Action: Choosing the underground snow tunnel path

magnificent banner by Valentin Schnell

Roleplaying as Hans Jenssen

'Cheater!' Hans heard Greta scream and a cheater was exactly who the blonde-haired, pug-nosed, Hogwarts student was. Cheating was no qualm Hans had however, unless of course, the tactic was employed against him. What a bright-minded girl she was though, he had to admit. Despite having chosen what seemed to be the right (although reckless) track, some unknown power had caused him to fall behind the blonde, now paralleling with the Norwegian.

Daring Hans to follow before swooping down into the path that led underground, he followed without a second thought, being never one to back up from a challenge, even the one of a young girl he never came across before. 'Snowflake,' he said back, mimicking her word choice sarcastically, 'How about I give you the easy way out?' Of course, this did not mean booting her off the cliff or casting an attack spell in her direction. With her question on whether the tunnel might collapse from sound, Hans simply screamed back in an even louder volume, tone rhetorical, 'I don't know, but why don't we try?' He might have been losing the race, but soon the tables would surely turn. After all, he was simply saving his energy for the main event. And more importantly, the thrills were racing up through his body.

@Oonagh Brown

❂ ⌜ A Summer Camp Tale: Downhill Broom Sledding ⌟ ❂ ❂ July 19, 2024 ▎ --:-- ❂

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“Showtime.”

And off she went down the hill on her sled. It wasn’t a bad start considering that despite the path that she took, nothing bad happened… yet anyway. There are a couple of people ahead of her, some even trying to sabotage the other which made Raizel grin. They are making things interesting at least and gives her time to go pass them before they take her with them. One of those was someone that she recognizes as her cousin, Astra Norrick. “Yo Astra.” She greeted her with a smile as she just went past her. Now then, what to do now that she had seen that sabotaging is allowed that even the event planner was doing it himself.

Well, for now, she’d rather keep on challenging fate itself. Her eyes are set on the next path, something that’s less tame. The tunnel seems like a good one but that path with lots of bumps seems a lot better. She’ll see if she gets lucky again, if her sled will tumble while trying to get into the air using those bumps, if others will try to slow her down. She’s not that far ahead from what she could see but who’s to say that there won’t be any attempts? When it comes to that, she has her trusty wand in her pocket and she’s not the type who would go down without a fight.

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▪ ▫ ◙ Dialogue | #800000 ◙ ▫ ▪

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◘ ◘ ❂ Interactions: @ | @ | @ - Open ◘ ◘ ❂ Mentions: @Astra Norrick | @ | @

Outfit Reducio

Items Reducio Wand The things that the event provided

STATS AND ABILITIES STA: 6 | EVA: 8 | STR: 3 | WIS: 10 | ARC: 8 | ACC: 10 Prod. Charms | Perfectionist | Fearless

Action Letting the Fates decide. Taking the path filled with bumps

English | Parseltongue

So the key was to treat it a little like broom racing and a little like sledding—and Della wasn't doing too bad. A few other students chose the forest with her, and she was able to stay at the head of the pack. She weaved in and out of the trees with ease—because she was low to the ground, it was less of a challenge to avoid the trees than when she was flying near the tops; there were fewer branches down here.

But any good broom racer knew that the race wasn't over until the Fat Lady sang. Anything could happen. As the forest cleared, Della saw that she wasn't yet in the overall lead but she was also nowhere near the back. In fact, the people coming out of the wide open path looked worse for wear—she tried not to imagine what happened to them.

Ahead of the racers was another branching path. Trying to quickly take in what she was seeing, Della spotted a path that looked relatively safe (it seemed looks could be deceiving here), a path with small bumps, and a path that led to a dark tunnel. Out of (maybe morbid) curiosity, Della steered toward the tunnel.

Action: Choosing the snow tunnel

As it turned out, the moguls were actually kind of fun. After the first few left Greta a bit jarred and all but spilling off her sled, she managed to figure out a trick of balancing herself and pulling up on the sled or tilting it forward at just the right moment to catch some serious air. With every successful and safe landing, she was urged to keep it up, and without the friction of snow below her sled, the more air-time she had, the more she seemed to gain ground. A particularly large jump had her screaming with delight as she flew over the heads of a few others. What a ride!

When she landed, she found herself almost neck and neck with a couple others, and the paths converged once more, though there seemed to be a significant lack of other competitors. A glance over her shoulder yielded a triumphant grin as plenty of sledders filed in behind her. Somehow, she had zipped a good ways towards the front, only a couple other students between her and victory. "FOR DURMSTRANG!" she shouted, laughing as she fixed her attention forward again and hunkered down.

Ahead, she could see the path splitting once more. None of the options were very clear. One of them seemed to just drop, like a cliff face waiting to spill unsuspecting students off its edge. The second was obscured by a large curtain, so who knew what obstacles might lay beyond that. While the third curve up, promising what looked like the jump of all jumps. A devilish gleam glinted in her eyes, weight shifting to veer her sled in that direction. This might have been a sled race, but she had come here to fly.

Abilities Perfectionist 1 & 2 Evasive Maneuvers Muggle Condition Sta 10 °▪︎ Eva 13 °▪︎ Str 8°▪︎

Action Defying Gravity (hopefully) on the Death Defying Leap Open for Interactions English || Russian Wis 11°▪︎ Arc 5°▪︎ Acc 8°▪︎

He had been enjoying the tunnel quite a lot and was making great time through it while flawlessly navigating the icicles until someone in the pack behind him decided it would be a good idea to race in a topsy turvy fashion on the ceiling! Stephen could clearly see the light now at the end of the beautiful icy snow tunnel, but the vibrations from the ceiling sledding were too much for the icicles. One particularly large, icy shiv broke off, bringing snow, ice, and some soil and rocks along with it. Stephen had no choice but to swerve to avoid becoming that Schwartz-kebab he had worried about earlier, but in so doing, his momentary path to safety detoured him into a small cul de sac of sorts.

Great. Just Great!

He quickly got off his sled and picked it up, needing to turn around and get back onto the sledding path. As he was starting to exit the small cul de sac, two other broom sledders were coming at him at great speed, also avoiding the collapsed ceiling debris in their paths he reasoned. He looked around and saw a small snow ledge so he hopped up on it as they both slid in, barely making contact with each other, if at all. He quickly hopped down, looked at them to make sure they weren't hurt, and then got himself back to the pathway out.

He had lost his lead, clearly, as two sledders zoomed past him before he could safely get back on the path. One of them, he noted with an ironic smile, was the curly-haired, she devil who flipped the redhead off her sled earlier. Well, all right. Now it really was a race!

He took a few running steps and hopped back on his sled, back in his familiar prone position. He blinked his eyes for a few seconds upon leaving the tunnel and entering the land of sunlight once again. As the pathways once again converged, he thought he saw EmmaLee a little ahead of him. Surprised that she would have signed up for something that had "broom" in its title, he blinked a couple of more times to make sure it was her. When there was zero doubt about it, a smile lit up his face as he steered her way.

"What's a broom avoider like you doing in a race like this?" he shouted over at her. Not his best line, but the guy was a clueless 14 year old. He had no game when it came to girls, not that he was really trying to. He knew she responded. He saw her turn his way, smile, and her lips moved, but he had a hard time hearing her. The path was splitting off again and he had to decide which way he would go. His heart raced in utter excitement when he saw the choices, knowing there was really only one choice for him, so he looked quickly back at EmmaLee, pretty certain they were about to go their separate ways here.

"Meet you at the bottom. Winner buys the other one a cup of hot chocolate!" he tossed out at her before veering his sled away. "Have fun!" he encouraged as he then aimed directly for the death defying jump.

What was life without a little risk anyway? Boring. Boring is what it was. Stephen was not destined for a boring, sedentary, safe life. A safe life was not living; it was merely existing. As his trusty purple sled's runners pushed a flurry of powdery snow over the edge of the earth and he took flight, not over the rooftops of the world, but over the dark unknown below him, Stephen shouted out his own glad, barbaric YAWP ^[1].

Let it be known. He was here. Stephen Schwartz was here. He was living. And even if he died in the nothingness below, he would have done so having done more than to simply exist.

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[1] - barbaric YAWP credited to Walt Whitman in "Song of Myself" and referred to in an unforgettable scene in one of the BEST movies ever made.... Dead Poets Society.

@EmmaLee LeDames @Della Barfield @Archer Duncan as Hans Jenssen

ROLEPLAYING AS BEAUXBATONS iNPC AURÉLIE NATHALIE DUVAL

@EmmaLee LeDames, open to interactions July 19th, 2024

sta 6 | eva 8 | str 6 | wis 8 | arc 6 | acc 7 fearless, perfectionist

french | english | thoughts | others

action. on the path with that is beyond reasonably steep

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Aurélie took a breath of relief as nothing suspicious happened on her new chosen path. The path with the bumps was exactly as described, bumpy, but at least it wasn't the snow tunnel which could've collapsed on her or the boring path on which she could've gotten stuck. Maybe I'm overthinking this. Okay, she definitely was, but still.

EmmaLee must've taken the same path as Aurélie because the other girl zoomed past, rushing ahead of her in the race. Hopefully, Aurélie thought, someone I know will win, even if it isn't me. She was competitive, and she really had wanted to win, but obviously, this race didn't favour her because she was just falling behind, even though the path she'd chosen had been the "right" one.

As her chosen path merged with the main one again, she found that she had three more choices. One looked extremely dangerous, with a seemingly bottomless pit that one had to jump over in order to survive. Another one was covered with a curtain. And the last choice, was just a really really steep path. They were all dangerous! Maybe Aurélie had been wrong before...

Taking a breath, the French girl twisted her sled at random, hoping that she whatever path she chose wouldn't be the end of her.

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OUTFIT

Reducio

ACTION:
Picking the path that is covered by a curtain.