Well, you did make it an endurance-style skill challenge where both participants were being tested in a skill neither of them has invested in, and giving them a handicap to boot. What did you expect it was going to be?  ::)<br/><br/>Was this originally supposed to be a skill challenge or was that a spur of the moment decision? Because it really felt like the details changed in their situation between these two posts. The length of it wasn't mentioned, so I assumed it was no big deal. 20 meters or so at the most was what I was figuring (the instructions for how to get there by land were pretty short), and this is about three times that. You also originally stated that there was head room and there was "no fear of drowning", but never mentioned that the headroom ended a short way into the tunnel (and at 30 feet, I think Shiori would be able to see that).<em>Intuition</em>also didn't seem to indicate any danger, which is primarily want the concern dealt with, but they were very much in danger, as it turned out (though, I don't know if she failed that roll, to be fair). So I didn't get that this was going to be a skill challenge at all, more of an RP moment.<br/><br/>Had I had been aware of these things, I probably would had backed out of it and saved you the trouble. I mean, I get Ichimaru's point of looking strong in the face of the other shinobi, but I think we're actually looking weaker than we would have had we just went around. I think Sayuri pretty much gets at this point that she can dunk them in water at any time and they're dead.  :P<br/><br/>Not that I am completely free of culpability in this mess. I got it in my head that Athletics was one of those checks that one could Take 10 on without ranks, like Perception. You often can with Climb and Jump or Athletics-based endurance checks, but Swim is a reasonable exception to the notion, and I hadn't considered that. It seems a little silly, going into the Land of Water, that anyone wouldn't take the time to learn how to swim, but it's a little too late to fix that now. I'll just have to make sure I put ranks into it next level. Still, I thought it was a little weird that Ichimaru didn't have any Athletic ranks, as that seems like a rarity for Taijutsu specialists. At least that gives us something to really focus on for the rest of the Pre-Exam period, huh?