fandomhigh | Basic Strategy, Monday, Period 4

Class met in the Danger Shop today, which had been set up to look like a dimly lit dungeon, deserted save for a swarm of small, ugly beasts that looked a bit like purple bears with lizard heads.

"Last week our subject was acknowledging things about ourselves we can't change or forget," Tyrion said without preamble, and with some pride he'd gotten the wolves to show up in Danger Shop again. "This week, we begin a unit on making the best of what you have. You may be strong. You may be clever. You may be lovely to look upon. You may be rich. Unless the gods gave with both hands at your birth, it's unlikely you're all four. It's far more likely you're weak, stupid, ugly or poor -- relatively speaking, of course."

"Your choices are two. You can either concentrate on what you have a gift for and hope it's enough to get you through anything, or you can spend your life trying to master the things you're worst at in hopes of balancing yourself out. All things being equal, and assuming you're being honest with yourself about having tried to improve, I'd say you're usually better off focusing on your skills and making them as good as they can be. A swordsman does not prepare for battle by reading, nor should he, and it makes no more sense for a weakling to spend his days fiddling about with a sword. He might hurt himself."

"But -- because this is my class, and I have the right to be perverse sometimes -- today we will start with a single kind of skill, and pretend we're all trying to improve our strength." He pointed to a beast. "Your job is to fight these lovely fellows. They've no ability to speak or reason -- all you can do is find a way to bash your way out of this one. After you've done that, we'll talk some more."

Before he released the class to fight the beasts, he added, "And by the way, because this got me into trouble last time, I must add these creatures are not real. They're a kind of film and can't hurt you. Don't ask me how it works."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Petra had hairspray and a club. She was ready. When one of the purple lizard bear things came at her, she quickly sprayed it in the eyes, then, while it was making loud 'my eyes, they sting' noises and staggering around blind, shoved the can of hairspray into her jacket pocket, missing the bandolier she'd had on the island, and used both hands on the club to bludgeon it over the head until it fell down unconscious.

Then she took the hairspray back out of her pocket to blow on it like a gunslinger.

Karla watched Petra with an interested expression for a moment.

"You know," she said idly as another purple creature lumbered towards them. "It's not exactly strength training, but I bet a little bit of fire would also help in this situation."

"I have a lighter," Petra admitted as she brought her hairspray back up to the ready, "but then I run out of hands to hold the club with."

She also had waterproof matches in her bookbag. Being stranded on a deserted island with only the contents of a bunch of beauty queens' suitcases had made her a wee bit paranoid about these things.

"This is definitely one of my weaker points," Karla admitted. "I keep looking around for a way to make it so I don't have to stand and fight these guys off."

By, you know, thinking of offering Petra a tongue of witchfire for her hairspray, or standing on air while she dispatched the lizard-bears.

"I've had to fight off wildlife before," Petra said with a shrug. "Snakes big enough to swallow someone, so." Oh, hey, another bear lizard was getting a faceful of hairspray.

"That's some impressively-sized wildlife," Karla said, blinking a bit in surprise. "But it's not the fighting so much as the standing part I object to. I'm more of a 'trap them and then dispatch at my leisure' kind of female than a 'stand and fight' one."

Petra was a little busy bludgeoning; when she finished she huffed with effort and said, "Sometimes you don't have the option. Do you have a more hands-efficient way to get some fire up in here?"

Karla held out her hand and a tongue of witchfire appeared on her palm.

"You spray, I flame?" she suggested, pointing at the next lumbering creature.

Basic Strategy, Monday, Period 4

Re: STRENGTH EXERCISE [1/09]

Re: STRENGTH EXERCISE [1/09]

Re: STRENGTH EXERCISE [1/09]

Re: STRENGTH EXERCISE [1/09]

Re: STRENGTH EXERCISE [1/09]

Re: STRENGTH EXERCISE [1/09]

Re: STRENGTH EXERCISE [1/09]

Re: STRENGTH EXERCISE [1/09]