29. Planning and sketching
"So, we talk." Kiara said.
They were currently sitting down at the table in common room, sitting around a table full of dinner. Kiara's statement was met with awkward silence, before she spoke again, "First of all, you both, Ria and Calvin are okay with each other? No rivalry?"
"Yeah, yeah, of course." Calvin said.
"No throwing accusations of killing kings or queens?"
Ria smiled, "Of course not. Those were hard time, and our king disappeared from your kingdom, so what were we supposed to think?"
"Excuse me? He was our king too!"
"But he was an aqua ele..."
"I said no accusations. The king and queen are dead and there is no point fighting over it." Kiara cut them off. "If we want to win this game, we need to cooperate."
"Right, I'm sorry, Ria."
"It's okay. I'm sorry too, I suppose."
"Okay, now, we'll give a rundown on each of our powers. I'll go first. I'm a werewolf. I can turn into a wolf at will. I am an archer, and am really good at stealth, because when I turn into my wolf form, I get heightened senses. Also, if there is some shapeshifter, they can't fool me, because the smell doesn't change when they transform."
"Okay, so you are our long range and stealth girl. I'm better at short range, and close combat. And I am a really good strategist, and good at brain things."
"I'm sword too. But I'm not much good at fighting. I'm more of a doctor. And I have the same 'fairy' magic, as he calls it. And I'm a cold mermaid, not personality wise, and can control water to some extent. "
"Woah! You can do that? I thought mermaids couldn't do magic, and water control and all that. It wasn't in any book I read." Calvin said enthusiastically.
Ria smiled, "What were you doing when the host gave a rundown of my powers yesterday?"
"I..." to be honest, he was too conscious thinking about his stage fear, the tournament, he hadn't given much attention to the stage.
"Now, we need to think about some name for our team. Any ideas?"
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Calvin tried different names in his head, but none seem to fit.
Team Valiant? Nah.
Fiery squad? Hell no.
Team Avtar? Calvin liked that one, but the other two shut it down.
"Team Unity." Calvin exclaimed. "The tournament is about making peace with the other elemental kingdoms, right? And it has a nice ring to it too."
Kiara and Ria exchanged a look, "Alright. Team Unity it is."
After that, they spent the rest of the dinner eating stuff (no shit sherlock!) and then practiced in the arena. They all had different, very capable mentors and had a lot to learn from each other. Sometime during their practice, Braedon volunteered to help Kiara as she demonstrated a move.
But soon, he was the one teaching them. It was outrageous, Calvin thought, that they didn't let Braedon participate. He was better than any of them.
After the practice, at 9 in the night, as they sat on the couches catching their breaths, Ria turned to Calvin and said, "I'm sorry, for the way I treated you. Hearing the host talk about you like that - whoever will be in his team would be lucky, I thought you would be some arrogant, selfish guy. And that our team's credit will go to you.
Clearly, I was wrong. Can we, maybe, start over?"
Calvin smiled, "Of course. That's what a team is for."
--------------------------------
"Good morning teams." A middle aged man with mousy brown hairs and blue eyes spoke. They were at the breakfast table, in a hall where all the contestants were supposed to meet.
A chorus of good mornings rang out around him. "So, how is your training going?" Susan whispered to him.
"Good. My teammates are scary."
"Good for you. My teammates are idiots. Jilen is still okay, she's smart with her arrow, but the vampire is absolute trash. I don't even know why they chose him as a contestant."
Calvin opened his mouth to reply, when the host cut off the muttering of all the contestants and said, "Now, I'm sure you're all very curious about your tasks."
He had the sharp attention of all the people at the table now, students and mentors alike.
"Alright." He took a bunch of papers from the table and passed it around. Each contestant took one and passed the bundle forward.
Calvin read,
For the tournament, the contestants will be provided with craft materials, like cardboard, scissors, glue, and other materials included in craft kit enclosed.
The contestants are supposed to make a fort with it, within two days.
From the morning of the third day, the contestants will be minimized to three inches and allowed to roam in the fort. A valuable jewel will be given to the contestants to safeguard to protect and equally trained and powerful staff members will try to steal the stone from them.
Whoever's stone gets stolen first will be eliminated from the round.
After a stone gets stolen from a team, a one hour break will be given to all the teams before the raiders will come back. The last team to keep the stone, will move on to the survival round.
Usage of stuff outside the kit is not allowed, unless the contestants use day to day objects like bowls, pencils, etc.
Any usage of of outside appliances will need to be approved by a member of the staff.
Calvin's mind raced in ideas they could use and things they could do to protect the stones. Susan, apparently, had other ideas, "Why are we made to do craft? I thought this was a tournament about about fighting skills."
"The tournament is not about fighting skills. It's about general skills, and intelligence."
Judging from everyone's reaction, they hadn't anticipated it. Calvin thought it was pretty obvious. Even Liza and the other mentors seemed surprised.
After breakfast, they were sent back to their rooms to work on their projects.
Ria and Kiara sat hopelessly in front of the 1 meter wide, 1 meter long cardboard that they were supposed to make a fort of. Beside them, sat a bunch of hard and soft cardboard papers, scissors, etc.
"Okay, I'll tell you this, I'm totally hopeless here." Kiara said.
"Me too." Ria added.
"I am not the best guy about this...about I think I'm not hopeless." Calvin said.
"Okay, so any ideas?" Kiara asked, before continuing herself, "I was thinking maybe we could make huge walls all around base. If those guys can't come inside the fort, there will be no need to fight."
"Kiara, there would be at least one person with magic. One day is enough to break down a temporary wall."
"Point. So what were you thinking?"
"So, basically what was I was thinking, we could add something water. Maybe take a huge bowl in the center and the gem at the bottom of it."
"Makes sense. But there could be water elementals in the raiding team too. You know, the best idea would be to confuse them so that they don't know where they have to look at all."
"You know, I have an idea." Calvin gave a sly grin.
He went to take a pencil, and drew four squares at the four corners in the carboard. Then, a larger square in the center. He then drew two inch wide boarder in all the four squares in the corners.
"So, what exactly are we making?"
"We're confusing them. We make four similar forts. One large tower, where Kiara can stand with her bow." Then he found a flaw. They wanted to make all the squares equal right, "So, Ria, just how well can you camouflage in water?"
Ria shrugged, "In natural habitat? Just fine. In brown cardboard? Terribly."
Calvin's gear worked overtime. Maybe his idea was half baked, but it was an idea.
"Give me a day to cook my idea. I'll explain tomorrow." Calvin grabbed a sheet of paper and started drawing. He may not be Annabeth Chase, but hey, he had made plenty of Legos. That had to account for something,
.....right?
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
It was two hours after Calvin took off to sketch out plans. Ria and Kiara came once or twice to check on him but made no sense of him drawings.
Suddenly, when they were practicing Archery, Calvin called out, "Ria, just how good is your magic."
"I'm level one, so pretty good." Ria answered.
Calvin puffed out his cheeks. He knew spells for making stuff waterproof existed, but his fairy magic was not strong enough to do them himself.
"Okay. Can you make stuff waterproof?"
"Calvin, I literally live underwater. Of course I know how to make stuff waterproof."
"Perfect." Calvin said, and began sketching again. Calvin looked out of the corner of his eyes that Kiara and Ria were practicing.
After an hour, he called them.
"Okay, I've got the model ready."
They came sat beside him, where he was lying face down on the carpet. He pulled himself up and showed them the paper.
"Look, we'll have four towers in four corners. We'll keep them slightly elevated. Then, about the elevation, we can make room of sorts, with closed roof, obviously, because elementals can fly.
We will use cohesive spells, to keep them joined, because obviously, one jump of a three inch person on a room stuck with glue will make it fall apart."
"Okay, good idea. But can't they just fly above the trap and into the room. Say they found a way through the roof." Kiara asked.
"I can make magic shields and traps for people who try to fly over it. Maybe I can even charm it so that Calvin can fly, but not anyone else." Ria suggested.
"Good idea." Calvin said, "And then, in the middle, we'll make a tall tower where Kiara can shoot arrows from. You can stay in wolf form above it, curled up, so that they wouldn't know where you are unless they are flying."
"But if there is a tall tower, with no one above it, they're bound to get suspicious." Kiara pointed out.
"Exactly. So, I'll be on the tower too, very visible and look like I am ready to fly off at moment's notice."
"Clever."
"We'll make tall boundaries all around the cardboard, and fill everything with water. So the air elementals will have to fly, because we can't swim. And the other two will have to swim. Not to mention the walls the elevated part will provide."
Ria nodded, "We'll have to make the wall extra strong. If they make a hole through it, the whole water trap will be useless."
Calvin nodded, "Ria will be swimming around the water. We'll paint it so that you can camouflage easily. Also, with dried drops of glue, we'll make a floor of pebbles."
"And when we get the stone, we'll put in the sea bed." Kiara said, eyes lighting up.
"No, that will be an issue. We don't know what the stone looks like. Or it's size. I had this idea, near the middle tower, a drop of dried glue, like it was spilled in sticking the tower we'll have a mould of glue. Except that it will be hollow from inside."
"Nice. And we can booby trap all the towers and prospective hiding place, we can make some up too, and they'll waste time looking around those."
"Exactly. The goal is to stall." Calvin said, enthusiastically.
"Hmm. Say Calvin, this is your definition of 'not hopeless'? You're a genius."
"Well, thanks."
Calvin felt bad lying to them about the stone's hiding place, but oh well!
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