Adventures Class is what it's called

[Lunadrakla]

(I'm srry. Been busy lately and having problems coming up with a post for her...but here it is)

Kacey continued to gather the equipment as he spoke to her. She didn’t really want to look at him after she bared a piece of life to him, but to not look would be to prove that it was true and as painful as it felt. She didn’t know how the rules went with this kind of thing. She really didn’t know how she was supposed to act at all since there was nobody but herself to teach her.

She was left with sticking to the simple solution. Keep quiet and watch for signals, cues from Chaflin that would lead her in the right direction. She heard him mention more about the daylight slipping away and even though she wouldn’t have a problem with the dark she didn’t like the idea of going out in the dark without a weapon.

Flashes of past came back to her from times she had ventured about the streets without a way to defend herself. Shaking her head she forced them from her mind. Looking down she noticed that all the gear had been gathered. So now she began towards the thicket where she figured their path would lead.

Chaflin was right. The light was quickly dissipating from the sky but then again it had a tendency of doing that when evening came. Once again the feeling of being vulnerable came to her causing her fingers to itch for a blade.

Her hands full of items as she felt it was just fair that they share the burden of packing the gear, she was not able to move for the spot on her side that she always carried a dagger. The vulnerability that she felt caused her eyes to shift about for any form of protection that she would be able to use.

The branches and woodened land about them might have provided plenty of ready weapons, had she the strength or height to reach most of them. The trail of her thought shifted her vision from trees to Chaflin. He indeed was tall and strong. Thoughts wandered along to follow a path that perhaps most have when looking at him. A man that would be able to keep the smaller ones safe is a dream that many girls had, but just as her mind began to reach out to grasp the fantasy, the logical part of her mind cut it off.

She had tried before in her life to hide behind another to keep her safe. One learns fast on the street though that to keep yourself safe you have to watch your own back. To get you have to give. Everything has a price and she wasn’t ready to pay that kind of price yet.

Forcing her mind to other thoughts she wondered what to talk about. She had never been talkative and perhaps for safety reasons she should just stay quiet and walk to their destination. It was then she noticed that she had been just walking and not paying attention to what direction she had been heading.

Kacey paused and looked back to Chaflin for he had the map. Waiting for instructions or a sign as to where they needed to go, besides deep into these woods.

[Acies ab Vesania]

Chaflin ventured into the woods slowly, awkwardly holding the map in his hands while juggling the compass, trying to keep his bearing. On occasion, he pauses to ring the bell he keeps at his side, ensuring that their passage through the woods did not happen without a great deal of noise. Every ten steps or so, he stops to examine the map, double-checking their progress. It takes quite a while, but after a few more stops with the map and some mumbling at the compass, Chaflin comes to what is clearly the location the teacher intended them to find.

In the center of a clearing, a wooden poll juts from the ground, bearing a note pinned near the top. Chaflin reaches out and takes it, having quite a time with the map and the compass, having to settle for putting the compass into a pocket. He reads it aloud, as to not be rude to his partner.

"Hello adventurers:

"If you read this, you have made it to your campsite. As you can see, this clearing is an ideal location for building a camp. Now that you have a fine location for an adventurer to setup for the night, you must prove your ability to setup your haven.

"From the surrounding wood, find what you need to build a safe campfire, and then using whatever you were able to bring with you, build your fire. Once you have built your fire, you will have to find a way to put your fire out, without water. You CANNOT leave the fire burning, and to do so will mean failure of the assignment.

"Once you have put your fire out, follow your map until you come to your next obstacle. I'll give you a hint, you might get wet. From there, you will be able to make your way back to the school grounds.

"I'll see you in class!"

- Professor Hickson

Chaflin folds the note, and puts it into his pocket. Next, he folds the map and puts it away into his backpack. He brushes his hair back, pulling loose strands away from his eyes as he scans the surrounding area. He turns to Kacey.

"Well, we don't have a shovel, so we can't dig ourselves a pit. Back on the farm, we often made cooking pits with some big rocks; maybe we can find some of those."

Chaflin starts to look around the surroundings of the clearing, looking for the stones.

[Lunadrakla]

Kacey was happy that Chaflin read the letter out loud. It helped to keep her from being stuck in an ackward position. But now they had to make a campfire.

She had never made a big fire but little fires were something she could make well. She had just set the stuff that was cluttering her arms up when Chaflin mentioned a shovel. Indeed she hadn't brought a shovel, but perhaps something that she did bring could be used as such.

Hesitantly reaching into her bag on her side, she shifted some things around and pulled an item out. Her shyness coming out again, she shifted her weight before finally just speaking up. "Chaflin?"

The word was the only thing she said, but she did hold the object out for him to see if he should look. What she held clung in her small hand was a simple spoon.

[Acies ab Vesania]

Off topic:
Sorry late, sorry not so long. I get so damn busy, I forget I have threads to get back to. :(

Chaflin pauses, turning back toward Kacey, in response to her calling. He looks on at the spoon she pulled from her bag, his gaze locked with the utensil for a long few seconds. All at once, his face breaks into a wide grin, and he laughs heartily, amused by the notion of digging a hole with a spoon. His laughter is not out of teasing or in spite of Kacey, but rather one brought upon by a shared moment between friends, the sort that brings out the gaiety in nearly anyone.

"I suppose in a pinch, the spoon might work. I'll take a look around for those rocks though, so we can get something going before we lose the rest of our daylight."

Chaflin goes back into the surrounding woods, in search of sizable rocks that can serve as the building blocks of a fire. He returns periodically, carrying large stones of varying size and shape, with Chaflin dirtier after each trip. By the time he has acquired a satisfactory amount, Chaflin is covered in dirt and sweat, and has managed to even get dirt on his face. Due to all of his sweating, streaks go down his face like stripes, giving him a rather silly look that he seems to be completely oblivious to.

"Whew, just as soon as I catch my breath, I'll help you work on getting the fire going. Only, once we have it going, how are we going to put it out, without water? Lacking a shovel, well, save for that spoon, does put us at a disadvantage."

Chaflin falls into deep thought, but the image of a man contemplating a mystery is rather quite shaken by his large size and the amount of dirt on his hands and face. Instead, he looks like an overgrown child who just finished wrestling in the dirt.

[Lunadrakla]

Kacey herself was covered in dirt just the same with each trip made by Chaflin. She had went around and found a spot in the clearing where the dirt had not been packed down so tightly. Using the spoon, she jammed holes in the ground to loosen the dirt even more and dug the dirt out with her fingers.

Due to the rain they had experienced the other night, the deeper she dug the damper and cooler the dirt became. She wasn't sure the size of the pit Chaflin was aiming for so she just made it in circumference to the length of her arms as well as a sloping foot to foot n' half down. By the time she was through Chaflin had returned and she was covered in dirt from head to toe.

She didn't answer his question as she began to maneuver the rocks into positions around the pit. A few she huffed over and a few she was forced to roll, either way the rocks found new homes just outside the fresh hole. That in turn brought a sweat to match Chaflin to her body. As the light faded away, she turned to face him. The sight she saw brought a slight smile to her lips, but laughter was not there to join.

She sighed as an effort to press the bad air out and gain new as she went for her bag that lay on the ground. Again she dug into the bag of tricks, this time retrieving food and bladder. The bladder was bulging with liquid, but she indeed noticed a dilemma. They required the precious liquid to rinse the dirt from their throats as well as needed it to pass the test that had been set before them.

Kacey stood there next to their new pit thinking. After a few moments, she began to shift her weight about and hesitantly look up at Chaflin. "Would the dirt work?" Her voice was quiet as a whisper into the wind, her hand clutched the bladder close to her body as a child would clutch their favorite doll. Even as there was food clutched forgotten in her hand, the fingers never loosened their grip about the cloth.

[Acies ab Vesania]

Chaflin leans back on his arms, looking up at the darkening skies.

"If we had a shovel, using the dirt would be easy. It's a lack of a shovel that has me worried, if we don't get this well covered, it could burn the forest down. Sometimes a fire looks like it's safely out, and then an ember catches on something dry, and well, then you have a burning hayfield."

Chaflin speaks from experience, thinking back to his youth when a group of older kids took to the hayfields to have a bonfire and drink some ale they got their hands on. The teenagers thought they had the fire properly put out, but failed to stir up the mix, and left a few dormant embers hiding beneath a pocket of loose, dry dirt. One of them must have popped and sent out a spark, because in the middle of the night, the entire hayfield was ablaze, filling the air with ash and smoke. The heat was overwhelming, rushing their farm home even from nearly a quarter mile of distance. Chaflin's father and mother spent the entire night with their neighbors, putting the fire out. Chaflin was too young to help then, though he wanted to.

After, his parents made sure he knew the importance of putting out a fire properly.

"Maybe if we use just a little of our water, to soak the dirt- it should make the soil clump. Then we can take larger chunks and drop it over the fire, with some more of the loose stuff you already shoveled aside. If we find a thick branch, we can work on stirring it up."

Chaflin hoped it work, especially since using a bit of their precious water supply risked leaving them in a spot. He felt caught between a rock and a hard place on this one- he knew better than to leave a potentially dangerous ruin of embers, but he did not want to squander resources and hurt their grade.

[Lunadrakla]

Kacey found herself staring at Chaflin's feet as he spoke. She found his words to be true but it didn't make the choice easier. It took her only moments though to decide what they needed to do. Shifting her hold on the water, she moved silently to sit next to Chaflin. The movement she made was just as quiet if not more than the sounds she made when speaking.

Her pale hands traversed the gap between the two as they set there in the darkening woods. As they found their destination of over Chaflin's lap, the fingers slowly uncurled to leave their gifts resting softly for his disposal. The cloth was full of some of the foods swiped from the school's lunch. The meats and vegetables still slightly warm from being wrapped and stashed away since lunch.

"Why not use what we need of the water for the fire and than we can nurse the rest. We need to hurry because we still need to gather edible herbs."

[Acies ab Vesania]

Chaflin nods his assent, before taking the offered food.

"Well, there is bound to be some water around here. Let's get this fire put out, and then go find those herbs, and some water if we can."

Chaflin gets up from the ground, rising from a sitting position to a squat, and pours some of the water onto the ground. With the dirt soaked, he takes up chunks and drops it into the fire, dampening the fire. With the flames mostly put down, Chaflin takes his foot and stomps the dirt into the embers, dropping some more water over it after it has been tampered down. Grabbing a nearby branch, he stirs up the concoction, making sure that the fire is sufficiently put out.

"Well, I think that should do it."

Chaflin gets up, and then gathers up the remaining supplies. With everything packed, he looks back to Kacey.

"Are you ready?"

Off topic:
Sorry, not so great. Trying to get this moving, so we can try to get this going somewhere again. >_>

[Lunadrakla]

As Chaflin put out the fire, Kacey shoved a portion of her food in her mouth so she could eat on the move. Placing the rest back in her bag, she pulled out some of the wire that she had told Chaflin, she had brought. Gathering up some of his items, she made quick work of creating a section of hooks that would allow them to carry the stuff more efficiently.

She had just finished with the a few of the hooks when Chaflin finished and gathered the rest of the equipment and got set to go. Kacey found herself nodding at him with a silent agreement. She hadn't gotten much done and he already had the fire out. Kacey now wished she had payed more attention to what he had been doing.

Either way, she followed him as they made their way out of the clearing and hopefully towards the school. She didn't know much about edible plants, but the teacher had shown them some examples of the herbs to keep an eye open for. There was one type of plant she was familiar with though and this trip would give her a chance to gather some of them for her own use.

Her eyes darted about glancing at the growth around. Slipping a hand into her bag, she pulled it back out with it sheathed in a leather glove. She then set out to pluck plants from the area as they walked. The plants alternated between bags they went into and which hand that was used to pluck them. She did attempt to keep an eye out for Chaflin though, not wanting to get stuck out in the woods on her own.

[Acies ab Vesania]

Chaflin, map in hand, leads the way through the trails leading towards their next destination. It does not take very long for the pair to come upon a river, moving swiftly from their left to the right. The river is wide, perhaps 30ft or so. From their vantage point and with the dimming light, it is impossible to tell how deep the river is. A dozen yards from where they came upon the river, the remains of what was once a bridge juts from the water, the broken pieces a far cry from their once useful condition. Beyond the remnants of the bridge, there appears so to be no other clear-cut way to get across. Chaflin, however, walks towards a particular tree.

Nailed to the tree is another folded piece of parchment, the same paper that was left behind at the campsite. Pulling the note off the tree, Chaflin opens the folded paper and quickly reads the content first to himself, then aloud.

"Alas, a final obstacle before having a clear path to the school. This river might be dangerous, and it will certainly be cold. Fording it might work, but then, who wants to get wetter than you have to? Find a way to get across, and return to the school.

"Do not try to cheat and go around it, I will know!"

Chaflin puts the note into his pocket, and ponders the river.

"Do you have any ideas?"

He asks in a quiet voice, sort of distant, as if lost in his thoughts.

[Lunadrakla]

Kacey was now found herself faced with a new challenge. Again it was something she was not used to handling. She stood there for a moment before finally digging in her bag. This time she pulled out the section of rope that she had mentioned earlier. The total of its length only reaching to about 10 feet and it was only general rope, not climbing rope. With her being as light as she was, climbing rope was not neseary if that was what she was to use it for.

She looked up at Chaflin, "How strong is the twine you've brought?" She paused for a moment but decided to continue with sharing her idea, "I have a good aim. If we can make a run...maybe we can get some logs and float across using the line as a guide? If we have strong and long enough line."

Kacey knew that she had enough metal thread, but that was costly and it didn't look like Chaflin had any gloves that would be needed to handle it.

[Acies ab Vesania]

Chaflin considers what Kacey proposes, and then pulls out the twine and inspects it.

“Well, I wouldn’t say it’s the best twine available, but for what you propose, I think we can make do with it.”

Chaflin looks across the river, observing the other side.

“What can we catch the twine on? We need something that can hold, even with the current pulling on us.”

Chaflin scans the other side of the bank again. There are plenty of trees, a few rocks, but nothing too noteworthy. Perhaps if she were able to get the twine to loop around a sturdy branch, they could pull themselves across, as she suggested. With this in mind, he looks for a suitable tree.

“Do you think you could get it to wrap around that branch there, coming off that tree? Maybe if we tied the twine around another branch, or a rock that would make due? Something with weight…”

Chaflin stops to consider what would work in this case, as it would require something small, with decent weight, but not too heavy, and something that could easily wrap around a branch.

[Lunadrakla]

Kacey looked at the twine Chaflin produced from his gear. Even though it wasn't the best quality it still looked to be fresh. She already knew that twine that was old fell apart easily. She only hoped the length was enough. She had no intention of throwing the rope over there to anchor on a branch. They didn't have much line and they would need to keep as much as they possibly could.

A quick look around their side allowed her to come up with two sturdy sticks. Twisting and bending, she made sure they weren't going to snap easily. Reaching into her satchel again, she pulled out some of the metal line. Placing the branches together to create a cross, she quickly wrapped them together with the metal line before working a link that gripped one end the rope tightly.

Working the spool off the used metal thread, she held up what she had managed already to show Chaflin. "I can throw this over there and all I have to do is get it wedged between two sturdy things and then we just anchor this end to something." Her voice was just as low as it always was, but her pale skin held a pink twinge as she found herself embarrassed by the idea of speaking out.

In the back of her mind she still kept an eye out for the chance Chaflin should turn on her. She trusted him more than she did others but there was always someone out to con careless others.

[Acies ab Vesania]

Chaflin heads back into the woods, moving carefully but not silently, more concerned with stepping on something nasty or tripping over an unseen branch than with being stealthy. A man of that bulk has a hard time trying to move in concealment anyhow and to see someone with his width attempt it would be rather comical. With his careful treading, Chaflin wanders back into the woods in search of suitable logs, in particular something of soft woods. Chaflin learned the differences in woods, as this came of importance when you were building barns, furniture, or burning fires. He knew the differences in the hardness and densities of woods, and used this knowledge to help him find logs that would float with weight on them.

After rooting around for about ten minutes, eventually coming across a log that is neither rotted nor too fresh, of an appropriate size for them both to use, and with some sort of grip he can get a hold. Upon closer inspection, it is readily apparent that this is actually a large branch off some Pine tree, but it retrospect, a full size log would be far too heavy. The effort of bringing this branch back in and of itself proved quite a task for him, as it had to weigh several hundred pounds. His veins bulge as all of his muscles tense, and though he makes no complaint, his face is growing quite red. He does, however, manage to get it back to the shoreline, and even sets it down somewhat gently.

Letting out a deep breath and sucking an equally large one back in, he wipes away the sweat from his brow.

“Wow, haven’t had to work that hard since the last time I had to make a stubborn calf leave its pen.”

He laughs a little to himself, a bit of farm humor apparently.

[Lunadrakla]

As Chaflin went off in search of a suitable ride, Kacey spent the time surveying the other shoreline and finding a good place to throw their anchor. After about a five minute scan, she finally came back to the spot that Chaflin had pointed out earlier. The branch would still work for their idea even if it was slightly changed.

Glancing around, she insured that nobody was watching her. Then taking the end of the twine and securing it to her wrist so she didn't lose their line, she took aim and let the cross fly. Even in the dark she could hit a target well. The cross spun through the air only wobbling slightly from the weight of the rope attached to it.

Even so it landed where she aimed and with a quick tug, locked it against the branch and trunk of the tree. She continued to pull and tug on it to insure that the anchor was secure. It wasn't till that moment though that she realized that there wasn't enough line to secure it at this end as well. After this revelation, she stood there waiting for Chaflin whom wasn't too far away and dragging something heavy by the sounds of it.

She was standing at the edge of the water when Chaflin arrived with the log. Her eyes widened with a primitive shock and fear at the sight of pure muscle before her, but it quickly melted to a soft smile as man-boy spoke of a hard work and a stubborn calf. Even as she had never been near livestock, she could imagine a picture of Chaflin wrestling with a.... The image in her head fell short for just a moment as she found herself in a dilemma. She didn't want to ruin Chaflin's light image, but the curiosity was getting the better of her.

After a few attempts at speaking, she finally managed to get the question out, "Chaflin? What is a calf exactly?" Her face contorted as if she was about to burst into tears or prepared for an assault. She truly didn't know what one was and to ask such a silly question would normally get her laughed at or chided for her inexperience. And once again she didn't have any kind of weapon to help protect her with. So she would simply have to deal with it.