gooseberryhigh | SLEDDING

SLEDDING

As 4:30 creeps closer, students begin to bundle up and sneak out into the woods behind Azurcrest. It's a new path this time, less well-worn, which leads to a new hill. Perhaps it's not the same dramatic drop as last year, but sledding is sledding!

It takes two hours before Mr. Covington catches them, and many of the rule breakers scatter and escape punishment. Those who stay lose points and earn detention... but at least it's just a forced study hall. You all ought to be preparing for midterms anyway, and Mr. Covington's not so heartless that he'd impede your academic success.

HOW THIS WORKS:

Anyone who reasonably wouldn’t have stopped this in its infancy is invited, regardless of what house they’re in or whether or not they're a prefect!

This is against school rules. If your character participates, they are breaking an explicit command by staff.

However, getting in trouble is opt-in. Comment HERE if you want your character to get in trouble. They must attend a two-hour study hall in the lodge tomorrow after dinner, and they will lose house points, which will contribute to the end of the month House Cup calculations

There are single-person sleds and two/three-person sleds, most of which were kindly transfigured by other students.

No alcohol is available this year unless your character brought their own!

Characters lingering at the bottom of the hill may be randomly informed that a recently rolled sled is about to crash into them. They may dive out of the way or be knocked down like bowling pins.

Every time you go down the hill, write “SLEDDING, INJURY Y/N” in the subject line of your ic/ooc comment.
- I’ll then roll on the chart below. If your character wipes out and you answered “Y” to injury, I’ll then roll a second time. There’s a 5% chance of sustaining an injury. If two characters are riding in the same sled, it’ll be a 50/50 chance which one is injured.
- Last year was extremely dangerous, but this year the chosen hill isn't as steep, nor is it quite as perilous. Injuries will be limited to bruises, bloodied noses, and maybe a sprain or two.
You may choose to make it down the hill unscathed, in which case write “PERFECT RIDE” in the subject line.

There are also smaller hills nearby if your character doesn't want to take the big plunge!

However, you may not choose to get injured. That can only be obtained by facing the wipeout table.

Due to how huge this cast is, while characters can go down as many times as they like, if things get too busy we'll only roll two or three for each character. If we start skipping your character because they've gone a bunch of times already, that's why!

CLICK HERE FOR THE WIPEOUT TABLE

1-2	Mystery event. Ooooh~
3-5	Are you dead? You think you might be dead. Guaranteed injury. A second roll will be made to determine your wipeout.
6-15	Hit a tree, and then the branches above you dump copious amounts of snow on your sled.
16-25	Dumped into the stream. You’re now all wet. :(
26-35	Crashed into bushes, and sustained scratches and bruises.
36-42	Dumped off a small ledge and into deep snow. You need help escaping.
43-45	Nearly hit a deer. The deer looked more traumatized than you were.
46-50	Flipped the sled. Teenagers go flying everywhere.
51-53	Your sled hits a small incline over a log buried under the snow, and you go flying gracefully through the air! Once you hit the ground, though, you tumble head over heels into a snowbank. Bruises sustained, and you lost one of your boots.
54-55	Swerved to avoid hitting a bunny and flipped the sled.
56-69	Very rough ride, with several near-misses with low hanging branches and trees that you swear came out of nowhere. Your life flashed before your eyes. Somehow you made it to the bottom in one piece, though.
70-73	Duck! You quickly lie back as a low hanging branch flies over your head. That was a close one!
74-75	Duck! … Ouch, not quick enough! You get a faceful of branch and a bloody nose, and you’re knocked right off your sled.
76-80	Your sled careens out of control, and you (and anyone riding with you) tumble the remaining twenty feet to the bottom of the hill. Bruises sustained.
81-84	Where did that ditch come from??? No one knows, but you’re in it now. Bruises sustained.
85-89	When you reach the bottom of the hill, you realize something is missing… or someone. The person riding in the back of the sled fell off halfway down! (Reroll if solo rider.)
90-91	Perfect ride! Your exhilaratingly fast descent down the hill… went right through where everyone else is trying to climb back up. There was chaos and screaming as your classmates dived out of the way of your careening sled.
92-94	Perfect ride! No one can stop you! You keep going! Oh my god, where are you going?! Come back!!! Your sled has so much momentum, it zips past the finish line, under some bushes, and takes you about 300 ft. into the woods with nothing getting in your way. Walking back is going to be a paaaaaaain.
92-100	Perfect ride! Your exhilaratingly fast descent down the hill set a new record!

» top of the hill: This is where you’re least likely to get hit by an out of control sledder.

» Sledding: If your character is sledding, this is where it happens! Grab a sled and one or two friends, and hold on tight!

» Bottom of the hill: Pull yourself together and climb back up! If your character lingers here, there's a chance that the mod account may inform you that the most recently rolled sled is about to crash into them!

» Did your character get caught?: Comment here if you would like your character to get caught. There will be IC consequences.

» OOC - Questions, Comments and Concerns

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jade is at least a foot deep in snow, and lies there for a moment, wondering a little if this is what it’s like to be buried. It’s far, far too cold to wonder that for long. She plucks herself delicately up out of the snow, shaking her hair so a clump comes off the end of her braid. As she’s trying to stand, the snowbank collapses farther, causing her to sink back in. Jade laughs, teeth chattering, grinning like a maniac at Ari above her. “I’m...I’m f...fine! Are you?” She spares exactly one pang of guilt for dragging Ari into this at all, but takes the offered hand all the same.

"I'm fine," she says, although her amused expression has fallen away and been replaced with one of clear concern. She takes Jade's hand and pulls her towards herself, so they're both upright if not standing. It's hard in the deep snow, and now Ari's worried it might give way beneath them and trap them both. "A little cold," she adds.

But even if she's cold, Jade's worse off. "You're shaking," she says, reaching out to brush the snow out of Jade's hair.

Jade has a moment of temptation to pull Ari back into the snow, too. Adrenaline makes her, like all good Jays, very stupid. But She uses the leverage responsibly, pulling up and then using her very best fencing footwork to nimbly escape the wet snow. Ari's hands are warm enough that it's hard to drop them.

"I'll run up the hill. I want to go again." She ignores her friend's concerns and the snow soaking into her clothes both.

Ari doesn't drop Jade's hand either, and instead pulls herself close enough to Jade to link elbows once they're back on solid ground. Just being out of the knee-deep snow is already an improvement in terms of temperature, but Ari's still frowning.

"You'll catch cold. We should go back to the Lodge," she says, craning her neck around to see if she can spot their sled. Maybe it's still buried in the snow, or maybe it made it down to the foot of the hill. Whatever happened, it seems like it might be a lost cause. "I'll bet the elves will make us something warm to drink."

She knows Ari is probably right. She usually is. Jade holds herself close, for warmth, but she's still shaking her head at the idea almost instantly. "But we've only gone down once." She turns hopeful eyes up, concentrating on making herself appear warmer. She achieves only a smirk. "And we have to stick around at least until someone's started bleeding."

Edited 2017-12-13 02:01 (UTC)

Jade's stubborn. Ari wouldn't be here at all if it were easy to talk her best friend out of an idea once she's got her mind set on it. So she knows they won't be going back to the Lodge, and she doesn't feel like going back by herself, even if she is damp and cold. She lets a deep sigh out through her nose.

"Take my scarf, at least," she says, stopping on the trail back up the hill to untie the scarf from her neck.

Jade's rare pang of guilt increases, but she isn't about to go back, now. She takes Ari's scarf, with only a little further protest. "Now you'll get cold." She squeezes one of Ari's hands in both of hers, using body warmth as gratitude. "Just one more time. I have classmates who want me to die with them. Then we can go to the lodge."

"I'll be fine," Ari says, tucking her free hand into her coat pocket to resist the urge to reach over and tie the scarf for her, a gesture she recognizes as inappropriately intimate. She probably shouldn't be fretting over her in the first place. Jade's capable of taking care of herself, even if she is a little headstrong. But since the snowy season's started, Ari's fended off enough idle daydreams about brushing snow out of her hair or finding themselves caught under the mistletoe or any other number of stupid things that worrying about her catching a cold hardly registers.

"If someone has to die, let it be one of the boys," she advises, focusing on where she's stepping to keep her mind from wandering.

She's warmer now that they're walking, and now that the snow isn't permeating every inch of available skin. Jade adjusts Ari's scarf around her neck, burrowing into it. She hates to be taken care of more than almost anything, but this isn't inherently unpleasant. The scarf smells like Ari, and the snow. She's shocked to find comfort in that. "Jeffy?" She moves her chin up, so as not to get too caught up in it, sly smile at the ready, "Anyone that tall is just asking to be a target."

"Higher center of gravity," she agrees. She's taking the whole sledding-as-practical-studying thing to heart, even if she doesn't really know all that much about muggle physics. There's a reason she didn't sign up for hermeticism this year. "Better to get him off the sled as soon as you can, or he might take all of you down."

SLEDDING

Jade and Ari vs Snowbank

Jade and Ari vs Snowbank

Jade and Ari vs Snowbank

Jade and Ari vs Snowbank

Jade and Ari vs Snowbank

Jade and Ari vs Snowbank

Jade and Ari vs Snowbank

Jade and Ari vs Snowbank

Jade and Ari vs Snowbank

Jade and Ari vs Snowbank