DH Skies

August 09, 2019 10:35 AM
There had been an introduction, of sorts, to the first task, posted a week in advance.

‘The first challenge will require a combination of physical skills and ingenuity. Whilst speed will be of the essence, Professors may award bonus marks for use of their subject, and groups will be graded based on everyone participating. You are allowed to prepare resources in advance and may bring whatever supplies you feel may be necessary.’

Selina had to admit she’d sort of had fun writing that. In some ways, it was so obscure as to maybe not be particularly helpful, but she looked forward to seeing what the students came up with - and, as noted, there was a certain amount of credit availability for the ingenuity with which they solved the challenges put to them, thus she thought there might be some interesting results from seeing how they applied their ready-made solutions to the problems, rather than working the usual way round - though those who just opted to throw themselves in would no doubt yield fun of their own kind.

On the day of the challenge itself, the teams were given an approximate time at which to come to the Cascade Hall, as sitting around waiting didn’t seem like it would be much fun for the latter numbers.Selina doubted that many who had completed the challenges would be likely to pass on information, though she supposed there might be some with a loyalty outside their own team who might. The bigger problem was probably them trying to psych out other teams. Thus once teams had completed the challenge, they would be escorted to the MARS rooms where they could get snacks, amuse themselves and trade stories with the other survivors, with the art room designated as a quiet zone for anyone who wished to study.

There was a section of the gardens that had been closed off since the previous evening, and so it probably came as no surprise when they were led out there. As they assembled at the start, they were given the additional information that they would be facing an obstacle course, and that it had four parts - meaning that they should aim for some collaboration or multiple spells on at least one part if they wanted to get marks for all their team members making meaningful contributions.

The first obstacle had a small sign in front of it reading ‘Get to the other side.’ There was a climbing wall of approximately ten feet. It leant away at a slight angle to improve the ease of getting up it, and was dotted with a number of hand and footholds. ‘Dotted’ was an apt word. These were well spaced, and some of them were exceedingly small, or otherwise in shapes that did not offer a good deal of purchase. It was probably scalable as was, but only to someone who had both strength and dexterity, and/or a decent amount of experience in bouldering, as it would be a fairly technical climb. The wall was bounded on either side by dense patches of vegetation, including poisoned ivy and and venomous tentacular. There was a substantial crash mat on either side, for anyone who fell on the way up, and to offer an easier way down on the other side.

On the other side of the wall was a small platform, in which a sign reading ‘stand here’ was posted. Once all the members of a team were on it, it would raise itself to a height of fifteen feet. This no longer represented a safe height for any human being to fall, and this time there was no crashmat available. The students would have to work out to make it safe for themselves, because the sign now read ‘Get down.’

The plus side of their new position was that it gave them an overview of the next two obstacles - there was a forest ahead, and beyond that just the slightest glint of water was visible. Anyone who tried to take a shortcut across the top of these would find themselves hitting an invisible barrier, and a large, angry arrow appearing - the sign had been very clear, after all; from the platform, they were to go down. Predictably enough, the direction for the forest was ‘get through’ - a task which would be made more challenging by the trees’ tendency to push them back or grab at them. They were not as fierce as Whomping Willows, and no student was likely to meet serious harm at their hands (or rather branches) but their behaviour definitely suggested they preferred not to be disturbed by the pitter-patter of human feet.

The river’s notice read ‘get across.’ The staff had at least been kind enough to provide some support - there were various materials, such as planks of wood or plastic tubs, but nothing that was in a good enough state of repair to support a human being. The river itself was deep enough that no one was likely to keep their head above if they tried to wade, but it didn’t seem to be moving very fast or present any obvious dangers. Once the students finished it, there was a simple finish line marked on the ground, and once they had crossed this, their time would be noted and they would be escorted to the MARS rooms.

OOC - welcome to the challenges! These will be marked in accordance with the guidelines above. As per class posts, each team member’s best post will be scored from 1-5, with each of their other contributions receiving a point - so, getting as many members in as possible is important, but being active and vocal within your team will help too.

As per Quidditch, you do not have to stick to a given posting order.

Bonus points may be given for being extra brilliant, or if a team shows particular use of a subject area over and above what other teams do.
Subthreads:
0 DH Skies The First Challenge 26 DH Skies 1 5

DH Skies

August 09, 2019 10:41 AM
 
0 DH Skies Team 6 (nm) 26 DH Skies 0 5

Dorian Montoir

August 12, 2019 9:17 PM
Dorian was starting to feel that the challenges were being constructed in such a way as to thoroughly ruin his life and cause him continuous anxiety. Why did they keep having to announce things in advance? Things which he had no control over, but which then hung over him like a spectre? First, it had been the team lists, being told in the morning that they would find out at dinner, and having to spend the whole day worrying about who he’d be with. Now, for the first challenge, they had given him a whole week to fret over the fact that it was physical. Dorian couldn’t do physical challenges. He was shorter than half of the fourth years, and even some of the younger students, in spite of being a fifth year. He had the physique of a twig that had been left out in the rain, and the strength to match. And he had a week to somehow try to deal with that, so that he wasn’t dead weight to his team, three out of the remaining four of whom were Quidditch players. He had hopes that Julius might be as pathetic as he was. The boy edited the school paper, which was about as athletic as any of Dorian’s endeavours, but was two years younger than him. On the one hand, having two of them who were utterly useless wasn’t going to be great or get the whole ordeal over with quickly, but on the other, it would be nice not to be the only stringy little nerd who held everyone back. The worst way he could see of it backfiring though was if Julius did prove to be quite inept and pitifully weak, but just not quite so much so as Dorian. He was fine with Heinrich, a fourth year Quidditch player, outdoing him. He wasn’t great with the idea of Beatriz, a second year girl, being better than him but had done his best to make his peace with the fact that she might be. He not fine with being the most pathetic member on a team where there was an almost-equally-but-just-not-quite-as pathetic third year.

One week’s worth of physical exercise was not likely to yield much improvement, or do anything except hammer home the point to him that he was a useless weakling and that all sport was painful, and so he had turned to a much more reliable source of preparation instead - the library. There were all manner of spells and potions that could be used to transform one’s abilities, after all.

As they gathered in the hall, waiting for their allotted time, he figured he may as well talk through what he’d brought, so they were prepared.

“I am not so good at physical things,” he stated, figuring he may as well get that out of the way up front. He was fairly sure it came as no surprise to anyone who could actually see him, but perhaps they had been harbouring delusions that behind his quiet bookish exterior there was… something other than someone quiet and bookish. If they had been, they were very wrong. “But I brewed a strengthening solution, for any of us," he stated. "I got Professor Brooding to check, and it is correctly done,” he added. He hadn’t been sure if that would be considered cheating, but the poster had said any preparation he thought was necessary, and he felt that checking that his potions were not going to poison himself or anyone else counted as ‘necessary.’ She had confirmed both that this was allowed and that his potion was safe to drink. He had to do quite a bit of research to find the right kind of 'strengthening' - there were a lot of charms and potions that reinforced objects, making them more durable. These were not fit for human consumption, and were really the opposite of what they wanted for the obstacles, though that had opened up a whole other avenue of research for him; not just what they could do to enhance themselves, but what they could do to reduce the obstacles in their path. "I made also a shrinking solution, so that perhaps we can remove an obstacle from in our way, and a weakening potion - you can apply to things to make them easier to destroy. I also practised reducto for this.”

Potions and Defence were not his natural fortes. He much more excelled at Charms, especially the pretty ones. However, as he’d been all too painfully aware of for the entire week, they were not in his comfort zone. Potions seemed to offer the most in the way of things that let you become a better version of yourself, at least in terms of physical prowess, and a few well placed hexes were always useful to have up your sleeve. He was normally far, far better at defensive than offensive spells, but 'reducto' had been the lesson where Simon had been openly xenophobic to Tatya, so Dorian had found himself surprisingly adept at blowing large chunks out of statues, especially Crotalus', and it seemed to be a knack that had stuck. It probably also helped that it was a spell that he wasn't required to use against people, which was generally his main issue with hexes.

They made their way out, Dorian feeling his stomach twisting in knots as they approached the course. He just about held his groan on the inside as the first thing they faced was a climbing wall. He really hoped no one suggested just climbing it. It looked hard. He had made a substantial amount of shrinking solution, on the assumption that inconvenient obstacles were likely to be large. He wasn't sure quite how much it would reduce the wall by, but any degree of 'less wall' was a good thing. He was also pretty sure that he, Heinrich and Isaac could blast a hole through it if they so chose. But he wasn’t in charge, and he’d already explained what he had to offer. He just very much hoped the chosen solution involved the wall just not really being there any more.
13 Dorian Montoir Can we just... skip it? 1401 Dorian Montoir 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

August 15, 2019 1:26 PM
Heinrich was as ready as he was going to be for the first challenge. He had spent the week leading up to it preparing a bag of supplies. These included books - most of his textbooks, an English-German dictionary, as well as a few German how-to survival books in case they needed to build a raft or survive on meals cooked over campfires or something. With that in mind, he was also supplied with rice, lettuce, spices, fishing hooks, and a large canteen of water. He also had a sewing kit, some paints and brushes, and a deck of exploding snap cards (as vague as the challenge announcement was, he was not putting it past the staff to mean fine motor activities instead of gross motor activities when they said physical skills would be required).

With the bonus points up for grabs, he naturally had his wand, of course, but he also had gloves and shears for herbology, some favorite treats and lures for various creatures, and a variety of premade potions, including calming draughts, cleaning solutions, and sleakeazy hair potions (in case they needed something slick and greasy).

More things were added as they occurred to him - some parchment, quills and ink, a cooking pot (which could double as a makeshift cauldron if they needed to brew anything on the fly - so his whole potions kits was in there, too), a fork, a knife (he’d debated the legality of that one, not sure if weapons were permitted or not, but if they were going to cook fish or prepare potion ingredients they’d need some way of slicing them, of course, so he left it in, carefully wrapped so nobody could hurt themselves rooting around in the bag), a broom (thrown in almost as an afterthought after practice last night), and a pillow. Because you never knew when you might need a pillow. And then, in a last flurry of panic, he added soap, shampoo, a towel, his toothbrush, toothpaste, a pair of pajamas, a change of clothes, and a blanket because nobody had promised this wouldn’t be an overnight trip.

He couldn’t even lift the bag without featherlight charms on it, and he’d needed to make it much larger on the inside to fit it all (and also shrink some of the larger items), but he was in Cascade Hall, on time (barely), and totally prepared for anything.

He put the bag down with a great loud clunk and greeted his teammates. “I have much things,” he told them once enough hellos had been exchanged. He risked a smile, the expression unfamiliar and slightly unnatural on his face as he joked, “I hope we not need the kitchen sink, because I have not only that thing.”

Heinrich had not expected Dorian to be hiding a weightlifting champion under his skinny frame so the older boy’s admission evoked little surprise, though his selection of potions to offset his lack of natural ability was less expected and entirely welcome. “Good idea,” he approved. “I have not those either.” He decided not to mention the sleakeazy in his own bag unless they actually needed it. Compared to strengthening solution, it seemed kind of useless.

They waited a little while, and he blinked in baffled confusion when he saw Hilda walk in carrying a large painting that he was reasonably certain did not belong to her, but he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to go over and ask her about it, being on different teams and all, so he didn’t. Soon enough though, his team was escorted out and he promptly forgot about Hilda’s apparent art theft as they were told they had a four part obstacle course ahead of them.

He knew what an obstacle was, and he knew what a course was, but he was momentarily thrown by thinking of a course as a school subject instead of a path to take, but the climbing wall before them set him back in the right direction and he soon grasped what the two words together were supposed to convey after only a slight delay.

“Ah,” he said aloud as realization dawned. He was carrying a lot of things they would probably not need. This was for the best. He didn’t actually know how to use fishing hooks (though he had a book), nor did he particularly want to sleep on the ground tonight.

“Get to the other side,” Heinrich read aloud. “It say not climb, or go over,” he pointed out. “Dorian has shrinking solution. I have gloves and shears. We can make smaller wall, not so wide, cut plants, go around?” He eyed the ominous looking fanged plants with violently lashing vines doubtfully. “Know anyone what that is?” The more Heinrich thought about getting close enough to use his shears, the more dangerous it looked. He wondered if stupify worked on plants.
1 Heinrich Hexenmeister The rules don’t say we can’t 1414 Heinrich Hexenmeister 0 5

Isaac Song

August 19, 2019 6:02 PM
Since the labyrinth had been closed last night, Isaac knew the first challenge was going to be right outside his common room. It helped prepare him mentally for some kind of outdoorsy challenge. The outdoors always made him think of physically-demanding obstacles or something, so he made sure he got a good night's sleep. He liked his team even though he didn't know the younger years too well. Dorian and Heinrich, he felt like he could count on. Hopefully Julius and Beatriz would prove to be really helpful too.

The first challenge, as Isaac had predicted, was a physical one. He was pretty athletic and didn't doubt that he could be the muscle of the group especially after what Dorian admitted. The challenge itself was going to be an obstacle course that also required them to be creative in coming up with solutions. That was just a given. Luckily, it looked like both Dorian and Heinrich had come prepared with more than just their wands. Isaac was surprised by Heinrich's bag of supplies, and he was curious as to what the German boy had brought. It sounded like a lot of stuff.

Dorian's idea of shrinking the obstacle was brilliant. Isaac smiled. "That's great. Thanks for bringing those potions." Isaac wished he'd thought a little harder about what he could have brought. He hadn't really taken it that seriously, and it wasn't like he knew what to bring or prepare for anyway. A physical challenge to him mostly meant using his body, and he was pretty good at climbing and jumping off stuff and balancing. At least that was an asset he could bring to his team, though it was nothing compared to potions or gardening shears. Surprisingly, those were going to come in handy.

Dorian and Heinrich had come up with an awesome plan, and he told them so. "You guys are great. Sounds like a perfect plan." He shook his head when Heinrich asked what the plants were. "I don't know, but it doesn't look safe. I never took Herbology." Maybe that would be something he'd regret after this challenge when the plants tried to eat them.

"Alright, so if everything goes to plan we'll cut down our time by a ton. I might not look it, but I'm pretty strong so I can do whatever physical things need to be done. I'm also great with spells." He turned to the plants again. "I could try to stun the plants or freeze them and Heinrich, you could cut into them as soon as they're immobile." He raised his wand and pointed it at the freaky-looking plants. "You guys ready to win? Cause I am."
19 Isaac Song I like the idea very much 375 Isaac Song 0 5

Dorian Montoir

August 23, 2019 10:02 AM
Dorian was intrigued as Heinrich’s bag went down with a distinctive thud. It made him feel reassured to know that someone else had prepared, and by the sounds of it pretty thoroughly - both because prepared was what they were supposed to be and because his own had felt like he was striving to make up for inadequacies; he did not feel Heinrich had such inadequacies, and therefore the fact that Heinrich had seemed to feel the need to prepare was somehow reassuring that his own preparation was merely logical and not just a sign of him being dead weight. Or something. Maybe it was because he just like preparation. It made him feel safer. He didn’t know what was coming but he knew they had plenty to throw at it.

Heinrich seemed to be in a more cheerful mood that Dorian had seen him before, and Dorian made sure to return his smile, and give an appreciative little nod to show that he had both heard and enjoyed the fact that Heinrich had made a joke using his less confident language, and in particular using the idioms of that language to make the joke. Dorian knew how much it could feel like putting yourself out on a limb to try and get non-literal in English. He joked with his friends, but not much outside of that.

He continued to very much enjoy Heinrich’s contributions as they faced the first obstacle. He was staring at the wall, wondering whether brute strength from a bottle was going to be enough for him to get up it when Heinrich pointed something out. Other side. Not necessarily over.

“This is true,” he confirmed, with a relieved grin. And the best part was, Isaac seemed okay with this too. Isaac, in fact, was thanking him for bringing potions. Isaac had used the word ‘great’ about his and Heinrich’s contributions twice.

“You’re welcome,” he managed reflexively in response to being thanked. “It’s not… I was just…” he wanted to say that it wasn’t a big deal, and that he’d just been making up for what he lacked, but he was aware that any kind of rambling wasted valuable time, and he was very bad at not just going off on a tangent, especially when he was feeling awkward, so he just sort of shrugged at the ground, but looked sort of pleased that Isaac seemed pleased with him.

“It can bite,” Dorian stated when asked the plant’s name. He recognised it, but he had only ever read its name and was hesitant to attempt pronouncing it out loud. What it was going to do to them was probably more relevant than what it was called anyway. “And the bite is… like a snake. It will put poison in you.”

For a second, he was almost feeling good. They had a plan. A plan in which, by some complete fluke, he was actually useful, and in which he didn’t have to go too near the venomous tentacular, and no one was yelling at him to get over the wall or just toughen up and be able to do it. And then Isaac asked if they were ready to win. Dorian’s baseline for this not being a disaster was that he didn’t die, either due to the obstacles themselves or the sheer humiliation. Getting through it was the goal. Being anything but dead weight seemed like a dizzy and unattainable height. Now Isaac wanted them to all be winners.

“Um, I’ll try,” he stumbled through the words, and knew as soon as he’d said them, his voice sounding awkward and deflated, that he hadn’t sounded committed. Hadn’t sounded like a winner.

“Anyway… wall…” he mumbled. He fumbled, feeling like he took an embarrassingly long time to unfasten his satchel strap (though in reality it was barely noticeable - it was just his fingers felt clumsy all of a sudden). He extracted the shrinking solution and dropped it experimentally on the nearest bit of wall. It buckled, drawing inwards, the grain of the wood visibly distorting as if someone had pinched it where he’d dripped the potion. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he just poured the whole thing down the wall at once - whether it would shrink as much as it was possible to shrink it and then whether there was a risk that excess would be wasted. He had expected they would face fairly big things, and so he had brought quite a lot of potion but he didn’t want to waste any, just in case. He reached higher, pouring a small stream down. That part of the wall seemed to knit together. When he poured more potion down the same part, it seemed to have less effect. Perhaps that part was already as shrunken as it could be. He placed the bottle as close to the edge as he could get without getting too near the plants and poured, dragging the bottle in a horizontal line as he did so, and watching with satisfaction as the wall visible contracted, like a fan being folded, a gap starting to appear at the side.
13 Dorian Montoir Phew 1401 Dorian Montoir 0 5

Heinrich

August 23, 2019 5:08 PM
They bite, like snakes with poison. Wonderful. But Isaac was going to immobilize them, so he could chop their heads off. Great. He was so going to wind up in the infirmary today. But he nodded in agreement to the plan. Isaac was a seventh year and great with spells. Maybe it would work out all right. “Yes. Immobile then cut. Yes. I do this.” He flexed his shears to show he knew he had the cutting half of that plan.

Heinrich smiled a bit at Isaac’s rallying cry. Dorian’s response wasn’t quite as inspiring, but Heinrich chimed in, “I am ready to win!” He played just enough Quidditch to know this was the appropriate response regardless of accuracy. “Let us do this!”

And they did. Dorian started shrinking the wall, Isaac cast at the plants, immobilizing them, and Heinrich darted in with his shears, chopping off plant bits with fangs before quickly retreating until Isaac froze the next one. And then, between the wall shrinking, and plants getting sheared apart, Heinrich abruptly realized it was clear enough for his next retreat to be toward the other side of the wall. He was a bit smaller than Isaac, so another few darting snips were necessary before the opening was big enough for him to pass through, but soon enough they had a clear path, and Heinrich’s only scratch was from a sharp spot along the wall rather than one of the plants. “Watch out there,” he cautioned before the others came across. “Sharp.”

He also thought he must have brushed through the poison ivy - he’d been a lot more concerned about poisoned plant fangs than he was about the itchy weed so most of his chopping had been in regards to the more immediate threat and the rest he just trampled over - but usually the itch could be avoided if it was cleaned fast enough, so he cast Scourgify on himself and on each of his teammates’ legs as they reached his side of the wall. He cast it one more time on his shears before returning them to his bag.

Once his bag was closed and secure again, he turned his attention to the next obstacle, wondering was kind of open ended vagueness might confront them next.

“Stand here,” he read, and there really didn’t seem to be terribly much room for misinterpretation or creative alternatives to that so he stood there. He liked the simple directness of it.
1 Heinrich Standing here 1414 Heinrich 0 5

Dorian

August 25, 2019 12:05 AM
Unsurprisingly, Heinrich was also in the ‘yay, let’s be winners!’ camp. Great. It wasn’t like Dorian didn’t like the idea of winning - who didn’t, after all, want that? - it just seemed fairly impossible, and he felt that he was likely to be the reason they didn’t. And if you took a bunch of people who desperately wanted to win, and then the one person who was the reason they hadn’t… Well, it was generally not a good combination. The amount of desire they had to win was directly proportional to the amount they were going to hate his guts if they didn’t.

The gap was getting bigger, and Heinrich was able to squeeze through. Given that Dorian was on the small side, that probably meant it was big enough for him too. Still, he gave the wall a few more doses of shrinking solution, which he could say was to make it big enough for Isaac but was really to increase the distance between him and the venomous tentacula. He cast a shield charm as precaution on his way through too, just to be on the safe side.

Stand here. That was neither obstacle nor challenge.

“Let us keep wands ready. That is not an obstacle, so it is maybe a surprise,” he observed. He really did not want to stand there. He did not trust it. It practically screamed that something was about to leap out at them. Still, he shuffled obediently over to the platform, trying not to be the one to hesitate, because it wasn’t like he could avoid whatever was about to happen, and he would just be losing them precious microseconds by being a sissy about it.

Once they were all assembled, he felt a jolt beneath his feet. He steadied his posture, but there didn’t seem to be much he could do, and the movement was over before he had had time to think about any spells to fire. So, he had been right about the surprise but not the need to tackle it, because now there was an obstacle.

“Get down,” he read. He was standing solidly in the middle of the platform and did not move to the edge to look. It was obviously going to be too far for that to be easy. The shrinking solution was probably not going to work here; if he applied it to the part they were standing on, it would just most likely reduce the area of that, which did not seem desirable, rather than bring them closer to the ground. He stared forward.

“We have also a forest and a river,” he observed, looking over the next two obstacles.
13 Dorian Careful, it might be a trap 1401 Dorian 0 5

Heinrich

August 25, 2019 10:14 PM
Of course, 'stand here' was not much of a challenge and naturally there was more to it than that. Dorian realized that quickly and warned them to have their wands ready. Heinrich drew his and took a wary stance, fully believing he'd probably need it.

They didn't. At least, not for self-defense.

Heinrich involuntarily reached out a hand to steady himself against Isaac as they shot fifteen feet up into the air without any kind of warning. It wasn't so fast that he was in any danger of actually flying off the platform, or even really falling down on the platform, but the instinct to steady himself when the ground under him moved was not one he was able to ignore.

It stopped moving and Dorian read their new instructions. Get down. Right. Well, that was certainly more like a challenge than standing where they were told. And, in keeping with the tone for the rest of this challenge, appropriately vague.

He took a brief look out over the forest and river that would be coming up, but focused most of his attention toward the immediate problem at hand.

"I have a blanket," he offered carefully. "We can transfigure it into something?" he suggested uncertainly. The uncertainty stemmed in part from the variety of options that might be helpful but which he could not decide which would prove more helpful, and partly because he wasn't sure he wanted to admit to bringing a blanket and making them wonder why he'd thought that was necessary to have along. "Or we can make it bigger and slide down?"
1 Heinrich It's a trap. Sort of. 1414 Heinrich 0 5