the gauntlet discussion

It’s ten ‘till midnight when there’s harsh rapping on each student’s door. Stacked just beyond the threshold are four plain boxes, small and black with each student's name. The topmost one bares a single note: put them on.

The boxes are distributed among roommates; once opened, it’s revealed that they contain wristbands. Each roommate receives an individual note in their box, a location scrawled on each. Everyone goes their separate ways, and when they arrive at their respective locations, tired from daylight activities, they find others waiting. Welcome to team play.

When every student has made it to their location, an instructor hands the team a note that reads:

“Students, this is a team activity. Abandoning your team is forbidden. Individuals in the same group have wristbands who match in color. Finish with them all intact, or be disqualified from the competition. No team, at any time, is to have wristbands whose colors are dissimilar. Each team has been given a colored stone, there are ten in total … find the other nine, without stealing them from your peers. Your stones match the color of your team's wristband. The finish line is in the Main Building Foyer. You have until morning, otherwise you're disqualified. The teams that finish in the bottom 3 are to receive punishments. The last team to finish will also be disqualified. The top three teams receive rewards to be detailed later.”

During the competition, students follow the first instruction to the first stone, where they receive the clue to the next one, and so on. Groups find that their clues do not match in order, therefore cheating or working together with another group is impossible, due to every group's clues being different, and the stones being in different parts of campus.


Features of the wristbands every student is wearing during competition two:

- The wristbands lock into place when the timer for the second competition begins, and a running clock can be seen on the wristband facing upwards.
- The wristbands emit a loud beeping sound every time a group crosses the finish line with all ten stones.
- If any member of your group is more than 15 feet away from the nearest group member, they receive an electric shock. The farther away they go, the more intense the shock becomes. After two minutes if the student continues to move further away, the wristband will shock every group member until they are within the 15 feet radius.

1. Group 5; Reagan, Alice, Seth, Ivy, Marie, Andrakas
2. Group 6; Wolfrick, Amancio, Vivian, Isabelle, Callum, Alick
3. Group 1; Cassandra, Emerson, Sophie, Hartley, Rowan, Zachariah
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4. Group 8; Colby, Jax, Judah, Aubrey, Gillian, Arkula
5. Group 4; Nathan, Dae, William, Ophelia, Pierce, Karaline, Lucretia
6. Group 3; Lyca, Dan, Micah, Mitchell, Jerome, Mia, Jamison
7. Group 11; Cleo, E'mai, Reiza, Jericho, Finnegan, Joelle
8. Group 7; Juliet, Althea, Harrison, Artemis, Xander, Damen, Remus
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9. Group 10; Charzie, Abigail, Angel, Elias, Magnus, Jefferson, Darnell
10. Group 9; Jorrel, Lucy, Ebiza, Hansa, Victor, Lincoln, Ashlyn
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11. Group 2; Kaneki, Nora, Bonnie, Wyatt, Niv, Sorin