[Open] Lost and Found

[nor_iron_bars]

Who: Jail, her students, her lovely volunteers, and YOU.
What: Scavenger hunts are fun, right?
When: Middle of June.
Where: That's what you'll have to figure out...
Warnings: Tracking techniques, PVP-enabled classroom assignments, and Jailbreak.

I. Come gather 'round

[It begins as, frankly, a mildly worrying amount of Jail's classes do:]

[Some new diagrams on the board, some new tools over on the workbenches, and the same familiar expression that says that Jail is Up To Something.]

So, here's the thing about magic items: they're real handy, but if you lose 'em? Kind of a problem. Most artifact are only gonna work if you have 'em with you, and even the ones that can do the job long-distance can still get lost or- [An expression of exaggerated fake innocence.] - even stolen.

Which is bad enough when it means some archaeologist trips over an enchanted nose-hair trimmer a couple centuries down the line, but can get real nasty when you add weapons or cursed shit into the mix. And sure, it's a little flattering to found out that old project you lost track of is some legendary mythical sword now, but do you really wanna have to go on a whole quest just to find your own damn property? Half the time it ends up in the hoard of an unspeakable beast or something, and that gets old fast.

But you know what they say: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. [She winks, and gestures to the board.] Up there, we got instructions for two basic tracking spells, and the diagram for a couple different kinds of locator rune. You can pick whichever one you want, but you're gonna use at least one of them this week. Pick any artifact you got- it can be one you made already, or one you make up special for this assignment- and apply whatever method you learned.

[She grins.]

And then we get to see how well you did, 'cause at the end of the week you're all gonna turn in the artifacts you chose to me, and we're gonna have a little game. I'll be hiding all your artifacts that night, then starting at sunrise the next day, you're all gonna have to find 'em.

Use whatever tricks you like, but you gotta find your artifact and get it back to me by midnight. [Her grin widens.] And I wouldn't wait too long on that, 'cause you're allowed to team up... and sabotage each other. Help your classmates find their artifacts, or find 'em first and keep 'em for yourself, either way it'll get you a couple bonus points when it comes time to turn 'em in.

I'm gonna put a hard ban on causing any injuries or major property damage, and you're not allowed to screw with each other until the hunt actually starts, but once it does? Anything goes. [Within the rules, of course. Don't make her turn this class around, etc.]

Any questions?


II. Night's still good

[It's dark, the middle of the night, and most of the campus is peacefully at rest now.]

[...So why can you hear some very faint noises?]

[It might be hard to figure out, until you look up.]

[Standing on the ceiling in casual defiance of gravity, a bag of items to be hidden slung over one shoulder like some kind of terrible mage crime Santa Claus, is Jail. Slowly, quietly, she raises a finger to her lips- or where they presumably are, under the mask- and winks.]

Shhhhhhhh.

[She's still got a few more of these to hide. You wouldn't want to spoil the surprise, would you?]


III. Let's go have some fun

[Normally, Jail's not too much of a morning person. But getting to mess with people like this can put a spring in your step even at this ridiculous hour.]

Gooooooood morning~.

[She's perched on top of her desk in the Alchemy and Artifice classroom, eating a bowl of cereal and grinning shamelessly at any "lucky contestants" who file in. Hope you're all ready to hunt, because it's gonna be a fun day.]


[OOC note: As mentioned in the Discord chat, Jail is happy to recruit fellow staff and various students to help her hide items in increasingly bizarre places. Feel free to have your character be a volunteer hiding something in their room or office, or just a bystander caught up in all this. I'm willing to assign you a hiding spot if you want the mystery of trying to figure it out both in and out of character, otherwise you're welcome to decide on one yourself. Happy hunting, everyone. :D]

Comments

[nor_iron_bars]

No worries, kid. [Jail's just gonna... reach over and give Kokoro a brief pat on the shoulder. That's probably how to be comforting, right?]

Somebody's giving you shit, huh? That sounds like a real pain.

[stavros]

Don't most people wish to impress their families or do well in class?

[nor_iron_bars]

Oh yeah, guess that's a thing. [You're asking the wrong orphan, Kokoro.] Lotta family expectations, huh? I hear that can be rough. [Well, she's seen blog posts about it, at least. That's probably kind of similar.]

[stavros]

Perhaps. But the destiny one was born for is what it is. ...At least I think so, anyway.

[nor_iron_bars]

[...Yeah, okay, her life experience is clearly not applicable here.]

If that's what you want, go for it. Never had a destiny, but maybe that's just a Seer thing. We tend to hand out prophecies a lot more often than we star in 'em.

[Also because if you handed her a great cosmic destiny she'd probably dodge it immediately on sheer principle. But mostly the first thing.]

...But, uh. If it were me watching all this, I'd be more impressed if you paced yourself and built up to lasting success instead of burning yourself out by stressing too much over every single assignment. Just saying.

[Is this how giving advice works? She's normally used to just saying "do it for the vine" and being done, this isn't her forte. Hopefully it helps?]

[stavros]

[She sighs and slumps a little.] I thought doing well in school was a general requirement.

[nor_iron_bars]

[Well, she tried.]

Ideally, yeah. But I hear the point of school is to, y'know, learn useful life skills and mature as a person.

[Telling her not to worry so much just seems to be stressing her out more. She shrugs.]

Or you could just say "fuck it" and go smoke weed out behind the bleachers. That's an option, too.

[stavros]

Wait, how? Aren't we trying to save the planet?

[nor_iron_bars]

I mean, it's a volunteer thing. No one's gonna make you save the world if you don't wanna.

[stavros]

[She hesitates for a second.] If everyone fell to that kind of temptation, the world would be lost regardless.

[nor_iron_bars]

[Jail is privately of the opinion that if everybody involved took a few hours to calm the fuck down and go get stoned, the world might not be ending at all, but she's aware that's probably not a workable solution by this point.]

Maybe, yeah, but we're not gonna do real well on the whole world-saving thing by dragging in people who don't really wanna be there.

Or hell, you can do both, if you got a knack for time management- little bit of stoner time, little bit of anti-apocalypse training... I hear some people like that kinda balance.

[stavros]

Throwing stones at people doesn't sound like a good use of time.

[what]

[nor_iron_bars]

Stoned as in intoxicated, kid. Slang term.

[Can't say she's not educational.]

[stavros]

[Kokoro stares for a bit and turns pink, looking away.]

So people who say that aren't usually talking about the ancient world's execution methods.

[nor_iron_bars]

[Jail doesn't seem judgemental about it, at least, just fairly matter-of-fact.]

Probably not unless you're reading the Bible, these days. Context is pretty helpful, there- ask yourself "does this sentence make more sense if they meant death by blunt force trauma, or just drugs"? That'll sort it out.

[stavros]

How was I supposed to know drugs were an option here?

[nor_iron_bars]

See? You're learning new things already.

[stavros]

It doesn't seem like the type of thing you're supposed to learn.

[nor_iron_bars]

Knowledge is knowledge. The important thing is how you use it.