Scene #6207: Tower of Santaga

Owner	Pose
Orchid	The Tower of Santaga has, because of the nature of the season it represents, has been changed, slightly. Instead of just being a set of trials against the tower, battling strange monsters, it now also contains trials for those who would challenge the tower... pitted against each other. But then, because of the fickle nature of things, at least one of these contests has become more creative than aggressive. So, this floor is covered in snow, of at least 5 feet deep, snow falling from the ... ceiling? Well, it looks like normal snow, at least. And in the middle is Orchid, bundled up. "Come one, come all, and try your luck at the building contest!" she extorts as she sees people coming in. "Worst case, you'll get cold, wet, and have made something interesting."
Evangeline	Floating in with just a quiet whisper betraying her movements is the little Neuroi known as Evangeline. She isn't bundled up really, but is wearing a large blue scarf with her name embroidered on it. It looks like the sort of scarf that an old world biplane pilot might wear. "...wet..." she repeats when she hears it. She doesn't like water much, but everyone likes snow. "...hello Orchid..." she says when she sees the little reploid, raising a sleeve-like arm. "...what are we going to build..?" As usual, Evangeline's voice is soft and has minimal inflection, as well as coming from a large red watch computer around her right arm rather than from her face.
Lemeza Kosugi	It's well past Christmas, but this Tower of Santaga was worth checking out. And, well, Orchid had put out a call for a friendly contest, so Lemeza figured he should pay an old friend a visit. He's still got his trademark cargo jacket and khaki pants, but replacing his usual fedora is a Santa hat covering his ears. He struggles a bit to get on top of what would otherwise be neck-high snow, but otherwise seems to be in a good mood. A wave to Orchid. "Heya. So, any rules to this building contest? What we can and can't build, and such?" Despite his questions, Lemeza's already got a handful of snow in his hands, a smirk indicating he already knows what he wants to sculpt.
Orchid	"Eva, Lemeza, good to see each of you again." A moment's wait... no, there isn't going to be anyone else. "Well, creations will be judged on a number of criteria, including beauty, industry, creativity, and theme. As for what to build, that's fairly unlimited; a replica of the Terracotta Army, perhaps? or a carefully sculpted dragon? Both valid choices. As far as rules, there's one big one: don't interfere with another player's work. Past that... anything goes!" She rubs her hands together. "We'll have four rounds, each with a prompt. So, are you both ready? The first prompt is... Music!"
Evangeline	Evangeline also offers a wave to Lemeza when he appears. "...hello..." She listens to the rules, her feline tail swaying every now and then. Four rounds, the first round is music? She tilts her head slightly. "...what sort of music..?" she asks as she floats there, not even touching the snow-covered ground.
Orchid	"Well, that's for you to come up with Eva; what's your favorite kind of music?" Orchid replies to the floating girl.
Lemeza Kosugi	All right! The rules are straightforward enough, and don't seem at all restrictive. Now all Lemeza has to do is--wait, prompts?! And the first one is music. Huh. There goes the idea of "build an ice giant and be done with it". That gets him trying to think of what else to do -- when Eva starts asking what kind of music. Lemeza turns to her and suggests, "I think it's whatever kind of music you enjoy." While Orchid basically says the same thing at the same time. Good guess. Though that still leaves the issue of what to build. After a few minutes of thinking, Lemeza starts packing snow into kind of an obese hot-dog shape, mashing it tightly into position so it stays clumped and doesn't disintegrate. Afterward, he starts pressing his thumb into the shape at various points, indenting the snow where he presses. Finally, he does his best to stick a flat, rectangular piece of snow near one end -- the result turning out to be relatively recognizeable as an ocarina, but definitely not a masterpiece. "Hm... yeah I guess this'll do." And thus, he presents his work for judging.
Evangeline	Evangeline's ears twitch. "...I like Sanya's music..." she says. That must be rather cryptic to the two here, but she starts gathering up snow and building something. Or at least trying to. It's obvious she has no experience even with making a snowball. She does have to form her hands for this, but each time she gathers up snow and tries to stick it to other snow it just falls apart again. It takes her a few tries to find out that you have to compress the snow just a bit so it will stick together. Then she starts making headway. It takes her a while, but what starts out as a fairly typical looking snowman is eventually formed into what looks like a young girl based on just overall build with cat ears much like Eva's. Eva forms most of an upper body, then packs snow in front of and behind the snowgirl to form what looks like a feline tail and...what must be legs? Except much like her own they are shaped like the engine section of a WW2 aircraft. That is what she is going for anyway, and she takes quite a bit of time trying to perfect it. If there is a time limit she will no doubt reach it.
Orchid	"So on the one hand, we have a Ocarina, and the other hand we have a lovely sculpture of a woman," Orchid says, as the first bell is reached. "A dancer maybe? Well, I'm going to give Lemeza 6 points for completing, and themeing, and give Eva 4 points; a valiant effort, and creative, but needs work." "Now, our next theme is going to seem an odd one, but I want to see what you each do with the idea of 'Spring.' Show me how you deal with contradictions!"
Evangeline	"...it is Sanya...she's part of the 501st with me...I like to listen to her sing..." Evangeline explains quietly after the points are given. She looks over at Lemeza's sculpture and tilts her head slightly, considering why he got more points than her. "...what is an ocarina..?" she asks after a moment. The next category is Spring! Evangeline might do a bit better in this one. Maybe. She considers a few moments, then starts making...snow bunnies! She makes several, putting them in different positions and poses. Each one is made of two snow balls with smaller snowballs for feet and packed snow ears. And beside some of them are tiny snow bunnies, obviously meant to portray baby bunnies. Next, she makes some snow flowers. Packed snow stalks with small packed snow disks on top and even smaller snow petals. They are barely recognizeable as flowers for the most part, but combined with the bunnies it is sure to at least get the point across. And as one last accent, Evangeline makes a rather large snowball and puts a few points around the circumference before flying up several feet and holding it in front of her so that she almost disappears.
Lemeza Kosugi	Huh. Eva clearly put more effort into her work, so Lemeza's taken aback when his potato-ocarina actually wins the round! He smiles. Then the next prompt comes: spring? The season, the water feature, or the metal mechanical part? After a bit of thought, and given the fact that Orchid mentioned "contradictions", Lemeza concludes she must mean the season. After a bit more thought... ...Lemeza comes up with the most ridiculous idea: melting snow. He starts breathing on a patch of snow like he's trying to warm his hands up in an effort to melt it, which kind of works except more snow falls from the ceiling much faster than he can make a dent. Well that didn't work too well. After several attempts, he gives up and doodles an outline of a flower in the snow so he has /something/ to show for his efforts. One look over at Eva's work and he realizes he's almost certainly losing this round.
Orchid	"I guess that works," Orchid replies to Eva, "But if you have to explain it, it could be better." She then waits for the next set of sculptures. Some time later, "Oh, and this time it's barely even a contest. Eva has managed to convey the idea of Easter Springtime, winning for theme, beauty, and industry. As for you Lemeza, well... you tried. 9 for Eva, 1 for Lemeza, putting us at 13 to 7." "Next round! Castle!"
Lemeza Kosugi	Yeah, second round went as expected. Thankfully the third round provides a much easier theme, one that Lemeza can just wing it with. Castles... that's straightforward enough. He starts on a basic model, rectangular floor plan with two turrets at the front corners. He's taking his time on this one, forming the building walls methodically and shaping the battlements just so, making sure to get it right. After the main castle is done, he digs out a moat and makes a drawbridge from the castle's main gate across the moat to the other side. It's fairly generic, but the extra effort he put in shows. Maybe points for realism?
Evangeline	9 points! "...oh wow...9..." Evangeline says softly. It may not really show, but she is quite happy about it. Art is fun, and snow art is even more fun! Now in the spirit of things, when the next prompt is given Eva gets to work quickly. She builds four fairly generic snowmen, all about the same distans from each other in a square formation, about 4 feet apart. She also carves out buttons and a face on each. Just a generic smiley face and a few indentions where coal would usually take the place of coat buttons. Then, she builds up walls between each one, about as thick as a person's arm, and finally uses her fingers to trace out brick patterns. What she ends up with finally is a snowman castle, with the four snowmen as turrets, each facing outward from the others, and walls stretched between them. And as a final touch, she makes a snowball...and throws it at Lemeza from inside her castle. The rules said no bothering other people's art, but a catapult attack from one castle to the other contestant was never forbidden.
Orchid	"And this time it's another close one," Orchid announces. "Two lovely castles, one with a catapult," she adds with a laugh. "It's close, but... it's going to have to be 7 for Eva, with the snowman aesthetics putting her over the top, to Lemeza's 3. It's 20 to 10, with one last round to go, and just to keep things exciting, there will be 20 points up for grabs in this last round!" Orchid pauses, composing herself. "And so, for the last of the four themes... Give us something to go with... Drumroll... Stalling tactic...." "Delay..." "Birds!"
Evangeline	Eva just kind of...floats there as she hears that she once again scored higher. "...I...am winning...?" she says, and even in her minimalist voice she is clearly surprised. Then after another moment of just floating there, she actually hops up and down a few times! Well, sort of. She doesn't actually touch the ground of course. She listens to the next catagory, and when Orchid says stalling tactic she actually lets out a bit of a metallic giggle. The last prompt is birds? Eva floats still for a few moments as she thinks. Finally she starts building, and it is something fairly large. Just the torso is the size of a typical snowman, stretched out across the ground flat. She then steadily builds up and carves out what are obviously wings around it, a long neck with a swan-like head is sculpted in front, and several long and streamer-like tailfeathers are sculpted behind it. It big and fairly crude, but it is obviously a bird at least, with big primary feathers stretched out from its wings.
Lemeza Kosugi	Alright, time to put some thinking into this one. Lemeza folds his arms in contemplation, cycling through several possibilities. He'd encountered several fliers in La-Mulana, but none really fit the bill well enough. His thoughts wandered to other mythological creatures, and then.... of course! With a clear goal in mind, he gets to work sculpting a rather large man. Wait, man? Sure, the detail he's putting in definitely suggests "ancient legend", but the theme is "birds". It takes several minutes before Lemeza's plan becomes clear, as when he gets to the head he makes not a man's head, but a bird's! Okay, it's taking shape. And he's not done with just the beak - he adds to the man-bird's outstretched arms some suspiciously-detailed feathers to make an impressive wingspan. Then a pause to consider. "Hmmmhhh..." Lemeza taps his chin several times. "Where do I go from here... got it!" He goes back to the bird-man's head and starts adding a plumage headdress to finish off that "ancient mythical creature" look, then does a once-over to make sure the snow doesn't de-clump. He steps back, frowning as the monotone kind of hurts the overall splendour, but he indicates that he's done. Should be good enough.
Orchid	"An on the one hand we've got a swan- could be better, but certainly a swan, and on the other hand we have ... ooo, I've seen some reploids who would look like that." She pauses, looking at the two. "Matched on theme, but I'm afraid Lemeza wins for artistry and creative interpretation. Eva gains 5 points, and Lemeza gets 15!" "Which means, for those not keeping track, we've got a tie! And that means a double win!" A chest appears, and once opened it contains....
Orchid	And what's in the box? Well, a lot of candy canes! But no stockings. Better luck next time.
Evangeline	Evangeline floats over to look at Lemeza's sculpture. She isn't certain what it is, but it is done pretty well. She holds out a hand to him and looks up at him with her featureless face. "...good job..." she says in that quiet voice of hers. When the box opens and there are candy canes, Evangeline takes half of them and leaves the others or Lemeza. "...Thank you Orchid...this was fun...frozen water isn't so bad..." she says, then floats over to hand Orchid a candy cane.
Lemeza Kosugi	Lemeza smiles and nods to Eva. "Thank you. You did well yourself." He collects his share of candy canes, hefting himself through the still-really-annoyingly-deep snow to do so, then turns to Orchid. "I was going for Pazuzu, but I guess reploid works. And yeah. This was fun, even if I couldn't think of anything useful for half the rounds." He decides to just flop on top of the snow instead of trying to wade through it. "Thanks for the spider drone as well. It's proven a bit useful in keeping Elder Xelpud on his toes."
Orchid	Orchid accepts the candy cane, tucking it behind one ear. "Honestly, I thought it would be fun to do something more creative and less violent. Of course, the candy canes are nice too. And I'm glad you've been having fun with it; the springs have also been pretty relaxing, in between wrangling ships."