See? Two circles! Excellent, then. Good thing she didn't wait around for an answer and went ahead to work on the rune that was assigned to her. She nodded at Tobias and then went to look over at what Yearbook boy was doing. Oh, Gabe, right. His name is Gabe. Probably Gabriel.

"Like Sophie said. Good job." She nodded at the boy in approval, no need to repeat the exact same words when the sentiment was the same. He did a good job, really, so did Sophie. She was doing a good job, too.

Nauthiz, then.

It was fairly simple. Resembling a cross, only not at all. First thing first. She drew the longest line and then positioned herself near the middle of said line. The next one she had to draw would be slightly inclined to the top, or bottom, depending on perspective.

But drawing she did, on that north-east tangent. The intersection of both lines collided with the circle, too. Go figure.

The assignments were out and she was given the bottom two Nauthiz's. AJ was all over it. She could totally handle only having to do two runes... especially since they were the same. On one hand that might not be so easy since they would both need to look the same. Dang, why did her brain have to go there? She was just going to have to give it her best and hope that they came out alright.

It was just an X, AJ... Well, it was an X with a bit of a flare, but it was still doable. What did she need to draw the rune with? Was the red pigment paint stuff supposed to be used for everything?

Hmm... AJ decided her best bet was to peek and see what the rest of her team was doing. They were all on the same team and trying to get the same results so it totally wasn't cheating or anything.

By the looks of it everybody was done or almost done. EEP, AJ needed to chop to it. Too bad she didn't have a partner, but there was no sense in worrying about that now. She needed to get her runes going.

Consider her confused. Very confused. Mostly because Botros had said to draw three rings on the floor when he gave the instructions....but then...what if he meant three rings one for each group? That was just as confusing on account of the fact they'd gone and drawn two already. Lex paused at Lottie's question, trying to figure which of the two the Professor had meant but if everyone was already drawing in the runes then she supposed she'd just...go with it?

Yeah, there was no thinking this through. Alexa didn't much care for the answer anymore. If Botros had a problem with it surely he'd say so and by then class would be over so no possible way of fixing it.

For now she would just focusing on placing the Nauthiz rune Toby said she could draw since no more circles would be made. Only thing was watching everyone else first since they were already busy and she wasn't trying to get in the way.

So far they were good on the runes already painted--which make the circle look just like it did on the board. A sure sign they were definitely on the right path here so she was nodding along with all the 'good jobs' going around.

Perfectly supportive.

Now that she had done her investigative work it was time for her to get down to business. AJ gathered what she needed to make the drawing of her runes. She plopped herself down to a comfy position and put her tongue between her teeth. If you looked closely at her you would be able to see the tip of her tongue sticking out from her mouth. That was her in full on concentration mode.

She bent down and made a X where her rune needed to be. She added the extra flare with a slight cure to one of her lines. Glancing at the board and back to her rune, she thought it looked pretty dang good.

With one rune down, she moved on to work on the last one. It was the same thing so this was going to be a cake walk. Still in full concentration mode she drew another X and added the curve to make it match the drawing on the board. All done.

"I'm finished over here guys." Did she did a good job? Did she make her team proud? "I'm pretty sure our work is the best out of everybody's." Because they were team Jas. ROAR!!!!

It was aaaaaaaall coming together, from what Toby could see. Really starting to look like a decent charm, and taking that time to work out the placement of the runes seemed to totally benefit them as well, because it was looking mighty symmetrical.

Tobias nodded along with the girls when they responded to Gabe, and gave the thumbs up that he'd not realised Soph had wanted to provide. "Excellent."

The Hufflepuff set his brush down where he'd gotten it, nodding to himself as he assessed the progress of their Runic charm so far. It would be more helpful if he could just be... a little taller. Hm. Toby looked about him and saw a chair by what was hopefully an unused desk. He quickly darted over to grab it and set it down about a foot away from the bottom run, and then climbed up to stand on it. Ahhhh, much better view from up here.

"Nice! Good job, you guys. Looks great so far!" Once Lex had finished with hers, it woud be two more runes 'til they were done. Neat!

Grayson nodded along to Toby as he started answering his question. Same number of runes as on the board? Brilliant. There weren't THAT many, especially considering the fact that they were meant to be working together. "Brilliant! It sounds simple enough," he said, rolling up the sleeves of his robes. Didn't want to get paint on THOSE. And oh? Good to have him on board? "Thanks a bunch, Toby! I can get started with Nauthiz."

Or, you know, finish it off since there were only two of those runes left to draw and he hasn't done much. Not exactly called contribution, was it? Jeez.

Giving Toby a swift smile, Grayson headed over to the place where the a brush was kept and picked up the massive paintbrush. JEEZ! These things were kinda heavy, weren't they? And VERY big. He hoisted it up and let it rest on his right shoulder as he listened out to what that Ravenclaw dude was saying. Man, he was SMART, wasn't he? Way to make him look like a freaking idiot. He watched as the others got started and kinda slunk in the shadows and waited. Nauthiz wasn't perfectly North, East, South OR West. It was in between each of those directions so naturally, he had to wait to see where the main compass points were before he drew his on. It was like cutting pizza: you cut the vertical and horizontal edges before cutting the diagonal.

Everything was better when put into the context of pizza.

And his verdict? "Looking brilliant, you guys," he said, hoisting his paintbrush up further. Honest opinion, this was. AND it was a compliment. Just saying.

When it came to his turn, Grayson went ahead and dipped the en of the paintbrush into the red pigment before moving to a spot to paint the Nauthiz rune. In all honesty, he was the tiniest bit nervous about this and, naturally, his blue eyes found the board JUST to make sure he knew what the Nauthiz rune looked like. He also checked to see if he was about to place the rune at the right place on the bigger circle.

Done? Yeah? Was it the correct spot?

And now it was time to start with this drawing already! Starting with the vertical line for Nauthiz.

Once a few more people had gotten done, Lex stepped forward to add her Nauthiz rune to the ring of runes. Were she a different person she might have gone straight to the Department Head of Magical Law Enforcement informing her of her extensive knowledge when it came to such complicated but beneficial charms. As it stood, she was Lex and didn't need to hide behind this sort of thing to prove her worth might still add it to the application though. Ahem.

Before placing the brush to the ground, she looked once more to the board to make sure she wasn't putting it in the wrong position, though she was sure the others would have said something if that was the case so she felt pretty confident as she carefully formed the rune, one stroke of the brush at a time.

With the final line drawn, she stepped away to survey the overall work and check that hers was symmetrical to the others.

It.....looked okay....so she'd just step back and give Grayson a chance to get to drawing his runes.

All yours Bud.

The new team member seemed excited and ready to work. "Alright Zeke, I'm glad to have you on our team. Now go have some fun drawing runes."

Jasmine watched as her team got busy. She smiled, proud of how well they were working together and how fast they were getting the job done. That made her job easy. Jasmine noticed Adi going out of his way to make everyone feel welcome. That was Adi. She was glad to have him as a friend. Zhenya had looked terrified when Jasmine asked her to supervise. She was a trooper though and took the assignment in stride. AJ, Angel and Zeke, we're doing their part. The youngsters were clearly up to the task and doing well. Ben, well Jasmine was just getting to know him. He seemed like a very nice young man and clearly meshed well with the others.

Suddenly Jasmine realized that everyone was completing their assignments and she had yet to start on her rune. Grabbing an unoccupied big brush, she walked toward Zhenya's little circle. She was right smack dab in the middle of the action. Jasmine moved slowly and carefully, trying not to step on anyone's work.

Jasmine looked at the board and then her notes, trying to get an accurate picture of Othala. To her, it looked like a diamond with the two bottom lines extending and crossing each other like an X. She thought she would be able to draw it, but the trick would be making it symmetrical. Placing the brush on the ground inside the circle, she decided that that would be the apex of her diamond. Slowly, Jasmine began to draw her rune. The design itself wasn't hard, but trying to make the lines straight and even was harder than she thought it would be. Finally, she had completed the entire rune and stepped back to look at her work.

Calling her supervisor over, Jasmine asked a question. "Zhenya, how does it look? Does it seem even to you?". She hoped that it was because everyone else's rune seemed excellent. Jasmine would hate to be the one to mess up the whole thing.

Sophie backed away from the circle to admire her work on the two Algiz runes, very much thrilled by Tobes' idea of standing on the chair to get a proper look at it. That was a GOOD IDEA and SHE wanted to do it, too, but HE was the group leader so he probably had privileges that she didn't and his RIGHTFUL place was towering over them all. So. She would stay put on the ground, but she was deeply envious of him.

There was only one Nauthiz that wasn't being drawn yet, and since she WAS done with her two Algiz runes she supposed she COULD have drawn it, but for one, her arms hurt from carrying around the paint brush AND she felt bad drawing THREE when most of them only got to draw one. So... she would leave the last Nauthiz for someone else who wanted to do it, even though she was certain she probably could have done it just fine - Nauthiz wasn't super complicated of a shape to paint on the floor, and she thought it was a hard one to mess up. Everyone else was doing a good job with it so far, though, and as she set the big paint brush aside where she got it from, she went over to stand by Tobes and oversee everything.

"I like your Othala," she told him with a smile. "That's probably the hardest one to draw, but y'did a good job with it." Nearly identical to the blackboard, she'd say.

Thank Merlin for the fact that these runes weren't curved in shape. It made drawing them a whole lot easier, especially with a brush that looked like it was used by a particularly artistic giant.

And was the brush easy to handle? Eh. It was hard to get into the swing of it and to get used to having the extra weight resting on his shoulder, never mind the fact that he had to draw with this thing. He could feel eyes on him too, which didn't help matters but he was gonna ignore that feeling and prove that he was confident in this. Why? Because he was ALWAYS confident. Egotistical about it too, but that was beside the point.

The drawing? It was coming along kind of slowly but he soon managed to pick up the pace when he managed to draw on the straight line for Nauthiz and moved onto the diagonal one. Like a lower case letter 't' but with a diagonal line going through it and without the curve at the bottom. That was what he was aiming for here. And instead of opting for the lazy option and staying in one spot, Grayson went ahead and moved to a spot where he could simply drag the brush towards him and walk backwards.

Good idea? Eh.

It was certainly working, that was for sure. He made extra sure to keep this line diagonal by walking diagonally backwards. When it was done, a half-smile, half-smirk spread across the fifth year's face as he examined it. He'd managed to draw on ONE rune so far and that was freaking brilliant, no matter what anyone else was gonna say.

And then he looked up at the others. All good? They had one more rune to go, right?

Zhenya had gone and done their circle, a pretty good circle as a matter of fact given it wasn't like they had anything to go on or trace. That was one part of their capture charm set-up done. Then Jasmine spoke up once more, assigning them all runes to do add to the drawing. Algiz...that was to be his, the one that would reside on both sides of the circle, in a cross formation with the Uruz. The fourth year grabbed his textbook and decided on taking the time and looking into it to get a more close up look to make sure he knew just what to draw when his chance came.

It was kinda like an uppercase Y with an extra piece in the middle or a person with legs together and upstretched arms.

Then he waited patiently as others went so as not to crowd them. First Zhenya with her second circle and then Adi with the Uruz. Angel and Zeke had one set of Nauthiz while AJ had the other two. It was all turning out rather nice and soon enough he'd be set in his work.

You know what? He was gonna take that last Nauthiz rune and draw it in that space over there. It was only fair, wasn't it? Besides, he hadn't done MUCH. Couldn't let the others down just because he was kinda lazy at times.

Man, he was sounding too nice, wasn't he? Something needed to be done about that otherwise people would think they could take advantage of this or whatever.

Later, though. Right now, he had a rune to draw! So, Grayson heaved carried his giant brush all the way over to the empty space in the large circle. He felt as though he needed some sort of break so, he used the next minute or so to match up the exact spot where this last rune was meant to go. It was meant to be right in between the two runes next to it and right opposite that other Nauthiz rune on the other side. Maths was being used here. Or was it a general sense of judgement?

Lifting up his brush into the right position, Grayson began drawing in the rune...

It was nice up here. Was this what it was like for tall people? Like West and Airey and Botros and Thompson? And LUC, that kid was super tall, was THIS what it was like for HIM? Toby could get used to this.

Toby looked between the board and their work again, and then at the work of the other groups, still smiling and nodding to himself. Yeah, it was looking great.

From down at his regular height level, Toby became aware of Soph talking, and he grinned at her.

"Thanks Soph. I... practice a lot." At writing with runes, that was. It was all super fun.

Grayson was taking up that second to last rune, and Toby thought about offering to do that last one. It did occur to him that maybe Grayson would want in on that one, and when the Slytherin started on the final Nauthiz rune, Toby went ahead and beamed it him.

"Great job, Grayson," said the Hufflepuff to the Slytherin, from where he was still stood upon the chair, giving a thumbs up at the same time. "Great job, everyone. It looks just like it does on the board, doesn't it?" Or well, it would, once Grayson had finished, but Toby was just triple-checking with the others if they too thought it matched the example they had been given. "I think it looks stellar, either way."

And now, dearest Tobias, what are you doing standing on a chair? Something that was remarkably clever. Only that way he could properly at their work. The symmetry could be appreciated from afar, though it was all looking mighty fine from where she was standing, FYI.

Setting her brush aside, because she'd been done with the circle and the rune a while ago, she contemplated their work. "Yeah, it looks stellar...," her eyes were locked on Tobias, slightly surprised at his words, because, well, those were Airey's. To Lottie, anyway.

Unfortunately, she couldn't say 'Maybe Airey was a bit like Tobias when he went to Hogwarts', but she already knew this wasn't the case now, was it? According to that one groundskeeper...

...speaking of...she never met the new one.

No need.

"Good job, everyone." Grayson, Sophie, Gabe, Tobias and Lex. All of them. What an excellent team they made, by the way.

Compared to the first time he had to draw the Nauthiz rune, Grayson was finding it much easier to draw this one. Maybe it had a little something to do with the fact that he was starting to get more used to the weight of the large brush resting on his shoulder. OR, he was getting more used to guiding the brush around to draw the rune in place.

The bottom line was: he was getting goooOOOOooood! Just saying.

A lot of concentration was being paid to the rune drawing. It just had to turn out perfect, mkay? This meant that, like last time, he had to move around a bit with the giant brush -- this brush was freaking humungous! -- and try to walk at an angle so that he could draw the diagonal line correctly. He just hoped that nobody was standing behind him and was likely to bump into him. It didn't sound like his idea of fun.

But FINALLY, at long last, the rune had been drawn on, making Grayson smile as he stepped back and away from the rune. And what made him smile MORE were the comments from their Captain. Jeez, people really were trying to warm up the icy stone that was his heart, weren't they? "Thanks a bunch, Toby!" Considering the fact that he was a professional at drawing stick men, he was kinda proud of this piece of work. Uh huh! "It looks freaking brilliant! We make an awesome team." Serious nods.

When he felt himself ready to pitch in, Benny retrieved one of the self-inking brushes from the supplies and moved over to the one side of the circle. Taking notice of the locations of the Nauthiz runes on either side of him that confirmed he was in the right place amongst the other runes. Surely there was a purpose for the choice in placement they had originally been shown and he wasn't about to mess it up. Especially since it was a total group effort and not just he could be effected.

Only when satisfied with placement did the fourth year lower brush to floor, starting out with a tall straight line that made up the main frame of the rune of protection. That was easy enough to do. Then picking up the brush tip from the surface it had painted on, Ben moved it to a point one third of the way down from the top. From then he drew the arms, first one and then the other, until the full form of the rune appeared.

There...one done.

Zeke saw Adi looking, and beamed in his direction. Weeheee! HIII TEAMMATE!



He knew she was here, in this group, and it wasn't the reason why he joined, but... he kinda couldn't help but look at her. She was like a pretty light, and he was like an annoying moth, cool huh? ... He tried not to look tooooo hard, and it wasn't like he loved her anymore, no, that was just weird, BUT he couldn't stop thinking of her, which was made difficult because his dreams liked to casually remind him of her existence.

"Hi..." Yeah. HI.



"Hey!"

He liked Angel, he liked working with Angel... THIS, was going to be awesome. They'd kill it! -- figuratively speaking of course. "I guess? Drawing is pretty easy, can't go too wrong." Right? RIGHT?!



Aaaawwww, she was GLAD, that was awesome. "Me too," he nodded. And if that wasn't a call to action, he didn't know what was. With a final salute, Zeke went to gear up with a self-inking brush. Weeeeeeeee!

Once he had his utensil of choice, Zeke had a closer look at the Nauthiz rune. It looked FAIRLY straight forward... like, it wasn't a COMPLEX shape... so...

Yeah. He could do this!

Satisfied with his first drawing of Algiz done on the one side, Benny got up from his bent position, pausing to look it over from above. Still looked like he had done it right. So he then walked around the circle to the other side, exactly opposite his own work and squatted down close to the floor once more. It definitely seemed to be easier this time around, not that it was a rune to begin with. Benny was just more sure of himself and his ability to do it.

First the tall solid and straight line. The body of the person or Y depending on which way one looked at it. Then, the secondary lines that made it a letter or were the upstretched arms of the person. Either way he was eventually applying his last brushstroke to the floor and finally lifting it up for the last time. "Done..." he simply stated as he sat back to look it over in the mix of the others.

Zhenya watched as everyone in the group went about to perform their individual tasks. It was all looking rather nice, she thought. She walked around to look at everyones work, feeling rather silly. She was definitely not the leader, and she didn't want to appear to be the leader, but still. Jasmine had given her a job to do, and she was going to DO IT!

"It all looks great," she said to Jasmine, "Everyone is doing a great job of drawing the runes," she applauded them. Certainly a much better job than she could have done. They all appeared to be a bit too fiddly for her. At least the two circles were easy to draw, and they were nice and big. But everyone was going a great job, and she was very pleased to be part of a team that included everyone.

Zeke kneeled in front of the space he was working on, perfectly proportionately spaced from the others, and took a deep breath in. Drawing time.

With his brush poised, Zeke pressed it to the top of where the Nauthiz rune would start, and then dragged the brush down to form a straight line. Not too long, and not too short. Just right.

Next, and this was the SLIGHTLY trickier bit, but still fairly easy, he needed a diagonal line to cut through it, like a slightly wonky cross. Yeah, that's what it was.

Starting from the left of the rune, or west if you were thinking otherwise, Zeke placed the tip of the paintbrush a short distance off the first line he drew and then he dragged it down in somewhat diagonal fashion. That was what, east-south-east? Yeah, something like that. It was what it was, and it looked exactly like his notes, so WEEEE!

Success!

Jasmine stepped back and looked at the work that her team had done. Everything looked fantastic and she was extremely proud of them. Addressing the group, she said, "You guys were awesome". "I couldn't have asked for a better team. Thank you so much for all your hard work. I'd be happy to be teammates with you anytime."

Suddenly Jasmine realized that this might be the last time that she got to work with some of her classmates. She would be graduating soon and moving on to.......other places and other things. The thought made her sad, but she still had this moment and it was great.

Weeheee!!!!

GO TEAM!

Zeke BEAMED as he stood back to admire their handy work. It looked pretty darn awesome. And aaww, Jasmine was being all nice. "Thanks for letting me in your group, I think we all did awesomely." Yeah. YEAH. Take that other teams! Wait... was this a competition? He kinda hoped it was, but he was totally biased to their capture rune set thing.

Zhenya was watching Zeke draw his runes from a distance and found it very endearing how much he was concentrating. She wanted to tell him Good Job! But was worried he might jump and mess up his lines, and his concentration, so she waited until he had finished. Then Jasmine started thanking them, and Zhenya felt a rush of pride. Zeke had thanked her for letting him in the group, and she could't help but think the exact same thing.

"Yeah, Jasmine, thanks for letting me in the group too, it's the best group!" She was happy they had all finished together, they were all accountable for their own little part in the activity, and none of them had tried to get out of doing anything.