Summer Camp Herbology Workshop Closed

Lucy hummed quietly as she admired the beautiful star-shaped flowers in her basket. The dark green leaves and berries - wait, those were mistletoe berries, right? - sat next to them and created a lovely bouquet. She absentmindedly scratched her right arm and considered what to pick next. She noted that some students were leaving the clearing to find more plants. She frowned. Was that allowed? A quick glance at the professors confirmed her suspicion that they weren't doing anything to stop them. Maybe it's a test. Like, the more adventurous you are, the better plants you get. She continued to scratch her arm as she debated which direction to go.

Finally, she decided she would stay in the clearing until she had gathered all of the variety of plants offered here before trekking outside of the clearing. After all, the professors had brought them here, so there must be a reason. And - man, holy crap her arm ITCHED. She had just started walking toward a patch of small green shoots when she happened to glance down. White tracks marked the path her nails took on top of a patch of very pink, inflamed looking skin. She scowled, failing to resist the itching urge and continued to scratch at the patch. It wasn't long, though, before the itching changed to a demonic combination of itching and burning. She hissed softly through her teeth and pulled her sweatshirt sleeve down over the inflamed patch of skin. Why had she rolled up her sleeves in the first place? 

Nearly going crazy with the urge to itch her burning arm, she grit her teeth and walked purposefully to the patch of green shoots. She knelt next to them, forcing her mind to focus on them. They looked a bit like Knotgrass... or was it Dittany? It was green, and short, and leafy, but she couldn't remember which plant it was. Man, she was bad at this. "I know what Gillyweed looks like but I can't identify forest plants," she grumbled. "Why didn't they give us a picture guide or something?"

Despite the fact that she had done her homework, Lucy really had a terrible memory for identifying things. Shrugging, she started picking the plants and placing them in her basket. "My freakin' arm," she groaned, rubbing it with her fingers through her sleeve. This did not alleviate the urge to itch it, but it did cause it to burn more. She paused and took a deep breath. She couldn't scratch it, or it would make the burning worse. She didn't have anything to put on... wait. They were in a forest with plants - plants that might have healing properties! Wait - didn't Dittany heal? She looked at the green shoots in her basket. Was that Dittany? Another spike of pain shot through her arm, and she shrugged. It was worth a shot.

She picked a fresh handful of greens from the ground and found a wide, flat rock. She had to hunt for half a minute or so before finding a stone that was small enough to use as the top rock. Without hesitation, she slammed the hand-sized rock on top of the green plants and ground them between the two stones. "If I'm wrong, I don't think my arm could feel worse than it does," she grunted as she scraped the leaves between the rocks. After about a minute, she lifted the rock and noted the pulpy mush with satisfaction. That would do. She carefully pulled back her sleeve, grimacing as the rough fabric ripped at her sensitive skin, and scooped up the plant mush with her left hand. She spread the mush over her skin. It was a bit thick and gloppy, but it would work - or at least, she hoped it would.

Actions:

*Find a patch of green shoots - possibly Dittany or Knotgrass - and add them to basket
*Hope that she correctly identified the plant as Dittany and crush it up into a salve
*Apply salve to arm and hope for relief from burning

Isabella smiled a confused smile as she watched her partner pick up a stick and poke the blood. How could she be so calm about this? She seemed almost excited at the prospect of blood and hoof prints. This could be something important, surely she had to realize that they could get hurt over this?

Ami straightened up, glancing at her before speaking in her accent. “Do you want to go and actually collect plants? I don’t want to get in trouble with Wright or Valtome. There's uh...there's some stuff over there, want to check it out?" Looking in the direction her partner was pointing, she spotted the ‘stuff’ Ami was referring to - a collection of thorny shrubbery on the opposite side of the clearing they were on.

Shrugging away the uneasy feeling she was getting, she spoke in a cheery voice. “Great! Lets go!" And grabbing the poor girls wrist once more, she pulled it to show that she was moving to the opposite side of the clearing.

Dodging rogue tree roots that seemed to only want to trip her up, she turned to Ami with a questioning look. “What do you think that blood belonged to?” She asked, hoping to engage in some sort of conversation and get past the ‘new person’ awkwardness that always seemed to linger around her.

Upon closer inspection, it was shown that the bushes housed small pink flowers that were a little bit bigger than her thumb nail. Bending down, she picked one before standing up and holding it out to Ami. “Do these look alright?” She questioned, hoping that her partner would pick up on the unspoken question of whether they were safe to touch or not.

Parcel took a last glance at the hot sticky blood on his fingers before he rubbed it of on his pants. It was still hot, so it would have had to happen within the last day, perhaps even this morning before they arrived.
His heart jumped as he heard the rustling, was there perhaps something lurking? But to his dismay, the only thing jumping out was a small critter. He gave a disappointed sigh before standing up.

Should he just start picking flowers? Parcel glanced around… only picking flowers was a bit boring though. And he also had his partner to think about, Aurelia probably wouldn’t like it if he ran off on his own. But… perhaps she would run of with him?
Was it in Parcel’s nature to let something as exciting as a literal blood trail be left alone? To leave it unexplored? No, definitively not!

“Aurelia, lets go take a look at where blood leads” Parcel kept his voice down, barely a whisper, as he motioned for Aurelia to come with him. She hadn’t done much up to now and had kept in the background, but Parcel was sure she was still following him, he had the basket after all. This time however, he was ready to make a run for it, not to run far off, but he wanted to go look at what had spilled the blood, so just a quick check away from the clearing and then back, easy, no one had to notice.
Come to think of it, had the professors even said they weren’t allowed to walk away from the clearing? Parcel couldn’t remember them doing so, only that he had to stick together with his partner, and he was doing that, well, he was giving her a chance to come along at least.

Parcel didn’t know if it was the big deal he made it out to be, or if he was thinking himself up to do something reckless, but either way, he was ready to explore a bit more of the forest.
He glanced around, looking over at the professors, the potions professor looked rather aloof, but Parcel couldn’t help thinking he was watching over them more then he leads on. As he looked at the elf, the best opportunity he probably would have to get away from the watchful eyes presented itself. The tiny herbology professor had walked over and talked to him, Parcel hoped that would bring the elf’s attention over on the other professor and not on the students, just a couple of seconds was hopefully enough.

“Aurelia, lets go now, or stay if you want, just don’t rat me out, ok?” Parcel left before he heard the answer. He took as briskly steps as he could without making to much noise, Parcel’s aim was the bushes at the edge, if he could get behind them, then maybe he could follow the blood trail to its owner.

Parcel dipped down into the bushes at the edge of the clearing as sneakily as possible when he got to the edge. As he crouched down, Parcel tried to keep the trail in his vision, he didn’t want to loose it, that was after all what he wanted to follow, but also his ticket back if he started loosing track of where he was.

Actions:
- Follow the Blood trail to the edge of the clearing
- Sneak out of the clearing
- Perception check on anything that stands out as he crosses out of the clearing.

Man, this girl had superhuman strength or something, because Ami was completely useless against Isabella's insistent tugging on her arm, and she felt herself being dragged once more across the field. Okay, cool, so that happened. Right. She was really going to have to start working out again. Why didn't Hogwarts have a gym, or something? Totally bogus, in her opinion- all they had for physical exercise was Flying and Quidditch, and not everyone liked heights.

"What do you think that blood belonged to?" Isabella asked, and the only thing Ami could do confidently was shrug. "I dunno. Probably some sort of creature in the forest who got hurt or something." Wow, so insanely specific. Wonderful. Ami hadn't gotten much of a good look or sense of the blood before Isabella had dragged her away, so there was always that.

"Do these look alright?" Before Ami could add anything else, the Slytherin just bent down and picked one of the flowers off of the bushes. "Oh, uh..." Ami frantically racked her brains for the meager wildlife knowledge she had accumulated over the years. Looking at the leaves, the Hufflepuff decided that it wasn't most likely poison ivy- wait, it was a bush.

She was dumb.

Without much more hesitation, Ami picked a flower from a neighboring bush, a white one, and picked one of the leaves as well. "If I get a rash from- achoo!" Oh, this was absolutely bogus. Seriously? It was summertime already, allergy season should've been over by now. But no, here she was, sneezing her head off at all of the pollen floating through the air.

This sucked.

ACTIONS

- Pick a white flower and leaf from the bush -
- Sneeze, because allergies exist -

Spotting some plants, Serena reached down and carefully picked a few. It was probably sheer luck that she managed to miss any thorns on the stems, as she was blissfully unaware of its existence. The Hufflepuff managed to secure three plants, all the same type though she could not figure out exactly what they were called. In truth, she simply could not remember the name. Placing them in the basket that she was carrying, Serena glanced over to her partner. Although she regretted her choice in partners, it was better to make sure they did not lose each other now. As she looked over, she spotted something in the distance from the corner of her eyes and quickly turned to focus on it.

Her eyes narrowed a little as they fell onto the shadow of something. She could not see exactly who it was or what it was but there was something in the direction she was looking at. Perhaps one of the other students who had wandered off or perhaps it was something more deadly. Serena had no idea but... was it worth trying to find out? If it was something dangerous, they would certainly need to run - or worse, attack. If it was someone, perhaps they could go together to avoid getting in any further danger. She was already feeling kind of weary about the task in hand. The possibility of being near centaurs did not seem like a risk one should be taking. But the Professors allowed the event to continue. They saw no danger in the situation. That made it okay, right? They saw the same blood and hoof prints that the students had seen. If they chose not to cancel the event and immediately pull everyone back to the school, it must be safe.

Although it was a low mutter, Serena was close enough to hear her partner's words clearly. "Perhaps..." She replied, wondering if it was truly a den or not. It did not seem like one to her. If this was their den, would there not be more hoof prints around? Perhaps even a centaur or two? It seemed awfully quiet for a den, to be truthful. What caught her attention more than the den was the word 'daft'. Phaedra claimed that the Professors were daft. 

The Hufflepuff click her tongue in her mouth a little, trying to bite back her words. Did her eleven year old partner honestly think she was smarter than the Professors of Hogwarts? That seemed a bit of a stretch, even if she was a Ravenclaw. Was it due to her own arrogance or the fact that incidents that happened on the school before the Professors could stop them? It was an odd thing to hear from a fellow Prefect and one that did not sit right with Serena. The child had a lot of respect for her elders and unless they did something to lose that respect themselves, she would maintain it. Professor Wright and Professor Valtome were two adults that had definitely not lost her respect. They had done nothing wrong and she was not about to judge them for the actions of other people.

Without further ado, her partner had moved to start picking flowers. Serena did the same, trying to find different ones that differed from the ones she had already picked. Before long, they reconvened. Quirking an eyebrow, Serena sniffed the air trying to smell whatever it was that Phaedra was smelling. Her sense of smell was definitely not her strongest sense but she used it nonetheless. The word burning echoed in her ears for a moment. Immediately, the Hufflepuff looked around, trying to figure out where the smell that Phaedra mentioned was coming from. Was there another fire nearby? That was most definitely her first and main concern.

"No. I don't think so." She replied as she pulled the basket forward, showing Phaedra the plants inside it already. There were three lots of Asphodel. "The smell isn't coming from here..." She continued, deciding it was not from her basket at least. 

She looked around, spotting that shadow again and narrowed her eyes. Staring intensely in the shadow's direction, she tried to see what it was doing. Was that perhaps the source of the smell? Was the smell coming from somewhere else? Serena looked around, trying to get more information using her sense of sight and smell. Her worry was starting to grow. It was not going to be easy to settle her beating heart right now. This situation was certainly making her more weary.

ACTIONS:
1. Pick a variety of different plants, that differed to the plant she had already picked [asphodel]. 
2. Try to sniff out the burning smell Phaedra spoke of, trying to find where it came from.
3. Perception check. Look in the direction of December Hale, trying to figure out was going on.

The original quote was abyssus abyssum invocat, deep calls to deep, and it was used in quite a different way than the modified saying Cel’s mind conjured up, yet it seemed fitting to use here to describe the Forbidden Forest. Shadow really did seem to call to shadow here, with the shade created for lacework leaves darkening and deepening as they shifted. Spots of light provided thanks from the darkness she so feared-- more considering her cabin-- and to those spots she ran, not checking to see if her partner had the slightest notion of following. Which, apparently, he did not-- too focused on Professor Valtome and whatever was going on in his mind to do anything else, perhaps. What was that he’d been staring at; right over with the small cluster of girls-- was that... Blood...? If there weren't so many people gathered around the red spots she would approach to better analyze it-- but they were more than three people there, and so Cel stayed rooted to the spot for now. For once-- or maybe not quite for only once-- her eyes bothered her: whenever she squinted, her far and nearsightedness combined gave her double vision. After a few seconds of squinting and making faces at the scene, she gave up, turning her gaze to her oh-so-interesting shoes.

Oh. Weren't they supposed to get plants? Yes-- it was supposed to be plant-gathering time. Besides, it was getting a little warm and boring in her little sector of light. She had always liked her black hair. She didn't need to worry about matching it to her appearance or whatever other nonsense existed regarding it-- but in the sunlight, black heated up like flint in a furnace. It was one of the only reasons of her giving in to Parker’s persuasion of dyeing part of her hair, even if the color of her light teal locks changed only five inches off of the ends, but they were, thankfully, not so easily heated as black. When next year's winter approached, she would cut the tail off-- hopefully with help, over the winter holidays. Perhaps the hair, the sun she stood in, the obvious composure she was in made her attempts at social camouflage futile, but out of the sun, she would be less likely to be noticed, and her hair could still hide in the shadows of her black, currently burning robes. Cel breathed out a sigh as the shade covered her once again, standing still for a moment to enjoy the cool air before darting back towards her partner and tugging roughly-- or not roughly, but at least not so carefully-- on his sleeve.

“Let's go, let's go,” she muttered, loud enough to be heard but still quite sotto voce.  “Meos Deos, you can stare at people loathingly later. He hasn't killed me yet, and he supervises my cabin. Let's go.”  it was one of the very few examples of her galvanized state, not content to sit in the corner and read... then again, she actually didn't bring a book today, and so was unable to do so anyway.

For about five seconds she simply stood there, waiting for response, but she, alas, was not graced with one. Kaegen was quite aloof as of now, and she was fairly sure he wouldn't mind if she just took the basket and went on without him-- and she wanted to get out and mind her own work in solitude now, not hang around... A small crowd. Reaching forward, so as to grasp the handle of the basket in his hands, the girl yanked the basket sharply out of his clutch. She was met without resistance-- quite expected-- and begin to walk off, pausing only to mutter “I’ll stay in view” toward his not-there expression, one that she could recognize from making herself so often. Perhaps with some time, he would join her... Or perhaps not, a notion that she quite preferred. It was not that she didn't enjoy his company, but simply that she did not prefer to have company at all for the majority of the time.

Where would she best find the plants she so desired? Plants needed sunlight, whether magical or non-magical-- well, most, at least-- and even if the position of the sun might have changed from time to time, the relative spots illuminated by the star would be constant. It wouldn't hurt to look to the darker places, too, for sun-deterred species, but she just wanted... Plants.



Quickly, she glanced around her surroundings, trying to see anything out of the ordinary-- the blood, for example-- and then she reached obligingly toward her first plant.