[ We find Our Heroes, mysteriously, outside of the Flying Couches home. ] [ In fact, we find Our Heroes on a stage set up in one of the open paved areas on campus. ] [ They sit on one side of the stage in provided chairs; on the other side sits six members of the Pensword home. ] [ Off to one side is Felgolos the dragon, beaming contentedly. Overhead is a large sign reading "Ye Olde Campus Double Dare!" ] [ "On your mark!" Shouts Felgolos, "Get set! GO!" ] [ Session Start. ] * Marguerite stalks out from behind the stage, a tallish redhead in camouflage. She's carrying an index card, and plants herself stage right. Today's opening challenge is called! .... Couch Tossing. Each team will find themselves in possession of a single couch, and following the style of caber tossing, must hurl the couch as far as possible. The winner of the opening challenge takes control for the question round. [ The bards, sorcerers and wizards of Pensword Hall look worried. ] * Marguerite flings her arm to the side. "And now, presenting your host of Ye Olde Campus Double Dare.... RED SEIFER!" * Alcinoe wonders how she got into this in the first place. * Seylin wonders where Tia is, as she's the one who caused the house to get its name. * Patrick shrugs. * Istvan is also, coincedentally, wondering how the hell he got dragged into this. * Ariake is resigned to her fate. * Patrick grins. He looks like he knows what's going on. But you can bet he doesn't. * Red struts out from backstage, a tall, grinning redhead in a fancy robe. "Greetings, everyone! I am Red Seifer, your host of Ye Olde Champus Double Dare! We have two houses of the adventurer's school competing here today, so it ought to be a great show!" * Red pulls out a wand and smacks the upside with her palm twice; a large overstuffed sofa appears in front of each group. The sofas eye you menacingly. No, really. * Seylin eyes the sofa back. * Ariake peers at the sofa, and considers. * Alcinoe cracks her knuckles. "Y'all want me ta do this one?" * Seylin motions to the group to gather 'round, so they can plan this. Presumably conferring with your team is allowed. I have a plan... * Ariake gathers! * Istvan 'huddles' up. "This is ridiculous. But I can throw a decent couch, I think." What's your plan, Ariake? If we can fit it within the rules...I think I could teleport the sofa a long way. It had best be good. The sofa must be thrown. Since you have to teleport WITH the sofa, that means we'd have to throw you, too. ... Oh dear. * Alcinoe snickers. "Ah can do that. Dunno about a landin', though." Ariake? Do you really want to do that? Well, I can aim for a roof... Can you return swiftly afterwards? * Ariake nods. "Sure!" Sounds like a plan, then. ~_^ Okay. So who throws? After all, you only live once... Then I say we go ahead with that plan. Alcinoe will be the primary thrower, everybody else throw your effort behind her. And Ariake goes with the couch? Yes. * Alcinoe nods. She looks to the other team and Red to see if they're about ready. [ Pensword Hall is busily casting spells on their chosen thrower, a bard who almost has muscles you can see! Some are also casting spells on the sofa itself. ] * HKenji raises his voice. "WE'll let Pensword go first, as challengers." * Marguerite watches on, foot tapping. * Patrick nods. That should work. * Red shrugs. "Works for me. Go, you spoony bards!" [ The chosen bard steps up and grabs the sofa, heaving it over his shoulders, then throwing it forward, well over the crowd -- why, yes, there IS a crowd. ] [ The sofa impacts against the Flying Couches home, some eighty feet distant! ] * Red grins. "When flying sofas collide." * Alcinoe eyes the others. "Ah'm gonna do this. Ariake?" * Ariake casts a quick Emotion: Hope. "This should help us out." And then climbs bravely onto the sofa and hangs on for dear life! * Alcinoe waits for Ariake to get comfortable, then walks over and lets out a shout, picking the sofa up with amazing ease and hurling it forward, into the air. * Ariake waits until she's reasonably airborne, and then - casts Teleport! [ Alcinoe gives a MANLY shout as she throws the sofa! The sofa disappears in mid-air! And appears on top of the rooftop balcony of the Flying Couches home! ] * Ariake stands up on top of the sofa, and waves to the crowd! * Marguerite peers. "Daaamn." * Alcinoe grins. "Ah think we got it." * Ariake casts Fly, and sets back down on the stage, next to the group. ^_^ Nice. Very nice. ^^ [ Felgolos walks over the the stage and passes a hoop over Seylin. After the hoop passes, she's replaced by Will. Nobody seems to notice. ] Thanks! * Alcinoe nods. "Good job, Ariake." * Will blinks as he tries to regain his orientation. * Ariake grins. "Likewise." * Red applauds! "We have a winner! Congratulations to the Flying Couches home, you win the initiative for the question round! And that was a very MANLY shout, Alcinoe." She flexes unimpressively. [ Podiums appear on the stages before all of you. ] * Alcinoe smirks. "Thanks." There's a pause. "Ah think." * Patrick takes his position. "Yeah, she means it. Ya think?" ~_^ * Alcinoe smacks Patrick upside the head as she walks by to take hers. * Ariake takes her place. * HKenji takes his place. [ Patrick takes 1d3 lump-on-the-head damage. ] * Istvan grumbles, and gets behind the podium. * Will looks around, obviously slightly confused. * Will gets behind the podium hesitantly. [ The Penswords take their positions. ] * Patrick grins. * Red grins. "Now! First question goes to you, FC!" * Marguerite pulls up a stool and sits down, still all the way over on stage right. * Red nods to Felgolos, who sneezes. A large, furry animal with blone plates along it's back appears on stage. It stands there, looking confused. The first question is; how much wood can this Dire Woodchuck chuck? No 'could' or 'if', mind you. * Marguerite eyes her nails. "As a note, the question round works like this..." Oop! Did I forget that? Shame on me. If you don't know the answer to a question, you can Dare the other team to answer it for twice the money. But you gotta CYA cause they can Double Dare you back for four times the money, and if you can't answer you have to do a physical challenge. * Ariake looks at the woodchuck. * Istvan looks at the others, and whispers. "It ain't got thumbs. How's it gonna chuck anything?" I concur. [ The woodchuck stands on its hind paws and flexes mightily. The audience is amused. ] ... hmm. I stand corrected. Or, rather, it stands, I'm corrected. * Alcinoe shrugs helplessly. More than enough? [ It still doesn't have any thumbs, mind you. ] Can it pick things up without thumbs? Yes. Not easily, I imagine. * Will stares at the woodchuck. "I suppose it can pick things up with his mouth." Considering it's a hypthetical question, can't it chuck any number of wood? * HKenji straightens up and calls out, "More than enough!" * Red looks to her co-host. "Judges?" * Marguerite raises an eyebrow, looks down to her notecard, then looks up, and just shrugs. [ Felgolos shrugs - not easy for a dragon. He must practice. ] Works for me! Five hundered gold to the Flying Couches! [ Everyone claps. ] * Ariake grins. "Well done, Kenji." Yay. Nice. ^_^ [ The Dire Woodchuck disappears. ] * Alcinoe nods. * HKenji bows his head. Next question, and this one goes to the Pensword fellows. We're going to summon something or other to the stage. You will need to tell us what it's Challenge Rating is. [ The Fourth Wall suffers a fatal wall-attack and falls over. ] ( It does that regularly around here. ) [ After that, Felgolos hiccups, and a large, silver-skinned man with wings and GLOWING EYES appears on stage! "Hello," it says. "I am a Solar, a variety of what we used to call 'Aasimon' in the old days." ] [ The Pensword mooks confer, seeming confident. Nonetheless, one of them says "I dare the Flying Couches to answer the question." ] * Alcinoe watches. "Ya wanna bet they know the answer?" And she looks to the others. * Ariake shrugs. * Patrick shrugs. Wanna bet we do? I certainly don't know the answer. Never even heard of it before... ... didn't pay quite that much attention in class. More concerned with how things can break me in two than an arbitrary scale of meanness. Is this from the third edition textbook, or the third edition revised? * HKenji raises his voice so that the question can be heard by the host. * Red looks to Felgolos, who clears his throat and says, "Third edition revised for everything besides damage reduction. That's still up in the air." Twenty three. [ A bell nowhere goes Ding! ] * Will stares at Kenji funnily. "Don't tell me you actually read more than one editions of those textbooks they assign us." Impressive! I read ALL the editions, as a matter of fact. * Patrick smirks. "It's a good idea." That is correct! One thousand gold to the Flying Couches! * Will has an expression of horror on his face. * Patrick smacks Will on the back of the head. "What'chu bein' scared about?" I don't need no 'challenge rating' to tell me a solar's a freakin' badass. But I suppose it don't hurt to know. Next question goes to the Flying Couches home; * Will rubs the back of his head. "Dunno. The idea of reading all the editions terrifies me." Actually, second eddition stats are terribly amusing. Knowledge is power, my friend. * Alcinoe pats Will on the back. "'Salright. It's pretty horrifyin' ta me, too." * Ariake grins. * Will smiles, "Thanks Alci. Glad to know I'm not the only one." [ Felgolos pops open a soda can, chugs it, and belches; on the stage appears a big block of metal. ] * Red grins. "What is the worth of this block of platinum?" [ It's funny, but you could swear you've seen that lump of metal before. ] ... ... that looks an awful lot like the big block o' Axebeard platinum. It does. Did they ever get back to us about the total value of that block? * Will rubs his eyes. "You're right!" Ah never asked. * Ariake nods. "Hmm..." ... It is. Istvan? You're the one who's been dealing with the dwarves. ... mmm. If I remember right... You're also our metal expert. ... don't think they ever told me the full worth. And precious metals ain't my specialty... bounce it over to them. Gimme a sec. Okay. Gotta do some math in my head... I hate math. * HKenji raises his voice. "Dare." Ariake can likely help you with the math. Just give her the figures. * Ariake nods. "Sure." * Istvan huddles with Ariake, muttering something about value per gram. [ The Pensword house folk look wryly at one another, then one speaks up and says "Do such things really have any worth, in the end?" ] * Red looks at Marguerite. "Judges?" * Ariake nods, and is rattling off a few figures. * Marguerite stares at the Pensword people. "What the hell are people thinking? Hell yes, they do!" * Istvan mutters something about bards, then goes back to huddling. * Alcinoe snickers. [ Felgolos shrugs. "Purely speaking, it does have a great deal of monitary value. Let's not dodge the question by pretending to be philosophical." ] [ The bards look crestfallen! That's gotta be a moral victory, at least. ] * Patrick laughs. [ They confer, and then one speaks up, saying "We double-dare the Flying Couches to answer the question." His eyes say "Physical challenge! Physical challenge!" ] * HKenji looks expectantly at Istvan. * Istvan continues to huddle with Ariake... * Ariake is nodding and making a few reassurances. * Ariake gives a final nod! ... okay. That much platinum is worth about twelve mil, give or take. Done. * Patrick nods. * HKenji calls out to the host, "Approximately twelve million." [ A price tag macically appears on the block of platinum, reading '12 Million GP'. ] Correct! Two thousand gold to the Flying Couches! * Istvan nods. "Good math, Ari." * Ariake high-fives Istvan! Good metal estimation, too. * Istvan high-fives back. He is grinning slightly now. [ Felgolos says, "Ding." ] Most impressive. * Red walks over to sit on the block of platinum. "That's it for round one! We'll be back with round two after these words from our sponsor!" * Marguerite looks up. "Aww, man. No physical challenges this round." * Red grins evily. "Oh, I'm sure we can get some next round. We'll just have to ask more infuriating questions!" I don't work much with platinum, but I'd be a piss-poor dwarfish human if I didn't keep up on how much the various mined metals are selling for. [ Session End! To Be Continued! ]