Upcoming trial info!
Alrighty, it is finally time for Trial #3 to get underway!
The trial will last two in-game days, or from the 17th to the 24th of May in real world time. As always, logs do not need to follow the schedule too stringently (write when you can and finish whenever you finish) but that's the official schedule. So to be clear:
17th - First day of trial begins 21st - Second day of trial begins 25th - Character return to their regularly scheduled lives
This trial consists of an obstacle course that characters will need to find their way through in teams. There will be two teams; one for Asgard and one for Niflheim, and they will go through identical but separate courses. That is, the course they experience will be exactly the same no matter which team they are on, but the teams will not cross paths. The winner will be determined by a combination of how quickly they progress through the obstacles and how well they work together as a team.
The characters involved are as follows:
Asgard Cuthbert George L Lilly Morana Rose
Niflheim Belphegor Myre Naoya Reno Rufus Zoe
If your character is listed and has already been in a trial, or if you won't be able to play during this timeframe, please post so I can rearrange things!
For the duration of the trial, the teams will be stuck in their course. They will be provided a place to rest once they get through the obstacles for the day (details under the cut), but they will not be able to leave the area set up for them. They will have normal access to their journals, so they can communicate with the other team and/or people not involved in the trial as usual whenever they have time to do so. That way, characters not in the trial can still be involved in a sense.
In between the two days of the trial, the characters will find themselves in a holding area within the course. They will enter it from the end of the first part of the course, and when they open it the next morning, the second part of the course will be there waiting for them. Sure, it seems physically impossible, but the whole thing is an intricate series of illusions, anyway. So what I'm about to describe is where they'll spend the latter portion of day 1.
It will be something approximating a furnished apartment, with just enough places for them all to sleep at night... by which I mean there will be a room with two twin beds, a room with a queen sized bed, and a sofa bed in the living room. Have fun arguing over who gets what. Beyond that, the apartment has a small kitchen with a microwave, stove, oven, and a healthy supply of cookware. Much like their normal team kitchens, the pantry and refrigerator contain a magically regenerating supply of food. For entertainment, the living room area contains a TV with a DVD player and a stack of movies (these do not magically appear; whatever is there, is there), as well as a cabinet housing some board games and a deck of cards.
There is no way out of this apartment. The door will be locked until it's time for the next challenge. The members of your team will be stuck with each other as long as they're in there. They will, however, have full access to their journals and can communicate with other people that way. I would encourage them to do so--that way the characters who aren't on the teams can still be somewhat involved in what's going on in the trial.
For clarification, the apartments, like the courses, are separate but identical. Each team will get their own.
The obstacles the characters will face will be as follows. I was originally going to post the details on the appropriate day, but decided that for plotting purposes it would be better for people to know what their characters will be facing in advance, so here goes:
Day 1 - Upon entering the course, the first thing the group will notice is the heat, which is bearable but intense. The floor beneath them is rocky, and they’ll notice that not far in front of them, it cuts into a sheer cliff dropping into a river of molten lava. There is a cliff on the other side, a daunting distance away. There’s no way across save for a thin bridge made of ropes and boards that stretches from one side of the canyon to the other. Stepping on it will prove that it is relatively sturdy and capable of holding weight. It’s strong enough to hold all the members of the group at once, but be careful! Some boards are missing, and others are liable to break under the weight of someone walking across them. It also swings.
At the other end of the bridge, there is a distinct path leading away from the lava. The temperature will rapidly cool to a normal room temperature as the team walks along it. Not far away, they will find that the path ends at an elevator (that looks a bit like this) with a sign next to it reading "One trip only." The ceiling of the elevator is notably higher than any of the team members are tall, but they will quickly discover that the floor space is far less accomodating. Four people would be able to stand in the elevator without too much trouble, and a fifth could probably be squeezed in. Unfortunately, the elevator will only move when all six are safely inside. They'll have to be a little creative to make that happen.
Once they've managed to pile in, the elevator will drop down a couple stories to a small room containing nothing other than a door opposite the elevator and a sign on the wall reading, "Congratulations, you've passed the first challenge! Please relax and enjoy the accommodations while we prepare the next part of the course." The door will open into the apartment described above.
Day 2
The team enters a large, empty room. The floor is in a black and white checkerboard pattern. The walls are a flat light blue, save for a horizontal stripe stretching around the room, a few feet off the floor and a few feet wide, with black and white tiles that match the floor. On the other side of the room is a heavy door with no knob. There’s no obvious way to open it, save for a small, cryptic sign beside it reading, “Six buttons.” As the team walks into the room, one of the checker squares on the floor presses down under the weight of someone stepping on it and makes an audible click. It doesn’t seem to trigger anything--in fact, it doesn’t seem to do anything other than move and click. If the person steps off of it, it goes back to looking like a normal part of the floor.
There are five other tiles like that one on the floor and walls, none of which are close enough together for the same person to push two at once. All of the buttons are among the black and white tiles, save for one on the wall near the floor. That button is colored the same blue as the wall, and the faint square outline that indicates it’s different from the wall around it is only noticeable if one is looking. If all six are pressed at the same time, the door will open and will stay open even after the buttons are released. The sign next to the door changes to read, “Congratulations!” Walking through this door will put your team in front of their headquarters.
That should cover it. I'll post up a log for each team at the beginning of each day for the main trial. Feel free to split into your own logs for whatever happens once they get to their apartment.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to comment here with them. This post can also be used for any plotting you wish to do.
Trial 3, ahoy!
P.S. New kids have been assigned rooms on the places of interest page. Take a look! If you don't like where I've put you for whatever reason, poke me and we'll figure something out. :)