The Red Queen's Labyrinth Group 2

Banner by Skylar Astor

Interacting with:	@Zephyr Deakin, @Harumi Everdane,
—	@Skylar Astor & @Edward Bishop
Dialogue:	#770B08
Words:	321

He took off running. It was probably a smart move to wipe the bottom of his shoes, because his feet didn’t slip once as he dashed toward the big swinging axe. He hadn’t timed it particularly well since his first and only thought had been to beat the others in getting across. As he closed in and the axe moved to once again send them flying, he ducked low and upped the speed.

It was close, he could feel the pressure of the wind as he cleared the obstacle and skidded to a halt. Pivoting, he raised his arms in triumph. «And that’s how it’s done!» Keeping his hands up to offer high-fives to the others, he caught sight of Harumi being thrown into the water yet again. The sight was so comical he had to slap both hands over his mouth to stop the oncoming laughter. Not that he succeeded much. Moving his hands to his stomach, he doubled over with a cackle.

«If anyone will get a trophy in swimming, it’ll be you!» He called out as he tried to get the laughing to stop. But he pulled himself together soon enough when Ed cast the levitation charm and the girls discussed how to best approach. Looking at the axe, he considered for a moment to run at it again, jump up and attempt to weigh it down somehow and slow it. But with his luck he would easily find himself back in the water. He was a strong swimmer, but he didn’t much fancy another one so soon. So he settled on pumping a fist into the air and yelling. «You got this, that big thing is nothing to the power of friendship and a bit of speed!» It did perhaps sound a bit silly, but everyone could use a bit of support and there was no better cheering quad than Max. At least in his own mind.

Action:

Being hype-squad for Skylar and Harumi

Stats:

Sta 6

Eva 5

Str 8

Wis 4

Arc 5

Acc 7

Made by Skylar Astor

Ever since he was thrown out, Zephyr stopped trusting the axe. It may be a simple obstacles but what it's doing was not random. It's not cruel in the usual sense, you just have to learn them. He moved in with the others, Max first who moved without hesitation while Edward was probably a bit calculative, and him without thinking and just do it. What else can you do in a situation like this but just try and try until you succeed. It's the most logical plan for him, easy to execute.

Just go, just move. That's what been running in his mind over and over again as he ran but he didn't try to outpace it, instead he matched it. It was the difference he finally understood after his humiliation of being thrown like he was nothing at all and after the pool swallowed his pride. The axe continue to move behind him as he crossed. Solid ground, not air. He ended up with Max and Edward on the other side. He shouted while grinning from ear to ear. "Woooohoooooo!!! Finally!" Turning to Max, he offered the guy both his hands for high five. The same thing he did with Edward just to show his excitement.

His celebration ended abruptly as Harumi and Skylar's voices reached his ears. He turned toward the pool and saw both the girls fell again. Harumi went up the ladder again and wrapped herself in towels ready to breath fire. He had to turn away because if he looked directly at her grumpy, wet, and done expression, he was going to make it worse. But when he heard her blame the axe for taking revenge for him, he completely forgot she volunteered him a while ago, not that it was a big deal to him but hearing her complain was enough to amuse him.

He chuckled and then it morphed into laughter. He did try to control it by wiping his face with the back of his hand but it was not easy. "I...I’m sorry..." His laughter was so loud by now and in between he was apologizing, "I’m trying..." another laugh came out, "Don't blame me, the axe must have its preferences." He was still laughing when she went to Skylar to ask her to do it together. "Friendship is a life saver..." He tried coaxing the two girls although his grin wouldn't disappear off his face. "Go, go, go girls!" He chanted in a teasing way because Skylar was in the same mood by now. Hearing her say she would hunt down whoever built this place and everyone else too, that earned another laugh from him. "Hey, we're innocent." Though not so innocent for laughing so hard. “Don’t rush it..!” He offered as a support.

Action: Laughing his arse off while cheering for the girls
Stat: Sta: 5, Eva: 5, Str: 7, Wis: 5, Arc: 8, Acc: 5
Special Ability: Calming Presence

After some successes and some failures team two has decided to get right back at it with the same strategy. Except this time since Edward was among those who made it across he casts the Levitation Charm on the axe. It was perfect timing and success! The axe is now floating in the air making passage safer and easier from all of the rest of the team.

Upon the successful use of the spell Harumi makes it across first, then Skylar. Yay! It's been a success.

It seemed as if the swinging axe had just been the start of many trials to infiltrate the Red Queen’s Palace. Past perfectly-trimmed hedges and grand, pointed trefoil arches made by marble, the challengers would find their polished pebble path leading to a huge gatehouse. SHKK. If they looked up at the walls, they would see a stack of human-sized cards dishing themselves apart in the blink of an eye. The card soldiers stared down from above, watching them with oddly-curved spears in their hands.

“Intruders!”
“Have they come to overthrow the Queen?”
“LOWER THE GATE!”

A heavy, wooden portcullis reinforced with heavy steel bounced up from the ground like a meerkat from its burrow before the challengers could attempt, wobbling before hardened into a formidable barrier blocking their path. 5 hearts glowed on the portcullis, shimmering with vitality.

Without a ladder or rope to scale the wall, there seemed to be only one way through: You’re gonna have to knock this gate DOWN!!

For those with strong magical power, fish out your wands and cast your strongest offensive spells to weaken the gate! For the fit and strong, a good throw could do more than a wand! At the foot of the gatehouse, pebbles and rocks of strange shapes laid in a pile from the Red Queen’s last path renovation. Convenient, huh?

Moderator's Notes

Reducio

Harumi runs forward[d20+5=24] Success!
Edward Levitation Charm [d20+11=20] Success!
Skylar runs forward [d20+5] Success!

OOC Instructions

Reducio

Rules

Congratulations, your group has made it to the fourth obstacle! Almost the end~ Please note the following rules for this obstacle:

1. Moderation will happen if at least HALF of the members in the group posted an action.
a. Due to moderators’ schedules, moderation may take 1-1.5 weeks.
b. If one or no members post an action that round, moderation will happen only the next week to give more time for members to post. This is for the sake of progress

2. If there are any special circumstances (eg, members ill), please owl us. We will consider making exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

3. Each participant is allowed one moderated action per round. Please include your abilities and stats in your post.
a. Please specify your moderated action in your post (as an OOC note).
b. Moderated actions are those actions that require rolls like casting a spell

4. Please follow all usual HIO rules.
This includes 200 IC word requirements.

OBSTACLE 4 SPECIAL INSTRUCTION:
For this obstacle, your characters will be able to use different means to break down the gate! You can use:
Spells from our Duelling System! We will be using the damage equations from here. This is good for players with high wisdom and/or arcane stats.
Small projectiles (the rocks and pebbles mentioned). We will be using the Broom Racing System’s damage equation for small projectiles. This is good for players with high strength stats.

YOU CAN ONLY CHOOSE TO CAST ONE SPELL, OR THROW ONE PROJECTILE.

Notes:
Please do NOT assume the outcomes of spells/throws before the moderation post. This defeats the point of a moderated thread, and if you RP a different outcome, the posts and action outcomes become inconsistent.
Moderation notes will be left for each player, with the rolls and damage equations shown.

Group 2:
@Zephyr Deakin
@Maximilianus Kenneally Vidler
@Harumi Everdane
@Edward Bishop
@Skylar Astor

☆Made by Skylar Astor☆

She will not lie and say she passed because of her skills, or because she learned from the pervious failed attempts, no, because truthfully she was just running forward hoping to be lucky this time around or for that friendship magic to work.

♠︎♥︎ And she'll have to admit, apparently yes, all that talking about friendship and love magic may hold some truth to it after all, or maybe it was luck, or maybe Edward's spell, or maybe something else entirely. She doesn't know, and isn't very keen on knowing, she's still in a bad mood, especially because at some point she heard the two boys laughing, and it doesn't need much thinking to know what, or in this case who, they were laughing about.

♣︎◆ "I'm coming for you two!!" She threatened the moment she saw them. She took out her wand, but before doing anything realized she shouldn't exactly attack her friends, so frustrated she just threw her wand at them. It wasn't until the wand was actually out of her hand that she realised how stupid that is, because first, losing her wand isn't exactly the best idea, and second, that probably didn't hurt them at all, especially with the fact her aim couldn't have been worse, the wand just fell on the floor!

♠︎♥︎ "Ahem.. It flew out of my hand while I was.. Umm.. Deciding what attack spell is best to attack..." She lied. It was then that she moved to pick up her wand. "Well, I'll consider this as a sign to not execute my revenge today." She said in an awfully serious tone giving them more reasons to laugh than be scared.

♣︎◆ Without listening to anyone else, she looked around to see the next obstacle. She saw the gate closing and someone screaming something about overthrowing the queen. "Overthrowing the queen? Skylar! Was this your plan all along?! Traitor! I thought we were just trying to escape the labyrinth!" She teasingly accused the girl. "You could have told me! I can be your knight if you want to be the queen." She offered while grinning. "Edward can be the chef, Zephyr the butler, and then Max the jester!" She continued mischievously.

♠︎♥︎ She takes out her wand again, this time not to attack the boys but to try and break down the door. "Well, for that to come true, we need to break through this gate first!" She said far too enthusiastically for the fact that she's attacking something. "Flipendo!" She attempted.

Banner by Skylar Astor

Interacting with:	@Zephyr Deakin, @Harumi Everdane,
—	@Skylar Astor & @Edward Bishop
Dialogue:	#770B08
Words:	395

The power of friendship indeed. Wether it was the cheering from Zeph and himself, or the decidedly more helpful charm from Ed, the girls made it past the obstacle. He was still chuckling a bit under his breath, and it did not lessen by Harumi throwing her wand at them. Not really seeing exactly what it was she threw, he sidestepped to avoid it before cackling upon seeing the wand,

«It was good work getting past the axe, but I don’t know about the aim of that throw!» He teased in return as they moved along the path ahead. The human sized cards yelling down at them puzzled him. It put him on edge, things beyond his control happening around him like that.

Thankfully for him, Harumi was just a never ending string of humor today. He snorted at the suggestion of staff positions. «That’d be fitting!» He stretched up his arms before committing to a cartwheel that only succeeded in part. With a bit of color in his face, and back on his feet once more, he dragged a hand through his hair. «I bet I’d make a good one though! Entertainment for the queen all day long» He did a theatrical bow.

Sadly they found their path onwards to be blocked. He sized up the entire thing. Not an easy thing to just get rid of. A distant part of his brain started working on a plan to form a human ladder to get past. But Harumi’s action seemed smarter. He pulled out his wand and looked down at it. He wasn’t particularly good with spells, nor did they seem to carry much of a kick when he first managed to get one flying. So he put it away again as he spotted a pile of rocks and pebbles.

«Oh this is just perfect!» His joy was palpable as he picked up a rock about the size of his fist. He turned back to the group, while tossing the rock up and down. «Wanna bet on who makes a hit first?» He ignored the fact that one spell had already been shot, because the point was never to win. The most important thing he could ever do was make sure everyone had fun. Sending a last gleeful smile at the group, he hurled the rock at the obstacle as hard as he could.

Action:

Throwing projectile

Stats:

Sta 6

Eva 5

Str 8

Wis 4

Arc 5

Acc 7

Made by Skylar Astor

Zephyr watched the whole thing with amusement from the opposite side of the pool. After all the splashing, complaints, and accusations against the axe, it turned out the answer was not just running faster or yelling louder, it was their amazing friend Edward who used a levitation charm against the axe which effectively stopped its annoying swinging. "That's friggin’ brilliant Edward." If they have thought about it a while ago, maybe they would have been saved from being turned into a human catapult earlier. With the axe safely out of the way, Harumi and Skylar finally made it across.

He would have cheered and congratulated the two girls but Harumi looked ready to throw hexes at them and even declared she’s coming for them. "Oh no." He laughed again which was not helping his case. The girl grabbed her wand and prepare for whatever terrible revenge she had in mind, but the wand left her hand and landed somewhere on the ground. There was a brief silence as he absorbed what just happened. He looked at her and then at her wand and that was what he really needed, he lost whatever self control he had left in him and burst into laughter. Again, he was apologizing in between his laughter but he was not really sorry. Her serious, or attempt at sounding serious only made it worse. "A likely story, sure.” He wiped a tear in his eye from excessive laughing before finally managing to calm down.

The silver lining in all that she was that she didn't actually hex them. That’s a good sign. They talked about overthrowing the queen and they were given each their role with him ending up as a butler. Out of everyone listed, it’s what he objected to. ”Hey! Why am I butler. Max is literally the rich one." The argument would have laster longer while they were continuing deeper further with their journey if not for the fact that there’s a giant gate in front of them now. The place somehow kept getting bigger and stranger the further they go. He heard shouting first and when he looked up to check what it was about, he saw cards, huge ones, and with spears. His first thought was that they looked ridiculous and second, he knew they were going to be a problem. The card soldiers shouted at them who wanted to lower the gate on them. A heavy gate slammed down in front of them with such heavy force that made him jump. “Woah..” There were five glowing hearts and a pile of rocks on the side.

A grin appeared on his face. Harumi didn’t waste time and used Flipendo spell while Max was in the same line of thinking as him. Who by the way challenge them which he responded to right away. “Oh I bet, it’s going to be me!” It’s big gate, it probably need force both using spells and physical ones. He walked toward the pile of rocks and inspected which one to use. He glanced toward Max and toward the others. "The Queen's going to need a new gate after we’re done here." He stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles and grabbed a rock, weighing it in his arms, “I wonder what are those five glowing hearts, is that the health bar of the gate?” He decided to voice his thoughts to the rest of the group. As everyone did their thing, he also hurled the rock to it with all the strength he could muster.

Action: Throwing projectile (big rock)
Stat: Sta: 5, Eva: 5, Str: 7, Wis: 5, Arc: 8, Acc: 5
Special Ability: Calming Presence

Edward pondered as he faced their next obstacle - it seemed too straightforward to be true but he supposed he had to at least try things the obvious way - if that failed they could always figure out a more clever solution... he knew that Max would probably be excited to try to use his considerable strength - especially for their age - to force open the gate, but Edward knew that his own attempt to do such would have been as effective as his pillow fight back at their yurt in Koldovstoretz… so instead he cast the first spell that came to his mind for such tasks, incendio! Perhaps warming the metal would make his friends efforts easier too! He had considered a flippendo as well but he thought it might be secured too firmly to be flipped even by magic - and he would rather not waste a spell even if magic was a renewable resource…

he had learned alot about magical metatheory already even as a first-year, though admittedly some of it had been on his own reading but while most of the class in Transmutations was focused on the practical spells he found the theory behind it fascinating, gamp’s laws and others, magic had rules but also exceptions to those rules that if someone learnt could make them a much more effective wizard… he realized that the gate was probably too large to be turned into a toothpick or something that they could easily bypass - and it would probably be ill advised to turn it into an elephant or something of similar size as it would still remain a barrier in their way so the simple solution would have to suffice for now after all…

Action: Cast incendio at the gate
Stat: Sta: 5, Eva: 8, Str: 0, Wis: 11, Arc: 5, Acc: 8
Special Ability: Statistically Relevant (Wis)

The players very quickly and efficiently got to work on figuring out that they needed to attack the gate. Harumi was the first to cast a spell at the gate, and she must have been very focused on her spell casting because the perfect form lands the perfect flipendo on the gate causing it to lose a heart. Great work Harumi!

Edward must have been properly motivated by the successful cast of Harumi because when he cast his spell next he was also successful. Another heart down and three more hearts to go.

Like Edward chose, Skylar also chose to cast incendio but something wasn't quite right in her spell, maybe it was because she cast it in the card soliders and not the gate, or something wasn't quite right in her form, but needless to say flames burst out of her wand and landed a few inches away and caught the ground on fire instead.

Both Zephyr and Max chose to throw some of the nearby rocks instead of casting a spell. Only some of those rocks must because pretty heavy because both boys failed to land a hit on the gate with the rocks. Zephyr nearly made it, his rock landed a about 2 feet from the gate, but Max on the other hand, somehow ended up throwing the rock behind him rather than at the gate. Bum luck!

3/5 hearts on the gate.

Moderator's Notes

Reducio

Harumi flipendo [d20+7=26] Success!
Edward incendio [d20+11=23] Success!
Skylar incendio [d20+7=8] Crit fail
Zephyr projectile [d20+7=13] Fail
Max projectile [d20+8=9] Crit fail

OOC Instructions

Reducio

Rules

Congratulations, your group has made it to the fourth obstacle! Almost the end~ Please note the following rules for this obstacle:

1. Moderation will happen if at least HALF of the members in the group posted an action.
a. Due to moderators’ schedules, moderation may take 1-1.5 weeks.
b. If one or no members post an action that round, moderation will happen only the next week to give more time for members to post. This is for the sake of progress

2. If there are any special circumstances (eg, members ill), please owl us. We will consider making exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

3. Each participant is allowed one moderated action per round. Please include your abilities and stats in your post.
a. Please specify your moderated action in your post (as an OOC note).
b. Moderated actions are those actions that require rolls like casting a spell

4. Please follow all usual HIO rules.
This includes 200 IC word requirements.

OBSTACLE 4 SPECIAL INSTRUCTION:
For this obstacle, your characters will be able to use different means to break down the gate! You can use:
Spells from our Duelling System! We will be using the damage equations from here. This is good for players with high wisdom and/or arcane stats.
Small projectiles (the rocks and pebbles mentioned). We will be using the Broom Racing System’s damage equation for small projectiles. This is good for players with high strength stats.

YOU CAN ONLY CHOOSE TO CAST ONE SPELL, OR THROW ONE PROJECTILE.

Notes:
Please do NOT assume the outcomes of spells/throws before the moderation post. This defeats the point of a moderated thread, and if you RP a different outcome, the posts and action outcomes become inconsistent.
Moderation notes will be left for each player, with the rolls and damage equations shown.

Group 2:
@Zephyr Deakin
@Maximilianus Kenneally Vidler
@Harumi Everdane
@Edward Bishop
@Skylar Astor