💍 LET'S STEAL PROM! 💍 Round 2!

[cecaelian]

ROUND TWO: Crack the Code!

Our competitors meet today outside the Magical Rudiments classroom but find their entry blocked. Instead, each pair is blindfolded and led by a freshman handler out of the lodge and to a secret meeting location by the river. Blindfolds are removed in the Artificing Shed, which has been "decorated" to look a bit like a drab warehouse on the docks - not much of a stretch, honestly.

As the participants take in the sights, a freshmen dressed in black furtively hands each of them a briefcase or a small slip of paper. Examination of the paper reveals a series of pictograms and a short phrase written beneath it.

The following is written on a blackboard at the front of the room:

My favorite food.

V	E	G	E	M	I	T	E

If you’re going to pull this heist off, you’ll need to crack the code.

Welcome to Round Two of Let’s Steal Prom!

HOW THIS WORKS

• Competitors are limited to those teams which previously signed up. Last round, each team was presented with a set of cards listing their 'role' for the event. These roles are for flavor purposes only and have no effect on the final outcome.


• This round was organized entirely by Stewart Ocean and his band of merry freshmen. Ursula has some regrets.


• Post your pair under the THE COMPETITORS heading, and play out a scene based on the current round's scenario. For every tag, Manx will RNG a number between 1–25 to add to your pair's score.


• Current Scenario: Each team is presented with a locked briefcase with alphanumeric keypad, an encoded password, and a clue for the password. All passwords use the same cipher, but unfortunately the clues are highly subjective and were written by a panel of freshmen. The freshmen also "forgot" to mention that incorrectly keying in a password will result in the briefcases spewing ink in people's faces. Keep guessing wrong and the obnoxious effects will keep escalating. They're possibly punishing everyone for not taking the time to get to know them better. (Students have access to their journals and can collaborate if they'd like.)


• Up to 6 tags per pair will count for your score each round, i.e. you only get a maximum of six RNG numbers to add to your score. But feel free to tag more or less!


• Teams who successfully decode their puzzle will gain 10 bonus points!


• Scores for round 2 will be rolled until Thursday, May 10th 11:59 PM EST. Second round results will be posted on Friday. Scores will carry over into subsequent rounds.

CLICK HERE FOR TEAM ASSIGNMENTS

149% Naughty Lilika + Webster Code: Hint: I found this under my bed.

Adverse Drug Reaction Rosy + Danny Code: Hint: The worst thing about vikings.

Catwomen🐾 Ari + Jade Code: Hint: The best way to kill a man.

Danger Butt Dinah + Chad Code: Hint: The worst superpower.

Flotsam & Jetsam Ursula + Ferdie Code: Hint: The name of my cat.

Hero & Marie Archie + Nisha Code: Hint: The best place for a snack.

Innocent Nun Heathcliff + Fern Code: Hint: The cutest animal.

Lake Gooseberry Killers Sy + Clem Code: Hint: The best Quidditch team.

Loot the Booty Riley + January Code: Hint: The best thing about me.

Munificent Mermaid JD + Ophelia Code: Hint: I always bring this on a date.

Nap Mom and Squonk Griffin + Georgie Code: Hint: The best musical instrument.

Nerf Herders Lucas + Bash Code: Hint: The best Star Wars character.

Pirate Ninja Todd + Grace Code: Hint: The best fashion accessory of all time.

Princess Sparkle London + Quentin Code: Hint: The best superpower.

Salubrious Sword Yancey + Lachlan Code: Hint: The best kind of sword.

Spira Spencer + Ira Code: Hint: What I'm currently knitting.

The Varmints! (ง •̀෴•́)ง Jeffy + Essie Code: Hint: The worst kind of cheese.

Titanic Panic Iliya + Cameron Code: Hint: They have the best toes.

Wagonman Eve + Salem Code: Hint: The best kind of cake.

Shoeless Swan Reid + Austin Code: Hint: The best lipstick color.

» THE COMPETITORS: Will you crack the code before times up? Compete to see who can get the most covered in ink? (Is there a rooster in here or did someone just mess up their code too many times?)

» SIDELINES: Chairs have been arranged to form a small spectator section. Non-participants are encouraged to root for their favorite teams!

» OOC - SCORES: Manx will be rolling/tallying everyone's scores here.

» OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

Comments

THE COMPETITORS

[cecaelian]

Nerf Herding

[bubblewrapped]

As soon as Lucas realizes they're solving a brain teaser puzzle, his eyes brighten and his brain gets right to work. Unfortunately, the first thing his hands do is start to fiddle with the buttons on the briefcase, sliding letters around.

"Well, we've got an E and one repeating letter. 'Taco' is probably a common cons--" There's a click. And then Lucas makes a terrible sound as ink spews all over him.

Innocent Nun

[heathclifflacey]

Heathcliff groans audibly at the realization that they're expected to crack a code to open the briefcase. He isn't good at this stuff. At all. Maybe he can break it open but that's probably against the rules. He pushes a hand back through his short hair and looks down at Fern. She's smart at least.

"Well. We already know the answer is wrong, right? None of the cutest animal names are that long," he huffs, folding his arms. "But...we know that the..." He consults the board at the front of the room, "The eggplant is an 'E' and the pumpkin is an 'I'....And the balloons could be...Bs or Ls or Os..." Realizing that too many letters can double, he trails off and tilts his head, looking at the puzzle.

Fern. Help.

Nap Mom & Squonk Meditate on Life, Music, Freshmen

[cosmonot]

Griffin "Datsun" Flowers stares down at the sheet of paper. "Xylophone," he says, even though that's definitely not it at all. And then he looks up at his partner-in-crime, the notorious Poison Sumac. "Maybe we can guess it faster if we figure out which freshman wrote our clue, first." That's almost certainly not going to work.

Princess Sparkle

[taxation_is_theft]

"K, so we got like no double letters, no repeating letters, and the cypher only gives us like three letters," Quentin surmises, fiddling with the buttons on the briefcase. "A cursory list of superpowers with a G in them is like - you got superstrength, you got badass healing, fucking regeneration - none of those fit in the cypher, but they are superpowers with the letter G in the names."

There's a click and Quentin looks down, just in time to get a face full of ink. He makes a face. "To be honest, I think we should cheat and go look at everybody else's card to see what the most common emoticon is because that shit is definitely probably a fucking A and we probably fucking have it in our word." But now he's wondering if it gets another word wrong if the briefcase will spray him with ink again, or get creative. He's half tempted to try it to find out.

Salubrious Sword Talks Swords

[hotdish]

"Alrighty, well then," Yancey rubs his hands together as he stands over the briefcase. "This is going to be especially tough because--" nearby, some goofball junior gets sprayed with ink. Yancey gives a knowing, panicked look to Lachlan. Making a mess doesn't bother him, but it will certainly bother Lach. They'll need to make absolutely sure they get this right in one go.

Yancey tries to hide the panic in his face. It doesn't work very well. "...there are so many good swords?"

Adverse Drug Reaction Always Knew It Would Come to Vikings

[browbeats]

This seems simple enough for a couple nerds to do. Should take them, like, ten, fifteen minutes tops. It's not like Rosy has a history of overthinking simple shit or anything.

"Where the hell are these kids learning about vikings?" Rosy mutters, notepad on the table as she writes the alphabet, then attempts to draw the weird little picture things next to them. She looks up at Danny, eyebrow up, her gaze basically accusing him of writing the clue. "We never learned jack shit about vikings."

Danger Butt

[winterbottom]

Hey! This is a thing he could probably do! He's good at codes and numbers! He has skills worth using! Chad's pretty much glowing. No WAY would Dinah want to shove him in a locker after THIS.

He has fully nerded this project out, choosing graph paper to make a neat little chart of the alphabet with the known letters filled in, and then thirteen little lines for their letters. He's gonna get this. "SO. The second letter to the last is T which means BACON is PROBABLY either S or A or Y since not many other things would SOUND good after T? And a LOT of powers end in -TY anyway? It's not invisibility, so they're WRONG, anyway."

He pushes his glasses on to his nose and it's like he's completely forgotten the chance that he's going to be WAY swirlied after this.

Shoeless Swan

[soundscaped]

They're here again. They got dragged back, and they're here again, and it's just as awful as the last time.

"We don't have any of those emojis," Austin says at the blackboard clue, voice just on the verge of a whine. "Is it dark red? Is that an option?"

Loot the (Boobs and) Booty

[riledup]

Riley lets out an alarmed shriek as she tries to enter "BOOBSANDBOOTY" into the briefcase and gets a face full of ink. Puzzles are... not this girl's thing. She also might think the clue is asking them for their own best features and they just did this bonding activity, so this should be, like, no problem okay.

"Screw you, suitcase," she snipes. "How am I supposed to know??"

Wagonman

[salem_wagonblast]

Salem's face lights up when he sees their task. Codes. Logical things, he loves that. Except that he can't think of a single cake that starts with the letter I except ice cream and that doesn't work out because the M is the third letter and it's all one word. At least he's pretty sure it's all one word.

On a piece of paper he writes out I_M__E___. "The answers aren't also scrambled are they?" He asks, mildly unsure because though this should be just logic, it's clearly not. "What the hell kind of cake are they eating?"

Catwomen

[odder]

Jade becomes angry at this puzzle almost immediately, raising an eyebrow. It's wrong. Whatever the answer Stewart had put, Best Way to Kill a Man just was not __ I __ E __ __ T ___. Not even poison could fit into this. "I'm going to have to have a talk with Stewart about his methods." She sighs. "He's so promising, but he needs a little guidance. This better be revolutionary."

Lake Gooseberry Killers

[threatens]

"Coppertale," Sy says instantly. No, too many letters. There's a logical eight-letter answer, which... ugh, but then he notices the doubled letters at the beginning. "Uh. Gooseberry? Wait, shit." According to the board, saxophone is an M. So— "Mooseberry. Wait! Fuck."

In irritation, Sy flicks a random button, and gets a jet of ink in his eyes. "Fuuuck!"

Titanic Panic

[iliya]

This session is more lowkey than the last, but now involves using your brain to solve a problem. Far from Iliya's forte. Normally, he wouldn't care about failing at a silly game, except that he's playing with one of the smartest boys in school. Iliya squares his shoulders, and grabs a pencil to start writing down their answers. Part of it has already been revealed on the board.

_	_	_	_	_	T	_	_	_	_

"That is... not a lot." Iliya sighs.

Pirate Ninja

[quickbuck]

"I'm bad at puzzles," Todd announces loudly as soon as they're handed their briefcase. He's not a man of intellect. "Do you know how to figure this out?" he asks Grace. He tries to look between their code and the blackboard where the word VEGEMITE is written, but he can't even look between the two before forgetting what the little emojis stand for.

But at least they have a clue. "Is it like sunglasses or something?" he asks.

The Varmints! (ง •̀෴•́)ง

[racingstripe]

"Ummmmmmmmm." Jeffy doesn't know much about cheese. LIKE, he likes cheese? He's eaten LOTS of it!!! It's just, like, the different kinds of cheese?? And he's never RANKED them or anything???

"Well this is a darn pickle, ain't it?" The Texan accent is coming out, it means he has no clue what he's doing. People around him are getting squirted with ink, though, which doesn't seem like the worst punishment for getting the wrong answers. "Guess this is why my ma always told me to keep a dairy farmer by your side."

Flotsam&Jetsam

[ferdie]

One letter. They have one E near the very end of a very long word. Honestly, the freshmen and Ferdie are in an undeclared war by now, and he's not even sure how it started. He blinks dumbly at the cipher in front of him, neatly parsed on to notebook paper. "...WHOSE cat?" He asks Ursula beside him. "Does Stewart Ocean have a cat?" Did they let that boy have animals?

Spira Kinda Codes

[ashworthless]

People had already started figuring out the code on the journals, so Ira looks up from his fervent drawing of emoji on to paper. They'd figure it out soon enough. Between himself and Spencer, they could pick it out easily. Ever since last time, when they promised to not go to prom at all, this competition seems like a second priority, anyway. "You know." He muses, instead, getting Spencer's attention back by tapping the inside of his wrist, "We should really just be really grateful that none of the freshmen did accidental like, dirty texting with this code. I don't trust children with emojis."

Archie & Nisha are Hero & Marie and They Know All About Snacks

[godzillabutworse]

"I should check my Good Places To Eat Snacks card." Nisha jokes, hands immediately on the briefcase, turning it over and looking for alternate points of entry. Like, just cutting it with a knife or something. "Do you think we'll get bonus points if we open the briefcase by, like, unconventional means?" Like explosives. "I mean, the answer's obviously ANYWHERE."

She squints, tilting her head to the side like a bird. That's not enough letters. "ANYWHEREZ. But, like, who even says anywherez? That's dumb."

SIDELINES

[cecaelian]

OOC - SCORES

[cecaelian]

SCORE: Adverse Drug Reaction

[cecaelian]

Hint: The worst thing about vikings.
Answer: BEARD BURN

The team successfully cracked the code!

Thread: Here
RNG Scores: 10, 10, 2, 15, 16, 13 (+10)
Total: 76

SCORE: Catwomen🐾

[cecaelian]

The team successfully cracked the code!

Hint: The best way to kill a man.
Answer: FIRE ANTS

Thread: Here
RNG Scores: 11, 6, 18, 7, 5, 23 (+10)
Total: 80

SCORE: Danger Butt

[cecaelian]

The team failed to crack the code!

Hint: The worst superpower.
Answer: FLYING BY FARTS

Thread: Here
RNG Scores: 6, 20, 3, 8, 10, 20 (+0)
Total: 67

OOC 💎 QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[cecaelian]

Apologizing preemptively for freshmen.

Re: OOC 💎 QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[cecaelian]

ALSO APOLOGIZING because I once again have to post and run, but I wanted to give people plenty of time to play with this over the weekend! ♥