fandomhigh | Tracking: Urban v. Wilderness; Thursday, Period Three [ 09/16 ].

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Tracking: Urban v. Wilderness; Thursday, Period Three [ 09/16 ].

The class would be meeting in the Danger Shop today, where Angua stood waiting for them to gather at the divide between two different settings: to one side, a lush rocky forest. On the other, an old sprawling city, not too dissimilar from Anhk-Morpork.

"Welcome back," she started. "Sorry about last week. Yes, I'm fine. No, I don't want to talk about it. Today, we're going to start by talking about last week. Clearly, none of you had any problems finding the trail mix, which is a good sign. Those of you with more honed senses could tell it was under there, while those of you without had the good sense to observe your surroundings, learn from them, and act accordingly. That sort of attention to detail is invaluable; in fact, it puts you at an advantage over those who may depend on their senses for tracking. Sometimes, they get so caught up in what they sense that they can't notice what else might be going on, which could lead to missing obvious things or could even be deadly.

"So, to prove this point..."

Angua brought out from her pocket a little glass vial. "This," she said "is peppermint oil. While very good for things like headaches, indigestion, that sort of thing in small doses, it, in large doses can completely throw off a person's sense of smell and, if strong enough, taste and sight as well. I'm not one to fluff my own fur--eathers, but I was getting so good at tracking criminals back home in Ankh-Morpork that they were starting to use this liberally on the crime scene so that I couldn't even detect where to begin...outside of shipping records, because the peppermint merchants were probably experiencing quite the boom in business.

"So, what we have here today are two different scenes, clearly, and we will be splitting up into two groups and playing hide and seek. Each group will take a different setting for the first half of class and then, for the second half, we'll switch. Both scenes are liberally covered in peppermint oil. Each of you will also be liberally covered in peppermint oil. So you haven't got your senses to depend on as much, and have to use other cues to help you to find your classmates. The first person to be 'IT' will be our TAs; once they find someone, that person becomes it and must find someone else. Then that person becomes It and so on and so forth. If you become It, the person who found you is exempt from being caught while they go and hide. When we switch, there will be five minutes to hide, and the TAs become It again."

"Team A, headed by Jacob and starting in the woods, will consist of Andros, Ben, Blysse, Blind Seer, Effy, Dana, George, Jason, and Roy."

"Team B, headed by Maladicta and starting in the city, will be Zack, Alice, Ender, Bruce, Cara, Dru, Katniss, Makita, and Tahiri."

"Any questions? And, before you ask, yes, the peppermint oil will wash off without a problem. Most peppermint oil won't, but that's why we love this Danger Shop, right?"

[[ slow OCD is ~~on the way~~ ready for you to find it! ]]

[[ Previous Classes ]]

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How this works:

Below will be two threads for the different settings. Team A is the woods, Team B is the city. These settings are, of course, completely moddable, with the exception of going into caves or buildings. Access to those have been blocked. Ping your character in as to where they're hiding, and, if an It person "finds" you, then you ping someone else, "finding" them, and they become It and ping another person. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Feel free to hide and find as many times as you'd like.

God, I hope that makes sense.

Lots of trees, rocks, streams, or whatever else to hide in and around!

Kind of pretty out here, really. Even if it wasn't really real. The pepperminty gave that away a little more than usual.

Still, strength of that scent gave her an advantage. Around here, you never knew who might be able to use their nose. After a moment or two looking around silently, she set off, finding a Rhododendron type shrub big enough to hide herself in the lower branches and settle in.

This whole peppermint thing was weird, but at least it didn't stink, and Jake had other senses. The woods, he was familiar with and he knew which sounds belonged there and which didn't.

He'd found some prints earlier on and he'd slowed himself down, moving almost soundlessly through the trees. When he came near the shrub Effy was hiding, he couldn't actually see her. Neither could he smell her (stupid mint), but his hearing was still just fine. Too fine maybe. "I know you're there," he said, turning in her direction.

Ben, being a giant show-offy Jedi type, used the Force to help him leap high into a tree and curled himself into his robe, shrunk his psychic presence in the Force to practically nothing and projected a "you don't want to be over here" vibe to extend for a few yards around him.

Ben was a hide-and-seek cheater.

Firekeeper and Blind Seer knew their classmates likely expected them to stick together, so they split up. Firekeeper scrambled up a tree, testing each branch as she went and only stopping once she was certain the branches above her would not hold her weight.

Blind Seer, meanwhile, deliberately wandered back across his own path a few times before heading for a clump of low-lying bushes on the other side of a stream. His tracks were rather distinctive, but perhaps he could muddle them enough to confuse someone long enough to evade them.

Edited 2010-09-16 18:33 (UTC)

Scully tromped through the streams to disguise her scent, and sighed, looking around for a less-dangerous place to hide. She finally found a small burrow under a couple knocked-over trees, and curled herself in small, the hood of her anorak over her head.

No, she was not climbing a tree. There were things in trees.

Roy ditched his red shirt, deeming the black undershirt acceptable, then found himself a good, tall tree in a shady area and started climbing, and didn't stop until he was so far up the branches could barely support his weight. Then he settled down to wait, stakeout style, thinking Bat thoughts for stillness.

Streets and alleys, nooks and crannies. You just might want to avoid that river...

Was it just Zack, or did that river look a little... squashy?

He wrinkled his nose a bit as he passed it by, and decided, rather than ducking underneath a bridge, to take to the rooftops instead of the nice, predictable alleyways. He could probably duck behind a chimney or something, maybe, and getting up to the rooftops in the first place was really just a matter of making a running leap and doing some creative acrobatics around the spires and eaves.

It was the sort of water you could chew! Full of... mineral type things.

The smell thing was an annoyance, but Maladicta was not about to let it get her down. If only because she was ~~a Sue~~ a Discworld vampire. ...okay, those were the same thing. Thanks a lot, Pratchett.

"You're making a lot of noise," she pointed out, sticking to the shadows of a nearby building.

Zack groaned a little and peered down from his rooftop perch at her.

"SOLDIERs aren't really made for stealth," he replied, smiling sheepishly.

And he wasn't coming down for anything.

"Some can be!" Yup, still not catching the caps there.

Someday, he'd explain the difference. Oh, someday...

"Well, not this kind," he replied, cracking a grin. "We leave the stealth to our special ops division."

Oh, sorry. The Department of Administrative Research. Totally the same thing.

"Do they survive longer?" She asked, frowning for a moment as she skirted along the shadows to find a way up to the roof. Easier said than done.

Zack casually propped himself up against the chimney, arms crossed over his chest, casually watching her do her thing down there.

"That depends on the situation," he decided. "Under normal circumstances, not really. But stuff back home has been anything but normal, lately."

Maladicta snorted, finally finding a niche that wasn't in the sunlight that she could... pull herself up to the roof with far too much ease for a human woman her size. "Is it ever normal?"

"Beats me," Zack admitted, holding his hands out to his sides. "I used to think I knew, but it's kind of becoming obvious that nothing is ever that simple."

And now she was on the mostly sunny roof.

"Bugger," she muttered under her breath. "It tends to be more interesting that way!"

All power to the mostly sunny roof! Zack peered around the chimney toward her, and once again shot her a little grin. This time, it was accompanied by a merry little wave.

"It would be more interesting if they had work for me lately."

"No more wars?"

...the waving was just cruel.

Zack was a mean, mean man.

"There's always something going on," Zack sighed. "I guess there just isn't anything that they need to send their elite after, lately."

"You seem too friendly to be elite," she pointed out.

Pulling off her jacket, she draped it carefully over her head before darting over to that damned chimney. This was just an accident waiting to happen. It really was.

Oop, and here she came!

"That just means I'm ambitious!"

And there Zack went, with one more grin for good measure before jumping backward off the edge of the roof.

At least he landed in the shadows, right?

"Right." She caught the edge of the roof, pushing back on it for more leverage to make it to the shade. "Do I actually have to say you're it?"

Tracking: Urban v. Wilderness; Thursday, Period Three [ 09/16 ].

Hide and Seek, Round 1 -- Tracking, 09/16.

Round 1, The Woods -- Tracking, 09/16.

Re: Round 1, The Woods -- Tracking, 09/16.

Re: Round 1, The Woods -- Tracking, 09/16.

Re: Round 1, The Woods -- Tracking, 09/16.

Re: Round 1, The Woods -- Tracking, 09/16.

Re: Round 1, The Woods -- Tracking, 09/16.

Re: Round 1, The Woods -- Tracking, 09/16.

Round 2, The City -- Tracking, 09/16.

Re: Round 2, The City -- Tracking, 09/16.

Re: Round 2, The City -- Tracking, 09/16.

Re: Round 2, The City -- Tracking, 09/16.

Re: Round 2, The City -- Tracking, 09/16.

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Re: Round 2, The City -- Tracking, 09/16.

Re: Round 2, The City -- Tracking, 09/16.

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Re: Round 2, The City -- Tracking, 09/16.

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Re: Round 2, The City -- Tracking, 09/16.

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Re: Round 2, The City -- Tracking, 09/16.

Re: Round 2, The City -- Tracking, 09/16.