Competition: Hobby time!

Finished
Hobby time!

Hobbies!

The things you do without pay, when you're done doing the things you get paid for for the day!

What is your character's hobby? Do they have several? Are they any good at them, or just amateurs that are happy to try things out? What is it about that hobby that entices your character? A chance to relax, let off steam or perhaps engage in some activity which normally isn't part of their daily routine or character?

In 500 words or more, write a story showing your character engaged in one of their hobbies.

Accepted submissions accepted in .doc, .docx and .pdf formats. All submissions will be graded using the Fiction Rubric 2.0.

Competition Information
Organized by
Aedile Tali Sroka
Running time
2018-05-01 until 2018-05-31 (about 1 month)
Target Unit
Entire DJB
Competition Type
Fiction
Awards
Second Level Crescents and Clusters of Ice as per VOICE guidelines
Participants
32 subscribers, of which 7 have participated.
Results
Member
Evelyn Cameron Ravencroft IV
File submission
Evelyn__Rags_to_Riches.pdf
Placement
1st place
Member
Raider Jon Silvon
Textual submission

Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk

Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk

“See the real trick is never to lose focus!”

Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk

“Which means I really shouldn’t be talking while doing this!”

Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk

Silvon’s knife dived between every one of his fingers in order, and when it went through he’d flip his hand over and repeat the process, constantly maintaining a dizzying speed. This, he did to the awestruck looks of an entire tavern full of onlookers, all of them in varying states of inebriation.

He’d heard one or two whispering this man simply must have the Force, as no ordinary man could possibly do this without losing a finger or three. Which was completely false of course, as Silvon had seen men without the Force perform this game far faster than he would ever be able too, but he’d let the backwater hicks have their fun. The odds of any of these people on this little Outer Rim mining colony would ever see a Jedi or a Sith were about as high as his chances of becoming the next Grandmaster of the Brotherhood.

Hmmmmm… Mav does get an awesome ship, but all the paperwork, the endless meetings, the assassination attempts? But the ship…

In any event, his lack of Force ability was half the reason Silvon did stuff like this to begin with. Sure, anyone with mystically enhanced reaction times could’ve done what he was doing, but it required real skill and patience to do it without some kind of pseudo magical crutch.

Jon had spent years perfecting this little crowd pleaser, practicing in his off hours on whatever pirate or smuggling vessels had been willing to hire him that particular month. Always with a plasteel blade of course. The pirate captain who taught him about this used to mock him for that, saying that it was braver to perform with a real blade, but Silvon appreciated having all his appendages attached. Prosthetics were expensive after all,unlike toy knives, and back then he really couldn’t afford to waste even one credit.

Finally stopping, Silvon took a moment to twirl the knife in his fingers as an added bit of flare for his appreciative audience.

“Yeah, so the guy who taught me that called it “Five Finger Fillet” but apparently that’s considered racist by species with a different number of appendages,” Silvon said casually. He took a moment to appreciate the looks on his audience members faces as they apparently tried to determine if he was serious about that or not. That’s what made Silvon love being out in the backwaters of the galaxy. The people out here would believe anything.

“Now,” Silvon said loudly, over the clamor of his adoring audience (which proved unnecessary, as people immediately hushed to hear what ridiculpus but just barely plausible thing he would say next) “who wants to show me the way to your dart boards, so I can show you lot some really impressive blade work, hm?”

Placement
2nd place
Member
A deleted dossier
Submission
The deleted member did not want their submission published.
Placement
3rd place
Member
Research Director Kadrol Hauen
Textual submission

Kadrol Hauen had been fascinated with extinct species of Fauna since he was a young boy. Learning about the ancient beasts let Kadrol drift into his own imagination where he lived alongside these mythical beasts. An imagination where even the most dangerous of beasts could become his friend. Through the years, his imagination would become focused on hyper-realistic scenarios and less on more fantastical things. Though his general love for these creatures would eventually fade, the memories were stored away and Kadrol unknowingly took a liking to History.

When Kadrol was twelve, he was reintroduced to the world of these beasts in a class at school. During this unit, Kadrol also learned about Paleontology’s sentient-based counterpart: archaeology. At this point in his life Kadrol was more intrigued by the empires of the past, such as the Old Republic and the Sith empire. He also found ancient battles quite intriguing: ones before droids were able to be mass produced as they were in the Clone Wars. The Jedi and Sith orders and the evolution of the lightsaber were, in his opinion, the most fun to learn about.

The following year, Kadrol was recruited to the Dark Jedi Brotherhood. In his first few months, he had begun to notice all kinds of Brotherhood funded archaeology digs to uncover ancient artifacts from the ancient Sith as well as the ancient Jedi Order, as well as to fill in holes in what was known about these Force users of old. He had immediately asked his master, Brimstone, if he could take leave and participate in a few of these archeological digs. While on these archeological digs, Kadrol himself never actually discovered anything particularly special, but he did try to gather information about them based on where they were found and the things they were found with.

That was two years ago. Now the Pantoran had returned from a self-inflicted exile from the Brotherhood, and was now going on archaeological digs again. Today he had arrived at one of the newest dig sites the Brotherhood set up, and Kadrol was assigned a much more hands-on role. The site was located on the ancient Sith homeworld of Korriban. Many graves of the ancient Sith Lords had already been excavated by groups from as early as a thousand years ago, but this expedition wasn’t focused on the graves of the ancient Sith, but rather the places thought to be the site of long forgotten temples and other ritual sites.

When the Acolyte arrived from the moon of Ragnath in the Caperion System, the dig site had already been marked off into a five by five grid by a series of metal rods stuck into the ground periodically and tied to another rod with a thin twine of sorts. This method helps the archaeologists record where each artifact was found to try to formulate a story to piece together the past. It also helped with delegating others by assigning them a section to dig in. From the location of the camp, the sections were marked vertically with letters, and horizontally with numbers. Kadrol was one of five people assigned to section B5.

Day after day, the team would go into the section and dig. When an artifact was found, the person who unearthed the object would call for a mapper to record the location, and then they would carefully uncover the object using a brush, chisel, and other small tools. Usually the object was a piece of pottery or simple jewelry, but a special item would come up every once in a while. Whenever something special was found, Kadrol was rejuvenated with a thirst to discover something unique once more.

**Two Weeks after Kadrol arrived on Korriban**

Kadrol enjoyed digging on the site. He found the job like a sort of a game: whoever found the coolest or rarest thing was the “winner.” The morning was just like any other on the site: everyone would wake up at the brink of dawn to eat and get dressed before heading out to the dig. Kadrol woke up wearily. The constant early mornings were not something he was used to. When he was training, his master, Kylex, usually didn’t come to get him for training until midday. As he headed out, he couldn’t help but watch in awe at the sunrise over the reddish planet.

Reaching the site with his tools, the Acolyte started in the same spot he had left off on the previous night. He needed to dig down about two meters for this dig. He dug for about an hour, as everybody else arrived and started digging their spots, when he thought he saw something shining in the ground. He climbed out of his hole, which was a waist high hemisphere in the earth, and grabbed his trowel.

The Pantoran jumped into the hole excitedly and began to dig out the dirt on top of the shimmering golden object. It took him another hour or so uncover the object, revealing it to be a scepter of some sort. It was around one and three quarter meters in length. The half Kadrol had dug out so far had something engraved in it: probably some ancient language used by the Sith. The golden rod was adorned with rubies and it had a dragon’s head shaped on the top. Excitedly, Kadrol used his comm link to report in his findings. A few minutes later, a vehicle drove up to his section, and the mapper designated to his section stepped out with a map of the findings in the section. He used a measuring device to mark the location of the scepter from the side of the section, and made a mark on the map. Kadrol now had permission to finish digging out the scepter. The vehicle stayed where it was parked until Kadrol had painstakingly dug out the rest of the beautiful scepter.

He and another archaeologist put on fresh latex gloves and carefully wrapped up the scepter to insure it wouldn’t be damaged on the way back to camp where it would be analyzed. If the head of the project deemed it of enough value, Kadrol might even be assigned to learning about his discovery, but for now, he would continue to excavate.

Placement
No placement
Member
Benn Nevis
File submission
Hobby.pdf
Placement
No placement
Member
Captain Aryn "Jade" Erinos-Magnuri
Submission
Captain Aryn "Jade" Erinos-Magnuri opted out of publishing her submission.
Placement
No placement
Member
Adept Xantros
File submission
Augur_Xantros__11518__Hobby_Time.doc
Placement
No placement
Member
Kaz Raith
Submission
Kaz Raith opted out of publishing his submission.
Placement
No placement