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Zel had told himself he could do this, even when the track was revealed and he thought he was going to die. All the same, he managed to get out the gate alright, only spilling over a few other students a couple times as he made his way down to course.

Off to a shaky start, his luck really didn't improve till around mid-course, only to have it completely give way as he almost fell off the track, only catching himself at the last second and vaulting back onto the track.

But of course, this cost him his entire momentum and he was forced to slog his way through the muck and mire, almost drowning himself in the mud bog that was the finish line before he reached the end.

He was not liking this - not at all.

Monty was a little startled when the starting gun had been fired it took him in a few seconds to even realize that it was the signal to start running, he was to busy staring at the course. He managed to stay on his feet as he quickly began to run and almost slid down the sharp turns. As he reached the last turn and the wall of fire he slowed down a bit to watch the others get through it. Which apparently wasn't such a good idea, once he slowed down he lost his momentum and when he made a jump for the other side through the fire he fell short a bit. He was able to grab the other side with a hand but that didn't go so well he fell to the pit. He managed to get back up to the track after a few minutes.

Oh, no. No, this was not something he was going to enjoy.

It was at this point that Elium briefly wondered how he'd even gotten signed up for this thing. House Cup, yeah, but--how. He didn't remember signing any forms...though then again, he could've just not been paying attention. It didn't matter too much now, really--here he was, and this obstacle course was what was in front of him. Fantastic.

When the gun fired, Elium took off like a bat out of hell, accidentally barreling through a few other students on his way out of the gate. A muffled apology could be heard being shouted as he rushed past, though he was focusing far more on the course than anyone else. The turns were annoying, but it was the wall of fire that really caused him to speed up, rocketing past it with an excellent use of tunnel vision to avoid any panicking. He really didn't want to go tumbling off the edge of the course, after all.

Climbing wasn't exactly his strong suit, but he wasn't doing terribly--at least, not until another student slipped, catching him in the side of the head with a foot as they flailed to regain their hold. He was knocked down a few pegs, but it wasn't much of a setback for him--soon enough, he was back on track, grimacing at the slime and scaling the wall.
The spiked hurdles weren't much of a challenge, especially after the wall of fire that had just been tossed in his face. What was really a pain was those...strange balls--how exactly was he supposed to get across those without falling? A question he'd have to ask himself later--for now, Elium jumped for it, almost wiping out on the second ball before getting his balance back at the last second. Being back on something solid was a blessing, and he silently wished that he wouldn't have to go across any other sort of balls any time soon. He'd much rather live without that, thank you.

Elium's attempt at leaping over Steve almost ended with a quick faceplant into the ground, and he stumbled forward, wobbling precariously as he got back into the swing of things. The bombs came awfully close to getting him, and he wouldn't admit later that he did take a few dives to avoid coming into contact with them--it was only a few seconds after he'd passed them by that he realized that the whole obstacle course was being recorded. Sludgesticks.
His first pillar felt as if it was about to buckle beneath him, and that was all the motivation Elium needed to get out of dodge and move on to the next section. All in all, he was pretty sure that he wasn't doing bad--but that was going to change if he stuck around any longer.

Swimmng, however, was practically a piece of cake. This time, he didn't knock into anybody else, something he was pretty happy about--no need to go and find anyone here later to apologize! He still grumbled inwardly as his mask filled up with water, the frown reflected on the outside as he moved through this portion of the course.

With water steadily pouring from the vents in his mask, Elium continued on, successfully navigating the ice for the most part. There were a few slips and slides, but he was just glad that he hadn't wiped out entirely--that would've been messy. The oil was cleared out in much the same fashion, and by the end of it, his bandages and house uniform were covered in the stuff; when he saw the mud pit ahead, he couldn't help but wonder if they were going to be getting clean ones after this. There was practically no hope for his clothes, what with all they'd been through now.

After trudging through the mud with as much speed as he could muster, Elium reached the finish line, really wishing that he wouldn't have run so fast the entire time--he felt as if his legs were going to fall off, and he briefly tested them with a few hesitant prods, soon reassured that all of his limbs were still firmly in place by some miracle. He flopped a little ways off to the side, still shaking the last few drops of water from his beak.

Lock look on the course with disdain. He wasn't a very athletic fellow, but he wasn't the wimpiest kid either. He could do this- right?

The fire wall, the pit of spikes and the crazy ice caps seemed to say otherwise. Lock had literally JUST arrived at this academy, and was not expecting this obstacle race at all.

The beginning he took slow. It went well enough, but the fire wall cause him some trouble. He was a reaper, he couldn't just leap through fire. Then Voodoo showed him that you could just walk around it. s**t, now he'd just wasted time.

The climbing wall went considerably worse. He wasn't struggling, but he wasn't excelling either. He felt incredibly average this entire race. The balls, the spike pits- none of them he seemed to overcome with grace and speed. Just averageness.

Finally, towards the end, he just gave up. He let voodoo cross the finish line first in his place. Good enough.

He looked around for Shun or Kettil. Where had his cohorts placed? Was he doing okay?

He was terrible at this.

Physical exercise, while not exactly Sparrow's strong suit, was nevertheless an important part of the whole House Cup aspect. He disliked having to do the run, but not because it wasn't fun, but because he was absolutely ridiculously bad at anything physical.

It was rather embarrassing.

Still, he was going to do his best, because this was not about him, it was about his dorm. As the duly sworn Reaper Dorm Resident Assistant, it was both his job and his duty to be proud and do what he could for them.

Even if what he could involved a lot of tripping, slipping, sliding, falling, (whispered and mild) swearing, and a great deal of mess and noise.

Needless to say, Sparrow came out at the end looking more than a little worse for the wear, but he was smiling, and he gave the rest of his teammates a huge thumbs up, standing at the end of the race to shout encouragements at whoever passed by.

House Cup! House Cup! It sounded super fun, and Alecto was excited to begin participating in the events and games. Her ears stood tall as she stared at the course with awe. “It lookslooks super fun!” she chirped to no one in particular, but heard the usual giggling and grumbling inside her head. The demon smiled.

Without much thought, she jumped into the race. She speedily raced through, but while she had speed she didn’t have agility either. The hellhound had to slow down as she rounded the turns, but then picked up pace again. Laughter rang out as she passed through the wall of fire and jumped into the fall.

Her claws scraped against the wall before she hopped over and her boots landed with a quiet thud. Grinning widely, Alecto continued past the hurdles and bounced on the balls happily. Even if she had to slow down to steady herself, it was fun.

With a running start, she traversed the pit with ease and continued on her merry way through the obstacle course.

The dog whined when she encountered the next phase—water! Ugh. Ears flattened against her head as she reluctantly jumped in and tried to finish soon as possible. It seemed to have worked.

It was the final part! Howling with glee, she slid across the slide, oil, and through the mud to finish.

Frost was the sort of boil who once he started to get excited, he stayed that way, even if he didn't express it outright. And as the obstacle course was announced, his tail had been wagging in insane amounts. He couldn't help it, racing was what he loved, more, running and catching and hunting and winning.

The winning part was always a big favorite for him.

Even if you couldn't really win so much as just complete the course. Though naturally he glossed over that fact and thought better to just go with his first impulse which was 'RUN AND DO THE THING AND WIN THE THING CATCH THE THING THERE IS NO THING RUN RUN GOTTA GO FAST'. He also hoped that if he did really well that he'd get lots of ear scratches and maybe a few belly rubs but then he was just being a bit selfish about that.

Starting at the top, the ghost's eyes peered down at the track, fur on end with the excitement in the air, the thrill of the games in his otherwise frozen, (and semi non-existent) veins. As he began, the track was steep and dangerous, yet the boil had his own way of dealing with that. Nails and claws to dig into the track, giving him the edge of maneuverability. How long this would last him he wasn't sure. He was wearing them down quickly, and this was only the first part. He'd need to be mindful of what would follow. Fire was not an issue thankfully, as he wasn't in snow form.

He didn't melt. But-

The wall was slick with slime and well.

Well.

It was a wall.

This wasn't a thing he normally encountered when he ran. Usually walls had grips and ledges he could use to jump from but this was... well.

Well.

Looking at his nails the wolfos made a small whine in the back of his throat as he made the choice. His claws would suffer, time could not. Scaling the wall itself and getting around spike hurdles was dealt with deftly, dangerous and risky or not. The balls didn't even make him pause, though mentally he wondered why a set of three.

Then he remembered the goddesses and grinned to himself. Surely, this year, they were smiling down on him.

The gaping maw that came after Frost's little de clawing was met with a sharp growl of annoyance. Joke or now, being snapped at by an alumni wasn't in Frost's plans for the day. He rather wanted to be free of saliva by this event's end thank you very much. Granted, he only had the tail end of his coat torn, the bombs took care of the rest of his coat, burning it away in a minor blast. Pain flashed briefly in Frost's vision before he kept running, jumping pillar to pillar in an effort to stay on top of his game.

Water- swimming wasn't running and now the canine was knowing he'd need help. Or at least to quickly find some sort of advantage. Doggie paddles were not going to cut it. In an attempt to keep his pace the wolfos shifted, snow form breifly giving him the shape of a trout- though a net quickly tangled him. Snarling in the water, fangs gnawing at the rope, fish shift lost and melted away back to his normal form, Frost managed to break free, getting back to dry land-

On the opposite side thank Faore.

The final hurdle, the ice was nothing, child's play. Frost danced across it's slick surface, briefly feeling at home- until the oil slick started.
After that he was spinning and grasping at whatever he could to propel himself forward and give himself traction, almost tumbling off the side. Once he reached mud however things became a bit easier, cold helping to freeze the mud, give him something to push from, to grab and guide himself with.

At the end, one wolfos stood, Soggy, singed, stained, yet frightfully proud of himself.

A quick shift had him back to clean, the pile of grime and discarded snow at his feet.

Tag wagging to and fro, Frost looked towards his fellow ghosts, cheering them on.
"Libertas in Obitum!"


He'd done well in his opinion, traversing what normally, what otherwise might have sent him off the edge and into oblivion. On top of that, he likely had done well in comparison to many others. More tail wags, the ghost floated on his own personal cloud nine, wondering if later he and Gene could get tea to celebrate! Of coffee. He'd even be okay with coffee.

Thoughts of coffee and tea and cuddles and winning planted firmly in his head, Frost kept floating along, not paying much mind to the others yet to complete the course. He'd done well... and obviously so would they.

AJ signed up just for fun, but the obstacle race didn't seem to be an interesting one. More importantly, he was afraid the cookies in oven would become carbons when he finished this race.

Of course the meanderings wasn't a difficulty for the nimble boil nor the fire wall and the cliff. However he never handle slimy things before, which made he slid off the course the first time and had to start over again. The second time was better as he became more cautious. He passed the hurdles and gracefully jumped over the balls. Steve and the Bombs were too passionate to play with him, but he only worried about his cookies, so they got angry and tried to make him stay. That spent him an hour.

Jacking! His cookies.

When he was dashing the course, he nearly forgot he didn't swim well, the Head who was afraid of water struggled hard enough to give AJ a bad time in water. He choked and swallowed a few bottles of sea water, thanks Bro.

Cookies! His cookies! They are gonna become carbonssssss!

AJ didn't care about the race anymore, he spent too much time on this and his lovely cookies in oven were gonna ruined. It would be bad to disappoint those who came for the cookies. His carelessness brought him with disasters after one another. He fell down and his butt got bumped a thousands of times, he didn't care. He nearly slid off the course again on the oil, but he didn't care. He fought through the mud and he became a mud man, but he didn't jacking care.

The creeple near the goal would only see a mudman mumbling of his cookies as they felt a strong blast across.