Post-Event Assessment: Rock Climbing

We took Secondborn to the rock climbing gym this weekend. He's had summer classes there before, so he was already on file and certified to use the auto-belay. Beautiful Wife and I were not, so we filled out our wavers and went over the process with the staff so we could be on record as officially certified. 

(For those who don't already know: belay is the term for the safety line that keeps a climber from falling to the ground if they lose their grip. It also allows them to be lowered back down once they reach the top of the climb. For a manual belay, the belay line basically goes up to a pulley and you have somebody on the ground to pull the rope so it stays tight as you climb, and then to feed it back out gently to lower you down. A lot of the modern climbing gyms have auto-belays as well, which are rigged to a spring-and-pulley system. On their own, they will retract all the way up to the spool, but with a person clipped to the end of the line they will keep the rope tight until you fall or let go and put your full weight on it. At that point, it feeds the line back out slowly, so you land gently on the ground.) 

Secondborn, as I said, has done this before, and recently. Beautiful Wife and I have also done this before, and not recently. So he clambers around on the bouldering areas, and scampers up the climbing walls with considerable agility, and returns to the bottom smiling. 

Me, not so much. I tried four climbs and a bit of bouldering, and I will say this in my defense: at least I can still do it. I have to take about a ten minute break between climbs, but I can do it. So my assessment looks like this: 

Good:

• Grip strength and upper body are still equal to the task.
• Agility and technique are still there; I remember how to go about it.

Bad:

• Cardio is desperately in need of more work.

So, we're going to do their one-month trial -- which looks like a pretty good deal -- and see if we can't get back in better shape while giving Secondborn a regular family outing that he loves. 

Events of note: Secondborn showed us how he can go up a section of the wall devoted to timed trials -- not anything complicated; the first two-thirds is basically a series of wooden rungs with a nice, heavy lip that's very easy to grip. Harder than it looks, though, because the rungs are about two feet apart. So, after watching this, I informed Secondborn that he was going to get to watch me beat his time.

I made it halfway up -- if we're being generous. It was probably closet to a third. I really need to lose some belly to make that work. Secondborn was, of course, suitably smug about the whole thing. 

Den of Thieves: A Momentary Sighting

"You asked to see me?" Vallista Greycloak eased back from her desk, weighing him with her eyes, and Bassom swallowed. 

He knew he was only still a Greycloak by courtesy, and because he had gone for help when he fled. Derlina and the rest of the crew had been down by then; he'd done the sensible thing. But since the other three -- and Derlina in particular -- had gone down fighting, everybody in the gang thought of them as heroes... and him as a coward. It wasn't right, it wasn't true, but there it was and he was stuck with it.

"Yes, um, Boss. I heard news, and you'll want to hear it to. Bilk Tendal, down on lower city north? He had a group of kids had made a hideout in the back of his shop. Wannabe gang, it sounds like, but still just kids. Anyway, this group came in and helped Bilk bust 'em out: pried 'em out of their hideout, dressed 'em down in the street, then made 'em clean up and marched 'em home to their parents."

Vallista Greycloak leaned forward, studying Bassom closely. He managed not to swallow again, but it took an effort; Vallista was old Anderlin's daughter, likely to take over the gang if her father ever passed. "Why, exactly, did you think I needed to know this?" she asked quietly.

Oh, right, yeah. "'Cause they was the same group as done us," he said. "A dragonborn, a dwarf, an elf, and a couple'a humans. Has to be the same ones, dunnit?"

Vallista leaned back again. "And how long ago was this?"

"Two days ago, maybe three," Bassom admitted. "I came as soon as I heard the word."

"Well," said Vallista Greycloak, "You're the first I've heard it from, so that was wise."

She extended a single finger, tapped it on the arm of her chair. "Very well," she continued after a moment. "Should I call in Derlina? Or do you think you can go down there and ask some questions without attracting attention?"

"They ruined my rep," Bassom said. "I'd rather take care of it myself."

"Hm. Nothing without my permission, though."

"That's why I'm here," Bassom assured her. "I'm loyal -- to the 'Cloaks and to the Guild. Maybe I screwed up, but I want to do this right." There, he'd said it. He wanted to earn his place back -- his real place, not this shunned role out on the edges of everything that mattered to him. 

"As you wish," Vallista told him. "See what you can find out: who they were, who they know, who they're working for. You report directly to me until I say otherwise, and you don't breathe a word of this to anybody else. Until we know who these people are and who they're working for, we move very quietly on this."

"Not a word to anybody else," Bassom told her. "I swear it."