fandomhigh | Try Not to Die!! [Tuesday, May 17, 3rd period]

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Try Not to Die!! [Tuesday, May 17, 3rd period]

Anakin was rather enjoying the movements of the island, even if this one took them to a place as hot and full of sand as Tatooine. Ugh, sand. It certainly made coming up with his class assignments more interesting.

"Welcome to Alexandria, Egypt," he said. Rory was going to love hearing where they were now. "Today's tasks will take you through this ancient city," he paused, "in its heyday."

Working in Fandom was weird. He stepped back from the clue box. "You will complete two tasks, then meet Tahiri and I somewhere in the city. Try not to die."

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Pick one of these two tasks, which will teach you more about how the library worked!

The library of Alexandria is the world's largest user of papyrus. Taking one of the Homeric texts ~~handwavily~~ before you, transcribe five pages of ancient Greek onto a papyrus scroll. When the head librarian is satisfied with your work, he'll hand you your next clue.

While the hauling seemed more up his alley, Sam knew he was pretty winded from the first part of the class so he chose to write. Sam took his time so he'd get everything right on the first try but wasn't surprised when he messed up a little.

After another try, the head librarian seemed satisfied with his work and he was able to snag his clue and head out.

The quill pens weren't that much different to those used in the Midlands, and Cara had enough experience with journey-books that it was easy enough to be both fast and neat when using plain ink.

Angelica really didn't want to haul more books around (and get lost again), so she opted for the writing. She took her time, afraid of setting the papyrus on fire by accident like she'd melted the bracelet last week.

Surreal knew how to read and wasn't bad at writing, although her penmanship was the blocky letters must humans would associate with a small child.

However, she was used to reading Craft books, in a language she spoke, not five pages of gibberish doodles. After a half-hour spent on the first page alone, a well-meaning scribe leaning over her shoulder to help, Surreal stood up and bowed in apology before heading out the door. Scribing was important, and a skill she needed to work on or Daemon would thump her, but this was taking too much time. She'd go back to the docks and deliver materials instead.

And of course Gabrielle would opt for the writing challenge.

If you could call transcribing ancient Greek a challenge for the girl who was from ancient Greece.

So how did this contribute to her falling further behind in the pack? Well, she kept stopping in her transcription to rant about how Homer must have gotten hit over the head or something, because he'd gone and gotten things all wrong again, and oh, was she ever going to give him a hard time for it next time she saw him, and . . .

Look, as much as Gabrielle was capable of talking, that was a huge chunk of time lost.

Damian was not interested in running around doing manual labor. Transcribing the Greek was easy enough, but a dull task. He tried to liven it up by adding some more interesting phrases into the text, but the librarian caught him at it and he had to redo the scroll.

Transcribing was easy. Annie picked this one immediately, and got to work on it. And despite her insane attention to detail, when she proudly handed her scroll to the librarian, he shook his head and told her she had something wrong.

So then Annie had to spend a few minutes arguing about how she was right before finally going back to check her work... and finding her mistake. She was a little sheepish when she handed in her work this time, but at least it was right. Even if it put her further behind.

Even though she had done well with the first challenge, she really did not feel like hauling more books around. So she settled for the transcribing detour instead. She was very pleased to have gotten it done correctly on the first try.

It was hot. Writing sounded easy, so Richie went with that.

Of course, writing in ancient Greek was less easy than anticipated. "Mac can probably read ancient Greek, too," Richie muttered as he painstakingly went over the 4th page. Again.

When he finally finished he took off at a run after grabbing the final clue. Sure, it was hot, but he didn't want to lose.

The books that were taken from ships were returned after they were transcribed: this wasn't just an elaborate knowledge robbery. Find a wheelbarrow full of scrolls and codexes that must be hauled back to the docks and then matched to the ships--from around the ancient world, and all of the languages they'd spoken--they'd come from.

This could also take some time.

Naturally, once Warren finished wandering aimlessly around Alexandria and attempting elaborate pantomimes in order to help him find his way, he'd decided that hauling was probably his better bet in order to help him get caught up. After all, he had the upper-body strength to handle plenty.

... The hauling part, that was easy.

The multilingualism, on the other hand...

By the time he'd actually finished getting the books to the right places, his classmates were nowhere to be seen, and he was contemplating just burying his head under the sand and not coming out again.

Okay, this wasn't so bad. Telepathy once again came in handy because he didn't know enough about ancient civilizations to be able to match them on sight. It was much easier to make reasonable guesses when he figured out what languages the various sailors were thinking in, though.

She should have done this in the first place.

Surreal looked over the contents of the cart before vanishing it and heading back towards the port. She'd have to call it in again before she got there, so the landens didn't freak out, but she'd travel faster without pushing it.

Once she got down to the docks, she just pointed at the piece she was delivering with a winning smile, then gestured at the boats filling the port. The sailors were more than happy to help a pretty foreign girl distribute her packages.

As much as Alexander would have liked to have done the transcribing himself, he knew the point of these activities were to be the first to finish them, even if it was only for pride and potentially a cool hat. So he stuck with what he knew he was good at, rather than what he would have enjoyed more.

Besides, if he was doing the transcribing, he would have wanted to relish it. He was not opposed, however, to finishing hard work quickly! And he's studied a great deal about different cultures in the past year, trying to locate the Land of the Green Isles, so that helped him with finding the right home for the scrolls and codexes!

Edited 2011-05-17 16:43 (UTC)

Damn right it took some time. Jack had little problem getting back to the docks despite the wheelbarrow's weight.

Trying to find which ship was which? Yep. That took a little time.

Goose went for the second option, it took him slightly longer to do but he preferred it to writing.

Squall figured that he'd be able to get back to the docks quickly, since he already knew the way, but hadn't anticipated how hard it would be to match the scrolls to their ships.

Fortunately, he had enough of a lead that he was able to lose time and still come out ahead.

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Try Not to Die!! [Tuesday, May 17, 3rd period]

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