Scene #9830: What Does Misery Love

Owner	Pose
Kale Hearthward	It's the early evening of the first day of Director Lilian Rook's "I can Scáthach and so are you" misery training. In theory, everyone is in the same situation, setting out from the campsite on the scavenger hunt, and then needing to backtrack to get back. That is, unless you can fly, in which case your team can start at the far end and start heading back from there, which not only cuts your travel by 3KM but also means you get first crack at the furthest targets before anyone can get there. For that and other reasons (getting a birds eye view on the way out, an internal compass, the search part of being a search and rescue specialist) Kale cleans up. He returns with a tidy seven stones, and perhaps more importantly: returns early enough to go back out with Finn and find food and gather some firewood well before the sun has set, and he's likely there well before anyone else arrives. "Come on. Come... on. Light. Light." For all of his successes and prowess, Kale Hearthward does not know how to light a fire. Various combinations of twigs, sticks, moss, leaves, and firewood already lie abandoned in the fire pit. "Come on. Light." Zero fuckup points or no, hunger and dehydration is making him as frustrated as anyone else. "It looks so easy on TV..."
Angela	Finn can't fly, but he is at least clever enough to make use of Kale's ability to and he knows how to coordinate between himself and other teammates. He's a Team Player with capital letters. What he isn't, however, is an expert at being a survivalist. Dude has lived in The City his wole life and, more explicitely, has lived in the Backstreets his whole life. "Let's see, uh, I ''know'' Lilian set up a fire here earlier, but I think she used one of those 'arcane skills' to do it. I'm not really sure how we do this ourselves." Even Solace isn't back just yet so she isn't around to bargain with. She might be fast in this environment but she can't fly. Finn, despite his hunger and exhaustion, is pretty chipper all the same. He has this readily easygoing mentality that doesn't seem to fade away under any circumstance. "Guess not everything is as easy as it is on TV. What should we do?"
Kale Hearthward	> "Guess not everything is as easy as it is on TV. What should we do?" Kale abandons his fire-making attempts for the moment, and sit down next to the fire pit and closes his eyes. "Okay. I think I've got it," he says after only a few seconds. He opens his eyes again. "Okay. Finn. Let's break this down and make this a training moment. Let's assume that lighting a fire without a lighter is possible, so we're not missing any materials." "So if we're not able to light a fire... we're not missing any materials... what do we need but not have? And how can we get it?"
Angela	''So if we're not able to light a fire... we're not missing any materials... what do we need but not have?'' "Fire. And ... A lightning strike?" Finn jokes. "All I really know is you want dry material." Finn is, ironically enough, a bit of a hobbyist woodcarver but that isn't exactly the same as knowing how to get a campfire going. "I've seen people using the stick and wiggling it around real fast, but I never had to do it myself. And I don't suppose we found any flint." He looks out towards the woods, a little worried that Solace might get the drop on them. She doesn't SEEM to be the sort to rough them up for their stones, but it wouldn't be against the rules exactly...
Kale Hearthward	"Unfortunately we seem to be lacking in miraculous lightning strikes. No, not something supernatural. Think something a lot more basic. A lot more simple." Kale gives Finn another chance, and then advances the training exercise a little bit whether or not he gives the answer Kale is fishing for. "Knowledge. We have the materials for a fire, but we're lacking the knowledge." "Now, how do we get the knowledge?"
Angela	''Now, how do we get the knowledge?'' "Well," Finn says. "We could ask for help?" There's no lightning strike accompanying this dire suggestion but there might as well ought to be. Could they do that? Dare they?? ASK ALLIES FOR HELP??? Well, Finn's obviously fine with that idea. "Having issues?" Comes a voice from the dark as Solace makes it to the campsite. The number of stones she's collected is unclear but considering she's returned she must surely at least have three. One of her hands is curled in a fist, the other is curled around her sword. The stones are probably in the former. She steps back to lean against a tree though, as if to watch. "Look hungry." Solace usually has a pretty neutral expression on her face, hardened from one of the hardest lives her world has to offer, but she seems to be SMILING right now.
Kale Hearthward	"'Ask for help' is the right answer," says Kale, eyeing Solace. "To which I was going to suggest we use our radios, which Lilian has explicitly said there are no restrictions on, to call someone outside of the simulation- I mean, outside of the camping trip, and have them read a 'how to start a fire' internet article into the radio." "But yes, we are having issues! In a way that's not conductive to someone having leverage on us." His eyes track to her sword. "But if you'd like to help with those issues and save us a few minutes, sure." "We do happen to have food," he adds, glancing at the backpack full of mostly forage. This statement, notably, is absent any intention to share that food.
Angela	"Well, we could try that." Finn admits. "But my radio's not multiversal. I doubt many more people back there know how to make a campfire. Maybe Miss Nonon or The former Silver Flash." Obviously Weather Report could provide the lightning strike pretty readily. "Got anybody in mind?" Solace's smile remains and gestures to Kale to go ahead with his plan. "I'll do it for you for one stone. Teach you for two. Have a feeling you have plenty of extras." Finn's stomach grumbles. He's sorely tempted but... "What do you think, Kale? How many do we need for your goal?" He nods to the rocks Kale's grabbed hold of.
Kale Hearthward	Kale frowns. How many stones does he need to get to zero points? Honestly he himself has lost count, especially after the chaotic mess of the 'free sparring' where fighting was more important than counting. And honestly, how sure is he that he can get someone on the radio who's willing to teach him fire-starting remotely? He gave his team the three days off, so it'd either be bugging someone on the Paladins infodesk (for something that's not mission-critical) or trying his luck on the global band... "One stone and a half of a meal to teach, and you don't teach anyone besides me or Finn for the duration of this trip," Kale says, eventually.
Angela	Solace was prepared for this to be haggling. "I don't need your food." Solace says. "Sharing my skills is one of my chief ways to barter. One stone and I don't teach anybody else today until tomorrow ." "Tomorrow night." Finn suggests. "Twenty four hours." Solace considers this, nods once, and looks to Kale. "Deal?"
Kale Hearthward	"Deal. One stone and twenty four hours." Kale stands up and stands aside. "Alright. Teach first, stone second."
Angela	Solace shakes Finn's hand since he had outstretched it and then makes her way to the campfire. "Alright, the problem you've got here is that you don't have a fireboard. Should be dead wood, real dry, at least a half inch thick. It looks like you just saw spinning the spindle around and assumed that was all you needed." She wanders off a bit, collecting a suitable piece of dead wood and hands it off to Finn. "Make a shallow hole about eight inches from the end." Finn gets to carving with his knife and shows it to Solace, who gives him a small nod. She then reaches down, removes Finn's shoestring from his boot, trying it around a curved branch forming a kind of bow. "Bow Drill more reliable than Hand Drill." She collects another piece of wood, small enough to fit in her hand and gestures for Finn to carve a hole in that too. She flicks the string of her bow, making sure it's not too tight before reaching a hand for the spindle Kale's been using. "Use the handhole to avoid burning your hand. TV doesn't tell you that the friction'll be hot. You put the spindle in the hole on the fireboard, then you put the handle," She gestures with the smaller piece of wood, "Topside. Use your hand to hold the handle in place, use your foot to hold the fireboard in place." She swings the bow over so that it's around the spindle. "Now you do it like the hand drill method you were trying. Spin real fast, keep going until you can't anymore and you can see smoke. Don't break the bow." She gets to work, rapidly spinning spindle until it starts to smoke and she sees black specks of starting to speckle out of the hole she made. "It's smoking!" Solace holds up a finger to indicate that he should wait. Solace fans the coal with her hand. It continues to smoke and she keeps at it until it glows red. "If it goes like this, you did it right. But not done. Pay attention to this next part." Solace carefully removes the fireboard and assorted tools before gathering up the tinder that Kale and Finn had collected and places it on the coal, carefully bundling it around the coal before setting it into the firepit. "Long sustained breaths here. Will take practice." Solace tells Kale and Finn before she lets out a long blow. Soon enough, a fire is burning in the firepit. Stepping back from the fire, Solace extends an open hand towards Kale.
Kale Hearthward	Kale, reluctantly, produces a single stone from his hiding spot - at the bottom of the bag of food. The logic goes, stealing food is an expellable offense, so hiding things in with your food supplies is something of a human shield. At minimum, someone would have to carefully seperate the food (without ruining it) first instead of just being able to grab the whole bag. ... Actually, thinking about it, Liilan had said stealing food 'from those who failed to complete their tasks' was okay. That's food for thought. Anyway. The stone is dropped into Solace's outstretched hand. "There, deal complete." "Now then-" The first thing going in are the four metal water bottles (two between him and Finn) to boil the contents. How to get them back out of the fire without burning their hands is a problem for Future Finn and Kale. "Asking for help is important," Kale tells Finn as he sits down. "This is why we're an organization and not just a bunch of individual agents."