Jennifer M. Zeiger's Blog, page 20

Golden Shell Mystery – Investigate the Passageway

Welcome to the third installment of this adventure story =)

If you’re unfamiliar with my blog, this is a choose your own adventure, which means you get to chime in on where the story goes by leaving your vote in the comments at the end.

So, in case you missed the last two installments, you can read them (Part 1 and Part 2) or here’s a quick recap:

You’re a ranger who hunts down dangerous beasts for the king. You were pulled from home by the King’s Hand and taken to an island where you met five other people also pulled from their lives. You were told you have three days to find three golden shells. Whoever succeeds will earn the island from the King, but not everything is as it initially appears.

When you got the opportunity, you searched the walls and paintings in a bamboo hut on the island. You found three things: a map indicating there are three huts total on the island, a small etching left by the King’s Hand indicating you’re hunting for a poisonous beast, and a hidden passageway under a trapdoor. Readers voted to investigate the passageway instead of following Allen, another of the occupants of the island, to a different hut.

Let’s see where the passage leads

Golden Shell Mystery – Investigate the Passageway

There’s a brief moment where you wonder just how you’re going to get Allen Co to leave without you, but he doesn’t look back when he stomps out of the door, talking over his shoulder and never looking back.

How long it’ll take him to realize you didn’t follow, you’ve no idea. You also have no idea if he’ll come stomping back, angry that you ignored him.

You sweep a look over the hut. Since your time might be limited, you do a quick perusal of the bar, pressing against the shelves to see if anything usual gives, but nothing shows up.

Then you head for the trap door. A gentle push moves the wall a full two inches, where it stops against the pinch of the other walls. A small notch is revealed in the trapdoor which you pull upward to open.

A briny gust of wind presses against your face as you take in the wooden steps leading down into a dark tunnel below. The Hand didn’t allow you to bring weapons, but neither did he search you, so you pull the boot knife you always carry before heading down those narrow stairs. They creak abominably under your weight, echoing through the tunnel like a trumpet announcement of your presence.

Once at the bottom, you pull the trapdoor closed by a rope hanging from the bamboo door. There’s a click and darkness envelopes you. Now any beast already in the tunnel will have the advantage, knowing where you were before the darkness descended, so on silent feet, you shift away from the stairs and press tight to the wall, waiting long moments to see if anything moves.

The breeze picks up again with the smell of brine and island flowers but nothing else stirs. Finally convinced you’re alone, you head down the tunnel with your hand against the left hand wall.

A flash blinds you and you duck to the side, knife raised.

“Don’t need that here,” a voice rasps, and then coughs in a chest wracking bought.

Blinking furiously, your vision clears enough for you to realize you’re no longer in the tunnel. The world solidifies into a cavern with a dark pool taking up most of the space and a tiny lean-to against the far wall.

“Disorienting, isn’t it, Hunter?” says the same raspy voice.

This time, you spot the speaker.

Patricia Willard’s dark hair tumbles around her face with barely a resemblance to a braided crown anymore. She sits against the cavern wall with her fingers trailing in the pool beside her hip.

“Yes,” she says, seeing your surprise, “I know what you do.” A bought of coughing hits her and doubles her over toward her knees. When she straightens back up, there’s bloody spittle on her lips.

“What happened?” you ask, putting your knife away.

“Thought the King’s Hunters were smarter than that,” she snickers. “You found a portal. According to myth, the island’s riddled with them.”

Although the information is interesting, that wasn’t what you meant. “What happened to you?” you clarify.

She smiles bitterly. “Got into something I shouldn’t have. It’s a quick killer apparently.”

“What was it?” you ask.

“Don’t rightly know,” she says. “Started to feel the effects not long after the rain subsided, so I headed here.”

The look of confusion on your face makes her laugh, then cough and clutch her stomach once more. Finally, she calms enough to lean back again. “You know what I am, Hunter?”

You shake your head.

“I’m the Story Keeper.”

You stare at Patricia’s grimy face, trying to reconcile it with her claim. The Story Keeper is responsible for keeping the oral histories of the kingdom, big and small. It’s no easy task. You never imagined she’d look like a gypsy woman, but perhaps it makes sense. She travels a lot to investigate and collect stories. People probably share more readily their treasured family histories with a wandering story teller than the King’s official Story Keeper.

Putting details together, you say, “You know the story of this island.”

A wry smile touches Patricia’s lips. “I do.”

“What convinced you to come here when you started to get sick?”

The wry smile grows to true praise. “Maybe you are a Hunter after all,” she says. “I came here because the shells supposedly heal people and this is the least explored location of the three. Figured if I had a chance of finding one, it’d be here, but—” She shrugs, gesturing at her legs where they lay on the floor in front of her. They’re unmoving, dead weights leaving divots in the sandy floor from the heels of her boots.

“Probably a fool’s hope,” you mutter. “No one’s ever found the shells.”

Patricia slaps the water with her hand. It smacks the surface, rippling the glassy water into ringlets.

“Look there,” she points out into the pool.

You look, but it’s just dark water, smooth as rumpled silk.

“No, no, come here,” she beckons you to her side with an impatient hand.

You join her side and she smacks the water again, pointing.

From this vantage, there’s a slight glow from the cavern entrance on the far side. Between the glow and the moving ripples, the mottled colors on the bottom of the pool begin to take shape and you can make out white, black, orange, and even red shells littering the bottom. It’s strange. There’s no sand, just the black stone of the pool’s bottom and hundreds of shells, chipped, whole, halved, all shapes and sizes.

Then your eyes snag on one tiny golden speck.

“See it?” Patricia rasps.

Suddenly she grabs your arm, reaching across her body with the hand she had in the water a moment before. Her fingers are so cold you jerk away with a yelp.

“Easy to see,” she says, hanging on, “hard to get. Each shell has a protection spell. This one’s the cold. Most don’t survive it, and now I can’t even try.” The bitter edge in her voice digs at you as her hand falls away to rest in the water again.

“Is there a trick,” you ask, “to surviving?”

Patricia stares at you hard, her dark eyes searching. “The Hand promised you were good,” she finally says, then she recites, “One lies with the drunkards and their glasses, one sits among its own kind and freezes, and one falls, never landing but hiding in the rainbow. For the drunkards, cross your eyes, for the cold, drink deep and join the party, for the fall, stand below and feel the touch of the island’s song.” Patricia shrugs. “So drink deep and join the party, whatever that may mean.”

Drink deep. Well, there’s only one thing to drink.

You leave Patricia’s side and kneel beside the pool. At the first touch of the water on your hands, cold locks your fingers into a cupped position. You gasp, convincing yourself to draw the water out and to your lips while Patricia watches, her face a mix of hope and surprise. The water makes your lips feel brittle and shoots pain through your teeth, and then it washes down into your stomach and your body flushes warm and then cold again.

There’s a familiar flash and you blink hard again… and find yourself surrounded by hundreds of shells while you stand on a golden carapace. It doesn’t even feel like you’re beneath the water, but you know you are.

The shell under your feet is as big as you are but you know from looking at it above that it’s no bigger than your thumbnail.

Somehow knowing your time is short, you lay down and span the shell’s surface with your arms, grasping the edges with your fingertips.

Moments later, there’s another flash and you stand dripping on the edge of the pool with the tiny shell clasped in your hand. A shiver hits you, so violent it makes you stumble. When your body finally unlocks, you realize Patricia’s coughing, crouched around her stomach in a fetal position.

Rushing over, you kneel. “Patricia,” you try to get her attention, “Patricia, it’s the shell. Take it.” You force her fingers around it.

Long moments pass where she doesn’t even seem to realize what you handed her, but then her eyes widen and she plops the tiny shell into her mouth.

Hunched over still, her body relaxes like she fell asleep. When a long sigh escapes her, you lean closer to make sure she’s still breathing and find her dark eyes open, tears trailing down her dirty face.

“I never would’ve helped you, Hunter,” she admits softly.

You give her a bewildered look. “I couldn’t leave you to die.”

She closes her eyes tight. “You know what this means?”

You sit back on your heels, startled by her shift in conversation.

“The Hand brought you, a Hunter, me the Story Keeper, and four others to this island. You to hunt something, me to know the island’s history, and four others for what?”

Details start to click together. Someone poisoned Patricia. So unless Patricia almost killed herself in a twisted game—“They’re suspects.”

Patricia nods, still weak. “Someone probably poisoned one of the royal family. The Hand aims to figure out who did it and find a shell to heal whoever was poisoned. Seeing how fast the poison can work, I suspect the Hand will want a shell more than the poisoner at this point.”

“The other two huts,” you surmise.

“There’s the portal you know about leading back to the original hut. I suspect that’s the Drunkard’s shell. And there’s a portal over there,” she points to a dark section of the cavern wall. “That I suspect leads to the Falling shell.”

“The others are probably at the second location,” you comment, thinking of Allen.

“Where do you go, Hunter?” Patricia asks.

You almost suggest she help you but as she pushes herself into a sitting position, she wobbles, almost slumping back to the floor before you steady her with a hand.

So do you search for the:

Drunkard’s Shell?

Or

Falling Shell?

Thank you for joining the adventure this week. My apologies that this post went rather long. As I said during week one, this adventure has so much going on that I’m struggling to keep it blog length. Anyway, leave your vote in the comments below and next week we’ll return to see how this story ends!

Blessings,

Jennifer

For a chance to win a FREE copy of my fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, hop on over to Goodreads and enter the April giveaway! (FYI, you need a Goodreads account to enter the giveaway. It’s a free account but does require some steps. Also, giveaway ends tomorrow.)

(For more of my stories, check out either my Choose Your Own Adventure-style book, The Adventure, or my YA Fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, here on my Website or on Amazon.)

Golden Shells Mystery – The Walls

Welcome back for the second post in this adventure story. Readers surprised me on their votes this time! It was incredibly close, but readers chose to investigate the hut walls.

If you missed the first post, you can read it here, or here’s a quick recap: You’re a ranger who hunts down dangerous beasts for the king but just this morning, you were pulled from home by the King’s Hand and taken to an island where you met five other people also pulled from their lives. All of you have been told you have three days to find three golden shells. Whoever succeeds will earn the island from the King, but not everything is as it initially appears.

Now let’s see what you find as you investigate!

The Walls

You wander along the wall, leaving the window you’d been standing beside while it rained. The hut is an island structure, with the walls made of thick bamboo stalks. You run your hand along the bumpy surface as you approach the first painting.

Just like the walls, the frame is also made of bamboo but each side is pencil thin. You’re lifting it off the wall when you hear a scuffing from outside. A moment later, Allen Co stomps through the door.

He pauses, seeing you, and his boisterous eyebrows climb into his white hair.

“Snickering snakes!” he exclaims, shaking a gnarled finger at you. “You startled me.”

Then he notices the painting in your hands. “Now what’re you doing there?”

You could point out that you’re searching the only man-made structure that you’ve seen so far on the island, but that seems rather obvious. Plus, there’s a gleam in Allen’s eyes that hasn’t disappeared since you met him. It reminds you of the “gotcha” look some street vendors get when they actually get you to look at their wares. It doesn’t sit well with you. So instead, you arch one brow and pointedly flip the waterfall painting over to look at the back.

“Hmm,” Allen mutters and his boots thud against the floor as he heads toward another painting. A moment later, he smacks it down on the bar with enough force to make the bottle of whiskey Marius left jump from the impact. You look over just in time to see Allen snatch it up without looking and pitch it out the window. There’s a crash from outside that almost covers his grumbled, “Nasty stuff.”

You watch him flip the painting over several times, back and forth, and then he produces a pocket knife.

Why did he come back to the hut? you wonder.

“Nothing here,” he grumbles, tossing the cut canvas over his shoulder and proceeding to tear apart the bamboo frame.

With a glance up, he realizes you’re staring at him. “Want that one cut out too?” he asks. “Or would you rather I pour you a drink?”

You shake your head to both questions although you barely keep yourself from glancing at the window where he pitched the whiskey bottle a few moments ago. What? He objects to the whiskey but offers me a drink? 

Allen Co harrumphs. “Suit yourself.”

You turn away to rehang the picture and to keep yourself from staring at him while you try to figure out his oddities.

There’s a hollow thunk against the floor and one of the bamboo rods from Allen’s picture frame rolls until it hits your foot. It’s surprisingly scratched up. It startles you enough that you miss catching the thin wire on the small nail jutting from the wall.

You check on Allen, just to make sure he didn’t actually throw the chunk of frame at you, but he’s tearing the third and final painting off the wall, so you tilt your head close to the bamboo to eye the nail as you try to rehang your own painting again. The angle’s terrible and you crouch a bit to see below the tilt of the picture frame. Your shoulder presses against the wall and you feel a slight vertigo as it gives a little under your weight. You stumble, touching a hand to the floor to catch yourself.

The painting’s wire catches and you step away, glancing at Allen to see if he noticed your clumsiness. All the while, you refrain from looking down by your feet again, where there’s now a gap between the floor and the wall like a section of floor might rise in a trap door and you just released the latch on it.

Allen smacks the last painting onto the bar and turns it over and over like the last one. The front is darker than the other two, depicting a pool of water in a cave with dark browns and blacks reflecting on the water’s surface.

“Nothin’ here,” he mutters, despite the fact that there’s clearly a drawing on the back. He produces his knife again.

“Hold up,” you say.

Allen pauses with the knife in the air, surprised perhaps to hear you speak, while you approach and flip the canvas over again. The sketch on the back might be simple, but it’s not hard to read.

“Looks like the island,” Allen says. “Here’s the hut. And this is the cove the Hand dropped us off in.”

“Looks like there might be two other huts,” you say.

According to the drawing, one’s in a cave on the far side of the island where none of you have yet explored. The other structure looks to be in a cove with a waterfall. It’s close enough, one of the others might have reached it by now.

Allen taps his finger against the bar and then runs his hands through his wispy hair several times, explaining why it puffs out like a cloud around his head.

“Three huts,” Allen sighs, thinking aloud, “three shells.” His breath smells like he’s been chewing mint.

You don’t add that there are also three paintings.

“This one’s pretty close.” He points at the waterfall hut. “If we hurry, maybe we can search it too before any of the snitches discovers it.” He spins away, heading for the door before you answer him.

Why’s he including me, you wonder.

While his back is turned, you pull the chunk of bamboo frame from your pocket that you retrieved from the floor. On it are two small etchings—one of a snake, the other of a hand drawn like a child doing stick drawings.

You know those symbols. At times, the King’s Hand cannot tell you the specifics about a beast he needs hunted, sometimes due to politics, sometimes because the beast is intelligent and might be near, and sometimes simply because the Hand doesn’t know the details, but no matter the reason, you’ve worked out a short hand. There’s something poisonous to be hunted on the island.

With that knowledge, everything shifts for you. The shells may still be important as the Hand rarely does anything for only one reason, but finding the snake is now your priority.

In that case, is it more important to stay near Allen Co? or should you investigate the hidden passage you saw when the wall moved?

Do you…

Stay with Allen?

or

Investigate the Passageway?

Join in the adventure by leaving your vote in the comments below! We’ll return next Thursday to see how this story continues.

Until then, blessings,

Jennifer

For a chance to win a FREE copy of my fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, hop on over to Goodreads and enter the April giveaway!

(For more of my stories, check out either my Choose Your Own Adventure-style book, The Adventure, or my YA Fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, here on my Website or on Amazon.)

Golden Shells Mystery

Welcome to a new adventure!

Sometimes these stories flow and sometimes they challenge my brain. This one, for whatever reason, started out fantastic and then my brain went into overload because there are soooo many possibilities I could weave in. Hopefully, I pared this down to something comprehensible for the short story format I use here on the blog. This adventure start could easily have been twice as long.

So without further ado, let’s get started =)

Golden Shells Mystery

You wish you were in the Alder forest, surrounded by its familiar towering pines and juniper scent. Instead, you stare out toward the ocean while rain pours off the roof of the hut you stand in. You can’t actually see the surf through the torrents of water but you can still hear the dull roar of the waves as they beat the island.

“I need your skills,” The King’s Hand had said just that morning when he showed up at your cabin. You’ve always worked for the King, keeping his forest clear of beasts that would otherwise prey on merchants and farmers, so you agreed, expecting to be told to hunt down some new threat. Instead, you’d been ushered to the coast, put on a boat, and rowed to Isbell Island, where you’d been met by five other people who were pulled from their normal lives that morning.

“Somewhere on this island,” the Hand informed you all, “are three golden shells. The King needs them by sundown of Saturday. Whoever finds them will be given the island.” Then the Hand had left, rowing away while the small group watched from the beach.

Not an hour later, the storm rolled in, driving you all into the small hut just off the beach.

You strain your eyes, trying to see the edge of the water, anything to tell you the storm’s passing but you can’t make it out.

“This’ll make things more challenging,” says Allen Co behind you where he sits at the only table in the hut with the four others.

Allen’s the scruffiest of the bunch with his wispy white hair sticking out over his ears and his round glasses looking like they’re cowering below his wayward brows.

Patricia Willard isn’t far behind him on the scruff factor. Her braided crown has so many strands pulled that you wonder if a bird has nested in the top. Dirt smudges her hands, leaving prints on the glass of whiskey she’s sipping from.

Beside her sits Marius Jack, carefully sipping from his own glass. He leans away from Patricia like she might shed grime on his pristine green doublet.

The last two occupants, Mia and Nessen, are twins with white blonde hair and green eyes. They’re younger than the others but in your estimation they’re also creepier. They watch the group like they’re dissecting them.

Although, honestly, you don’t trust any of them. You’d never met them before this morning and none of them were willing to share their occupations during introductions. You glance outside again, looking for the waves.

“What? Things weren’t challenging enough without the rain to burry the shells?” Patricia snickers at Allen, waving her glass at the window where you’re leaning against the frame. The move sloshes her whiskey onto Mia.

Mia growls and snatches the glass, pitching it out the window and somehow managing not to spill any in the process.

You duck and feel the slight gust of wind as the glass sails past your head and then hear the faint crack as it hits something outside. You peek out but through the falling rain, you can’t see what it collided with.  You do notice the tall grass of the dunes. The rain’s starting to lighten up.

“You smell better now, dear,” Patricia says to Mia and calmly claims Marius’ glass as her own.

He gaps, and then gets up to retrieve a clean drink from the bar.

“My question,” Patricia continues, “is does the Hand know the bar’s stocked?”

“He knows,” you mutter before you stop to think about the wisdom of it. You’ve long suspected the Hand was the King’s Spymaster. In your experience, he always knows more than he should.

Patricia chortles. Behind her, Marius pauses in pouring himself a glass from the bottle Allen left on the bar after investigating it when he first arrived.

“I’m losing time,” Allen grips. “Sundown of Saturday is in three days.”

“Why do you think there’s a deadline?” Marius asks as he reclaims his seat, whiskey in hand.

Nessen tilts his head, mulling over the question. He shrugs after a moment but you don’t miss the look he shares with his sister.

Why indeed? The stories about Isbell Island are dark. It’s owned by the King, but even he doesn’t set foot on it. In fact, now that you think about it, the Hand never left the boat when he dropped you off. You don’t mention this, however. Instead you simply say, “The storm’s almost done. I can see the ocean again.”

Allen gives a yip, is out of his seat, and through the door before anyone else moves. Marius raises his glass to Patricia and drains it. She does likewise, giving a fiery breath after swallowing, and they both leave as well. You wonder if anyone realized that Marius barely had a sip in his glass and Patricia just downed at least three fingers of whiskey.

The twins eye you with identical pale green stares, sending a shiver down your spine. Nessen knocks on the table with his knuckle, right next to Marius’ empty glass. So, he did notice. You give him a wink and he lifts his chin in acknowledgement before he and his sister rise and leave.

The hut feels suddenly, wonderfully, quiet. There’s the slight patter of rain on the roof but it’s subtle and growing fainter.

You take the moment to think.

The Hand claimed he needed your skills for this assignment. He probably told everyone that, but you feel oddly matched in this group. From what you’ve observed, you’re fairly certain Marius is a nobleman’s son and the twins might not be too far from his station. Allen and Patricia are anyone’s guess, but both have a gypsy feel to you.

The Hand didn’t explicitly say you couldn’t work together, but the mention of winning the island instantly turned the search for the shells into a free for all…except the twins. You’d be shocked if they’re not working together. You’d be willing to bet the Hand’s wording was intentional.

Marius’ question sticks with you. Why the deadline? Why now?

Maybe something on the island will tell you more. The hut is the obvious place to start. If no one sets foot on the island, who built it? There’s not much in the hut. There’s the stocked bar and some paintings on the walls.

Do you…

Search the bar first?

Or

Search the walls first?

Thanks for joining adventure. Leave your vote in the comments below and we’ll return next Thursday to see how this adventure continues!

Blessings,

Jennifer

For a chance to win a FREE copy of my fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, hop on over to Goodreads and enter the April giveaway!

(For more of my stories, check out either my Choose Your Own Adventure-style book, The Adventure, or my YA Fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, here on my Website or on Amazon.)

 

Giveaway Time!

Way back in 2013 when I worked with seven other writers to publish our own book of short stories, we did a Goodreads giveaway with the book.

I’ve always wanted to run another giveaway on Goodreads but the most cost effective way of running them is with the KDP version of a book, and I don’t love the KDP version of The Adventure. Because of it being a Choose Your Own Adventure-style book, there are hyperlinks for the choices, which works, but it’s not as clean as I’d like. (Any ideas on how to fix that, I’d love to hear them.)

Anyway, Quaking Soul has none of those hyperlink issues to worry about. Yay! So I’m happy to announce that from April 2-April 30, Quaking Soul is up for a giveaway on Goodreads! This is a great chance to get a copy of the book if you’re on the fence about buying it. Or if you think a friend might enjoy it, please share, the more the merrier =)

Quaking Soul Goodreads Giveaway Details:

Quaking Soul Giveaway on Goodreads

When: April 2-April 30

Where: Goodreads

Format: Kindle

All you need is a free account on Goodreads and then enter the giveaway with a good email for them to send the KDP version to in case you win. That’s it! They encourage readers to leave reviews for giveaway books, but that’s up to you.

Blessings,

Jennifer

Raining Frogs 2 – Stall for the Frogs

Welcome to the last post in the Raining Frogs Adventure!

If you missed the first three posts, you can read them – Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3– or here’s a quick recap:

You headed to the bank to deposit the money needed to buy a parcel of land outside of town and on your way it literally started to rain frogs. You’re in such a good mood, you shrug this off until four bank robbers wearing bulky clothing come into the bank. Oddly enough, the frogs that followed them in seem to be trying to chase them. You would have left well enough alone, except one robber took your money off the counter to add to their haul. You decided to fight the robbers using the frogs.

Fighting initially worked really well. The first robber blistered up where the frog hit him and then disappeared altogether. However, since there were four robbers and only one of you, they overwhelmed you and threw a potato sack over your head, commenting that you’d make a great addition to the offering. Readers voted to make the robbers lives difficult instead of remaining quiet.

You managed to eliminate two more of the robbers by hitting them with frogs, but this angered the last robber to the point that he started to kick you while you were on the ground. Trying to escape him, you rolled over onto one of the other robbers shotguns but when you raised it, you found yourself looking down the barrel of the last robber’s gun. While this registers, you also realize the frogs are creating a tower behind him like they’re trying to reach his head. Instead of shooting, then, you decided to stall and see what happens with the frogs.

Good luck!

Raining Frogs 2 – Stall for the Frogs

You’re not sure the shotgun will do anything to the last robber other than anger him further. However, you do know the frogs turn these creatures-he looks remarkably like a ghoul-into piles of dirt.

You grin at the robber. His eyes narrow and he sneers.

“You’re not fast enough,” he mocks, indicating the shotgun in your hands.

He’s probably right, but you only say, “Perhaps,” with a shrug and continue to smile like you know something he doesn’t.

He backs away a step.

“Hold right there,” you say. Somehow you sound more confident than you feel but the confidence must sound convincing because he stops moving.

You hold a relieved sigh. He almost knocked over the fast-growing tower of frogs behind him. While the ghoul-like robber sneers again, another frog jumps on the tower. It sways precariously, almost touching his back, before the new frog settles on the top and braces for another frog to join the tower.

Seeing your distraction, the robber starts to turn.

You kick several frogs at him and he recoils.

BOOM!

The shotgun in his hand rocks back, almost hitting his face.

You flinch. The shot whistles past your head and chunks of brick fly off the corner of the bank where the shot slams into it.

Spooked, the ghoul spins to run…and comes face to face with a tower of frogs.

You could swear the frogs grin in glee. They jump for the gap in his hood, hitting his face and working their way beneath the fabric.

He shrieks like his companions and disappears in a flood of frogs. All you can do is watch, horrified and fascinated, until the last robber’s gone in a mound of dirt.

Suddenly the air’s deafening with the ribbiting of all the frogs and then, poof, they disappear too. Sunlight hits the street like it’s smiling on a perfect, uninterrupted summer day.

Except there are bags of money laying on the street.

Shaking off your shock, you gather it all, making several trips, to return it to the bank.

“So what happened?” The sheriff asks later.

You tell him. Straight truth.

He scowls and moves on to the tellers.

Their stories aren’t any more convincing, so you come up with a story about four robbers that ran away and he sketches out wanted posters for four very ugly fugitives.

Every time you see those posters you giggle in hysteria. There’s just something crazy funny about it.

You become known as the crazy person who owns the land just outside of town, but just like the town drunk, the people accept you as part of their own and you continue to giggle every time you see a wanted poster.

Perhaps it was all the frog slime that scrabbled your brain. You don’t know and don’t really care. Life’s just more fun this way.

The End

Thank you for joining in this month’s adventure =) I’m always fascinated when I re-run an adventure and it goes the exact same way it did the first time. There must be something in the wording of the decisions to encourage readers down the same path.

Again, thanks for joining in!

Blessings,

Jennifer

(For more of my stories, check out either my Choose Your Own Adventure-style book, The Adventure, or my YA Fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, here on my Website or on Amazon.)

Raining Frogs 2 – Make Life Difficult

Welcome back to the adventure =) Last week was a close vote!

If you missed the last two posts in this adventure, you can read them – Part 1 and Part 2 – or here’s a quick recap:

You headed to the bank to deposit the money needed to buy a parcel of land outside of town and on your way it literally started to rain frogs. You’re in such a good mood, you shrug this off until four bank robbers wearing bulky clothing come into the bank. Oddly enough, the frogs that followed them in seem to be trying to chase them. You would have left well enough alone, except one robber took your money off the counter to add to their haul. You decided to fight the robbers using the frogs.

Fighting initially worked really well. The first robber blistered up where the frog hit him and then disappeared altogether. However, since there were four robbers and only one of you, they overwhelmed you and threw a potato sack over your head, commenting that you’d make a great addition to the offering. Readers voted to make the robbers lives difficult instead of remaining quiet.

So let’s be ornery!

Raining Frogs 2 – Make Life Difficult

These creatures ruined your day. This perfect, lovely day of realized dreams. A vindictive part of you simply wants to ruin their day in return.

Although your head’s covered with a potato sack, you have no trouble telling when you’ve left the bank. Frogs splat against your head and shoulders in an unceasing rain of amphibians. They fill the air with ribbits and croaks over the general, thick splatting sound their soft bodies make against the ground.

You wait until you’re away from the bank and out into the street before you let loose on your three remaining captors. With a shove of your hip, you push the right one far enough away that you can kick his legs. Luck’s with you. The kick connects solidly…although with the hood, you can’t say where.

You guess near his knee because he screams and crumples to the ground. He continues screaming in a gargle like show of agony.

You don’t question your luck when he doesn’t rise. Instead, you shift to attack the creature on your left.

Before you get the chance, he sweeps your legs from beneath you and you hit the ground with a thud that rattles teeth. The potato sack slides to the top of your head and you shake, making it fall away completely. You’re just in time to see the creature aim a kick. As his leg draws back, you snake your feet around the leg holding his weight and pull.

He falls and huffs when he hits. His hood falls off and within seconds, frogs cover him.

You stare, shocked, while steam hisses and frogs croak but when they clear away from him, there’s nothing left except the items he carried.

A quick glance confirms the other robber suffered a similar fate. The money sacks and shot gun he carried now sit in a pile of mounted up dirt. You can’t remember when he stopped screaming. It all happened in such a blur.

You meet the eyes of the last robber, and shudder. Inhuman fury turns his already ugly face to a mask of pure hate.

He shrieks and races at you.

You try to roll away but your hands are still bound and his first kick hits low on your spine. It hits like the kick of a mule. Then the butt of a shotgun barely misses your temple.

A part of you wonders whether to be thankful or frustrated that he doesn’t just shoot you, but then you loose any thought except trying to protect your body as more and more kicks connect. Something catches your back and pulls against your bound arms. There’s a snap and the pulling disappears but you find the the tension holding your arms is gone. You pull your hands up toward your face and curl into a tight ball as another kick rocks you onto your back.

Your pain-addled brain slowly registers that you rolled onto something hard. It’s a moment before you realize it’s a shotgun from one of the other robbers.

You roll off it, snatch it up, and pull the trigger.

In your haste, you miss the attacker altogether and the wall of the general store gives a puff as the shot embeds itself in the wood.

When you look up, you freeze. The last creature holds a shotgun as well and he’s grinning at you as you stare down the barrel.

Time slows for a subjective minute. Frogs hop behind your last opponent like they’re encouraging you. Several land on top of each other and before long, you realize they’re stacking themselves behind him to reach his head. It’s the oddest thing you’ve ever seen.

Can you shoot faster than he can, you wonder? Will the buckshot even hurt him? Can you stall long enough for the frogs to reach his head instead?

Do you…

Shoot him?

Or

Stall for the frogs?

Feel free to join in by leaving your vote in the comments below. We’ll return next week to see how this adventure ends. In the mean time, thanks for joining the adventure and have a wonderful week!

Blessings,

Jennifer

(For more of my stories, check out either my Choose Your Own Adventure-style book, The Adventure, or my YA Fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, here on my Website or on Amazon.)

Raining Frogs 2 – Fight with Frogs

Welcome back to the adventure! If you missed the start of this story, you can read it here or here’s a quick recap:

You headed to the bank to deposit the money needed to buy a parcel of land outside of town and on your way it literally started to rain frogs. You’re in such a good mood, you shrug this off until four bank robbers wearing bulky clothing come into the bank. Oddly enough, the frogs that followed them in seem to be trying to chase them. You would have left well enough alone, except one robber took your money off the counter to add to their haul. Now you’re going to fight using the frogs.

Let’s see what happens!

Raining Frogs 2 – Fight with Frogs

You worked for years to earn enough for your little parcel of land and now this two-bit robber wants your hard earned payment. No way are you okay with that.

As he thumps toward you, you back up in a non-threatening gesture. With a start of surprise, you realize he’s shorter than you are, and you’re not a towering individual. The bulkiness of his clothing also covers broad shoulders and what looks like the bulges of bovine ears under his hood. While you watch, those bulges move warily.

Around his feet hop a couple of the frogs that followed the robbers into the bank. They seem to be trying to hop into the gap of his pant leg but he’s moving too much and they keep missing the narrow target.

His hand comes down on the counter with a thump to sweep the coins into his sack.

Instantly, you’re moving. You stoop down, grasp a squishy frog and pitch it into the robber’s face.

He screeches and drops the potato sack full of money. It hits the floor with a tinkling crash and glittering coins scatter in all directions. Meanwhile, the robber stumbles and his hood falls back.

He’s ugly. Truly misshapen with a bald head covered in blotchy colors, big, rubbery ears and warts everywhere.

You hear a gasp from the teller behind you.

Where the frog smacked the robber’s skin, steam rises and bubbles blister his flesh. He wipes at the slime frantically, trying to clean himself with his sleeve, but he gets slime onto his hands as well. His fingers start to blister and steam as well with a hissing like an egg dropped on a hot skillet.

Useful.

You grab another frog and pitch it into his face, driving him backward. Two of his companions move up beside him and you start pitching frogs faster.

But there are four robbers and only one of you. By the time you have a chance to look around for the last man/ghoul/whatever thing, it’s too late.

He lands on your shoulders like two tons of brick and you hit the floor with an ugh!

How can something so small weigh so much?!

“More for the offering,” he says in glee, ignoring the smokey remains of the robber you managed to hit. The two others chortle in hissing, high-pitched delight.

While his companions gather up the fallen coins, he ties your hands behind you and throws an extra potato sack over your head. It smells musty like the potatoes it used to hold turned moldy.

Offering? You wonder as he forces you to your feet.

He pushes you forward and a moment later you’re outside getting hit by spatting frogs. Deluge is right.

Your capturers grumble but keep pushing you forward.

Do you…

Stay Quite for Now?

or

Make Life Difficult for Them?

Leave a comment below with whichever option you like best. We’ll return next Thursday to continue this adventure.

Blessings,

Jennifer

(If you like Adventure stories, check out my book, The Adventure, either here on my Website or on Amazon.)

Raining Frogs 2

It’s time for an Adventure re-run! This story posted originally in 2016, if you’re interested in how things turned out the first go around.

Otherwise, let’s jump right in =)

Raining Frogs

Today’s the day you’ve been working toward for months. Although the sky hangs overcast and the morning holds a gloomy gray in the air, you walk down the boardwalk with your shoulders back and your head high because, in your hand, you’re holding your final payment from the Sheriff.

You caught your last bounty that morning. For months you’ve tracked down criminals, with one goal in mind, to buy the chunk of land for sale on the far side of town. On it you plan to build your new home and work a small field and produce just enough to trade for anything else you might ever need. You never have to track down another person or haul them in for payment. No more wandering for you.

The money clinks softly in your pocket and you close you fingers around the coins to keep them from making any more sound. No need to announce your good fortune.

The bank’s just opened when you arrive and you step through the door with a barely controlled smile.

The door’s swinging shut when you hear it. SPLAT.

You pause mid-step. With the door now closed, the sound’s softer, but you still hear the repeated. Splat, splatsplat, splat, splatsplatsplat…

You back step and crack the door open with a shoulder blade. And SPLAT, against your face.

You give an ‘ugh’ and quickly step forward again to let the door close.

“Did you know,” you announce to the three bank tellers on the far side of the room, “that it’s raining frogs.”

They look up and their identical looks of skepticism could make them triplets.

“Just saying,” you shrug and approach the right hand teller. You pull the Sheriff’s payment from your pocket as you move and say, “Deposit for my account,” like raining frogs isn’t anything unusual.

The woman doesn’t look down at the coins you place on the counter. She points, “You’ve got a bit of, um, slime, on your face.”

“Oh,” you wipe your cheek with a sleeve and, sure enough, the fabric comes away with yellow slime. “Like I said,” you smile, “frogs.”

She swallows. “Really?”

You nod, with your smile in place, and point at the coins for deposit. Nothing could ruin this day.

The door opens and, with it, you hear the almost solid splatsplatsplatsplat of a deluge of frogs. When you glance at the newcomers, several small, colorful amphibians hop their way in around the people’s feet.

You’re still looking at the energetic frogs when there’s the heavy Cha-chack of a shotgun being charged.

Your gut knots and you raise your eyes from the floor to find four people, each holding a shotgun. Two of them approach the counter and sling empty potato sacks at the tellers.

“Fill ‘em up,” one says.

The Sheriff’s last payment still sits, gleaming, on the counter between you and the third teller.

A frog lets out a ribbbbet.

“Frogs,” you mutter.

“What’s that?” one of the robbers point his gun at you.

“Frogs,” you nod toward a green and red, glossy backed critter hopping toward his foot. “That one’s probably poisonous.”

He grumbles and kicks the frog away. It splats, unharmed, against the wall, before ribbeting to the ground where it starts hopping toward the man again.

The little amphibian seems determined to reach the robber and he’s not the only one hopping determinedly toward one of them.

Frogs chasing bank robbers. Interesting.

You eye the robbers. They’re all relatively short, wearing hoods and heavy clothing that you mistook before as rain gear. Now you see it just serves to make them nondescript but doesn’t actually protect them from rain. Splotches of color, like someone threw paint blobs at them, cover their heads and shoulders. The man’s boot, where he kicked the frog, boasts a red and green smudge.

Perhaps the clothing protects them from the frogs.

The slime didn’t harm you, so maybe these people aren’t human.

That’s a lot of guesswork, though.

With full potato sacks, the robbers back away toward the door. They haven’t touched your payment, so you don’t move.

Then one of them spies the gleaming coins and he pauses.

Great.

Do you…

Let Him Take the Coins?

Or

Fight with Frogs?

Leave your vote in the comments below. Anyone and everyone is welcome to join in! We’ll return next Thursday to see how this story continues.

Blessings,

Jennifer

A Case of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

In my schedule, it says Power Comicon post for today…

So much more has been happening than the Power Comicon, so here’s a quick recap of what’s happening in this writer’s life.

Events

With covid, book signings have become more difficult. Many places simply aren’t doing them. So when someone mentioned trying out a convention, I started to consider it. It seemed like a safe thought to entertain for this introverted writer. I mean, the convention the game store owner mentioned wasn’t until September. Plenty of time to prepare my brain for it.

I feel like the last several months have been a case of the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie book. I mentioned I was considering XCON and someone suggested Power Comicon. I mentioned I might be willing to do Power Comicon and another person says the Captian’s Comic Expo would be even better for an author.

Needless to say, I attended this year’s Captain’s Comic Expo – my first ever – a few weekends ago. Obviously none of my books are comic related, but the same crowd who likes comics seems to like Choose Your Own Adventures as well. Who knew?! The convention went well and now I’m headed to Power Comicon this coming weekend. My introverted writer’s brain is still reeling, not quite believing I committed to these events.

Plus, September’s XCON, which is larger than the other two, is still on the table…But seeing as it’s in September, my brain can magically ignore that time is passing and bringing it ever closer.

Work in Progress

This is the first I’m really talking about this and I’m ecstatic to share. I’m currently working on a new Choose Your Own Adventure-style book titled Discarded Dragons. This is based off an adventure I posted here on the blog but it’s now expanded and has 12 endings. So far:

Outline is doneRough draft is writtenPersonal edit is doneManuscript is sent to readers…In progressArtist is working on internal illustrations…In progress

The rough draft was so fun to write! Usually I have some endings I love and some endings I find a bit meh. In fully writing this adventure, I had none of those meh endings crop up. They seemed to fill themselves in, happy to be fully realized. I can’t wait for readers to find them.

That brings us to the end of this update =) Thanks for sharing in this writing adventure with me as I couldn’t do this without amazing people like you all! Next week will be the start of an adventure story.

Until then, blessings,

Jennifer

Stormtroopers hanging outGuy Gilchrest from the MuppetsVin Cosplay from Brandon Sanderson’s MistbornCosplay – all the Disney Princesses hanging out

The Well – Magma

Welcome to the Adventure of the Well. This is the last post for this Adventure, so if you missed the rest of February, here’s a quick recap:

You and Peter, your partner, have found the entrance to a cave system in which you hope to find a mythical Well that grants special powers. You carefully avoided telling the other two of your group, Horace and Arnold, because they work for the unscrupulous Baron Avedo and will probably kill you as soon as you find the Well. When you entered the entrance cavern, you found two levers, one with a raven and one with a salamander. Readers chose to pull the salamander lever. (If you’d like to read this part, click here.)

Pulling the lever dropped the floor from under you and you ended up in a small tunnel. The tunnel narrowed as you crawled through until you found two pressure plates, one in the ceiling and one in the floor. To get past, you have to press against one of them. One bears the symbol for fire, the other water. Reader voted to go for fire. (If you’d like to read this part, click here.)

When you pressed in the fire pressure plate, the tunnel lit up with torches and you found yourself in a small cave with a magma pool and etchings of salamanders on the walls, swirling into the pool. There’s another pressure plate but this one’s unmarked. With the etchings, you started to wonder if the well was filled with magma instead of water. Readers chose to collect some of the magma in a thermos. (If you’d like to read this part, click here.)

Now it’s time to see how this adventure ends! Let’s jump in. =)

The Well-Magma

“You’re right,” you agree with Peter, “this might be the looniest thing we’ve ever tried but what the heck, let’s see what happens.” You accept the green, metal thermos from his outstretched hand.

The magma bubbles with slow, bulging pops that splatter droplets of fire. You watch, waiting for a brief moment when you deem those bubbles are safely building but not ready to splatter, and then rush in to kneel beside the magma pool.

The thermos grows hot just being near the heat and begins to singe your fingers. You back up, tear a sleeve from your shirt, and use it to hold the thermos as you wait for the bubbles to recede a second time.

Seeing your chance, you rush in again and dip just the lip of the metal container into the thick magma and quickly tilt it upright to let it slide inside.

The small, crimson glob doesn’t budge. It sticks to the lip of the thermos like fiery glue and then starts sliding, not into the thermos, but up over the lip and down the outside as though it were a slug.

You drop the thermos.

The bottom pings against the cavern floor and the molten slug flies into the air. You throw up an arm to protect your face and the magma hits your bare skin. You scream…and then bite the sound off as the magma expands over your skin, hot like the lick of a campfire’s heat, but not burning.

Your skin tingles, every fiber coming alive as the thin layer of magma flushes across your fingers and up your arm, over your face and down your torso. There’s the sense of cavern walls, cool air, and endless miles of flowing, bubbling magma. It’s such a vast awareness that you lose sense of your own body, of Peter’s frozen, gapping face, and even the small cavern where you found the tiny magma pool, which is only one among many in the system of caves.

You rush through the mountain, seeing the actual Well where it overflows with pure, almost glowing water. You experience the beautiful battle of fire and water where the Well’s water seeps into the mountain, touching the magma within and forever changing it, and finally the breath of air where the magma becomes lava at the spots it oozes from thin cracks in the mountain’s granite.

Within moments, your body’s engulfed in the fire, but not consumed. Coming back to an awareness of your body, you marvel at the myriad of sensations. Lifting a hand, you stare at your fingers, now made of flame.

Wanting to share this new experience, you look at Peter.

Meeting your gaze, he shakes himself and spins, racing for that unmarked pressure plate.

In your new form, you know what that plate does. A thought has you streaming through the air and blocking the plate with your flames.

Peter curses and spins again, looking around frantically.

You open your mouth to tell him it’s okay, only to find you can’t speak. The breath of air you breathe in only seems to make you burn hotter.

You can’t tell him, then, but you might be able to show him. Streaming through the air again, you rush across the magma pool to the far side and use your flame to show him what was hidden before.

You breathe in, flaring brighter, and Peter sees it, a small tunnel opening like the one you exited moments before.

Peter follows you into it, crawling, climbing, and huffing as he sweats in the heat off your body.

“Following you has always been a pain,” he finally grumbles, “but now it’s downright scorching. Think you can tone it down a bit?”

You try, you truly do, but the smaller you make yourself, the harder it is to move. You settle on keeping a little farther from him instead until you show him an exit from the mountain. He cries when he sees it, then pauses.

“Was that the Well?” he asks.

You shake your head.

“Can you take me to it?” Hope brightens his face.

You want to, but as soon as you think about it, you realize you can’t get him to the Well from here. The very thought of leaving the mountain to reenter where you started fills you with a dread you can’t explain. Somehow, you know you can’t leave anymore. And now you can’t tell him to go out and return to meet you in the original cavern.

Swirling with frustration, you shake your head.

He slumps. “Oh well,” he mutters. “Guess I’ll come back sometime to try again.” And with that he shambles out of the mountain. He doesn’t see the excitement his comment causes you. But you know Peter. Eventually, he will return, and then you might be able to show him to the Well.

So you settle in to wait.

The End

You survived! Thank you for joining the adventure this month =)

Blessings,

Jennifer

(If you like Adventure stories, check out my book The Adventure either here on my Website or on Amazon.)