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undergrounds2017-08-08 11:30 pm
undergroundmods) wrote in undergrounds2017-08-08 11:30 pm
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The Night Tournament!
The time has come. Sixteen competitors have been chosen to represent their species. Over the next three weeks, they will use all their power and all their skill in a quest for the ultimate glory: to be crowned Night Champion.
It's time to play in the Night Tournament.
Week 1: Single Combat
Between 7th and 12th August the competitors will take part in a single combat game with knockout rounds to determine the winner. Here is the final bracket for the first round:
The venue is the Redbright Institute Training Arena in the basement of the school. Think of it as a cage match: the two combatants enter the arena which is magically sealed so that neither can leave. They are not allowed to take in any weapons. In the arena they will find three items: a wooden chair, a tennis ball and a skipping rope. Do with these as you will.
The crowd are packed in around the edges of the arena, cheering and whooping and generally creating a good atmosphere. The three adjudicators, Sylvia Redbright, Alexandrie Belrose and Yasmine Merad are seated at a judging panel with an excellent view of the arena. They will declare when the match is over.
The only rules are the conditions for victory. The match is over when:
• One of the combatants is killed. (Yes, killed.)
• One of the combatants is knocked out.
• One of the combatants is incapacitated for a minimum of 10 seconds.
A protection spell is cast on each of the combatants before they enter the arena which will bring them back to life if they die. Healer witches and meta human medics are on hand to provide aid after each match. The fights are expected to be brutal, and the crowd will be baying for blood. Better give them what they want, eh?
Week 2: Mystery Room
Between 14th and 19th August the competitors will play a mystery room game that requires them to work together to escape. The game again takes place in the Redbright Institute Training Arena, which has been modified into a set of four rooms that competitors must escape from. There's also raised seating in the arena for the audience to watch the events on a large screen, as all the rooms have cameras in them so you can enjoy the show.
Mystery Room Results
1) Desmond Miles and Evie Frye (13 min 42 seconds)
2) Eames and Lydia Bennet (20 min 56 seconds)
3) Fun Ghoul and Roddy Geiger (21 min 14 seconds)
4) Cole and James Flint (23 min 25 seconds)
5) Mogget and Lancelot (24 min 05 seconds)
6) Maximina Choi and Micheletto Corella (26 min 18 seconds)
7) Matt Murdock and Olin Stacey (26 min 48 seconds)
8) Ban Sidhe (3 min 10 seconds) and Joe 'the Bear' Orsini (DNF)
Room 1: The Dungeon
Room 1 is an old-fashioned dungeon lit by a pair of oil lamps hanging in brackets on either side of the door. You begin with one of you locked inside a large wooden cage and the other outside the cage. The person inside the cage is handcuffed to the bars. (NB. The tournament organisers will always choose the physically weakest character to lock inside the cage, unless of course you're a ghost in which case your partner will be the one inside the cage. The handcuffs and the cage itself are not that hard to break; if your strength is 3 or above you can break them no problem.)
The key to unlock the cage is inside the cage itself, half-hidden in the straw, but it's pretty much in the middle of the floor and therefore should be out of reach both for the person handcuffed to the bars and the person who can walk around outside the cage.
The key to unlock the handcuffs can be found beneath a metal grate outside the cell. The metal grate is stuck so you will have to stick your hand between the bars to reach the key.
Finally, once you're both out and free to walk around the room, you may notice the imprint of two sets of footprints on the floor facing the door. All you have to do is stand on each of the footprints (i.e. one person stands in the correct spot to the left, one person stands in the correct spot to the right) and the door will automatically unlock.
Room 2: The Study
Room 2 is a study which contains a desk, three chairs, several bookshelves, a standing globe of the world, a grandfather clock, a small mirror, three wooden chests, and several oil paintings on both the walls and the desk. If you search the chests, you'll find a lot of random junk but also a couple of flashlights which may come in handy. The desk itself is crammed with random antique instruments and books, several of which seem to have migrated to the floor. There's a lot to take in but if the first thing you look for is the exit, you'll see it straight ahead of you: a heavy door with a combination padlock. You'll need to enter the correct four-digit passcode to open it.
One of the books on the desk is called The Mystery Room. Opening it will reveal a scroll which reads as follows:
Count only that on display.
Fruit - Horses - Shoes - Goblins
None of these are items in the room. But they are items depicted in the paintings. Counting the numbers of each represented in the paintings will reveal the correct passcode.
Room 3: The Dark Room
Room 3 is utterly pitch black. If you haven't found them already, you might want to go back to grab those flashlights. Once you've managed to shed some light on the place, you'll see the room is almost empty except for four large wooden blocks in each corner. These are wide enough to stand on, but different heights: two feet, three feet, four feet and five feet. They're sturdy, but can be dragged around anywhere in the room or even stacked on top of each other.
Meanwhile, there's a locked door leading to the next room, but no key in this room.
What you need to do is look up. This is a room with a high ceiling. There's a ventilation shaft high up on the wall, and the grating covering it is loose and can easily be removed. It's 10 feet up though so you'll probably need to move those blocks around to reach it. Once you've reached it you'll realise it's a very tight fit: just about possible for a relatively small woman to squeeze through, but a large or heavyset man would get stuck.
Crawling through the ventilation shaft will lead you through to the next room, which is...
Room 4: The Sacrificial Chamber
This is a room that appears to have been inspired by black and white horror movies. It's a stone chamber artfully decorated with ripped curtains, stone pillars and a creepy sarcophagus right in the centre. On top of the sarcophagus is the key to Room 3: that's easy enough.
But there's no other exit. Or at least, there doesn't appear to be. The final door out is hidden by a low level illusion spell which can only be detected by those with magic power of 3 or above.
There's writing on the lid of the sarcophagus, but it's indecipherable. In fact, it's mirror writing, so you will need to go back to Room 2 and pick up the mirror in order to read it. Once you've done that, you can read the following:
To reveal the way, a sacrifice must be made. To open the door, wield the bloody blade.
This sounds ominous, so enjoy debating what it means, especially if you open the lid of the sarcophagus and find the skeleton holding a dagger clasped to its chest. In actual fact all it means is that the tip of the blade must be dipped in blood. Once blood is drawn by the dagger, the illusion spell disguising the door will break and you'll be able to see the shape of the door revealed as part of the stone wall, plus the depression in the wall that is clearly meant to fit the dagger. Place the dagger in its rightful place and the door will open.
You've made it. You escaped the Mystery Room.
Rules:
• Do not attempt to destroy the walls of the rooms in order to escape. If you do this you will be disqualified.
• You must go through one room to the next in the correct sequence. If you simply teleport or phase outside you will be disqualified.
• You have one hour to escape the rooms. Your final ranking will be determined by how many of you escaped (both escaping ranks higher than one) and how long it took you to escape.
Week 3: The Race
The final event is a simple one: get from point A to point B faster than anyone else to win the game. The starting point is the Redbright Institute in Hanwell, Ealing. The finish line is in Danson Park in Bexley, which is approximately 25 miles away (around 1 hour 15 min by car). Here's the route.
Race Results
1) Mogget (55 min 18 seconds)
2) Evie Frye (1 hour 35 min 30 seconds)
3) Fun Ghoul (1 hour 49 min 55 seconds)
4) Roddy Geiger (1 hour 51 min 15 seconds)
5) Matt Murdock (1 hour 55 min 12 seconds)
6) Eames (1 hour 59 min 13 seconds) (+ Basket of Kittens)
7) Lydia Bennet (2 hours 1 min 19 seconds)
8) James Flint (2 hours 13 min 41 seconds)
9) Desmond Miles (2 hours 14 min 49 seconds)
10) Joe 'the Bear' Orsini (2 hours 18 min 29 seconds)
11) Micheletto Corella (2 hours 35 min 11 seconds) (+ Balloons)
12) Maximina Choi (2 hours 39 min 14 seconds)
13) Olin Stacey (2 hours 45 min 32 seconds)
14) Lancelot (4 hours 14 min 20 seconds) (+ Sculpture)
15) Cole (DNF)
16) Ban Sidhe (DNF)
The race takes place on 23rd August, starting at 8.30pm. Competitors don't know where the end point of the race is until they're given a map with their destination on it at the start of the race. They'll also discover that there are certain bonus trophies they can collect to get extra points:
• For 5 bonus points: a basket of kittens which you can collect from Cafe Poirot in Barnet. All kittens must be delivered safely across the finishing line.
• For 5 bonus points: a collection of party balloons which you can find at Hillingdon House in Hillingdon. All balloons must cross the finishing line without being popped.
• For 10 bonus points: a glass flower sculpture which you can collect from the Reading Abbey ruins, Reading. You must carry the sculpture across the finishing line without damaging or breaking it.
These are all looked after by a steward at each of the locations and are not hard to find – the challenge is in getting there. Note that there is only one of each of the above items, so if someone else gets there first you won't be able to collect the trophy. If you get there at the same time as someone else, you'll have to get creative and fight them for it.
Rules:
• You cannot bring any items or equipment with you when you start the race. (No one is stopping you from packing whatever you want and hiding it in the car park or cloakroom to collect after you start the race though.)
• You may not use your own personal vehicle, borrow anyone else's vehicle, call a taxi/Uber, or hitch a ride from a friend. You can use public transport.
• You may not kill or injure any of the other competitors. Sabotaging, stealing and generally annoying are all fine.
• If you haven't managed to cross the finishing line by midnight, you'll be marked as DNF.
Leaders' Board
After Week 3, the final results are:
Eames (32 points) (CHAMPION)
Evie Frye (30 points) (Vampire Champion)
Fun Ghoul (21 points) (Werewolf Champion)
Lancelot (21 points) (Meta Human Champion)
James Flint (20 points)
Mogget (20 points)
Desmond Miles (19 points) (Witch Champion)
Roddy Geiger (17 points) (Shapeshifter Champion)
Lydia Bennet (16 points)
Micheletto Corella (15 points)
Matt Murdock (12 points)
Cole (9 points) (Ghost Champion)
Joe 'the Bear' Orsini (9 points)
Maximina Choi (7 points)
Olin Stacey (6 points)
Ban Sidhe (5 points)
[OOC: Please see the information post for more details on this event and to ask any questions! This log will be updated week by week as the games progress.]
Week 2: Mystery Room Summary
Only one person from the team needs to submit a summary on behalf of you both, so please make sure you discuss and agree your escape strategy beforehand.
Roddy and Ghoul
Room 2: They'll find the book pretty quickly, but spend a few minutes looking for the physical items. However, when Roddy doesn't find any of the physical items, and notices that they're all present in the paintings, he'll work out what he needs to do pretty quickly and count the items in the paintings.
Room 3: During the time Roddy and Ghoul were looking for the physical items, they'd likely have run across the flashlights, so once they see this room is dark they'll go back for them. It'll take a few minutes for them to think to look up, but once they do, they'll quickly stack the boxes so Roddy can get up to the vent. He'll shift into his rat form to go through the vent so that he can let Ghoul in from the inside.
Room 4: Ghoul will then bring Roddy his clothes, and he'll get dressed again. Once they find the inscription (which they'll quickly figure out is mirror text, and Roddy will run back and grab the mirror), and the knife (which they'll find quickly, because the sarcophagus is there and can be opened, so of course they'll want to open it), they'll come to the conclusion that one of them has to sacrifice each other. They will hesitate for a few minutes here, because neither of them wants to hurt the other, but they'll come to the conclusion that one good stab might fool the spell into thinking one of them has been sacrificed. They'll decide Roddy should stab Ghoul, because he's stronger and more likely to survive it. However, due to Roddy being so uncomfortable with the idea of stabbing his friend, he'll do a really wimpy stab, only going in about an inch, and since this will reveal the door, he'll rush over to unlock the door with the knife, freeing them both.
Mogget & Lancelot
Room 2: After inspecting the door, they immediately work out that they need to search for clues in the room. Lancelot digs through pretty much everything. Once he finds the book, Mogget gets stuck on the words on display which eventually leads to them noticing that the items only appear in the paintings. From there solving the clue is straightforward.
Room 3: Lancelot grabs a flashlight he found from searching the previous room and looks around. At first they think they need to move the blocks to a particular spot or fit them together in a particular pattern, but there doesn't seem to be any obvious solution. Mogget gets shirty, Lancelot gets annoyed. It's not going well. Eventually Lancelot moves the flashlight over the walls and ceiling and spots the ventilation shaft. Mogget flies up to investigate as a crow and manages to pull away the grating with his claws. From there it's an easy journey for him to go through the vent in cat form and then fly out into the next room as a bird.
Room 4: Despite being sorely tempted to leave Lancelot behind, Mogget unlocks the door and lets Lancelot into Room 4 at which point they're both drawn to the sarcophagus. They recognise the writing as mirror writing, so Lancelot goes back to Room 2 to grab the mirror while Mogget paces around the edge of Room 4. He's sure he can sense some magic here but he can't quite pinpoint it. Then they read the inscription and a long and increasingly tetchy argument follows. Mogget says he'd be happy to sacrifice Lancelot, but he can't harm a member of Circle Daybreak. Lancelot doesn't want to hurt anyone because he's a big heroic baby. And they don't even have a bloody blade anyway, where is that supposed to be? Lancelot thinks it's in Room 2 and goes back to search which loses several minutes. After scouring Room 4 again, Mogget eventually thinks to look in the sarcophagus and then they have another argument about who should wield the blade, which Mogget eventually ends by slicing open Lancelot's arm just to shut him up and hey, presto the door appears. They use the knife to open the door and get the hell out of there.
Team Kills People For A Living: Evie & Desmond
Room 1: Desmond is locked inside the cage, which, after Evie quickly scopes out, immediately breaks. This goes double for the handcuffs. Upon noticing the marks on the floor, both of them automatically go to stand in them, and yes, they high-five when the door opens.
Room 2: A quick look at the lock is all it takes and the two of them start canvasing the room. The book is amongst the first things inspected. Given the four things to count, and the four numbers to unlock the next door, it's pretty easy to deduce what's going on. They split the objects, and move on to the next room.
Room 3: Evie doesn't need a flashlight, and Desmond manages to light the room up with a ball of light. With a locked door ahead of them, they start to look for other ways around it, and of course the grate is basically calling their name. Only needing to move one of the boxes, Evie is able to scramble up and into the grate. Landing on the other side, she opens the door for Desmond to come through.
Room 4: While Desmond is a bit freaked out, Evie is right at home in this spooky place. Desmond can see through the spell, and a quick look around the chamber for clues wields the inscription. Reading it backward is actually an easy task for the Assassins. Since the inscription refers to the bloody blade, they infer that there has to be a specific knife, a specific key. Opening the sarcophagus reveals the blade, and from there, it really doesn't take long for Evie to take the knife and run it along her palm. Better cut the dead girl open than the new kid.
There's another high-five.
Cole & Flint
ROOM 2: Flint spends most of his time looking through the books in the bookshelf. Cole's the one who puts together the 'items in the paintings are the code' information and nags Flint enough to stop looking at the books, he thinks he has it, until Flint unlocks the door.
ROOM 3: This is when it becomes a bit of a trainwreck. They quickly manage to get the flashlights and figure out where the air vent is...and then things go to hell for a little bit. First, Cole tries to be the one to climb through the air vent, but he goes intangible at the wrong moment and falls straight to the floor. Flint's the one who eventually has to crawl through the air vent...but straight up gets stuck in the ventilation shaft partway through. Flint ends up dislocating his shoulder and getting scratched up as he makes his way through the ventilation shaft. Cole offers words of encouragement and tries to be very awkwardly helpful while Flint swears a blue streak.
ROOM 4: Cole's magically sensitive enough to piece out where the spell is. He also figures out what the mirror writing is so hey Flint, can you go back and pick up the mirror pleeeease. They get the mirror, decipher the text, open the sarcophagus and spot the knife. There's probably a bit of arguing about what that means because they can't really mean a sacrifice, one member of the party's dead, how can you sacrifice a ghost. Flint gets to be the one who cuts himself because ghosts can't bleed. Besides, he's already kind of bloody due to the ventilation shaft fiasco in the first place. The spell breaks, they use the knife to open the door, and Cole offers more useless words of encouragement.
Look, they made it through to the end, that's what matters. Now somebody please get a medic for poor Flint.
Eames and Lydia suffering
Room Two: Eames will probably try and methodically go through all the chests and drawers, starting with the desk because keys are always in desks right, and he'll ask Lydia to do the same. Once he finds the book and has a look at the clue, he'll definitely hone in on "on display" which means it's an "in plain sight" situation. Eventually that should tell him to look at the paintings after realising there is not a single shoe on display and the two of them can count it all up and leave!
Room Three: Unless Lydia found them, they almost certainly did not get the torches, but that's fine Eames can illuminate the room. (He may take a moment to teach Lydia a similar spell since he's fairly certain they're not winning anyway.) Figuring out the boxes will be easy enough, but once they're stacked there will be an inevitable fight with Eames convincing Lydia to climb up and go through the vent, but he'll use his superior skills in being Nice and Convincing to get her to do it.
Room Four: There's probably a lot of yelling. Like. A lot. Mostly Eames trying to be gentle and coax Lydia into taking the key and Lydia being Very Upset because this room is creepy and she, understandably, doesn't like it. Once she does manage to let him in, he'll take a moment to tell her she did a good job because he's nice. This room is probably pretty quick, honestly. Eames would likely be able to see the illusion for what it is and find the door, and there's no way a thief could resist a fancy looking sarcophagus. So from there it's a matter of jamming the knife in the lock to open the door. (At no point during this has he stopped to look at the riddle.)