★ THE FIRST ROUNDTABLE ★

[modaphor]

[This is the first the agents have ever been in the Roundtable Room.

It's easily reached, once they've successfully returned from their foray into the book world; the entrance to the room is right across the hall from Arche's Chamber, so it's just a quick jaunt across to a previously-locked door that Arche is now doing the honors of opening for them.

All in all, it's a warm and professional room. Of note is the fact that there are no windows in the room; it's all wood paneling and interesting light fixtures. There are, however, a fair number of accoutrements aside from simply the oblong table and its twelve very nice chairs, including a whiteboard and markers, pencils and pens, pads of paper, and a projection screen through which Arche can be reached. She'll be listening in from across the hall, speaking of which, so getting her attention is as easy as addressing her by name.

As they settle into the twelve chairs (eleven of them, but Arche's cat has apparently decided to pitch in and help out by following them over to occupy the twelfth), Arche will confirm her ability to hear and attend to them by using the projector screen to reaffirm their directives here:

DETERMINE WHERE THE DISCREPANCY OCCURRED
DETERMINE WHAT MEANS MUST BE USED TO CORRECT IT

Which means the assembled agents have their work cut out for them. Best get to it!]

~
[OOC: Okay, everyone, a few important notes about how the roundtable works: though Arche has given you those two basic directives, OOCly your job is slightly more in-depth. What you need to achieve on this log is:

1) Naming what story you were in.
2) Reciting a rough sequence of the events that occurred, as evidenced by your investigations.
3) Determining where the change happened or what was made different.
4) Reaching a group consensus or majority vote on what to change in order to fix it.

For the purposes of making these all easy to find, I'm including a top level comment for solutions; feel free to provide links to the places in the comments where these answers are being reached, with the exception of #4 — you must post an independent comment to this top-level explaining and detailing what you want changed, once you've settled on a final answer for it.

Once a final answer has been decided, you'll get a comment of Arche fixing the story, and the opportunity to send someone/all of you back into the story to retrieve the core for her.

Best of luck, everyone, and have fun! Remember, I'll be around for any questions, and if you're paging Arche, please make it highly visible so it's easier for me to find. o/]

Comments

★ THE STORY, RETOLD ★

[archetyping]

Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was nothing that she would not have given to the child. Once she gave her a little riding hood of red cloth, which suited her so well that she would never wear anything else; so she was always called 'Little Red Riding Hood.'

One day her mother said to her: 'Come, Little Red Riding Hood, here are some cakes and a bottle of wine; take them to your grandmother, the food and a visit will do her good. Set out before it gets hot with the basket and your Ruger Mark III, and when you are going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path, or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother will get nothing; and when you go into her room, don't forget to say, "Good morning", and don't peep into every corner before you do it.'

'I will take great care,' said Little Red Riding Hood to her mother, and gave her hand on it.

The grandmother, a retired member of the armed forces, lived out in the wood, some distance from the village of hunters, trick shooters, snipers, and expert marksmen, and just as Little Red Riding Hood entered the wood, a wolf met her at a fork in the road. Red Riding Hood did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of him, not least of which because she knew she was armed.

'Good day, Little Red Riding Hood,' said he.

'Thank you kindly, wolf.'

'Whither away so early, Little Red Riding Hood?'

'To my grandmother's.'

'What have you got in your basket?'

'Cakes and wine; yesterday was baking-day, so my mother is sending me to take some to my grandmother, and to visit with her awhile.'

'Where does your grandmother live, Little Red Riding Hood?'

'A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood; her house stands under the three large oak-trees, the nut-trees are just below; you surely must know it,' replied Little Red Riding Hood.

The wolf thought to himself: 'What a tender young creature! what a nice plump mouthful - she will be better to eat than the old woman. I must act craftily, so as to catch both. There are two paths that lead to that house in the woods, long and short. If I can contrive a way to make her take the long path around, I can take the short and beat her to the cottage.'

So he looked all around the fork in the road, as if admiring the day, and craftily said: 'See, Little Red Riding Hood, how pretty the flowers are about here - why do you not look round? I believe, too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing; you walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else out here in the wood is merry.'

Little Red Riding Hood raised her eyes, and when she saw the sunbeams dancing here and there through the trees, and pretty flowers growing everywhere, she thought: 'Suppose I take grandmother a fresh nosegay; that would please her too. It is so early in the day that even if go the long way, I shall still get there in good time.'

So she set off down the long path through the wood to look for flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so got further and further into the wood.

Meanwhile, the wolf said, "I must make haste, and hide that I have been this way." And so, catching up a pine branch in his teeth, he ran backwards down the short way to the grandmother's house, brushing away his pawprints as he went. When he reached the cottage, he tossed away the branch, drew himself up to his fullest height, and knocked at the door.

'Who is there?'

'Little Red Riding Hood,' replied the wolf. 'She is bringing cakes and wine; open the door.'

'Lift the latch,' called out the grandmother, 'I am in bed, and cannot get up.'

The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a word he went straight to the grandmother's bed, but when he tried to devour her, the grandmother leaped up from her bed and grabbed down the hunting rifle that was hanging over it, and before one could say "lickety-split" she'd caught the sorry wolf in her sights and opened fire.

Little Red Riding Hood, however, had been walking along picking flowers, and when she had gathered so many that she could carry no more, she remembered her grandmother, and set out more purposefully on the way to her.

Along the way, she met a huntsman heading for the lake to fish. "Good day, Mr. Huntsman!" she said cheerfully.

"Good day, Little Red Riding Hood," he replied, and tipped his cap to her, and walked along through the brush on his way to the lake, where he spent the rest of the day fishing and being merry in his little boat.

As for Little Red, she carried on to the cottage, and was surprised to find the cottage-door standing open, and when she went into the room, she had such a strange feeling that she said to herself: 'Oh dear! how uneasy I feel today, and at other times I like being with grandmother so much.' She called out: 'Good morning,' and her grandmother replied, "Who can that be? Is it my granddaughter, Little Red? Come into the back, dear, and mind your step; I'm skinning a wolf, and I'd not have you slip on the mess."

So Little Red Riding Hood went to the kitchen and set down her basket, remembering her mother's words about breaking the bottle. Then she went into the back, and showed her grandmother the nosegay she'd picked, and her grandmother showed her the wolf that she'd killed, and she promised to make Little Red a lovely wolfskin coat for when the winter came. But first, she said, let us go out into the woods together and practice shooting at targets, for one never knows when quick reflexes and good aim will be needed in this forest full of wolves.

And so they did, and lived happily ever after.