped jobberknoll feathers to retain and reproduce sound on request. She had been only been able to make that a very, very short term thing, but seeing as they had only needed to a couple of minutes of performing, it had been enough. That had allowed them to take sounds they were making individually and layer them in interesting ways. She supposed that a similar effect might have been achievable by getting instruments to play themselves—essentially, it had meant they had more hands per person. But maybe they had picked up points for being quirky and interesting.

Which she was grateful for in terms of the challenge, but apprehensive of in terms of their performance.

Now it was time for the final challenge, and Sadie had butterflies in her stomach. They were doing so well. And if they crrashed at this point, it would be awful. Even if they slipped just one place down to second... Objectively, that was a good result that they could all be proud of, but she was sure it wouldn't feel that way - everyone would be wondering what they had done, what she had done to lose their first place spot.

The challenge sounded okay. It sounded like a complicated school project with a very short deadline, but at least she had experience of one of those things.

She made her way to her team's table, waiting for everyone to gather before opening the envelope. A formal garden/park. Okay... Her mind swirled, trying to think how to make that anything more than a bunch of plants. How were they meant to include fancy, show off magic on grass? And was it option a, formal garden, option b park (regular), or did it have to be formal regardless of whether it was a garden or a park?

She kept her poker face on, pushing the voice of doubt down. They had gotten through a music challenge, for crying out loud, when none of them was the least bit musical. They could do this. They had probably all been to a park at some point. That was kind of like saying they had all seen a musical instrument prior to the last challenge—didn’t sound like it was anywhere near enough, but maybe it could be.

Judging by the job he volunteered for, Hans wasn’t super confident at either voicing ideas or creating something for this. As someone who was adept at shifting herself out of the spotlight, Sadie could recongise the behaviour in other people.

“Thanks, that would be great.” She gave him a smile, trying to make sure his contribution was recognized as valid.

“I think it could be either,” Sadie said, when Lyla offered up a question. She wasn’t totally sure what she meant by ‘a museum for plants’ but she didn’t want to make Lyla feel bad by calling attention to that. There was also a tiny little insecure part of her that said everyone else would absolutely know what that meant and she would be showcasing her own ignorance. “Why don’t we brainstorm around both ideas, and see which we come up with the most for, or whether they can be merged?” Hopefully a little more discussion would either clarify what it was, or allow it to naturally fall to the wayside without anyone’s feelings being hurt.

“I like the idea of fountains and lights, those could definitely be ways to make a garden feel special and to showcase some magical ability. In the planning element, we can definitely show some herbology knowledge by arranging plants according to different climates. I guess some might also need artificial environments, which might be another way to use magic, though I think creating a fountain or sculpture or something would be more fun.” Once again, now that she’d been given a starting point, she was feeling more confident. She’d been to parks, or nice scenic spots, and the same basic structures applied—just magicked up. She hoped. And she was sure that, if she went way off base, one of the kids with a magical family would tell her.

“We could also consider having nice areas to take pictures. That’s probably more something for the plan than an element to make. Mirrors look really cool in parks, especially on the floor, because they reflect the trees, and it looks like you’re standing in the sky, or just makes pretty reflections.” She’d been to a few Instagram spots like that with her parents. It wasn’t necessarily the part of herself that she wanted to draw on the most, but if they were throwing ideas at the wall, she might as well put it out there. "We could include some reflective elements in a sculpture or fountain too," she added, to tie it back to ideas that were already on the table, and to take it closer to the formal and fancy side of things.

13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers Blooming marvellous 1480 0 5

Isla Brockert

October 30, 2022 5:47 PM

Formality is overrated by Isla Brockert

Isla could not believe her team was in first place. Not only had they done so in the first Challenge but they’d also tied with Esme’s team for first place the last time. And that was with a Challenge involving playing music when none of them were musical. She supposed they had just been extra creative or something, and the Aladren appreciated that as she liked to think of herself as such. It was just that her version of creativity ran towards puppetry, not music.

Interestingly enough, Olaf’s team had taken third and , while Esme had some musical people on her team, the first year’s team was as unmusical as her own. As confusing as that was, Isla still thought it was really cool that it would be the three of them performing at the concert. She was doing so in the puppet show with the Performing Arts club, anyway, but she just thought it was nice that the three Vowels currently at Sonora would be in the show. Their parents thought so too. Of course, Olaf was less than thrilled.

Isla was also happy that Esme’s team had tied with hers.Her sister had previously been in last place overall and while the Crotalus was the sort to keep a stiff upper lip and not show that things bothered her, the fifth year knew she had to be disappointed. After all, Esme had wanted this for years so for her team to do poorly had to make her unhappy. And Isla did not like to see people she cared about suffering.

However, she couldn’t help but want her own team to retain their first place position. At this point, it would be unlikely that Esme would get to first place, especially as Isla’s team was currently beating them by a total of eighteen points. They were even beating the second place team- which was Liesl and Jasper’s-by seven. So since it would not be Esme who got it instead, she would prefer to stay in first place. She probably would anyway, but like, if her sister beat her, Isla would have just been happy for her. Although she supposed that would be the case if any of her family or friends beat her, Jasper and Liesl being the most likely at this point.

Still, obviously she would still do her best. She was not about to let her teammates down and wouldn’t have even if Esme would have had a chance to win. The Aladren didn’t think her sister would want to win like that anyway.

Although it was entirely possible that the next Challenge would entail something that her entire team was horrible at and all of Liesl and Jasper’s team was very good at and her cousins’ team could surpass them. After all, after the second Challenge, both teams that had been tied for third after the first one had not so well and while Amethyst’s had only gone down a couple of spots, Lorena's, which was the team her cousin's team ,had been tied with,had taken a significant tumble, while Esme’s and Olaf’s teams had done very well and had each moved up a couple places overall.

Then again, there was no way there was a thing that everyone on Team Eight was good at given that, based on what Jasper and Liesl said, they had very little in common with some of their teammates. There were three Pecaris on their team who were all pretty athletic, which Isla’s cousins were not, and Henry Spellman didn’t seem to be either. And while their team certainly had more athletes than hers, today’s Challenge was supposed to be in the library, so-thankfully for so many reasons-it was unlikely they would be doing such things.

Anyway, regardless of whether or not they won, Isla was still rather sorry to see the Challenges end. She had really enjoyed herself and had liked getting to know some people that she probably wouldn’t have otherwise. She had really gotten a great bunch of teammates and while it was entirely possible that the Aladren would continue to be friends with them,she was not sure since most of them were a bit younger than her and she really doubted that Bonabelle, one of the people closest to her age would be all that interested in hanging out with her. Maybe Hans would though.Although, Isla wasn’t sure she would feel right spending time with the fourth year without Liesl, since he was the younger girl’s best friend.

At least she might get to hang out with Gwendolyn a bit, since they were related. Unfortunately, the fifth year, now that she was sixteen, would probably have to go to all sorts of fancy parties this summer instead of hanging out with the younger girls as much. Which did not sound terribly fun. They sounded like stuffy affairs where Isla probably would not fit in at all and be incredibly bored while Esme and Amethyst would be mingling and having a great time. And she wanted them to enjoy themselves, but did not want to feel left out.

However, right now, it was time for the final Challenge, and she had to admit, as complicated as it sounded,it also sounded kind of fun. Although, some attractions might be more fun than others. Of course, as always, Isla wondered how she could work in puppets. A tea room would likely be easier to work them into than a water park, actually. Not that that would be the sort of tea room elegant classy pureblood ladies would go to, but…puppets could serve people tea and…maybe be decorations for the room, hanging from the ceiling and stuff.

As it turned out, their attraction was a formal garden or park. Hans offered to take the log and then Lyla asked a very good question. Isla was not sure what made something a formal garden but she assumed that it probably was a very fancy garden at a very fancy estate owned by very fancy people like her family.

However, she had an entirely different idea that might be more…fun. After Sadie mentioned her ideas, Isla spoke up. “You know how we incorporated things about ourselves into the last Challenge? I think that might work even better on this one. Like we can have a park involving stuff about puppets and snakes and UFOs. Like a puppet theater and like dioramas with puppets acting out scenes.” She would let the others come up with the ideas for their own interests”And we could still have a fountain…maybe one with colorful dancing water That would be really pretty. And maybe the fountain could be one people could wade in? Like sometimes when you’re at the park and it’s really hot out, you just want to cool off. I know it’s not too terribly formal but we can do a park that isn’t.” After all they weren’t terribly formal people but quite frankly, Isla was going to have a summer full of that and she was in no hurry for it to start.

11 Isla Brockert Formality is overrated 1521 0 5

Lydia Priory

October 31, 2022 9:13 PM

I'd prefer to avoid traps by Lydia Priory

Lydia was really really really glad that the Challenges were almost over. She supposed most of her teammates were okay, except Leonor still terrified her. No matter how much she might have liked the others, she felt like she could barely breathe around the Pecari. And she could not wait to be away from someone who made her so anxious.

Of course, even though the fourth year liked most of her teammates, she was terrified that they didn’t like her. That they thought of her the way that Sophia did, as a horrible burden. She had completely freaked out over the boggart in the first Challenge though Val had honestly not really handled it better. The whole experience had been utterly terrifying but somehow, they had still done pretty well.

However, the second Challenge had gone so poorly for them that they went from being tied for third to second to last. Lydia could not help but blame herself. Not only did she not play a musical instrument, but she had been incredibly anxious about doing so in front of the entire school . She didn’t even want to get up in front of everyone if she was going to do something that she was good at, let alone something she had no training in.

Although, the Teppenpaw wasn’t entirely sure she was good at much anyway. She could knit fairly well, but that was not..a skill that one performed in front of others. Which was pretty much one of the reasons Lydia had chosen it as a hobby. That, and knitting helped her with her anxiety. She also allegedly had a good singing voice but if she actually had to get up and sing in front of a bunch of people, she would vomit, faint or have a panic attack. Actually, if freaking out was a talent, then Lydia was a master.

The other reason that she was convinced her teammates thought that she was useless was because she generally did not contribute many suggestions, or at least she hadn’t in the last one. It wasn’t as if Lydia had not had any ideas, it was just that she was too shy to speak up, especially in front of Leonor. She did not want her teammates, especially the Pecari, to make fun of her ideas. And if she said something stupid, the others might not like her and Levi might tell Verdillia that Lydia was a loser and crybaby and then Verdillia wouldn’t want to hang out with her and she’d lose her only non-related friend.

Which would be devastating since the fourth year already felt rejected by Sophia and Iris. She really did need the younger girl as a friend, pathetic as that might sound. Then again, Lydia was pretty pathetic. She was delicate, fragile…needy. And she didn’t want to be needy, but she also couldn’t help needing to have at least one friend that wasn't related to her.

And she didn’t think her teammates were going to be those friends. Val was nice enough to her, but the older Teppenpaw was nice to everyone…and super busy all the time. She was a prefect in the same house as Lydia so the younger girl could go to her with problems, especially if they were the sort of issues that she would never be comfortable talking to Alexander or Ian about. But if the fourth year did it too much, Val might get tired of listening to her.

Anyway, while Lydia was glad the Challenges were almost over, she still had to get through the final one. And naturally, she was so anxious that she felt like she was going to be sick. Never mind how Leonor terrified her and how she worried the rest of them-whom she generally liked as people-didn’t like her because of how weak and needy she was, so far, the events themselves had been horrid. The first one, in addition to the boggart that Lydia had been so unfortunate to come across, had involved a lot of obstacles that she found difficult. And, to be honest, a lot of walking and moving around, which had made the Teppenpaw extremely tired and out of breath, as well as hot and dizzy. It didn’t help that she had been absolutely terrified the entire time, of both the obstacles and the possibility of running into Leonor,which had also affected her ability to breathe normally.

Then the second Challenge had been horrible too. She had been forced to perform in front of the entire school! Lydia hated being in front of a crowd like that no matter what it was. Public speaking was the absolute worst but basically anything where she was standing up in front of people doing something where they could scrutinize everything about her, judge her in a negative manner, and later mock her both behind her back and to her face.

She was utterly petrified over this, since they had failed so horribly. Lydia was absolutely certain that people were indeed making fun of those who had done badly. The only silver lining was that they absolutely would not have to perform at the Concert, thank Merlin.

So, even though it was in the library where there was no probability of strenuous activity that might make her ill and/or humiliated publicly-again-going by how dreadful the previous tasks were, the Teppenpaw did not have high hopes for this one either.

Lydia waited with everyone else, butterflies inevitably gathering in her stomach. Professor Skies gave them their instructions…and the fourth year had to admit that this was slightly better. It wasn’t physically taxing nor would they be forced once more to get up in front of everyone and be subjected to humiliation. And at least they only had to plan an attraction, not go to one. A tea room sounded fairly nice, but she was terrified to go down water slides.

Of course, things could still go horribly wrong with this Challenge, but so far, she didn’t see precisely how. The worst thing she could think of so far was that this was all terribly complicated, with a lot of things that could be screwed up. And so, Lydia was now worried she would do something wrong.
As it turned out, they were doing a petting zoo. Something that would be full of cute fluffy animals. Nothing creepy or scary or gross. Only Liesl-and maybe Hans-would want those sorts of things.

Xarryn began with a lot of the more practical parts of an attraction such as a gift shop, a first aid station, a break room for employees and a complaint desk. “Those are really good ideas, Xarryn,” Lydia said softly. “I always loved getting souvenirs when I visit somewhere and a first aid station is a must when there are animals.” After all,they could bite. She could only imagine going to a petting zoo, getting bitten by an animal and catching some deadly disease.

Val agreed to take notes and mention animals and a theme. Lydia did have an idea for a theme-fairy tales-but she was not about to say it, because she was afraid they would all think it was babyish, even though petting zoos did tend to be aimed at children. However, animals were simple enough. “Petting zoos usually have bunnies and sheep, as well as things like puffskiens and sometimes even more exotic things such as kangaroos and lemurs.”

11 Lydia Priory I'd prefer to avoid traps 1533 0 5

Fortune Ardovini

November 01, 2022 3:31 PM

Ooo.. extra pumpkin juice. by Fortune Ardovini

So far Fortune was having a blast with these challenges. They were more interesting than just sitting in class, but they also used the stuff you learned in class to do interesting things. The idea that they were meeting in the library this time made him wonder what sort of thing they were going to be doing, and how long it might take the library to recover. He really hoped the final challenge was an in interesting adventure, and not just a research project.

He stood with his team and listened to Professor Skies. The task before them sounded like a bit of both. This could be fun, he thought while taking his seat at their team's table, depending on what they got. When Mab actually smiled after reading what they were doing, he knew it had to be good. He was right as well. This was going to be fun, he grinned as well.

Mab listed off some possible positions and he thought about them, well except the one that was obviously taken. He gave Liesl an approving nod when she accepted her position. Most of the positions didn't sound quite like him, so he thought about it while their new aesthetic coordinator listed off lots of ideas. Lead architect maybe? Maybe Troubleshooter? They might be better for higher level students than him though. Archivist or Researcher were probably better suited for those less practiced in magic, but… he wasn't sure they quite fit his personality. Well, he'd do whatever was needed.

"Those are good ideas Liesl," he commented to start things off. "We should probably write them down." Oh nuts. Did he just volunteer for the archivist position? He glanced around the table quickly, then pulled out his notebook and quill. "Well, I guess I'm the archivist." He said with a wry smile as he began writing what he could remember of Liesl's terrifically horrific suggestions.

2 Fortune Ardovini Ooo.. extra pumpkin juice. 1549 0 5

Philippe Delachene

November 01, 2022 6:49 PM

Is that the number of the day? by Philippe Delachene

Challenge two had started with a misstep that Philippe had no intention of repeating in challenge three, so while he still took actual notes during the instruction phase that Professor Skies kicked off in the library (on a Saturday morning, because who didn't love going to the library first thing in the morning on a Saturday?), he was careful not to take the team introduction away from Theo. Of course, Theo having the envelope with their topic on it did help with that as they couldn't exactly start brainstorming ideas until they knew their attraction.

Still, Theo got in the first friendly greeting, too, which Philippe returned with a grin and a quieter but still enthusiastic "Hello!" back, with a smile and a wave that included everyone else as well. Theo continued with a morale rally, reminding them they were all in fourth place, which was pretty awesome, and Philippe added his (library-appropriate) "Whoo!" to the mix of responses to that call and response. He kind of missed the soundproof tents from the last challenge.

Then Theo opened the envelope and revealed their attraction type, which was mini-golf. (Which was announced at a non-quite library appropriate volume, but Philippe didn't see any need to shush him. He wasn't the volume police. Though he did look around to see if Mr. Reynolds was frowning.)

Mini-golf was . . . good, he guessed. He was familiar with mini-golf. He even liked mini-golf. And Theo was excited, so that was encouraging and a bit contagious, even if he'd kind of been hoping for the water park. He smiled at Theo's immediate insistence that they needed a windmill.

Philippe wrote down *Nine/Eighteen Holes*and *1. Windmill* as well as subsequent numbers with no ideas next to them up to eighteen (if they only did nine holes, that was fine, but he was reserving space on his page for a double course). Under that he added the heading *Contributions* and noted *Theo recommended everyone come up with an idea for at least one hole.*

He had just marked down that Windmill was Theo's idea by marking it with a superscript T (a quick glance around the table reassured him that they all had unique first initials) when he was startled by his name being said and looking up quickly from his notepad and flushing slightly as he was afraid he might be getting called out for not paying attention but no. Theo was nominating for timekeeper. Philippe grinned and saluted. "Official Timekeeper reporting for duty, Captain!" he declared cheerfully and checked his watch. "It is almost nine o'clock. We don't have a strict schedule for when we need to get each step done like we did last time, but we only have until dinner time tonight to plan an entire mini-golf course and design and build our demo. We should probably have a plan by lunchtime. Theo's idea that we all come up with at least one thing for each hole is a great one. So I've got windmill down for our first hole so far. My idea for the second one is, um," he thought fast, "You need to putt your ball through a narrow cave or it falls into a sand pit, and when it comes out it's twice the size as it was when it went in and the hole is bigger, too, so it fits, and the effect lasts until the ball falls in the hole. We can call it the Cave of Giants."

He wrote Cave of Giants next to the number two and added a P for its superscript tag for who thought of it.

"Who else has an idea we could use? Not everything has to be clever. We have nine or eighteen holes we need to fill in here."

1 Philippe Delachene Is that the number of the day? 1489 0 5

Ian Malone

November 01, 2022 8:44 PM

Apparently by Ian Malone

OOC: CW-Mentions some threats of violence. BIC:

CATS were coming up and Ian was obviously very very very anxious about them. Never mind how he normally did super well in his subjects, he still was not taking any chances of not passing with flying colors, not getting into all the classes he needed- which was everything except COMC, so he was studying that a bit less than the others in order to put focus where it was more important-not getting into college and not becoming a Healer.

So, Ian was studying like an Aladren. Possibly even more, he actually had no idea how much the Aladrens were studying for CATS, as he was much too wrapped up in his own studying and goals to notice things like that about his classmates.He didn’t think any of them wanted to be Healers though.

Unfortunately for Ian, the Challenges were taking up considerable time that he could be- should be -studying. And every minute not studying, other than the ones taken up with attending class or attending to his basic needs, such as eating and sleeping-filled him with immeasurable, unbearable guilt. The Challenges were not that important to him, and as the year wore on and CATS got closer, he cared less and less.

The only reason how well they were doing mattered at all was so Tawny Crosby would not go off on him if her daughter did not do well. Samara was an honestly sweet, albeit understandingly a tad bit odd, girl. Not like her mother’s reputation at all. Uncle Ryan still remembered how once at a family wedding, when he was a child, he had accidentally bumped into Tawny and she’d lost it at him. He had warned Ian to be very very careful around Samara, because while the young Crotaus might be perfectly nice, her mother was much more…explosive.

There were some people in life it was just…appropriate to be afraid of. Serial killers.Kidnappers. Dentists. CATS examiners . Right now, Ian was especially afraid of that last one. And while Tawny Crosby was none of those things, she was still an absolutely terrifying human being.

Fortunately, right now, they were in fourth. They had tied for fourth in the second Challenge and were now fourth overall. The Teppenpaw was glad, he was happy for Theo as it was nice to see him succeed and he was happy that, maybe, hopefully, Samara’s mother would not murder him.. After all, if Tawny murdered him, he wouldn’t get to be a Healer, and wouldn’t be able to help people with immune deficiencies like his mom. So, Ian hoped that fourth place was good enough for the Pecari alumna.

He was also glad that they had moved past the spat from last time, with Phillipe quickly apologizing to Theo. Conflict just made things more difficult and uncomfortable, and honestly, the fifth year really did not need the added stress right now. Of course, it hadn’t been about him but he would make sure to be careful not to usurp any authority from the seventh year. It would likely not be an issue since Ian had no desire whatsoever to be Team Leader. It just seemed like an incredible amount of extra work and responsibility when he had so much on his plate. Honestly, now that he thought about it, he really did feel bad for the seventh years, who both had to lead teams and take their RATS the same year. That had to be even worse than having the Challenges the same year as CATS, because fifth years did not have to lead teams.Ian couldn’t imagine being able to cope with that but then, not everyone took them as seriously as he did.

Not that there was anything wrong with that. He certainly did not think it made him better than them. Just that he had decided at a very young age that he needed to be a Healer to help his mom. They didn’t have sick moms that they needed to fix. He envied them for that but it did not make the Teppenpaw think himself superior, just not as lucky.

Of course, even though his mom had health problems, in some ways, it could be worse. Mom was kind and loving. He thought about what he’d heard about Uncle Ryan’s mom and Samara’s mom. Ian would take his own any day, he just didn’t like for her to suffer.

Also, it was honestly probably healthier for those who did not take CATS (and RATS) so seriously, but Ian could not help himself. He had a lot more riding on this than say, Isla, who was a pureblood girl with presumably healthy close relatives who could just get married, have babies ad play with her puppets if that was what she wanted, and he was just the sort of person who tended to freak out and catastrophize. So basically, to Ian, CATS were a feral thing with fleas and rabies. He was sixteen years old, and half the time, he felt like he was going to have a heart attack.

So he was glad that this was the final Challenge, although he might not have minded them so much if they weren’t this year when he had much bigger, more important things to worry about. Ian had a good team full of people who weren’t absolutely terrifying people that it would be very wise to be afraid of and avoid like the plague. Still, Ian was feeling the impending doom of CATS breathing down his neck and time running out fast. Time he desperately needed to devote to his studies.

They got their directions for the very involved, complicated multi-step task. Ian gulped, his fears of Tawny Crosby demanding his head on a platter returning. Yes, he was a pretty detail oriented person, but, well, more steps meant more chances to mess things up. And just like even though he got good grades and pretty much knew anything that could possibly be asked on his CATS exams, he still was worried about failing miserably, he was worried that no matter how detail oriented he was, he would still miss something.

At least though, when it came to the final Challenge, he had his teammates. That was really fairly comforting.

Theo announced their attraction with great enthusiasm. Ian could not help but at least be a little bit happy about what they were planning as well. For the most part, mini golf was a nice, safe activity. Unless you were playing with the sort of people who would hit you with a golf club or shove you into a water feature.

The seventh year continued with his idea and Phillipe took notes, following up with one of his own. “Those are excellent ideas. Umm…” Ian thought for a moment. Beyond it not being horridly dangerous, he was not that familiar with it. “Maybe something where you have to get in the mouth of some animal and then it slides down the tail to the hole?” Possibly not the best idea, but that was the first thing he could think of.

Naturally, the Teppenpaw was envisioning a cat swallowing his golf ball. He was literally having nightmares about them, both the actual tests, where he either ended up flunking them so badly he got kicked out of Sonora or showed up in his underwear for some reason, or a metaphorical version where a herd of feral cats attacked him.

Ian cleared his throat. “We should also probably have a first aid station.” He suggested.

11 Ian Malone Apparently 1522 0 5

Lyla Holland

November 01, 2022 10:30 PM

Informal is fine by me by Lyla Holland

With her teammates pushing ideas out left and right, Lyla was feeling excited. Her toes tap-danced on the floor under the table as she listened to Isla's thoughts about making it an 'informal' garden. She beamed at the fifth-year for putting to words what Lyla had been feeling. Being themselves and doing things that they were good at was how they'd performed the Challenges so far, and it had worked well enough to earn first place, not just once, but twice. If they could follow the same pattern, Lyla was confident in her team's ability to win again.

"We should have someone to keep us on track, time-wise," she suggested, knowing her own tendencies to allow her creativity run away with her. She knew she wouldn't be an effective timekeeper, but with a group as diverse as hers, she was sure somebody would.

"Also," she mused out loud, "It would probably be helpful to write down all the things we need to do, and then divvy them up by grade level. I can't do much magic, not stuff that would help with the special effects, but I can do other stuff, like gathering supplies or making model trees or something."

It felt like she was putting herself down, but unless somebody asked her to transfigure a matchstick into a toothpick or levitate the fountain, she couldn't think of a practical application for the spells she knew. She did know quite a lot about plants, having fallen asleep with her nose in Herbology books ever since her first class. Winogrand's Wondrous Water Plants was the tome currently on her bedside table, and that might tie in nicely with the fountain idea.

"Anyway," she said quietly, hoping her teammates wouldn't think she was getting bossy, but knowing that it was important to get all of the information on the table, "I know a lot of different plants, and what climates they are used to, if we want to do something with that."

Lyla caught the eye of the teammate across the table from her and gave a smile. No matter what Team Six ended up doing, it was going to be good because they built it together.

64 Lyla Holland Informal is fine by me 1559 0 5

Philippe Delachene

November 02, 2022 6:35 AM

This team has been brought to you by the Number Four by Philippe Delachene

After Ian's suggestion, Philippe added *Animal mouth to tail* to the space he'd left after the number 3. "Awesome idea," Philippe approved, nodding, as he added the letter I to the suggestion to keep track that Ian had come up with that one for the log later. "If its a dragon, maybe it could do something like breath cool fire after a ball goes through it!"

"Oh, good point," he approved, writing *First aid station idea (Ian)* to his Contributions section. "I hadn't even thought of that. We also need that rental area, whatever we want to call it, where the golf clubs and golf balls and pencils and score sheets and the cash register are. First aid can probably be attached to that." First aid was not the first thing that came to Philippe's mind for such a tame activity as mini-golf, but it was usually outside, and he guessed people to could fall and scrap themselves or get stung by bees or suffer dehydration or something. Anyway, it was a good thing to have, just in case, and he was pretty sure they'd get bonus points for thinking of something so practical.

"Maybe a snack bar, too?" he wondered. He always thought mini-golf places should sell ice cream because it just got so hot playing in the summer, out under the unrelenting sun. He put it down under Contributions: *Snack bar idea (Philippe)*. Even if they didn't end up using it as an idea, Professor Skies had told them to track all of their ideas not just the ones they went with.

"Any more ideas for the remaining holes or other things we should have on our course?"

1 Philippe Delachene This team has been brought to you by the Number Four 1489 0 5

Oz Spellman

November 02, 2022 3:56 PM

Fun for everyone by Oz Spellman

Oz hadn't been confident last challenge once the word 'music' has been mentioned. He had known that played to Henry's strengths rather than his own. He had felt there was a sliver of hope though, in the idea that other teams might be just as unmusical. Either that wasn't the case (playing instruments was a rich people thing to do, and there were a ton of those at school) or it was, but his group still sucked the worst. So... that was great. They had been double last, adding up to a big overall last.

Oz wasn't sure why he should bother any more. The challenges had been new and different, and he was generally A Good Kid (or tried as hard as he could to be) at Sonora, whatever else it looked like to other people, so he had really thrown himself into them. What he had learnt from that was not to bother. Why give his best when they kept coming last? Worse still, what if they were last because of his efforts? Not because they weren't good enough but because they were actively terrible? Maybe each time he opened his mouth or cast spell, he was costing his team points by making stupid choices. They'd be better without him holding them back.

He had shown up to the library, because he suspected there would be some kind of punishment for actually skipping, but he was barely listening as Professor Skies gave the instructions. He wished this could be over, and be forgotten about quickly. He suspected it wouldn't be, and that this would be one of those cool bonding things where the winners claimed perpetual bragging rights, and adults went on about what a great time everyone had had, like they actually knew anything about what it was like being a teenager.

Professor Skies said something about how they had to make water parks, and then he went to his table and they opened an envelope and also announced it was a water park, like that was a revelation and not something they had literally just been told. He slumped down on the table, pushing down the little piece of him that wanted to get excited about it. Water parks were cool. Or, so he had heard. They had been a far away dream as a kid, only glimpsed in bright, glittering commercials, or washed out posters, which had been left to fade once people realised that no one from his part of town would be going to something like that. Scraping together enough money to go to the community pool, with its roped off, rusted up ladder to an ex-diving board was a summer treat, and he had dreamed of proper slides as he cannonballed into the water again and again, pinching his nose. He had been to simulated water parks in the MARS room, and had finally known what it felt like to skid down a plastic slide and be dumped into the water. It was less fun than he'd imagined. No one had ever taught him how to keep the water from going up his nose, and he wasn't a strong swimmer. There was a difference between jumping in yourself and being tipped in, and the sensation of being thrown under the water was more alarming than fun, although he would never admit to such deficiencies. Everyone was supposed to like that experience.

Their final challenge being something that was supposed to be fun but was just disappointing seemed fitting.

Iris had no ideas (she kept leaving it to everyone else) but Piper did. She rattled off a bunch of stuff that was would keep 'everyone' happy - or at least, all the people water parks were actually for. Oz imagined pushing against a wave machine, spluttering as it crashed over his head, whilst everyone else bounced about, shrieking with delight. The only thing she suggested which didn't sound horrible was floating about on a tube, so long as no one came along to flip you into the water, which they almost definitely would.

The other problem with Piper's suggestions were that they covered the entirety of Oz's waterpark knowledge, and then some. Oh well. It was probably better for everyone if he was left with nothing to add.

"Whatever," he sighed, folding his arms onto the table and dropping his head onto them. "So long as it's not covered in unicorns or something, I don't care."

13 Oz Spellman Fun for everyone 1514 0 5

Gwendolyn Brockert

November 02, 2022 9:29 PM

Sounds good to me by Gwendolyn Brockert

Gwendolyn had to admit, she was really enjoying the Challenges. Which admittedly, probably at least a little bit had to do with the fact that they were winning. That felt pretty good, and she was admittedly proud of herself and her teammates. She actually really liked them and would love to hang out with most of them again.. Of course, the two oldest probably wouldn’t want to and Sadie was graduating anyway.

Honestly, Sadie was a really good Team Leader. The older girl reminded her of her dad, in that she was quiet and shy and seemed to lack confidence.And Gwendolyn absolutely loved seeing someone like that be a successful leader and winning first place. It just proved the second year’s very firm belief that introverts-which she considered herself to be-and shy, quiet people were not somehow lesser beings than more confident, outgoing, extroverted types and were worthy of important positions.

Anyway, when it came to being friends with the rest, that was more likely. Isla, despite the age difference, was her distant cousin, and Gwendolyn had already hung out with her some before all this. Eben and Lyla were pretty cool and she hoped to get to know them better and be friends. Maybe she could become friends with Hans too. Honestly, aside from her cousins, she didn’t exactly have any besides maybe Fortune whom she’d hung out with last year at the zoo. She had really had fun with their adventure regarding Spaghetti the Niffler and the corrupt zoo with safety concerns.

So,Gwendolyn was sorry to see the whole thing end, which in addition to having awesome teammates, had been a fun and interesting experience, getting to try new things and use intelligence and creativity to solve problems. She knew it had been hard for some people-mainly Lydia-but she had personally had a really good time and felt a bond with the people she’d done it with. People who, for the most part, she hoped to get to spend more time with once the Challenges were over.

Today was to be the last one and while the second year was sorry it would be ending, she was absolutely curious about today’s task.All she knew so far was that it was to be held in the library and they needed their wands. As if any magical person would ever not have their wand on them. Did they really need to be told to bring them? Wasn’t that second nature to basically everyone?

Or did Gwendolyn only think this way because her father was a wand maker? She generally knew that not everyone thought the same way-look at Uncle Evan-but really some things were just common sense. Although not everyone had even that, she supposed. Sometimes, it was due to a serious mental health issue, as with her cousin Autumn but on the other hand, some people were just stupid.

She supposed, as in wanted to believe, that this reminder to bring wands was meant to be more of a hint that this task would have a magical component, than an insult to their collective intelligence.

Anyway, Gwendolyn was glad that the task was in the library. After all, she was an Aladren and the library was basically her natural habitat. Plus, the entrance to her common room was in there, so she could basically step right of her dorm to where the Challenge location was.

She listened to Professor Skies’ direction for the task at hand. This actually sounded like a lot of fun. They went to their table and Sadie opened their envelope, announcing that they would be doing a formal garden or park. The Aladren was not quite sure precisely what the former actually was-and she found a few moments later that nobody else seemed to either- but she assumed that they could probably figure out how to design a park.

After all, they had figured out the previous two Challenges, the last of which involved playing music when none of them were good at it, so despite all the different aspects to this one, it actually sounded somewhat easier than the others had been. Although being a second year, her path in the first one, had probably not been as hard as those of the older students. Still, running around, fighting obstacles including dueling, was not one of her favorite things, nor did she know how to play an instrument, so this was comparably easy.

Hans apparently did not feel the same way, given that he offered to take the log. Gwendolyn nodded in approval at Lyla’s and Sadie’s ideas.Fountains and lights were definitely pretty.

Then Isla spoke up. “That’s a really great idea.” She replied. “I mean, that sounds like we can make it really fun and whimsical as well as fairly unique. I mean, how many parks out there have specific exhibits for snakes, puppets and UFOs as well as a fountain with colorful dancing water that you can wade in? We can obviously have the photo spots and mirrors and gardens too.”

The Aladren paused, trying to think of what she would want to represent her. “Maybe we can also have a Chinese themed garden and a grove of wand wood trees?” Admittedly, most of her own interests tended to run to the more indoorsy things like reading, but she was also interested in Chinese culture and wandlore. “Also, what about a skating rink and a playground?” After all, the playground was always the best part of a park when she was a child. Without them, a park would have been boring. Their park wouldn’t be though.

“I think those are good ideas too, Lyla.” Gwendolyn went on as she locked eyes with the younger girl across the table. “Both figuring those things out and writing them down and having plants from different climates in different places. Or like an Around-the-World Garden, with plants from China and Germany and other…places our families are from.” She actually was not completely sure what nationality the name Brockert was, at least her mother was of Chinese heritage. "Or at least plants native to where we live. Like I'm from Colorado." The Aladren was not sure what plants were native to Colorado or China off the top of her head., but that was why they were in the library. "We could also look up what a formal garden is." She added, sort of curious about that herself

11 Gwendolyn Brockert Sounds good to me 1555 0 5

Lavender Brockert

November 03, 2022 6:15 PM

That's what it said. by Lavender Brockert

It was official now. The universe hated Lavender. She could handle being tied for fifth with Gabriel and Graham and their team. She could even handle that they had placed seventh last time and fallen two spots in the overall ranking. Not that the sixth year understood how they had done so poorly when she played the oboe and Gabriel’s team had gotten third when not a one of them was musical at all.

What bothered her, what she couldn’t take, was that Bonahelle’s team was still in first. They had even tied for it in the previous competition, when from what Lavender understood, they were no more musical than her cousin’s team was! How had they done so well? Why was Bonahelle so *cauliflower*ing lucky? Was her uncle somehow like fixing it? Isla Brockert was on that team too, was her grandfather doing something? She was totally picturing Headmaster Brockert and Mr. Row doing some sort of magical ritual to make that team win.

Although, Headmaster Brockert had lots of grandchildren at school so why would he favor Isla in particular? Amethyst was his granddaughter too and she was on Lavender’s team. Maybe it was because Gwendolyn was also on Isla’s team, and she was the family patriarch’s great-great-granddaughter and the headmaster did not want to deal with Uncle Clifford?

Of course, Lavender did not actually believe this. But, honestly, she very much wanted to.The idea of them cheating because their relatives that were on staff were fixing the scores either magically or non-magically, was a much more comforting thought than the idea of Bonahelle being better than her.

After all, she already knew that Val preferred the Aladren. Not that she wanted to date Val-both because Lavender liked boys and because she didn’t want to share her significant other with anyone else-but she did not get to spend the time with her friend as much as she liked. She knew that Val had to study a lot, though she did not quite get why the other sixth year needed to so much-but otherwise Bonahelle monopolized her. Lavender honestly felt bad for Wally too, who was also supposed to be Val’s boyfriend. She wasn’t going to say any more to Val so she could keep her friend, but her cousin needed more. The other Crotalus was the exact sort of person who needed someone of his own, who would love just him, not to compete with a soul sucking human black hole for affection and always be second best.

Because, obviously, Lavender knew how that was. She was just glad she had Graham. Before she became friends with him, she was alone. She didn’t mind doing her own thing sometimes, but when you were a teenager, especially one at a boarding school away from your family-even though the Crotalus had plenty of them here too-you just wanted friends, you wanted to be liked and accepted. At least most people did-and Lavender was definitely one of them.

Still, she honestly did not see what was so appealing about Bonahelle. Or how the Aladren was better than her. Not just the whole thing where her completely non-musical team had beat Lavender’s when they had at least one person who could play an instrument. That was one thing, but as a person? What was to like, really? The Crotalus understood that some people were not social butterflies, that they were on the quiet and shy side. She herself fell into this category, and had trouble making friends. Hence needing to spend time with Val who, prior to the ball, had been the only non-related friend she had.

The other sixth year had once told Lavender how she might have an easier time making friends but she had a harder time with the academic side of things but the Crotalus would have traded with her in a heartbeat. Although it wasn’t as if she was even that spectacular at academics-she was decent naturally but not extraordinary-she just had more time to study because she had fewer friends. Some people might think achievement was more important than being liked-ahem, Aunt Jiliilan-but Lavender didn’t feel that way. She’d felt like a pathetic loser.

So, once again, she was grateful to have Graham. However, she was struck suddenly with a horrifying thought. Next year was the Bonfire. Where they would have to share tents with others. Pretty much everyone that Lavender was friends with was male, except for Val. She could not share a tent with Wally, Stanley or Graham. The only other girl she could think of to ask was Morgan, who was graduating. Sharing with Val was what she wanted, but she did not really want to share with Bonahelle. Even if she did not find the Aladren to be completely toxic, and feel like sharing a tent with her would be akin to sharing one with a poisonous plant that gave off deadly airborne spores or like, the bubonic plague, the idea of having to basically be their chaperone would not have been appealing to Lavender in the least.

Anyway, it did not seem to her that Bonahelle was simply shy and introverted. Being an introvert did not mean being a stuck-up snot who thought they were too good for everyone but one person. At one point, Lavender would have been perfectly okay with them all being friends, despite three people being a terrible friendship dynamic but the Aladren clearly hadn’t wanted that.

Which was why, even if Val could find two people okay with sharing her as a girlfriend-something Lavender honestly could not fathom many people really being okay with-she really did not believe Bonahelle was all that okay with it, since she seemed to want Val all to herself. And that was most definitely not fair to that second person. Which was why Lavender really had an issue with that second person being Wally.

Also, Bonahelle was kind of rude to people so yeah, the Crotalus did not see the appeal.

She stood with her team as Professor Skies gave out the instructions for the final task.It was clear to her that no matter how well they actually did this time around, she was just not going to get what she wanted, but then, what else was new?

They went back to their table and found that their attraction was an arcade. Great. Her enemy’s team probably had the easiest thing in the world or something that at least spoke to someone’s specific interests, like a snake habitat or a puppet theater. Lavender put her head down on the table in front of them as Lenny, with his typical enthusiasm, mentioned an air hockey table with magical effects. Which was very much not what she was thinking. Because she was thinking about failure and humiliation and being seen as inferior to someone that she despised with every fiber of her being. Which was not exactly an arcade exhibit.

She forced herself to smile at Lenny. Not that she was mad or annoyed at the second year at all, she just did not see things going her way and that made it difficult to be happy. “I wasn’t. I’m not even entirely sure what air hockey is, but sure, we can include it.”

Lavender sighed. “I guess I’ll take the record since I don’t actually have any ideas.” She wanted to try her best for the sake of her teammates, but since she wasn’t going to get the one and only thing she wanted, any enthusiasm she might have had for this Challenge was completely gone. Maybe an idea would come to her later, but for now, she guessed she would have to do the log.

Especially since the only game she wanted to play was Whack-A-Bonahelle. But it was best not to suggest that. Although she supposed she could tweak it just a little. "What about Whack-A-Gnome?"

11 Lavender Brockert That's what it said. 1504 0 5

Samara Crosby

November 04, 2022 4:07 PM

Even though we're Team Nine by Samara Crosby

The Challenges were almost over and Samara was just a tiny bit sad. She’d had an incredibly fun time and really liked her team. She was worried that now, after this interesting, fun and unique experience, things would be a little bit boring from now on. Although if they did the Challenges every year, they would probably lose their appeal. Like how if it was Christmas every day, it wouldn’t be special anymore. Although Samara was unsure of how she could possibly get sick of presents.

Also, really, Christmas-or Yule, depending on the side of the family, it was basically the same thing-wasn’t really all that great other than presents. The only person close to her age was Caleb and because Mother hated Aunt Pippa, Samara could not be close to him without upsetting her mother and the absolute last thing in the world that she would ever ever ever want to do was to make her mother angry at her. The mere idea was absolutely terrifying and caused the first year to shudder involuntarily.

And the holidays in general were like…just a disaster waiting to happen. Like there was so much tension and drama that if it were a play or a wireless show or a book it would be absolutely fascinating. However, when it was her family and she was there to witness it and possibly end up as collateral damage, it was not terribly pleasant. It was like…walking on a tightrope.Over a pit of vicious animals and carnivorous plants and fire. Samara was absolutely terrified to make a wrong step and anger her mother by liking the wrong people.

Plus, there were two people there who were genuinely awful. Whitney, who was married to Mother’s first cousin Angus, was like all the mean popular girls in books and wireless dramas that were aimed at girls her age. Which was weird because Angus and their children, Duncan and Juniper were pretty nice. Although Juniper was so shy that she barely talked to anyone, and she seemed even more terrified of her mother than Samara was of hers. So far, Nausicaa was the only person at Sonora that seemed that way at all and the first year was relieved not to have to run into more mean girls.

Then there was Great-Grandmother Gloria, who was so cruel and vile that she made Whitney look like a Teppenpaw. The first year was possibly more terrified of her than she was of Mother’s temper. Which was really saying something .She knew that Mother loved her, and while she was afraid of that changing, that she’d make Mother so mad that she would be relegated to the same level of hatred her mother had for Aunt Pippa, Great Grandmother was incapable of loving anyone but herself. While Samara had initially felt this way because her mother told her to, she quickly observed for herself that it was true. She understood Great Grandmother’s marriage to Great Grandpa Fletcher even less than she did Angus being married to Whitney, since he was one of the nicest people in the entire family and the only one besides Samara, her brother, and Father, that Mother actually liked

So, she mostly ignored Great Grandmother and Whitney as well as Aunt Pippa and her family and stuck to her parents, brother, and Great Grandpa as well Aunt Margo a bit. Mother was not especially close to Samara’s great aunt, but the first year’s middle name was after her and it apparently tickled the older woman to no end so she was especially nice to her namesake.

Fortunately, the fact that Samara’s middle name was after her, meant that Mother obviously did not hate Aunt Margo. So that made her safe to like. A few other people were okay to be around and like too, but given the overall amount of people that attended Brockert family gatherings, it was impossible to spend significant time with all of them anyway.

Anyway, the point was that if you did a special thing all the time, it became no longer special. Still, Samara really liked her teammates and was afraid that after today, she wouldn’t get to spend much time with them. Most of them were older than her and Theo, in particular, was going to graduate. She really really wanted them to be her friends to the end. Like, the three older boys sort of felt like older brothers now, and while she already had a perfectly good one who was absolutely irreplaceable, having more would be even better. Especially since Martin was not at Sonora now and Phillipe and Ian would be for a little while anyway.

And besides missing spending time with her team, Samara had to admit, she might actually be slightly bored by just normal day to day life at school. She was used to drama and chaos. Actually, come to think of it, she might have handled being a Pecari just fine. Mother always talked about her former housemates as loud, obnoxious, annoying, arrogant, entitled jocks, but Theo was not like that at all and Xarryn and Fortune, whom she had classes with, seemed perfectly nice.

Today was the last Challenge and Theo seemed even happier and bouncier than usual. Okay, Samara knew his moods could change easily, just like Mother’s, and he actually wasn’t always like this, as last time he had gotten upset with Phillipe for…talking first? Which was a small thing seemingly but, as she knew full well, sometimes small things represented bigger things that bothered a person. Like it might have seemed to Theo that the Teppenpaw was usurping his authority.Fortunately, they quickly worked it out, and their team had gone on to tie for fourth place in Challenge Two. As well as be fourth overall. Which was actually pretty good. They had improved.

Which was apparently what their Team Leader was so happy about. Samara could not help but be happy too. After getting the instructions, Theo opened the envelope and announced, with great enthusiasm, that they were going to make a mini-golf course, Cool.

Meanwhile, Phillipe was going to be the Timekeeper and apparently, write the log as well. The three older boys came up with ideas, all of which were good. “Don’t forget a bathroom.” Samara added. After all, that was an absolute essential for anywhere, while they were on the matter of practical things. She paused. “As for the hole, what about…like one where there are multiple holes and you have to get it in the right one or the ball will come back to you?”

11 Samara Crosby Even though we're Team Nine 1563 0 5

Yaniel Ayala Velez

November 05, 2022 2:51 AM

Yay? by Yaniel Ayala Velez

They had more or less bombed the music challenge. It wasn't much of a surprise, and it was a relief not to have to perform in the concert. It was a shame to see themselves dropping so sharply, but it was worth it not to have to perform in front of everyone. There was a slight feeling of anxiety that their score meant that what they had put on was truly appalling, but as no one had mocked them to their faces, Yarielis was trying to just write the whole thing off as a bad dream, and let it drift away. The Crotalus was also great at being invisible, even if that felt harder with each passing year, and Lenny was... whatever the absolute opposite of that was. With the blur of so many people performing, and Yarielis hiding right at the back, there was a chance that no one would even remember which performance to associate the second year with.

Now it was time for challnge three. Given that all the challenges had to be different, that meant it definitely couldn't be performing, right? The fact that they were in the library helped make that feel unlikely, though the gardens hadn't exactly been a clue last time. It being in the library suggested it wasn't anything sporty, which was a shame, but hopefully it would be something where they could pull together, do okay, and not plummet all the way to the bottom of the rankings by the end of this whole thing. Winning seemed out of sight, but it would be nice to finish strong, and have some positives to share with Mama and Papa.

The final task sounded deceptively simple. Make a plan, make a thing. That sounded easier than last time, where they had had to make a plan, make the things, and then execute a skill using said things that most of them weren't really familiar with. This could probably get complicated, mostly in the realms of people disagreeing (Yarielis would just stay out of that) or complex, cumulative spellwork (not a second year responsibility). Essentially, whatever category they got, Yarielis and Lenny would be adding pretty colours, or maybe making something do a very basic movement. The hardest part would be avoiding Lenny without it seeming that way, especially once their basic part was done and they were both relegated to note-takers or time-keepers or holders-of-things-that-needed-holding.

Yarielis took a seat at team three's table, a few spots away from the other second year. Hopefully there would be enough to do to minimise the actual interactions they had to have, and to make this time pass quickly. Yarielis hadn't hated the challenges, but it would be much nicer once the dependency on each other for points and status, mislabelled as 'a social opportunity,' was over.

When their attraction was revealed, Yarielis actually smiled. It wasn't a rare expression, because most people wanted others to be smiley and happy, and it also worked as a good short hand for 'I don't hate you, I just have nothing to say right now,' so Yarielis smield a fair amount. However, unlikely as team three were to be able to tell the difference, this smile was genuine. Arcades were fun. And, for Yarielis, occupied that space of affordable luxury. As a family, they didn't have the time or the money to go all the time, or to feed an endless supply of coins into the machines, but it was a good option for a rainy day or a treat, with a handful of tokens spinning out the experience with the careful consideration of where to spend them.

As they took their seats, Lavender put her head on the table, physically expressing what Yarielis was feeling. The Crotalus felt every muscle tensing up. Why was Lavender behaving like that? Was she fed up with the challenges, or fed up with this team specifically? It wasn't a very polite reaction, and the anxious thoughts now spinning through Yarielis' head proved why - when you put your negative feelings on display, it just made it worse for everyone around you. Even if everyone else wasn't as prone as Yarielis was to worrying that it was about them, it still brought the whole mood down. They had to be there, whether they liked it or not. They might as well try not making it worse for each other.

Even more surprising than both Yarielis' genuine smile and Lavender's outright rudeness was Lenny's first suggestion. Not the idea itself, which made perfect sense for an arcade, but Yarielis' reaction to it.

"I like it," Yarielis confirmed, only after Lavender had already spoken. Even though she had been alright about it, it felt like being too enthuasiastic would risk Lavender's disapproval, seeing as she clearly wasn't into this. This concern sapped some of the enthusiasm that Yarielis might have given to Lenny's idea, although luckily it wasn't unusual for Yarielis to be quietly spoken. The enthusiasm would have stood out much more. "Both of those. We could have skee ball too - just in the plan, because we have to map out the whole thing. We should actually make someone else's." Maybe even Lenny's. Beyond the actual magic needed to make the puck hover, there could be all kinds of fun flashing lights, and maybe even smoke when someone scored. Yarielis wondered how that would work. Maybe some kind of line across the scoring area? Kind of like am age line but... not. That sounded like someone much older's problem. Another plus side of something the size of a table was they could all work on the same thing without piling too many enchantments onto the same area, which could get dicey. It felt like a good thing to go for, but Yarielis wasn't about to side with one member of the team over another.

13 Yaniel Ayala Velez Yay? 1554 0 5

Xavier Lundstrom

November 05, 2022 8:06 PM

Do what now? by Xavier Lundstrom

The last challenge had been… intense. Xavier had had no choice but to talk things out with Mab when he found her at their booth alone. That had probably been for the best—all that stuff about how thoughts were better out than in, and it was better than them carrying their hurt feelings forward and worrying about what the other was thinking. She was willing to recognise that she couldn’t solve all his problems, and to let him take whatever parts of the job made it more comfortable for him, including the non-magical parts. It only half solved his problems… He didn’t want to have to cast spells in front of Jasper. But then also, he didn’t want to make it any more obvious that he couldn’t do grade-appropriate magic to someone like Jasper. He just wanted to be able to pass for normal, and that was impossible, because either everyone would see him mess up or everyone would see him not doing it at all. So, it was kind of a no win… At least Mab had his back if he needed to take some space from people. He also felt like he hadn’t alienated her forever, which was the more impressive part, as he was sure Mab could hold a heck of a grudge. But they’d somehow ended up even laughing about the whole thing. Or at least, he had. Maybe slightly in a ‘have to laugh or else I’ll scream’ way but… laughing had occurred.

He wasn’t sure what the rest of the team thought of him after that. He’d worked co-operatively enough for the rest of the task. He’d helped with some lighter weight magical stuff, and spent a lot of time conversing with the portraits. He was pretty sure Henry had bigger things to judge him by than how he behaved during the challenges, and that Jasper and Liesl had long since made up their minds and would never have been that interested in speaking to someone like him anyway, unless it was as a psychology experiment on a damaged specimen. He was sure there was a lot you could find out about how magic worked by pulling apart a lab rat like him where it didn’t.

He walked into the library, forcing himself to take deep, calming breaths. This looked… cosy. Presumably, if they were in the library, there would be research tasks to do. He could leave these claustrophobic team tables, under the guise of going to get books. Heck, he would probably actually legit need to go get books, but it would also be a convenient excuse at any point where other people just got too much. He wondered whether there would be strict protocols to stop teams interacting, or whether he could eyebrow signal Oz to come do some ‘research’ with him… It was against the teams’ best interests to fraternise with each other, so the staff probably wouldn’t see the need to stop it. The bigger question was whether Oz would run the risk of making out with him somewhere with so much potential for being discovered.

Not that Xavier wanted to slack off completely… They were winning, and that felt good. He was even telling himself he had made meaningful contributions to that, and he didn’t want to just coast by on other people’s work. It would be nice to hold their place in the top three, and feel like he was part of the reason why. It would just also be nice to take a break halfway through whatever magical stressfest this turned out to be and let Oz make his brain switch off.

Professor Skies explained the task, and Xavier could feel himself sweating. It was complicated magic time. And, like, obviously, and of course it was. That was the whole point, and had he really been expecting anything else? But it still felt like someone squeezing the air out of the room every time one of these things was announced.

He followed his team to their workstation, feeling a ball of lead in his stomach. Jasper decided to speak first, and to re-emphasise the need of everyone to contribute. What was that supposed to mean? Was that a dig at Xavier being off all the time during their last challenge, doing menial things like fetching and carrying or talking to the portraits which had helped them with the literal outcome of the task? But no, just because Xavier wasn’t flashily waving his wand around, he ‘wasn’t contributing.’ That was some passive aggressive crap, right there. Without even realising he was doing it, he folded his arms, his shoulders hunching against Jasper’s words, and a slight frown creasing his face.

Mab opened their envelope, and he felt a moment of reprieve. At least he knew what a haunted house was. Except… this was going to be a magic haunted house. So, who knew what that entailed.

Well, Jasper and Liesl would.

He tried to imagine what was involved in ‘scaring’ from the people who brought you ‘let metal balls fly at your head in sport’ and ‘fly wings and worm mucus are everyday school supplies.’ Maybe the scares were all real, because hey, you could just undo everything with a wave of a wand, and so long as there were no physical wounds left, you couldn’t possibly have done any lasting harm.

Or maybe it would be illusions.

But very realistic.

Like the shadows around you becoming a shape, slowly taking form, and you thinking you were alone and that no one would come to rescue you because this was happening after the other tests on your way back to your room and the shadow leaped up off the ground and loomed over you and even though you knew that shadows can’t touch you they also didn’t normally leap off the ground and so maybe this one could and it was down to you and your broken ability to do magic so the defensive spells just sort of started leaping out… and then the lights came on, and the monster went away and someone behind you slow clapped and said ’See. We knew you had the potential.

Except that wasn’t here.

Xavier noticed the feeling of tiny, sharp pains in the palm of his hand—his own nails digging in where he had balled his hands into fists at some point. Mab had been talking when he’d tuned out, and now Liesl was rattling things off. He had no idea what expression he’d been wearing for the last few minutes (he hoped it was only a few minutes).

He heard ‘dancing skeletons’ and ‘necromancy’ and then the fact that would be cool. Whatever expression he had been wearing, his face now slipped into the look of someone trying to understand a totally foreign language. He wasn’t sure whether it was the fact that he’d missed the start of the speech that meant that didn’t make sense or whether it just… didn’t.

Wasn’t animating a skeleton just a charm of motion, like making a sugar bowl dance? Only… creepier. He had never heard necromancy mentioned at school, but it didn’t have a great press from non-magical TV and books. It meant raising the dead. The only thing he knew about that was that it was impossible. But maybe this was one of those culture gap things… Maybe, because everyone knew that raising the dead was impossible, ‘necromancy’ was used to just mean… any magic involving bodies? It wouldn’t be the first time the non-magical world had led him astray with how it named and depicted things. And then perhaps it was frowned upon because… well, it was just socially normal to not desecrate bodies, and treating them like dancing sugar bowls was sort of disrespectful. Except Liesl was also saying it would be ‘cool’ if they did know how to do it. He wondered if they could just get around it by having fake skeletons and making them dance, but then he wasn’t sure if that was still taboo because it referenced the whole thing. It seemed like a complicated cultural thing that he shouldn’t touch with a ten foot barge poll if he wanted to avoid everyone staring at him as if he had two heads.

The rest of her descriptions sounded fine. The headless doll thing wasn’t even that creepy. He knew people thought little girls just brushed their Barbies’ hair and dressed them up but he’d seen Robyn throw them into volcanos and decapitate them during Ritual Sacrifices. Little girls were sadistic and messed up to dolls as a rule. It all made sense, for a Haunted House value of sense, until the singing/biting skulls part. How was that different to skeletons?

That was a question he was not about to ask in front of a bunch of judgemental magical folk to whom the answer would be soooo obvious, and/or the question itself offensive.

Once Liesl was finished, Fortune volunteered to be something called the archivist. Xavier had no idea what that was a reference to. Probably something he’d missed whilst zoning out. Crap, did he have a job he was supposed to be doing that he was utterly unaware of?

He was gonna just wait it out until it became obvious he was meant to do something, or he could make his excuses and go get books for them.

13 Xavier Lundstrom Do what now? 1529 0 5

Lyla Holland

November 05, 2022 10:37 PM

Inspiration strikes again! by Lyla Holland

As Gwendolyn offered up her contributions, it finally sunk in for Lyla that this was the last Challenge. She had enjoyed being on the multilevel team, and she’d learned a lot from the older kids that she probably wouldn’t have from just attending her classes. Her stomach shifted to realize that she probably wouldn’t talk to them much after this. She’d share classes with Gwendolyn until the end of term, but the Aladren would be in the Intermediate group next year. She wouldn’t see anyone else with any real regularity, and besides, they’d probably all go back to their normal friend groups after this, anyway. She tried to put on a brave face, but her feet kept tapping under the table, anxious now instead of excited as tried to listen to Gwendolyn.

Lyla liked Gwendolyn; the older girl had shown in the previous challenges that she was both smart and kind. Lyla’s small smile turned into a full grin when the older girl praised her ideas. Working together with Gwendolyn had been a treat, and Lyla allowed herself to hope that they would stay friends after the Challenges were over. After all, there was only a year difference in age, and apparently not much of a geographical distance.

“I’m from Colorado, too,” she said in a quiet voice. She didn’t know why, but she had expected her classmates to be scattered across the globe. The Aladren apparently lived practically in Lyla’s backyard, which bolstered her hopes for a continuing friendship. “Maybe we could do some aspen trees?”

Aspens were the Colorado tree, though Lyla wasn’t sure if they were used to make wands or not. The silvery-white bark contrasted the small green leaves all summer, and when autumn came, the green turned into a bright golden-yellow that littered the mountainside like confetti. Lyla’s favorite part was when the wind would rustle through the leaves and the tree almost looked like it was shimmering with the movement.

Lyla volunteered to collect research materials, picking out books on mobility charms for the puppets, though she had no doubt that Isla was more than capable of taking care of those, general building charms for the practical side of sticking it all to the table, and a couple of advanced transfiguration books, just in case. On her way back to the table, she found a large book with glossy pictures of botanical gardens sticking out from between two much smaller books. Lyla vaguely wondered if the coordinators of the Challenges specifically planted books like that for teams that had no clue what to do for their assignment, or if she was just lucky.

Plunking the books down on the table, she passed them left and right to the appropriate age levels. She opened up the book on botanical gardens for inspiration. The first few pictures were stuffy and boring- all concentric circles and hedge mazes. Lyla kept turning pages until she came to one that was all roses in bloom, shaped like a rose, with footpaths between the petals. It was gorgeous, but it didn’t have a personal feel to it. She kept turning and found another garden that was all poisonous and venomous plants. That was neat, but not really what she was looking for. The very next page held something that might actually be useful.

“Look,” she said, pushing the book forward so everyone could see. It was a page with a garden that had four different paths snaking from a central fountain.

“What if we do four seasons?” she suggested, ticking off on her fingers all the suggestions she could remember, “There could be an outdoor puppet theater for summer, some sort of snake exhibit for the spring section, wand trees in the fall when they are all pretty and have their leaves changing, and for winter, maybe a UFO themed skating rink with lights under the ice? That way we can each do a little bit of ourselves, but it’s also all connected? And maybe in the center we could do a cool photo thing, like a three-sixty view of all the seasons with the person in the middle?”

Lyla hoped her team liked her idea, although she figured that even if they didn’t go with it, it would hopefully get some points from the log for creativity. Either way, they needed to get started on building, or they would never finish before their time was up.

64 Lyla Holland Inspiration strikes again! 1559 0 5

Christopher Brockert

November 05, 2022 11:52 PM

Actually this one is one of the better ones. by Christopher Brockert

Chris was really glad the Challenges were almost over. He liked most of his teammates all right, even though he was still sort of worried that Bertie would think that he was stupid if he said the wrong thing. Which meant that he generally did not say much, given that he often lived by the saying that it was better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and have it proven. Uncle Eustace absolutely had convinced him of how true that was given the man absolutely never kept his mouth shut when none of them really wanted to hear what he had to say. He’d also made Chris pretty sure that there was some truth to the one about not saying anything at all if you didn’t have anything nice to say.

Of course, that absolutely did not apply when one was talking about people like Uncle Eustace. However, never mind not hurting someone’s feelings-though important in most cases-if you said things that weren’t nice or, at least, that people didn’t like there tended to be repercussions. And since Christopher never knew precisely what those repercussions would be-or,even if he did, knew that they would be bad-he absolutely was not going to take his chances.

Which, for him, also applied when he was afraid of people judging him, whether it be worries about aggressive alpha male types like Uncle Eustace bullying him for his lack of athleticism (or his lack of interest in Quidditch and flying) or a fear of someone like Bertie thinking Christopher was dumb.

Granted, the sixth year had not actually said anything bad to him. It was really more his own personal insecurities and his history with his uncle that made the Crotalus sort of paranoid. Actually,he was sort of still worried that anyone on his team other than Cole might say something mean to him or shoot down his ideas. In fact, in some ways, as much as Bertie seemed super intelligent and that was a bit intimidating, it was the others who were the sort who he was instinctively worried about, being they were Pecaris, Quidditch players or both, with the exception of Alexander. They had fortunately not said anything, and really Alexei and Billy were both actually pretty nice but those were the kinds of people that Christopher had been programmed to be anxious about.

And really, when it came to intellectual snobbery, Bertie had nothing on Topaz. Of course,had Billy or Alexei been obnoxious alpha males, the third year would probably have thought they had nothing on Uncle Eustace. Anyway, Bertie wasn’t all that bad, Chris just…was incredibly anxious and cautious around anyone he didn’t know all that well. And sometimes, around people he knew very well, who he knew were awful.

On the other hand, after spending all year on the same Challenge team, he hoped that he and Cole actually were friends now. He felt that the Teppenpaw was someone he could trust. Although, admittedly, it was easier to trust Teppenpaws than people in any other house since they were nice by definition but Christopher really did like Cole and hoped that they would be able to hang out and play with LEGOs or Magi-blocks. The third year really did need someone to feel comfortable with other than his family. Well, he had Verdillia and she was great but it was nice to have more friends and less people to be wary of.

Anyway, the reason he was glad that the Challenges were almost over had less to do with the people on his team-even if he was still fairly cautious around most of them-but because he kept worrying about what the actual Challenge would be. After all, Christopher knew what they’d done last time, including a desert survival Challenge. They had not done anything like that so he had been worried that this time would be something like that. Or like something else meant for macho types like Uncle Eustace, who would do things constantly to make everyone see how tough he was and what a “real man” he was. Especially now that he was past fifty. Christopher would only be relieved if one of these ridiculous escapades killed his uncle. It wasn’t right to wish bad things on someone, especially death but in this case, when the world could only improve without his uncle in it, an exception could certainly be made.

The fact that today’s Challenge would be in the library was certainly a relief. Of course, though the Crotalus was pretty sure that the location meant that sports and survival tasks were most likely off the table, there was still the possibility of something where they would have to perform or do a presentation in front of the entire school, like last time. Even though they apparently hadn’t done that badly, as they had tied for fourth and were now third overall. Christopher was just glad they would not have to perform at the concert. He had hated every second of being in front of everyone, feeling people’s eyes on him.

And it would be even worse if this next task involved public speaking . He was pretty sure he would rather die than get up in front of even just the other third years, let alone the entire school, and present something, especially on something he had created and invite potential criticism and mocking.

Christopher breathed a sigh of relief at Professor Skies’ instructions. This really did not sound so bad at all. He even was a tiny bit pleased at the thought of a construction challenge. After all, his two greatest talents were finding places to hide and making things out of blocks. He was also good at drawing and designing, albeit mostly buildings rather than attractions. And there was no mention of getting up in front of everyone and talking about it, just the staff looking through a log they kept. Not any different than if they were writing a paper or doing a project graded by a professor. Essentially it was exactly that, just one done for the Challenges rather than their grades.

They went back to their table and found out what their attraction was. Chris was grateful for the explanation since while he knew about escaping a room, it was also not something that involved having to solve puzzles, just sneaking away. And it wasn’t about fun but about survival.

However, at least Bertie seemed extremely excited, which was rather surprising. Yes, the activity did sound like something someone like him would enjoy but Christopher had not thought his teammate was capable of enthusiasm. He was glad to see the older boy happy anyway.

After Bertie and Cole gave their ideas, and Billy offered to do what they wanted his help with, Christopher spoke up. He did have one thing to contribute. “I don’t really have any ideas about puzzles or themes or anything,” after all, his escape room theme was usually getting away from Uncle Eustace “but maybe I could construct the model out of Magi-blocks. Cole and I both could.” He looked at the Teppenpaw “If you want, that is.”

11 Christopher Brockert Actually this one is one of the better ones. 1539 0 5

Robyn Lundstrom

November 06, 2022 3:53 AM

I will count that as a win by Robyn Lundstrom

Robyn had spent her whole life trying to play catch up to two older brothers. Her strategy had oscillated between trying to do what they did, but always finding herself falling short due to age and experience, or cultivating her own interests so that she was the best of her siblings at them purely by the fact that no one else was doing it. She could now proudly say she was the best Lundstrom sibling at ballet, loombands, and weird improv music on homemade instruments. She wasn’t sure how much that accolade meant to her, in and of itself, but it did mean that she had beaten her brother’s team at one of the individual challenges, and that they had pulled themselves sufficiently far up the rankings that she could overtake him in this last challenge.

It also meant she would be performing her weird improv music for their parents, and Xavier would not, but she wasn’t totally sure that there were real bragging rights attached to that. She was definitely trying to spin it as an honour, but the eye rolls and ‘whatevers’ that it got from Xavier suggested she couldn’t make him care enough to be jealous about that. Unless it was really deep, deep down, in a place where she never got to see it.

Now it was time for their final task, and Robyn was ready to give it her all, with as much energy and enthusiasm as a task in a library warranted… She suspected she would need to enthuse quietly and respectfully, but she was ready to do that! And whatever else it took!

As Professor Skies announced their task, it sounded…. Okay?? Better than improvised musical instruments, and less scary than being dumped alone in a maze, but neither of those had come out the way she’d expected when scoring, so it was anyone’s guess as to how this would actually go. It sounded heavily magical, both in terms of execution and just… culturally, in terms of knowing what was normal or possible at these attractions. Still, that disadvantaged Xavier at least as much as her, if not more. Robyn couldn’t do very many spells, being a first year, but the spells that were expected of her she could at least do well, which was more than could be said for her brother. She followed team three over to their space, ready to give her all in adding bright colours, flashing lights, or a hover charm to whatever needed it!

They were making a children’s museum, which sounded way harder than a water park or a tea room. Okay, water parks were big too but the entire thing was just… watery. They had a fairly standard set of things. You slid, you played in a wave machine. If it was really creative, there was a fake pirate ship with water canons. The end. Similarly, a tea room was a pretty small space with a finite amount of things that could be involved. Like… tea. And uh… cake. And then you magicked all those up. Okay, she wasn’t saying those wouldn’t be hard in their own ways, but mostly because she didn’t know how to make them magical, which presumably someone in both those groups would do. A museum though, was an entire building full of all kinds of different things. Even though they didn’t have to make the whole thing, it still felt like a lot more work to plan a museum than a tearoom. Heck, most museums had a cafe, which was basically the same thing, so if that was a real example that another group had, they had to plan something that was just one tiny part of group three’s task!

Phil seemed confident, even if he took a moment’s pause after Gabriel opened the envelope. He rebounded quickly, offering concrete ideas. They were even things Robyn was familiar with, as he was talking about teaching water flow and gravity, and exhibits from science museums. Would that be what the judges at their magical school were looking for though? He also somehow went from simple logical steps about making a table model to ‘let’s flood the school’ with Robyn missing somewhere along the way why that was a good idea. But even when it bounced back to Gabriel, he merely added magnets. Were magical museums smilar to non-magical ones? That seemed unlikely. Was flooding the school not an issue? Possibly…

“Maybe your water thing could include the water cycle?” Robyn suggested. “Like, um, with magic we could maybe make it more visible, and um, be happening at once in one place?” she suggested, her knowledge of both magic and the water cycle feeling shaky as she suggested it. She was also sure that some people showed the water cycle in non-magical science fair projects by heating a pot of water and then having it hit cold glass. But she was more imagining tiny little magical rain clouds. “And, uh, that might make it a bit more contained, so that it doesn’t sound like we’re talking about flooding the whole school? Unless that’s not a big deal to magical people?” she asked, checking her more magical teammates’ faces for confirmation. Maybe it was easier to clean up floods in the magical world. “Like, I guess you guys don’t really think broken bones are a big deal,” she added. “Or, um… we don’t?” she added, remembering that she was supposed to be part of the magical world now. Though the way she reflexively gripped her own arms suggested she was rather attached to the idea of them staying in one piece, however quick the fix was. “Aren’t the exhibits supposed to be about magic though?” she asked. “What’s in a magical museum normally?”

13 Robyn Lundstrom I will count that as a win 1558 0 5

Verdillia Scurlock

November 06, 2022 4:19 AM

But you're not that far above us by Verdillia Scurlock

They had excelled at the last challenge. Verdillia had been relegated to piano, but she supposed it was only fair given that poor Nausicaa was only musically talented in a single instrument. Team five had been the real victors, and she wasn’t entirely sure what anyone judging had seen in the strange performance by team six, which barely included any real musical instruments. Still, they had triumphed, would be performing in the end of year concert, and she had shown collaboration, team work, and genoristy of spirit in front of Miss Brockert, along with artistic skills. That was much a more pleasing outcome than challenge one. Overall, team five was moving up. Much more slowly than Verdillia would have liked, but at least they had pulled out of dead last. Clearly when they were given the chance to support each other, they all did better. That was a message Verdillia could get behind.

Now it was time for the final challenge. It was all too soon, given that they’d just started finding their stride, and one challenge probably wasn’t enough to let them climb as high as Verdillia would have liked, but hopefully Esme Brockert would be pleased with their efforts if they finished strong.

The task was in the library, which probably meant it was intellectual. Verdillia had no trouble with her studies, and much preferred this to any sort of physical challenge, so she felt good going into the day. Her delight only grew when they were set the task of working together and planning a tea room. How perfectly refined!

Rosalynn spoke up first, suggesting a name and a mural, both of which Verdillia liked until Nausicaa piped up. The younger girl didn’t outright suggest anything was wrong with Rosalynn’s idea, but Verdillia couldn’t help but feel that same discomfort that so frequently accompanied Nausicaa opening her mouth—like they all needed to be careful what they said. Perhaps it was the way that she said ‘sophisticated’ like Rosalynn’s idea wasn’t. It wasn’t very kind… And what was wrong with unicorns? Verdillia liked them. She wasn’t sure what Jasmine Dreams were, but the way Nausicaa suggested it made it sound like they should all know what it was. Which meant it wasn’t her own idea. Again. Much like during the music task, she was throwing out the name of something and expecting everyone to be impressed, when actually they were meant to be coming up with their own ideas.

“The good thing about unicorns is there’s so many ways to present them,” Verdillia said. Between Nausicaa and Rosalynn, she knew she was supposed to like Nausicaa more, but the first year was so determined to climb up high enough to look down on them all that it was hard to think about really being her friend. And if Rosalynn was pro unicorn, then Verdillia was pro Rosalynn. “They’re such an intrisic part of magical culture that they’ve been depicted in art since the first magical cave paintings, right through the Renaissance to modern day. In terms of opening up style options unicorns really let us bring any art style we want into the piece. I’m sure Ms. Tellerman is thinking more along the lines of de Maggio’s Unicorns in the Glade than anything modern and garish, except we bring our own take to it, using the style but creating our own interpretation, much like last time. Though we can copy this jasmine picture too, if you can’t think of any of your own ideas,” she added, her voice as kind as possible. After all, she was making room to include what everyone wanted, which was polite.

OOC: I am guessing from context that Nausicaa is naming a painting, though I can't find it on google, so am guessing it's maybe a magical painting you made up? Or I got the interpretation totally wrong. Still going to have Verdillia take a gamble on that either way cos it's interesting. The painting I referenced is fictional, but intended to be a well known-ish magical painting.

13 Verdillia Scurlock But you're not that far above us 1541 0 5

Leviosa Scurlock

November 06, 2022 4:31 AM

I'd prefer happy animals by Leviosa Scurlock

There had been an entire reversal of fortunes when it came to Levi and Verdillia’s performances in challenge two. Her sister was sailing high, and Levi had crashed and burned. It said a lot about the overall standard of musical performances that anything involving her sister had come in joint first place. Verdillia had been blatantly dragged up by the actual musicians on her team. That was some comfort, though it didn’t really fix the problem of Levi’s team languishing in the bottom half of the table.

It did show how quickly things could change though, and—ever the optimist—Levi was hoping for another change of fortune today. The task sounded much more academic than before, given that they were meeting in the library. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. As a second year, there was only so much she’d be expected to contribute regardless of the complexity of the task, so it really depended how smart the older kids were. She’d seen Val in the library a lot, which was surely a good sign.

As Professor Skies announced the task, Levi felt optimistic. It was certainly a lot in terms of work or planning, but it also tapped into creativity and practical knowledge. In short, there were all sorts of different types of smart that would be used to make this task successful, which meant they could all contribute.

She followed her team back to the table. Her face fell into a frown as their attraction was named. Not that she didn’t like it, but that required some thought. Other people moved faster than her, naming the things outside of the obvious that they would need, and then providing some examples of animals. Val’s suggestion of a theme came closest to addressing the problem that Levi could see, but she still felt they hadn’t quite hit the nail on the head.

“Do you think we need to make this magical?” she asked. “I mean, it seems obvious that we do, but besides the actual animals being magical, how would we do that? Or does that count—like, knowing enough care of magical creatures knowledge to know how to take care of them? We could also use magic in their environments. Like self-refilling water bottles? And maybe ways of them being able to get away and not be bothered for a while, if people are getting too much for them. We want happy animals with super awesome homes, and that might give us more chances to show off some creative magic too.”

13 Leviosa Scurlock I'd prefer happy animals 1545 0 5

Lenny Pierce

November 06, 2022 11:20 AM

Yay is right! by Lenny Pierce

Apparently air hockey wasn't the obvious direction to go with this arcade demo. Lavender didn't even know what it was! Granted, he'd never been to a magical arcade, so maybe wizards didn't do air hockey, but he wasn't entirely convinced Lavender had been to any arcades, given her lack of enthusiasm and ideas. He wasn't going to let himself be put down by that though. She could take the log and that was definitely something that needed to happen for points, and he had no interest in doing it himself.

Yarielis seemed a little more up on the whole idea of an arcade, though, so that was good.

Lenny nodded in enthusiastic approval of both of their ideas. "Whack a gnome and skeeball are both great ideas! Definitely need to have those in our arcade! I can make a map maybe?" He pulled over his own sheet of parchment from what had been provided on the table. He hesitated, having been about to draw a square, but squares were so boring and they did not want their arcade to be boring. "Should we have our arcade be, like, hexagon shaped or something? What's a good arcade shape? Squares are for squares, very boring. But hexagons might make sounds bounce around too much and it'll get really loud; I mean, arcades are kind of supposed to be really loud, but we don't have to make it worse."

"Maybe some sound dampening charms could help with that though," he added, with barely a pause for thought, and then kept going as his stream of consciousness sharply detoured in a new direction, "And maybe like a play area for the younger kids to climb around in, when they're too young to play most of the games. And we'll need that tiny carousel with like three horses on it, that looks so stupid, but every toddler throws a fit about it if they don't get to ride it. Maybe it would look cooler if they were dragons instead of horses on ours? And they could breath smoke!"

1 Lenny Pierce Yay is right! 1547 0 5

Phil Carson

November 06, 2022 11:43 AM

Same. by Phil Carson

Phil grinned as Gabriel approved of his suggestion. Of course, they still had the whole rest of the museum to plan out, as Gabriel reminded them, though Phil wasn't quite sure how much detail they were going to need for the parts that weren't their main demo. Would just a list of other example exhibits do, like the magnets Gabriel suggested, and the water cycle as Robyn brought up, though he guessed he maybe didn't explain his table very well if she thought they were flooding the actual school.

"No, no, I mean, our table is a model of the school, and that's what floods, not the actual school," he hurried to correct the misconception. "Like, um," he grabbed a piece of paper and a quill from the planning supplies they'd been given, and started sketching a tiered side view of the water table. At the top, he drew some flowy lines that were supposed to be the waterfalls of the cascade hall, "Like we start the top of the table with the Cascade Hall, and water is gushing out of that, and flowing down the table, to the other rooms," and he tapped the quill at each of the lower tiers, "then the bottom tier is the Gardens, with the plants, and the water gets sucked back up to flow out at the Cascade Hall again. Or that's how we'd do it with pumps, but maybe with magic, we just conjure the water at the top and banish it at the bottom? Does that work?" he looked to Gabriel for the technical bits, him being the oldest of them.

"But we could definitely do a contained water cycle exhibit in the same room with precipitation and evaporation and stuff. And maybe something about the weather. Hurricane rooms are pretty fun with the wind blowing at you really hard. And some other rooms could definitely be more magicky and less sciency, and hit some magical theories, because yeah, we can totally be multidisciplinary," he added with eager nods to both Robyn and Gabriel.

1 Phil Carson Same. 1536 0 5

Morgan Garrett

November 06, 2022 9:57 PM

I don't know words and that's okay. by Morgan Garrett

Morgan didn’t have very far to travel to get to the site of Challenge Three, and that was fortunate. She was puffy-eyed and yawning as she walked up to her table and dropped into a seat, wearing a long dress patterned in what even she felt was a slightly too-much paisley with a cardigan thrown over the top of it, because those were the first quick items to put on that she’d spotted among her clothes after she’d woken up. She should, she thought ruefully, have known better than to study the night before a challenge, but….

She had picked up, vaguely, that her team wasn’t doing so great in the rankings, but she had tried her best to avoid knowing the specifics, avoiding the postings and such. It was a tactic she’d learned back in Kentucky, though her dad still managed to pull it off now and again even though he very rarely went back there. If you just sort of ignored something, it didn’t get you down so much, because….

Well, in theory, the idea seemed to be that if you said the right things about the right people, it somehow made it so that your immediate family members who were the exact thing you were looking down on didn’t count as part of that group of things anymore, even though they continued acting the exact same way. Morgan had never really understood it, but accepted that this was the way the world worked.

Her teammates, however, seemed not overly skilled in her family’s art of doublethink, because they seemed pretty out of it. Of course, quite possibly they, like her, were still sleepy. Piper at least seemed to be on top of things, and Morgan nodded along agreeably as the other girl elaborated on plans. She didn’t quite follow what it was supposed to look like (her head was conjuring up a Spaghetti Junction of…brightly colored straws or something), but figured they could work that out in drawings. She wasn't much of a drawer, but maybe Piper was? Or else they could just draw squiggly lines, everyone could do that to some level....

“Yeah, don’t think unicorns would be a good theme,” she said in response to Oz’s contribution. “But we might work in…not real magical creatures for so many reasons, but charmed images of some that are kind of watery-themed?” she suggested. “We could come up with games based on that, too. Avoid the…plimpies, isn’t it? No, that’s not it – whatever those things that sank those Roman boats were?”

16 Morgan Garrett I don't know words and that's okay. 1470 0 5

Iris Cobb

November 07, 2022 5:47 PM

You're not the only one at a loss here by Iris Cobb

Oh good, Iris thought, at least someone had some ideas or knowledge of how this thing was supposed to work. Piper had some ideas. Various different slides, pools for little kids, and a river to just float on. Magical slides could work, that was a good idea. Maybe not all was lost yet. Oz was less helpful, although that didn't surprise her much. 'Not unicorns', what a great suggestion. She scowled slightly at Oz's collapsed form on the table.

Their team leader wasn't doing a lot better from the looks of it. Morgan might be in need of a nap. Goodness, someone had to take charge around here, did she need to do everything? She couldn't not do the assignment, she wasn't a Pecari. "How about we do something with a hippocampus?" A water horse for the water park? That was good, right? People liked horses, didn't they? "We need to design the whole attraction, but only model some part of it, right?" She looked around at her teammates. "What would be the easiest thing to model that has magic involved? Some of Piper's slides?"

A thought struck her, one of the most annoying things about the rope swing back at the lake was climbing back out to have another swing on it. "Could we make a magical backwards slide that carried you back up to the top of the other slides?" She looked particularly at the older students this time. "How hard would that be to make, or at least model?"

"Could that be the centerpiece of the park? A bunch of magical slides all coming off the same tower and winding around each other.. maybe moving? They'd drop the people into the pools around the tower. Maybe the kid pools a little farther out along with other things and then the lazy river surrounding the whole park?" She found herself sketching as she talked. Drawing was something she'd done quite a bit, but there was a bit of a difference between flowers and a water park. Although, now that she looked at her quick doodle, the layout did have some similarities to a flower.

2 Iris Cobb You're not the only one at a loss here 1526 0 5

Olaf Brockert

November 07, 2022 6:40 PM

You have no idea what a relief that is. by Olaf Brockert

Olaf scowled. He was deeply irritated about the last Challenge. How in Merlin’s name had they gotten third ? They weren’t even remotely musical! Now, they had to perform at the Concert, something he absolutely wanted nothing to do with when the Aladren had been absolutely confident in their lack of musical abilities, absolutely confident that this would not happen . What the *broccoli*? What the actual *broccoli*? .

Maybe Olaf had been right when he said most people were equally non-musical? Esme had actually had people on her team who really played instruments and they had tied for first with Isla, whose team wasn’t any more musical than his own. However, what he’d heard from the rest of his family was that nobody on their teams really had much for musical skills either. Although, Amethyst and Gabriel had both mentioned that Lavender Brockert played the oboe, so they…should have done so much better than they had. Better than Olaf’s team. At least the top three.

It wasn’t as if he was scared to perform, like Allegra would have been. Even though he would be getting up in front of not just the entire school again, but their families, and do something that he was not very good at with a bunch of people who weren’t very good at it either, it was more just…ugh. Like the whole Concert was just not his thing. Olaf had come to the last one and of course, he could in no way remember what it was about. Something about fairy tales? And Isla had done something with puppets, which was more an educated guess given how he knew about his sister and puppets.

Oh, and of course, his sisters, whose teams had tied for first, were happy or at least not unhappy about performing. Isla obviously had been already doing something with the Performing Arts club, and puppets which Amethyst was also in, but now he, Isla and Esme would all be performing with their Challenge teams on junk instruments. Which also just thrilled their parents. They were just so bloody happy and proud that their children had all made the top three and they would get to see them all perform. Regardless of whether or not Olaf actually wanted to.

He just wanted to read. That was all he’d wanted this entire year and while of course he’d done plenty of reading, he not been able to do as much of it as he could have if he hadn’t had to do these stupid Challenges! And now, apparently everyone but Isla’s and Esme’s teams sucked even worse than they did at making instruments out of junk and playing them. Olaf had to figure that most of their points in this were due to creativity-though he’d never thought himself to be all that creative- and spell work since it sure as hell wasn’t due to musical talent! That was probably how Isla’s group had done so well too, come to think of it.

So, now, because it had probably all been about who had sucked the least, the Aladren had to perform at a Concert. Performing was fine for people like Esme who had to show off and prove something and Isla who needed a socially acceptable outlet to play with her puppets and even Amethyst who wanted to be the center of attention.The thing was though that fourth year’s participation was completely voluntary and initially, Isla’s had been as well. Olaf’s was absolutely not .

Which, obviously, he was pretty unhappy about. For the most part, participation in school events were not supposed to be mandatory . The Challenges were the obvious exception, of course, people were supposed to attend things like the Ball-an event that Olaf was especially dreading, as it sounded extremely boring, he had every intention of reading a book- and the Fair and the Concert and everyone had to camp out on the pitch during the Bonfire. However, they were supposed to attend meaning they had to be there and sit in the audience. Activities such as making a booth at the Fair-when the students were the ones in charge of that- and performing in the Concert were supposed to be optional .

But, no, someone-presumably Professor Skies or one of the other professors although not Grandfather-in their infinite wisdom, had somehow decided that it was a wonderful idea to make people get up and not just perform at the Concert, but perform doing something that maybe five people in the entire school knew how to do. And they weren’t even using real instruments!

If Olaf was the sort to look on the bright side, he would have been happy that they’d gone up a few spots in the overall competition. He would have been happy for Esme who had gone from tied for last in the first Challenge to tied for first in the second one and gone up a few spots and for Isla who retained her first place ranking. And, of course, there was the fact that today was the last Challenge and they would soon be over, and Olaf could get back to the business of reading.

However, obviously, he was not the sort to look on the bright side, even though he genuinely did feel good about those things especially that being almost done with the Challenges thing. However, right now, the Aladren was, unsurprisingly to anyone who knew him, mostly just being grumpy about having to perform in the Concert. Which was supposed to absolutely not be mandatory.

At least today’s Challenge would be in the library. If anywhere could be considered Olaf’s happy place, it was the library. Even though he was not especially happy, for obvious reasons. Also, he would much rather be in here looking for new books to read or doing school work, not whatever sort of fresh hell that the first year was sure they had planned for today. After last time, he was not at all optimistic. Well, okay, Olaf was never optimistic, but he was less so than usual. Granted, maybe slightly more so than he would have been if they had not been in the library, because at least this probably meant they wouldn’t be doing something sporty. Honestly, if they dared defile the library with a sporty task…well that would be unforgivable.

However, Olaf realized that would be unlikely. They wouldn’t do that in the library when there was the pitch, the gardens, the sports room, and the Mirage Chamber.

That did not mean, however, that they wouldn’t have to do something else that was especially heinous. After all, it might be something else where the top three teams had to perform.

Once they got their instructions, however, Olaf actually breathed a sigh of relief. As far as Challenge tasks went, this was on the more bearable side. They would be using magic, intelligence, problem solving and creativity. All but the last were things he really did quite well in and his team had already proven their creative skills, much to their own detriment.

And they even had a museum! A children’s museum but still, a museum. Which was much better in his opinion than a tea room or a water park.

Olaf listened to his teammates talk. Admittedly they all had pretty good ideas, although Robyn apparently did not understand, thinking that Phil wanted to flood the school. Which made no sense, after all, for all his faults-mostly being overly enthusiastic at times-the third year was an Aladren not a Pecari! For him to flood the school would be sacrilege. Even though Phil apparently was into making a splashing mess, destruction to anything educational-such as schools, libraries and museums-would be an anathema to an Aladren.

It was fair enough, though, for the other first year to ask about what magical museums were like, and this was something Olaf was well qualified enough to answer, so once Phil finished explaining that he wasn’t going to flood the school, the younger Aladren spoke up “Magical museums have a lot about the histories of various spells and about famous wizards, like you’d find on chocolate frog cards, but more involved. Also, significant parts of magical history and things about magical cultures around the world. Like what magic is like in places other than America. Also magical creatures. The exhibits often have charms on them and there is usually an explanation of what charms have been used to create the effects in the exhibit.”

Olaf turned to Phil. “Your idea for the water table is a good one, but also, if you want to make, as you said, a splashing mess, I think we need to put some sort of protective spells on it so it doesn’t get all over the place. We are in the library after all, and we need to respect it.” If they were on the Quidditch pitch, for example, he would not have cared one little bit, but the library was important. “I certainly don’t want to risk ruining a single book.”

11 Olaf Brockert You have no idea what a relief that is. 1564 0 5

Mab

November 07, 2022 6:58 PM

I think we're holding Liesl's pumpkin juice by Mab

Liesl was as excited as Mab had thought she might be, and that small bit of smile continued to hold on her face as the younger girl enthused about all the things they could do. There were a few points where Mab had to raise an eyebrow - they definitely did not need actual necromancy going on here - but most of it sounded good, if somewhat creepy, though creepy was exactly what they were going for, so it was all good even if thinking about eyeballs too much made Mab's stomach squick a little bit.

She lived in an apartment with an actual vampire slayer training room (modeled very much after Buffy's), and tended more toward Goth styles herself, so she could hardly fault having a headless doll or torture equipment, especially if it was (presumably) just for show (if Liesl hadn't been a Teppenpaw, she might have been a little worried, but ... Teppenpaw).

She glanced around the rest of the group to see how they were taking the spiel, and was glad to see Fortune looked into it, Jasper was looking proud at his cousin (she was pretty sure they were cousins given they had the same last name and siblings weren't permitted in the same team), and Xavier . . . seemed a bit distracted and somewhat confused. The others .... well, there had been a lot there.

She nodded gratefully at Fortune as he volunteered to be their archivist, more or less by accident, but it was one of the roles she had figured the younger students could handle. "Thank you, Fortune, and I second that those are all great ideas, Liesl. Now, though, may be a good time to talk about what people are and are not comfortable with in the horror genre, so we can pick something to demo that does not make any of us sick just to look at. I'd personally prefer not to have eyeballs. I'm totally fine with saying they're somewhere in the haunted house, but I don't want to deal with them for the demo. Also, I'm going to nix the making of actual undead for entertainment. Fake animated skulls, skeletons, and zombies are all good by me though."

She glanced around the table again. "Any other hard or soft 'No'es on anything we've talked about so far? Also, for work load division, we've got our archivist," she nodded at Fortune, "and Aesthetic Coordinator," Liesl, "next one we're definitely going to need is the Lead Researcher, so do we have anyone who wants to volunteer for that? Jasper, do you want to take Lead Architect, since you're better at Transfiguration, and I'll take Chief Operator since I'm better at motion charms, and together we'll take the bulk of the heavy magic work since we're the Advanced Students? Alexander, Xavier, Henry, what do you guys want to do?"

1 Mab I think we're holding Liesl's pumpkin juice 1473 0 5

Amethyst Brockert

November 08, 2022 4:11 PM

All right, yay by Amethyst Brockert

Amethyst’s team had not done so well in the second Challenge, finishing in seventh place overall. She really had no idea why since they actually had a person on their team who played a real instrument. Isla and Olaf didn’t. Not that she necessarily had a burning desire to play a musical instrument in front of her parents and everyone else’s family at the concert when she didn’t actually have any training in it, and they weren’t even real instruments. Amethyst would have been fine if she’d had to do that, since she generally did not mind getting up on stage, but since this particular kind of performance wasn’t exactly her forte, she could live without doing it again.

Still, they had been tied for third and now were tied for fifth. That was honestly a bit disappointing. It would have been nice to do well and to have been up at third and to now be in fifth was a little discouraging. Amethyst might actually have happily switched places with Olaf as going from seventh to fifth was better than going from third to fifth. Even if it meant having to perform in a musical act that was quite honestly ridiculous.

And from what Amethyst gathered, the first year likely would have switched places with her too. Honestly, she could not decide whether to feel bad for him or laugh at him. Had it been Sapphire or Allegra in this position she absolutely would have gone with the former. It was horrible to make someone who feared getting up in front of others do so. It was wrong to cause them that amount of distress and make them potential targets of mockery.

And they were more likely to be mocked by others too that someone like Amethyst or Olaf. Shy nervous types were more likely to be picked on, as were weird awkward sorts like Liesl and Isla, the former because mean predatory types, the Topazes and Uncle Eustaces of the world sought them out to torment. So to put them in that position was cruel.

As for Olaf, Amethyst did feel like it was unfair to make him perform when he did not want to. After all, it wasn’t like a thing where someone didn’t want to do their homework or brush their teeth, things that were kind of irritating but you had to do them. There was pretty much no benefit to making her cousin perform in the Concert.

However, the fact that it was Olaf , and he was such a grumpy old man-even though he was only twelve-having to get up and perform on junk instruments in front of everyone sort of amused Amethyst. It might not be especially nice of her, but she just could not help it. Since he seemed irritated about it rather than on the verge of a panic attack, she had to laugh about the whole thing just a little.

Anyway, she did wish that her team was doing better, maybe they could bring themselves up just a little bit.However, the outcome of the Challenges seemed like it was going to be one of those things where the Crotalus would have to just be happy for others.Isla’s team was in first and Jasper and Liesl were in second. Since her cousins were pretty much underdogs in life, it would be good to see them successful, and Jasper was her brother whom she loved and appreciated even more considering Iris’s relationship with Billy.

Amethyst would not be a sore loser. And it wasn’t as if they were in last place, Iris was. She could not help but feel bad for her friend, both because her team was last and because she had to put up with Oz Spellman. That had to be an additional Challenge on top of the actual ones. She could think of a few people that she would find more unpleasant to spend time with-Xavier and Ray came to mind, as well as Topaz and Uncle Eustace of course-but the fifth year was definitely up there. And Amethyst didn’t think Iris was happy about it either.

So, even though they weren’t doing as well as others, including two of the people she found more detestable than Oz Spellman-honestly, she was happy to see her brother and cousin do well, even if it meant that Xavier didn’t get the lesson in humility that he so richly deserved-Amethyst had to admit that she was glad to have the teammates she had. Even Stanley could be worse.

Today, they gathered in the library for the final Challenge. She wasn’t a huge library person, but admittedly she was relieved because of the unlikeliness of having to do something physical, unless they had to climb the shelves or something but she didn’t think the librarian-or the Aladrens or Grandfather- would stand for that.

Fortunately, today’s task was not so bad, sort of like the party planning her relatives had told her about the last time. Of course, Amethyst was exactly the sort who would have preferred planning a party than a tourist attraction, but hey, it could so be worse. There would be no running, jumping, flying, climbing or anything else that would mess up her clothes and make her sweaty.

They went back to their assigned tables and found out that they would be planning an arcade. Not something Amethyst had a ton of experience with-she was the sort who would prefer something high class but she guessed this was what they had to do. The best she could think of for this was like what her old tutor Neal had done at the Fair last year with his collection of enlarged desk toys.

At least Lenny was brimming with ideas and enthusiasm. Of course, the second year was always enthusiastic. He was like the antithesis of Olaf. Amethyst was not entirely sure what air hockey was, but she had no problem including it.

In contrast, Lavender was…much more on the Olaf side of the enthusiasm spectrum. The older Crotalus had put her head down on the table right off. Apparently, she did not know much more about arcades than Amethyst did, but she guessed that Lenny could take the lead on this one. She wondered if the sixth year was ill or just disheartened about the results of the previous Challenge. After all, Lavender actually played a real instrument, so maybe she was being hard on herself about it.

The sixth year offered to take the log and managed to suggest Whack-a-Gnome followed by Yarielis mentioning skee ball, things that. Amethyst had heard of. She nodded in agreement at both of those ideas. Then Lenny started talking about the shape of the room and a play place for small children “Okay, definitely sound dampening charms are a must regardless of what shape the room is. That’s an excellent idea. And with the play place, maybe the carousel could have a dragon, a unicorn, and another animal to ride on, like all three could be different creatures. It also should absolutely have a ball pit.”

Amethyst continued. “Back on the adult side, what about darts and billiards?”

11 Amethyst Brockert All right, yay 1532 0 5

Jasper Brockert

November 08, 2022 9:20 PM

Pretty sure that's what she meant by Jasper Brockert

Mab was actually smiling . This was a very weird thing. The seventh year was like Grandfather and Olaf, they did not smile, their faces seemed to be physically incapable of making that particular expression. It was a deeply confusing and bizarre experience. It was like spotting a Diricrawl or something. Possibly even more rare than that.

Then she told them their attraction and Jasper understood. He glanced over at his cousin who seemed to be just brimming with happiness and excitement and he was glad. He had noticed that the younger Teppenpaw did not seem to have much confidence about her talents. Not that Liesl was bad at things, necessarily. She was a fine Transfigurer, like all Brockerts and was overall talented at magic. She was even better at music than everyone on their team other than Henry. It was just more that she didn’t feel special. Like she didn’t have a thing that she excelled at that nobody else did.

Except, now she did. If anyone could plan a haunted house, if anyone knew how to make things creepy and spooky, it was Liesl .

This might even put them over the top. It would be okay if it didn’t, second place wasn’t at all bad. Actually, if they got second, that meant Jasper would have done better than any of his siblings in the Challenges. Granted, that might be a reason to give Topaz a wide berth, but then the sixth year was inclined to do that anyway. He actually did legitimately wonder whether his sister would give him a hard time if he did better than her. After all, she’d done that to Ruby and Topaz giving a person a hard time was not at all like other people giving someone a hard time. However, since Jasper had not been directly competing with the Aladren alumna, and the exact tasks were different, then really was the Teppenpaw “better” than her? Like, it was apples to oranges. The sixth year had not done desert survival or party planning, Topaz had not planned an attraction or made junk musical instruments and their obstacle course style events had been different.

He told himself it would be okay, his sister would not torture him if he did better in his Challenges than she had in hers.

Mab mentioned all the different roles they could play with regards to the Challenge, with Liesl quickly taking on that of aesthetic coordinator. The third year then started spouting off her ideas and Jasper looked on proudly, happy that his cousin had this…chance to shine and express herself and make a significant contribution to their team’s score. If they didn’t win this one…well, admittedly, it would be totally unfair.

Although, arguably from the perspective of another team, they might argue that it was unfair to give Team Eight a haunted house when they had Liesl who so obviously was a natural fit for this one but who knew who and what they had? Like, there might very well be people on other teams whose interests specifically fit the attraction they were given.

As his cousin prattled off ideas, however, Jasper suddenly remembered that Xavier was there. Mr. Normal Sporty Guy. Who did not like either of the Teppenpaws. Liesl had gotten so caught up in the haunted house planning and showing off in the area where she shined, where she was better at something than anyone else was, which is what she had wanted all along, that she forgot to worry about people-by which Jasper primarily meant Xavier-making fun of her.

So, the sixth year sat there, just daring the Pecari to try making fun of Liesl and her headless doll-something that he had personally not known about but was not a huge surprise to him-and her models of torture devices. If Xavier said the slightest rude comment…well, Jasper might have to do something fairly un-Teppish.

Well, okay, Jasper probably wouldn’t hex the crap out of him or turn him into a toad or punch him in the face. Too many consequences. He didn’t want to risk expulsion, but at the very least…he would probably be using some not very nice language. Along with reminding the Pecari that he was the one that seemed to be so worried about their score and what would happen to where they ranked when Mab didn’t want to perform in front of the school last time. So, yeah. If Xavier wanted to succeed in this Challenge-and in fact, have a chance at first place maybe-he would do well to listen to the third year.

Thankfully, Fortune reacted in a way that seemed like he was totally unbothered by anything Liesl had just suggested. As for Xavier…well, to his credit, he didn’t say anything rude to the younger Teppenpaw and Jasper would not have to defend her. However, the fourth year seemed like he wasn’t even paying attention. What the *tomato*? He had been so snappish towards Mab and insensitive about her not wanting to perform in front of people and now he wasn’t even being respectful and listening to their ideas. Which was probably why he hadn’t made any nasty remarks about Liesl’s headless doll and models of torture instruments, because he hadn’t heard her.

Mab spoke next, telling the third year that her ideas were good, although apparently they weren’t going to have any actual eyeballs in their model. And they would have to just reanimate plastic skeletons-something Jasper was pretty sure his cousin had up in her room, he didn’t know this for a fact, but he was pretty sure-and not do necromancy which he doubted anyone on this team was capable of anyway. “I can certainly do Lead Architect and I don’t actually have any nos, hard or soft in this.” All of his hard nos were around flying, Quidditch and sports. Horror wasn’t his thing like it was Liesl’s but he could certainly handle a headless doll and biting skulls. After all, with Topaz for a sister and Uncle Eustace for an uncle, he’d dealt with much more terrifying things.

11 Jasper Brockert Pretty sure that's what she meant 1496 0 5

Xavier Lundstrom

November 09, 2022 2:51 PM

But Fortune already has it by Xavier Lundstrom

Mab was vetoing eyeballs, and actual undead things. Things Xavier would have thought went without saying. Haunted Houses were supposed to be scary but not real. Then again, this was the magical world. From Liesl's suggestions of necromancy, they were willing to get a lot more literal and graphic. He pictured a jump scare of a zombie with it being an actual rotting corpse. What the heck was wrong with these people?

Not that he could say that out loud. Criticising the magical world could have you carted off to correction camp. And besides, Jasper Brockert had no hard nos, and would probably think Xavier was pathetic, not to mention badly integrated, if he claimed any. He shook his head in answer to the question, figuring he'd just tell them to Mab if they came up against anything that made him uncomfortable. She had luckily ruled out literal dead bodies. Everything else... Based on what he was hearing, their haunted house was not a place he would want to walk through. He didn't relish the idea of any form of magical jump scare, any shadows that leapt out to get him, or anything to do with fire. But he wasn't sure how to put most of it into words without it being either him vetoing basically everything or getting so weirdly specific it was suspect.

He released his hands which had somehow gripped themselves around his opposite arms without him noticing, again leaving a trail of little half moon marks down his arm which were probably more noticeable than the ones in his palm had been.

Mab was talking about jobs again, though luckily she named one that hadn't been taken, and which sounded like it involved a lot of time with books.

"I can do researcher," he said. His brain still felt pinched and fuzzy at the edges and he didn't feel like he was doing a good job of sounding normal. His dry throat didn't help either. His voice was scratchy.

13 Xavier Lundstrom But Fortune already has it 1529 0 5

Isla Brockert

November 09, 2022 8:20 PM

Best. Park. Ever by Isla Brockert

Isla was impressed by Lyla’s level of organization. It must be a Crotalus thing, Esme and Christopher were both pretty organized meticulous people. Although, Allegra and Amethyst were both…just moderately organized, like an average amount. And Aladrens could be so too, although it sort of depended, in both houses, what they were organized in. Like, Topaz was super organized about her schoolwork and her nefarious schemes, but was sort of messy when it came to being neat and tidy. Although that wasn’t so much because he was a naturally sloppy person but because she thought cleaning and picking up after herself were beneath her.

Of course, Hans was supposed to be the log taker. He had volunteered to do so first. Isla doubted that it was going to cause conflict though, they all seemed to get on so well. She felt lucky that way, given how Jasper felt about one of his teammates. The Aladren didn’t think her cousin disliked Xavier exactly, but that he thought the fourth year disliked him and Liesl. She really did not know how they’d done so well with that happening but she still felt for her cousin.

After all, Jasper was pretty likable, there was literally nothing offensive about him. So, unless it was like the sixth year suspected, that it was because he was unathletic, Isla had no idea why anyone would have an issue with the Teppenpaw. He was nice and fairly normal in terms of not having any blatant eccentricities the way she and Liesl both did.

Come to think of it though, why did people put the terms nice and normal together so much? Normal was allegedly either very proper purebloods or sporty types. Neither of which was all that nice to people who didn’t fit the mold. Hence why Isla was super dreading going to the balls this summer. She did not feel like this was going to be a place where she belonged. Hopefully, her sisters and cousins would look out for her but it still didn’t sound like something that she would enjoy or a place that she would feel comfortable.

And, admittedly, it was sort of difficult that the relatives that Isla would have with her at the balls, at least this year, were Amethyst and Esme . Both of them were perfect, polished pureblood princesses. Her sister already fit in perfectly and her cousin would too. They would never understand what it was like for Isla.

At least in a few years, she would have Liesl there too. The third year knew it was like to be different and not belong, in fact the whole thing might be worse for her than it was for the Aladren.

Weirdly enough, the other person who could understand what it was to not belong in proper society, who did not fit into social norms was Topaz , of all people. Obviously the Aladren alumna did not seem like she wanted to be a socialite or get married and have kids like her older sisters and Allegra. Isla actually wondered if Sapphire would be married before Topaz was. And if Topaz would be angry about that if it happened, since she tended to be hyper-competitive and never let her relatives-especially Allegra and Sapphire-beat her in anything but this was like, something that she didn’t even seem to want but that she’d likely be forced into doing anyway.

If it wasn’t Topaz, Isla would feel sorry for someone in that situation. As it was, she felt worse for the future husband and children. Unless the husband was like the Aladren alumna. Which was scary, they did not need to have two of them around. Especially since they all had to deal with Uncle Eustace too.

The fifth year,however, did want marriage and children. She actually always had, it was just that she was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to boys. Of course, there was unfortunately none at Sonora that she could be with, which had actually made it all the more frustrating when her friends both had boyfriends and Isla didn’t. If she’d been allowed-she hadn’t actually been allowed to have one then, but she was sixteen now so now she could-it would have to be someone outside of school. Isla couldn’t marry any of the boys at Sonora and she didn’t think there was any value in being in a relationship when you knew it would end eventually.

And she did hope to meet someone who was sweet and kind and yes, a tad odd. She believed that since not all pureblood girls were cookie cutter ideals,that must be the case with pureblood boys too.

She nodded at Lyla “I think those are all good suggestions. Knowing about plants will definitely come in handy.” Isla told the first year.

Gwendolyn expressed her approval for the older Aladren’s ideas and Isla smiled at the younger girl. It made her feel good to know that someone liked her suggestions. “Your ideas are good too.” She replied. A playground was absolutely a must in a park. “It’s a good idea to have activities to do. Not everyone wants to just look at flowers.” In particular, she thought of her cousin Miles, who was not only a seven year old-children generally didn’t have much interest in looking at flowers-but was pretty allergic to most plants. Of course, Aunt Madeleine wouldn’t be taking him out to a park anyway for that reason.

Which did make Isla think of something else. “Um, what about a playground that’s in an enclosure for kids who have allergies so they can play without being exposed to allergens.” Her aunt and uncle had one of these at their house so Miles and Libby had playground equipment to play on. Libby could play outside in a regular park, but since her brother really couldn’t, she never got to and just used their enclosure playground as well.

Of course, she didn’t know how they would get to the safe allergy friendly enclosed playground without going through the pollen filled park. She believed her aunt made use of the Bubble Head Charm quite a bit whenever she had to take Miles anywhere that allergens were an issue. Isla felt really bad for her little cousin, and it couldn’t have been easy on his parents or Libby either.

She continued “I love the idea of a wand wood tree grove. Wands are essential and nothing represents wizard-kind better. We can have Aspen trees too.” It didn’t sound like Gwendolyn’s idea about plants native to their states or their heritage was going to work out though. Both the second year and Lyla were from Colorado. Isla was from Utah, an adjoining state, and she thought Hans was too, as she knew Liesl had gone to visit him there and they were all on the same wagon. As for their heritage, the fifth year…did not actually know hers. She was a Brockert and basically a regular white American pureblood witch. No obvious cultural heritage with regards to nationality like Hans and Gwendolyn. “We can definitely also have a Chinese themed garden.” As the second year seemed to value her Chinese ancestry, Isla absolutely felt like it should be included.

Lyla went to get some books and when she came back she seemed to have an idea that would encompass a lot of their other ones. “That sounds pretty good, Lyla.” She told the younger girl. “I think we should put the fountain in the summer part since that’s when it’s hot and people want to wade in them, at least I do.”

11 Isla Brockert Best. Park. Ever 1521 0 5

Esme Brockert

November 11, 2022 5:17 PM

We just need to be above someone. by Esme Brockert

One of the hardest parts of being a leader was putting up with people on your team who had different personalities, and sometimes, difficult ones. After having spent the better portion of the year in her company, Esme knew that Nausicaa Scapetello was one of those difficult personalities.

It was not as if she was inexperienced with them though. After all, she was closely related to Topaz and Uncle Eustace. Not only that, but one could certainly argue that Olaf and Grandfather were in that category too. Plus, Esme knew a lot of girls like the Aladren and neither they nor Nausicaa had anything on her cousin and uncle.

In fact, given that the seventh year was a perfectly proper pureblood she usually got along with girls like the first year as they were rarely found fault with her . She was exceptionally well mannered and ladylike and, at the risk of sounding slightly conceited, everything a pureblood girl was supposed to be. The first year seemed to be similar.

And perhaps it was unfair to label Nausicaa as difficult. After all, the Aladren had not said anything particularly nasty, and Esme could even agree with her appreciation of the finer things in life. There was certainly nothing wrong with doing so. Also, unless you were talking about someone universally vile such as the obvious relations of hers, arguably not everyone found the same people to be so. For example, Jasper was currently finding Xavier difficult to deal with, when, say, Oz Spellman clearly didn’t. Obviously, both Pecaris would be people that she personally would find to be so, probably much more than Nausicaa, since she found, like, all of them aside from Mab to be difficult people in her book.

The thing though, was that while the Aladren wasn’t giving Esme a rough time exactly, there was this…way about her that seemed a tad condescending. Like she thought she was better than them somehow-which considering she was the youngest person on the team, meant that she had an awful lot of gall.

Apparently, Nausicaa was just that kind of pureblood, which was the only reason Esme could find for her to give off those sorts of airs. Given that the Crotalus had plenty of experience with them, she was pretty qualified to spot the type, she was probably right. So far though there was nothing specific that was said, and she hadn’t gotten the impression that the first year looked down on her as much as others.

However, as Team Leader, if she or anyone else said anything rude or insulting or disrespectful to anyone on their team, or if there was any sort of conflict, Esme would have to step in. Fortunately, nothing had risen to the level of having to do so yet. She could not exactly scold Nausicaa to keep her tone a certain way-which actually might be slightly hypocritical on her part, given she might also come across as a tiny bit condescending at times-or to hide her background, her education, her taste in nice things, her Italian heritage or just who she was as long as she wasn’t being nasty to people. Esme knew all too well that there were people who were also happy to do that to her so while the Aladren might come across a little condescending and maybe just a little snobby, the seventh year related to her just a bit.

Another thing that wasn’t pleasant about being a Team Leader, was telling people when she disagreed with their ideas. Rosalynn’s idea was…cute. Esme was picturing peppermint sticks and candy canes along with unicorns, something that might be appropriate for a little girl’s birthday party. She really wanted to go a little more sophisticated.

Nausicaa, unsurprisingly, also seemed to want to go in that direction. Although, to her credit, she did also agree about including unicorns, as well as offering many suggestions on the types of magic they could do, things that Esme quite frankly should have thought of but she honestly hadn’t gone to that many tea houses. Fancy restaurants, yes, but not tea houses, she simply grasped the concept of what they were. Of course, the seventh year had heard of the painting that the younger girl had suggested though.

Then Verdillia spoke up about how unicorns were an integral part of magical culture. Which was absolutely true and she was impressed with how much the younger Crotalus knew on the topic. “These are all excellent suggestions.” Esme told her teammates. “ Although I do think your idea is adorable, Rosalynn,I honestly do generally prefer to go in a more sophisticated direction personally. It’s just generally what my tastes run to. However, given their absolute relevance to the cultural heritage of the magical world, unicorns should definitely be included. And Nausicaa, I like all the magical ideas you came up with. We could also maybe incorporate potions by coming up with our own unique tea brews, although, I don’t know if any of us know a lot about how to create tea recipes.” It was admittedly not a skill that Esme was especially well practiced in

The seventh year paused, something else had just occurred to her. “Actually, since Professor Skies is judging this, maybe we would get more points if we appealed to her personal tastes. I mean, we do generally get extra points for design work in Transfiguration.”

11 Esme Brockert We just need to be above someone. 1479 0 5