Mosaic Fragments

I figure I really ought to write this entry before it's chased right out of my mind by other third term insanity.

So Ditch Day was last Thursday, corroborating the ChE prof's "empirical evidence". Being horribly predictable, I did the Lord of the Rings stack, and I didn't regret it for a moment.

[I liked the dinner announcement. "One stack to rule them all." "One stack to find them." "One stack to bring them all." "And in the darkness bind them . . . to a stack." The back of the t-shirt says the same, minus the last, er, editorial remark.]

The LotR stack was pretty big, with sixteen slots, although no overflow. The characters were the nine Fellowship members, Arwen, Elrond, Galadriel, Eowyn, Treebeard, Quickbeam, and Gollum. I was Eowyn. Naturally, we didn't all stick together the entire time.

First, everyone split up to get their costumes and solve separate puzzles that told us all to meet in Rivendell for breakfast. The seniors made up their own "Horse-Code of Rohan" for Eowyn, which involved pictures of soldiers on horseback. Different things in the picture represented different letters. For example, a shield was "o", a spear was "l", a hoofprint was "a", and so on. For my costume, I had a beige dress and a sword. The Fellowship members got cloaks, which I thought was cool.

After Rivendell, we split into three groups. The Fellowship followed the crows of the Dunedain (a string of black paper cranes) and went to the top of Caradhras (roof of Firestone), where they found a chest of ice with a clue. Then they went down into Moria (the tunnels), including a visit to Balin's Tomb and the Bridge of Khazad-dum. Apparently some of the puzzles were quite tricky, as they ended up about forty-five minutes late to Lothlorien (Grant Park), where we had lunch.

Meanwhile, the Ents, with Gollum, solved little puzzles to find Entings, which were little bags with keys in them, which would later help them flood Isengard.

The seniors didn't know what to do with me, either, so I went with the Elves to reforge the Sword that was Broken. Aragorn had come to Rivendell with the hilt of Narsil, part of a real katana (d'oh) that had been cut up. We sought the master swordsmith (an alum), who gave us our first clue. The rest of the morning was spent with clues a la FUCKED [Fortieth Underground Cannes-Kremlin Espionage Dance (?)]: pictures of places on campus, cut into pieces, which you put together. Then you go to that location to find the next clue. There were a lot of clues, making for a fat packet that's now in Elrond's keeping. We started near Avery, went down past P Plant with clues every ten feet or so, past Steele and Spalding to the C-store. Here we met with a brief delay, as there were two clues hidden inside the C-store, and it wasn't open yet. Then we had several clues in Sherman Fairchild Library, including some inside random books. [Plant engineering, anyone?] Then the clues led us out the other side, to Bridge, and finally to the roofs of Bridge and East Bridge.

I forgot to mention, with the first clue, we also got a shard of Narsil. After that, though, it was a long wait for the next, as there were only four shards and at least twenty-some clues. After we found all the clues, we returned to the swordsmith, who took us to the Barrow Downs where we were to find the plans for remaking the sword. He told us we were short one shard, but we were certain we'd followed all the clues in sequence, save one, which we found later. We ended up calling the seniors, who said they weren't sure they'd actually placed the shard, and assured us the smith could "extrapolate" from what we had.

The Barrow Downs were a cool three-tiered maze being used by several stacks. It had a slide in the back, although I didn't make it that far. Eowyn's costume wasn't designed for the crawling around, and it's a bit worse for the wear, including some mud and grass stains. Ironically, the only group that never went to the Downs was the Hobbits, the only ones who go there in the books.

After that, we had an hour until lunch, so to occupy us we received the "final test", a wood block puzzle that had nothing to do with the stack. It did succeed in occupying us, however, for we weren't quite sure what it was supposed to make, and even after we had some idea, we couldn't do it. We went to lunch anyway, after receiving Anduril, which looked, as far as we could tell, just like our shards would have had they been whole. [So they must have gotten two swords that were the same. Also, I just noticed tonight that the sword used in the Zelda stack looks a lot like mine. Hm.] During lunch Elrond managed to solve the puzzle, but he says it was harder than the Palantir, which had many more pieces, as you'll see later.

So after lunch, we had different groups. Merry and Pippin went with the Elves and the Ents to talk to Saruman (another alum), answering some puzzles for him. Then they flooded Isengard, a small model next to Millikan, by unlocking the valves with the keys the Ents had found in the morning. When they did, clues hidden at the base of the tower floated up and told them to find the Palantir, which was under Millikan Bridge. As I already mentioned, it was another wood block puzzle, with runes on it, and involved a lot more pieces than the one we'd been playing with. The wood pieces were different lengths at least... The Palantir directed them to Minas Tirith (athletic field).

Meanwhile, I, Aragorn, Boro/Faramir, Legolas, Gimli, and Gandalf were given a Red Arrow from the Rohirrim. It was a cool maze made out of a rod inside a pipe. The rod had paths cut into its surface, and there was a screw at the top of the pipe, so the arrow could be removed only by turning the rod along the paths of the maze. Inside was another message in the Horse-Code, which, when deciphered, told us to go to "Hlems Deep" [sic]. Helm's Deep was one of those random rock sculpture things on campus, but when we arrived we found that the Orcs had been slain for us by people from some other stack. The orcs were supposed to be black balloons that, when popped, had messages that said, "Another foe has been slain! Add one to your count, but don't stop!" or something like that. We gathered them up and a couple of them told us to go to Robinson Pit.

I've never been to Robinson Pit, but apparently it's this room deep, deep down under one of the astronomy buildings, that was originally built to filter sunlight down. They still run experiments there. We climbed all the way down to find that it was the Paths of the Dead. We were confused then, as the puzzle said to use the "scraps" with the letter board, and we couldn't find them. We started translating the hint -- all the hints were written in Cirth runes, but fortunately Legolas had become an expert at them by the time the Fellowship got out of Moria -- which began, "the fabric..." At that we all stopped and asked, "Fabric?" Then we looked up, and hanging from the beams was a fabric ghost. A few attached scraps of fabric had chalk lines, which we placed on the letter board to spell "Minas Tirith".

We arrived at Minas Tirith, a scaffolding structure with white sheets, which looked suspiciously scavenged from Interhovse, and out stepped the Witch King (alum) to meet us. We drew our weapons, but he led us around to show us the real siege of Minas Tirith, a really messed up chess-based game. The instructions said we couldn't start until Aragorn and Boromir were there, but since we had arrived before the Ent group, we spent our time shooting arrows from the top of the scaffolding into targets on the field. I found it really fun, since the last time I tried to fire an arrow, I failed miserably. This time I almost got the hang of it, although I never hit any of the targets.

When the second group arrived, we began the fscked up chess game. The rules were meant to show that the odds were stacked against us. Each character had his own way of movement, some of which were modified based on whether we had solved certain puzzles. Between each of our turns, the Witch King could move one orc, and he could respawn orcs if we captured any. The legend had been modified to say "no male or elf can slay the Witch King", which meant, despite our protests as to accuracy, that only Eowyn could. Since I have no idea about chess, and my piece was the most important, I mostly left it in the hands of the others, some of who concluded there was no way to win. In the end, though, the Witch King kind of suicided after three of his turns or so, based on secret rules such as his not knowing that Eowyn could kill him. Then he gave us the key to the Black Gate of Mordor (senior's room).

While we were doing this, Sam, Frodo, and Gollum had set off on their own. First they passed through the Dead Marshes, solving another typo-ridden puzzle involving the skeletons in the water. It told them to go to "Stelob's Lair", which was in the tunnels. They had to walk through the dark, so they activated Galadriel's Phial, jars of "lightstick juice", one containing the main solution and one containing the stuff from the glass capsules. We all thought it was really cool when they showed it to us later. Anyway, they had to walk through a place with bells hanging from above, and had to retreat every time one of them rang. At the end of their path was a huge spider -- I never heard the exact nature of this, although apparently it was not an alum playing the part. At some point around this, they also went to Cirith Ungol, an metal door in the middle of a lawn, and also the Gene Pool. After Shelob, I think, they were told to run like hell, which they did. It was really funny to hear them tell about it, as apparently Gollum got ahead of the Hobbits, until they couldn't see her flashlight anymore, and she wouldn't respond when they called for her. Very creepy and appropriate.

We met up with the Ringbearers at the Black Gate. We opened it, and they opened the door with the combination they had gotten. The room inside was dark with a reddish tint. It was the Cracks of Doom. [Or the "special Place To Throw Stuff Into Lava room".] We piled in, finding t-shirts on the way. There was a ramp, and the far end of the room had a drop-off, into a shallow pool of water. We clamored for Frodo to throw in the Ring, and pushed Gollum in after a bit as well. Then we all cheered and flooded down to the courtyard to await the firing of the Cannon and the end of Ditch Day 2004.

Our bribe was dinner at Tom Mannion's, which was exciting. Unfortunately, some communication problems forced rescheduling to Friday, which several people couldn't make, including four of us in Glee Club. Fortunately, Tom Mannion's dinners apparently go on quite long, and we were only one main course behind when we got there after the concert. Skipping two dishes, we were still stuffed full, so I don't know how the others managed it.

So that's the summary of my awesome Ditch Day. The other groups' activities I pieced together from hearing them retell it, just because I think it's amazing how well coordinated the stack was, and how detailed in recreating the story.

And then . . . there are pictures.

( Cut to spare your friends pages, and my bandwith. )