Challenge Staff

March 22, 2013 12:50 PM
The day of the second challenge dawned bright and sunny. Though it was only late January, the weather was unseasonably warm in the high sixties. Certainly warm enough to spend the afternoon outdoors in relative comfort as long as one dressed appropriately. This was most fortunate as most of the higher numbered teams probably would spend a fair portion of the day just outside the Gardens, waiting for their turn into the challenge.

Unlike the first one, this challenge would be completed all at one time, then the staff would have to go in and fix any damage that had been inflicted on the course, and only then could the next team begin. The slight advantage to going later, of course, was that those groups would have some idea how long most teams had taken to complete it previously, and would therefore be able to gauge how well they were doing in comparison.

As one o'clock approached, Coach Pierce arrived on the scene and stood on top of the bench that blocked the entrance into the Gardens. "Hello," she greeted the gathered students with the assistance of a sonorus charm so they could all hear her. "Your second challenge is an obstacle course through the Gardens. May I please have the overseers gather near Professor Meade, please." She indicated where the COMC professor was standing and waited for the students elected for that role to divide out of the main crowd.

"This challenge will be scored by how quickly your team gets all of its members, excluding the overseer, through the obstacle course. If you find you cannot get through an obstacle, there is an opt-out path. However, be advised, a significant time penalty, which varies depending upon on the difficulty of the obstacle being skipped, will be applied against your team's final time for every team member who opts out."

The Coach inclined her head toward the group of overseers. "You will not be going in completely blind. Your overseer will be able to communicate with you as you go through the course, telling you the safest path between obstacles." Rock throwing prairie elves, Devil's Snare traps, and other blockages and annoyances populated the paths that were not the 'safe' route through the maze. Between most obstacles, team overseers could choose to send their teams through to the next one by way of a longer but safer route, or through a shorter but booby-trapped route. The quickest shortcuts had the nastiest obstructions.

"Overseers, you have the choice of using a surveillance circle to track your team's progress and look ahead for your best route through the labyrinth, or you can scout ahead and offer advice from a broom. You cannot directly assist your team through a challenge or you will incur the obstacle's opt-out penalty, but you can offer advice if you see something they can't."

"All right, folks. Team One starts it off, once your overseer is ready. They will have a few minutes to get an idea of what lies ahead of you. We'll start the clock when the first team member enters the course, so I advise waiting until your overseer tells you to begin."

Coach Pierce got down off the bench then used her wand to push it aside, clearing the Garden entrance for the first team. Meanwhile, the first overseer was lead through another opening in the hedge, bringing them into a secluded clearing with a nice quality broom and a table with a model of the Obstacle Course upon it.

“Overseers, you have two options to do your job, one is flying above and assessing the best route for your team or, two, you can scry for them using the model placed in the table,” Adrian pointed to the model of the gardens with the obstacles that was near him. Professor Meade gave them the option to chose their preferred method of scouting. Broom riders would fly above the Course and talk directly to their teams. They could point out relevant points of interest, lead the way through the labyrinth, and even poke and prod at the actual obstacles to provide information about them, so long as they didn't actually do anything to physically or magically help their team.

Scryers would follow their team through the enchanted model. The Obstacles were clearly marked and labeled and glowed yellow for easy identification. Safe routes between them were colored a reassuring green. Hazardous routes were colored either in orange or red to mark the severity of the danger. Finally, blue indicators would help them easily find their team's location. A simple tap of their wand against any part of the model would allow the scryer to zoom in for a better look in real time. A second tap against the edge of the table would bring them back to the overview. Not being physically present would limit the overseer's ability to communicate with their teammates to only verbal instructions, but these would be relayed clearly to their location and the model, when zoomed in, would allow him or her to see and hear everything the team did.


OOC: Like in the last one, all teams can post simultaneously. Fuzzy time allows you to move on to the next obstacle before finishing the previous one, as long as you don't contradict anything that might still happen earlier. Please keep your characters' age, physical limitations and abilities in mind and have them progress realistically. Your four foot nine beginner student cannot reach the top of the Wall, or the short rope dangling down from it, even if they jump.
Subthreads:
0 Challenge Staff The Obstacle Course Challenge 0 Challenge Staff 1 5


Isabel Raines

March 23, 2013 9:35 PM
Isabel had been nervous since she read the part of the second challenge announcement which involved physical things. She had privately agreed with the decision that Effie should be the overseer instead of her, but she still wasn’t enthusiastic at all about the second challenge.
 
As the team waited for their turn, then, she smiled a lot, the way she imagined Sara had during her much shorter wait, and would have if she had been made to wait a long time, too. As usual, she thought she did the second-best job possible of the girls in her family: Sara would have done it better, Catherine probably would have done it worse, though she supposed it was harder to say now that her sister was up to her fourth child. Once over midterm, Isabel had heard Mamma remark that she didn’t know how Catherine managed it, and Catherine had shrugged and said that she’d had a girl first because the every man added to the house stayed the newest one just long enough for her to get patient enough to deal with the next one – “though I expect this is your last grandson from me, anyway,” she’d finished, fussing with the baby’s blanket.
 
For her sister, success had come easily. She had married a very  handsome man straight out of school, had the connections to quickly become a hostess in her own right, and had had three sons without any trouble at all until this last time, and that had still worked out in the end. Sara, it seemed, was well on her way to doing the same thing, though Isabel guessed she would have to wait another year after school to get married. Alan was a boy, so of course he wouldn’t have any problems. Which left Isabel, up against an obstacle course. She just hoped she wasn’t the whole reason why if they came in embarrassingly far down the list.
 
The first leg wasn’t long, but that wasn’t comforting. Isabel looked less-than-happily at the sign annoucing that this was a mud pit. When Reggie came up with an idea, Isabel nodded enthusiastically. “I like the first idea better,” she said when just wading thorugh it was proposed as an alternative, not at all worried about seeming like a prissy little girl. For one thing, she didn’t think anyone wanted to get filthy, and for another, it would surely be faster. That was the whole point, wasn't it?
0 Isabel Raines We might look forward to it after this 241 Isabel Raines 0 5


Effie Arbon

March 25, 2013 1:14 PM
Effie felt a twinge of guilt as she left Isabel with the rest of the team and went off to enjoy the cosy safety of the overseer position. She had assumed that she or her friend would have been the logical choice, being disinclined to scrambling, scuffling and who knew what other vile activities were indicated by a physical challenge. Had the choice been presented, she would have nominated her friend, wishing to spare her the ordeal. Effie at least was accustomed to taking long walks and could keep her balance on a broom, although she suspected that the difference that made was so slight as to be negligible. However, Reggie had determined that she was the best fit for the job at hand. She had assured Isabel that she would have got her out of it if she could but she still felt that she had behaved utterly traitorously as she abandoned her at the start line with Those People and going to face That Challenge. She could only hope that Isabel did not feel the same way.

Having wished her team luck, Effie stood in front of the scrying model. Time did not seem to exist in this little corner of the gardens and thus it was hard to know how long she was looking at it for. She wanted to get a good overview and be able to help her team but she didn't feel like she could stare for hours. Or indeed, that she would be able to come up with a full plan without liaising with the team and finding out what they could do. She glanced over the whole model, trying to get an idea of what all the obstacles were before focussing in on the first couple of items. She might need to help them choose a path but could possibly work on that whilst they were getting through the first part. She zoomed in on this now, noting the different shading across areas of the mud pit – oh, poor Isabel! - suggesting contours. She poked experimentally, measuring the depths.

“Itineris,” she muttered. Little silver dots dropped from her wand to the model, marking out a route. It was hard to be sure it was the most direct, or the least engulfing. More than once she hit a dead end, or rather a pit fall she found unacceptably deep. But after some minutes, she had what she thought was a reasonable compromise of a quick route and safety for Isabel's footwear and legs.

“Hello? Team fifteen?” she called a little uncertainly. It was, even for a witch, a rather odd sensation to be talking to thin air. She directed her comments at the model in front of her. “Proceed if you can hear me – you will not have to go far before you encounter a... uh mud pit,” she added apologetically. She watched the little dots labelled with her team mates' names proceeding towards their first obstacle. It seemed to work then... She heard Reggie's voice coming from the direction of the model.

“It's quite deep in places,” she cautioned Reggie. Stones would not bear the girls' weight if there was nothing underneath them. “I have plotted what I think is a good balance between avoiding the deepest parts and getting across quickly,” although in Effie's world of compromise, the first factor was definitely far more important. If she was judging the scale correctly, it should not get to their knees. It needn't even do that with Reggie's plan to lay stones along their path. “Your best bet is to start on the far right hand side.”
13 Effie Arbon From the safety of my ivory tower... (wotw) 238 Effie Arbon 0 5

Waverly Canterbury

March 25, 2013 3:45 PM
The moment Waverly caught heed of this challenge being more physical, she had been a little hesitant. She was not naturally athletic, at least in her mind, and she didn't enjoy sports as much as other people. If it was an obstacle course that meant running races or something like boot camp, she would let down her team for sure. She really hoped it wasn't like that, but still felt a little unsure when she went to the gardens at the set time.

Her outfit today was prepared for sweat and hard work. She went camping and hiking with her family a lot in the summers and winters in Arizona, so she was used to sweat and all. She didn't like getting dirty, but she didn't mind it when she was prepared for it.

Reggie had picked Effie to be the Overseer and Waverly was a little annoyed that she hadn't been consulted. She wasn't the kind of girl who held grudges, however, and she knew getting upset about it wasn't practical. Reggie was the team leader so it was obvious that she would have the power to pick the Overseer. Waverly wasn't sure if she had wanted to be the Overseer anyway, but it didn't matter what she thought now. When Reggie told them that opting out wasn't an option, she nodded. "Crystal clear," she replied. Opting out wouldn't be fun anyway.

It took forever for their team to finally get called, but at last it was their turn. She took a deep breath before following her team in. When she saw the sign leading them to their first obstacle, she was really glad she had put her hair in a ponytail and her gym clothes on. At least she didn't mind these getting dirty. She was almost pumped up to get into that mud by the time they reached it, but she hadn't expected there to be so much.

Effie was talking to them, trying to lead them through, and Waverly tried to listen carefully. Being lead by someone else meant a lot of trust was being placed on the Overseer. Waverly had to believe Effie when she said that the shallower end of the mud was on the far right side. She looked at her teammates. "I don't mind getting too dirty so I can go first. Maybe it'll be faster just getting across without the rocks unless you guys really want them."

Being the guinea pig was easier than putting her teammates through unnecessary dirt. Waverly was from the desert; she was used to lots of it. She went to the side Effie had told them and took off her shoes and socks and stepped in. It was surface level only and didn't even cover the top of her feet. "So far so good," she told them as she cautiously walked through. Five steps in she reached a sudden drop and she gasped, pulling her foot back to get back to the shallower area. "Are you guys okay back there?" she asked, looking back at the rest of her team. "Effie, where next?" she asked the air.
19 Waverly Canterbury Mud's good for the skin, right? 218 Waverly Canterbury 0 5


Effie Arbon

March 25, 2013 6:25 PM
Muggleborns. If Effie had not read numerous pamphlets warning her of their stupidity, she would hardly have credited it. Apparently the girl was keen to go haring into the mud without any warning of how deep she would sink. Ordinarily, such naturally selective procedures would have seemed like a good thing but currently it would impede Isabel in getting out the other end of the challenge. Plus Effie was currently responsible for said idiot and she doubted the school would look kindly on it if she allowed one of her team mates to come to harm.

“I wouldn't recommend it...” she began, in relation to not using the rocks. “I liked the idea of – slow down!” she warned too late, as the little Waverly dot tore out along the right edge. Before she could finish her sentence, she heard a large squelch and Waverly asking for further directions. “I was suggesting combining Regina's idea with my directions. You need to bear a little towards the left – the raised bit curves back towards the centre. It's quite wide to start with, although it gets narrower after... uh, I guess about two feet?” it was a little hard to be sure what scale she was working with. “Your quickest route is along the right hand edge of it, but there's quite a severe drop on that side – not enough to go over your heads but maybe waist-high in some places.

“Does that make sense?” she asked. It was all so clear when laid out in front on her, the contours easily traceable with her wand, and her route marked out on the surface, of which she had a bird's eye view. Translating that purely into words, trying to recreate that picture for the people on ground was surprisingly difficult. What was the phrase? A picture was worth a thousand words. Those teams who had people on brooms would probably have an advantage for this part of the task. She could only hope that the balance would be redressed later on.

OOC – Obviously I will do my best to interject frequently with further directions, however I will not regard it as writing for Effie if you wish to make general decisions about where you are being instructed to go, e.g. bearing to the left or whatever, either as a whole group instruction or to you personally if you might not be walking quite straight. She will also do her best to keep you out of waist-high mud and would thus instruct you to stop before you toppled over an edge.
13 Effie Arbon In small doses, I believe 238 Effie Arbon 0 5


Reggie

March 25, 2013 8:46 PM
She wasn’t surprised that Isabel agreed with her to use the rocks. Isabel was such a small thing and one of those girls that Reggie would never be. Proper and Pure. Reggie was small herself, not quite 5’3, but she felt like she was strong. She spent most of her childhood and adolescence camping, hiking, swimming, and every day running around. Reggie wasn’t even sure if these proper girls knew what it was to sweat. So, instead of forcing them to break a nail, she’d help them out as best she could during this adventure. Besides, it wasn’t like she wanted to be a complete mess herself when she came out the other end of it.

She looked up toward the sky when she heard Effie’s voice. It was really weird to hear her disembodied voice. “Great, thank you, Effie!” Reggie said cheerfully. Because Isabel was still working on the team, Reggie knew Effie wouldn’t do anything to sabotage them if it meant sacrificing her best friend. That was a little bit of a mean thought to have, but she felt it was true. Under different circumstances, Reggie wasn’t sure if she would have believed anything the second year said.

Reggie went to discuss tactics and put the rocks down for her teammates when Waverly charged forward. Annoyed, which only worsened when the fourth year took her shoes off! The girl didn’t even care to wait for instructions. This was what was going to get their team into trouble. Reggie was so annoyed right now and she knew she probably looked that way too. Her jaw was tense, her hands clenched to the point where she could feel the rocks digging into her fist. Reggie took a deep breath and turned away from the younger girl when Effie started to tell Waverly where to go and towards the rest of her team. “Well, while Waverly wastes our time doing things her own way, I’m going to start dropping rocks where Effie has outlined for us. This way, the rest of you guys can just amble on over after me.” Reggie advised them.

“Please, keep your shoes on at all times. We don’t know what’s in this mud. You could step on something and really hurt yourself. Also, I don’t want you guys having to carry around your shoes. The only thing that should be in your hands is your wand. We can clean off your shoes when we get to the other side. Let me get at least three stones out and then Isabel, I want you to come next, then Eris, and then Nora. Everyone ready?”

With that, Reggie plopped a rock a step into the mud and used her wand to enlarge it. It didn’t need to be very big at this point because the mud was so shallow. It didn’t take her long to reach where Waverly had gotten stuck, but Effie had done a great job of guiding her that Reggie didn’t have trouble figuring out where to drop the stone and tested it out with her own weight to be sure it was securely at the bottom before continuing on.

It had taken several rocks and one slip into the mud when she lost her footing, but it was only as deep as her knee, but she had managed to do it. She really felt that this first hurtle was meant to be rather simple (although some teams may over think it) but she knew the next hurtle would be twice as hard. Effie proved herself nicely as the Overseer and Reggie really hoped that it kept up for the rest of the challenge. “Awesome job, Effie!” Reggie called out into the air, complimenting her teammate. “Alright team, keep it up! We can do this! Just a little further!” She called out to the others who were still crossing.
6 Reggie It has fantastic minerals, or so I've heard. 187 Reggie 0 5


Waverly

March 26, 2013 5:48 AM
Rocks were a good idea, but Waverly wanted to continue to plow forward through the mud. If Effie led them well enough, then it should be fine. Reggie was obviously upset with her taking charge, but Waverly only thought of saving time. Taking time to measure where to put the rocks and enlarge them and then test them out took time which Waverly didn't want to waste. Hadn't these girls ever been through mud before?

And then she remembered pureblood girls probably hadn't. Waverly going through was just another bad representation of muggle-borns, but Waverly couldn't care. She really didn't mind mud. It felt nice between the toes. Reggie also told them to keep their shoes on, too late for Waverly, but Waverly thought it was a lot easier to feel the edge of a drop in the mud with her toes than with shoes. Besides, shoes were liable to get stuck and then there would be more time spent trying to dig it out. It all made sense in her head, as she trusted the professors not to kill them, but of course no one thought the same way.

Reggie took charge of doing the rocks and Waverly waited idly by, trying not to be annoyed at herself. She would never be as awesome as Reggie or as smart as Nora. She was just going to stay in the back now and not get in anyone's way. She sighed as she followed right after Reggie, allowing the older girl to take charge of everything. Waverly wasn't used to being the follower so it would take a little practice. She got to the edge and, while everyone else was crossing, she turned to Reggie.

"Sorry for not waiting to listen to directions," she said, a little embarrassed. "I just thought going through would be faster. I won't do that next time." She cleaned her feet with magic and put on her socks and shoes again before smiling at the girl she admired apologetically.
0 Waverly Hopefully not dangerous chemicals 0 Waverly 0 5


Reggie

March 27, 2013 9:36 PM
While waiting for the rest of the team to arrive, Waverly decided to address her actions during this obstacle course. Reggie didn’t look at her at first, still a little annoyed by what she had done, and instead kept a close watch on the rest of the team members still making their way through. “Any other day, I would have agreed with you.” Reggie commented. “A mud pit doesn’t bother me much. I grew up with just a dad, so playing in the dirt was normal. But I have to look out for everyone on this team and make sure they are all comfortable with the choices that we make.” Reggie explained.

“This is a team building game and if one of us strays, that will cost us more than anything else. You have to look at the whole picture. Just because you made it through the mud – after asking for Effie’s help, might I add – doesn’t mean someone like Isabel would have. She’s small and young. What if someone had become stuck in it? That would be additional time to dig them out. I chose the rock idea because it kept them happy and didn’t waste too much time getting them from one end to the other.” Reggie explained to Waverly.

“I get it if you don’t like me as the leader of our team, but I do ask that you at least try to work with everyone even if you don’t understand why or like it. We all have to work together and make the most of this time. I want to win, but I also want to have fun and make sure everyone else does their best too. Does that make sense?” She asked Waverly. “I’m not saying sit back and just follow along. If you have an idea or something, speak up, but just don’t charge ahead anymore.”


OOC: Feel free to keep posting here. I started the 2nd part for anyone who wants to move on there.
6 Reggie Doubtful for a school 187 Reggie 0 5