Jennifer M. Zeiger's Blog, page 21

The Well-Fire

This last week was a close vote! But the Fire option won out. If you missed the first two weeks of this Adventure, 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.)

Let’s see what happens!

The Well-Fire

“Here goes nothing,” you say and prepare to move forward.

Peter grabs your ankle. “Wait, which plate are you going for?”

“Fire.”

Peter gusts a sigh and lets go.

Crawling forward, you reach beyond the water plate in the floor and arch your back up until you feel the edge of the fire plate on your spine. Then, with a steadying breath, you push against it to slide your body past.

What you didn’t mention to Peter was the possibility of the fire plate either burning you—the obvious danger—or the flame sucking all of the air out of your small tunnel—the less obvious danger. But these possibilities sit heavy in your mind while you press against that pressure plate.

At first, nothing happens and you think that maybe someone already triggered the plate and it didn’t reset.

But then you hear a whoosh and a hot breeze brushes against your face. You cringe and close your eyes, not wanting to see the flame coming toward you. Your eyelids light up with flickering light, but after a moment of just waiting, Peter nudges your feet and you peek an eye open.

Torches.

Ahead, beyond where the small matches lit the tunnel, torches now light up the walls, showing that the chute expands into a corridor you can actually walk in.

Heady relief makes your limbs watery you as you crawl forward until you and Peter can stand.

“See,” he says with a triumphant grin. “Twenty-pound brain. What made you go for the fire option?”

You don’t have a good reason beyond the fact that you knew Peter hated the idea of water flooding the tunnel, so instead of answering, you approach the first torch and take in the etchings along the wall.

“What do you make of this?” you ask.

The wall is covered in salamander images. Some are just salamanders, but others seem to be in various stages of lizard turned fire until some of the etchings are salamanders made entirely of flame.

“Huh,” Peter says. “Crazy. Glad the fire plate didn’t do that to us.”

Peter continues down the tunnel but you continue staring at those images for a moment longer until you’re sure you’ve seen all the variations of them.  Then you follow. With each step, the air grows hotter until beads of water run down your face. The back of Peter’s shirt turns dark with his sweat. All along the tunnel, the salamander images continue.

Before long, the tunnel widens further into a chamber and you understand why you feel like you’re being roasted. The middle of the chamber has no floor. Instead, a pool of magma boils with large bubbles spewing drops of fire.

The etchings rush into the chamber from the tunnel, swirl around the walls and create the feeling that the salamanders are spiraling into the magma pool.

“Here we go,” Peter heads toward a pressure plate set into the wall far to your right.

“Anything on it?” you ask.

He inspects it. “Nope, there’s scratch marks but no images, and it’s the only pressure plate here, so-” He reaches for it.

“Hold up,” you say.

A crazy thought rumbles through your head as you stare at the magma pool and the etchings. Does the Well have to be full of water?

You point at the pool. “What if that’s the Well?”

“What?!” Peter steps toward you like you’re a crazy and he’s concerned you’re going to hurt yourself.

“There’s nothing in the writings concerning the Well about what’s actually in it,” you explain. “What if it’s filled with something other than water?”

“Soooo,” Peter takes another step toward you, hand outstretched. “What are you proposing, touching it?”

You pause. What are you proposing? “What if we take some of it with us?” you ask. “We have the insulated thermos. If we can isolate some magma, maybe we can take some of it with us.”

“You’ve led me through some crazy things but this might be the most loony I’ve ever heard.” Peter hesitates though as he looks around. “But then, few succeed at the Well. Even people who find the caves don’t always walk away having found the Well.”

He slings his pack around so he can reach inside. Pulling out the thermos, he holds it up. “Up to you. We can try being loony or we can press another unknown pressure plate. Oddly enough, as I think about it, either option seems a bit unwise, but I don’t see a third choice, so—” he shrugs and waits for you do decide.

Magma

Or

Pressure Plate

Feel free to join in this adventure by leaving your vote in the comments below! Next week we’ll return to see how this adventure ends.

Until then, blessings,

Jennifer

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

The Well-Salamander’s Crawl

Welcome back! We started this adventure last week, so 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 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.

Let’s see where we end up next.

The Well-Salamander’s Crawl

You reach for the lever with the salamander on it.

“Wait, wait.” Peter steps back first one step, then two. “There,” he says. “That should be safe.”

You scowl at him and pull the lever. Your stomach drops like you jumped off a cliff and repelled too fast. Peter gives a high-pitched scream that if you ever mention, you’re sure he’ll kill you for.

The floor disappears and you fall. Both lanterns shatter against the stone and you slide down a chute that you know is smooth because you don’t hit any rocks. It’s like someone took a sander to the stone.

Peter, who fell behind you, kicks you in the head. His feet tumble along with your shoulders and you end up wrapping your hands around your head to protect your face.

Slowly, your slide comes to a halt as the chute levels out.

“Well, that was unexpected,” Peter mutters. “Darn builders must have wanted to catch a whole passe with that trap. I was sure I’d backed up far enough!”

“Got any matches in your pack?” you ask him.

There’s a zip and some fabric rustling, then a small flash of light as Peter scrapes a match to life against the stone.

You’re in the bottom of the chute but the idea of climbing back up is quickly negated when you spot a large boulder wedged into the chute above. It didn’t make any noise falling into place, so you wonder if it slid out of the wall to block the path.

Going the other way, the chute levels out. Peter’s match burns out. In moments he strikes a second one and you find the tunnel on the other side of you remains completely rounded but flat.

“Guess it’s time to crawl,” you say.

“Should’ve brought knee pads,” Peter grumbles but he blows out the match and you both start crawling. “At least it’s dry in here.” Then after a while of silence, he asks, “Where you think this comes out?”

In the dark, you just shake your head. You have no more information than Peter does. How does he expect you to know where the chute comes out?

The tunnel narrows a bit, pressing the ceiling against your shoulder blades as you crawl. Since it’s smooth, this doesn’t bother you but you hear Peter, who’s bigger than you, grunt in disapproval. Surprisingly, the stone feels warm.

“At least there’s no mushrooms, although it does smell…charcoal-ish in here? What makes it smell that way, you suppose? You’d think it’d just smell like stone and stale air but it almost reminds me of woodsmoke. You think the well’s deep in the earth? Maybe people haven’t found it bec…”

Peter continues asking questions and you let him fill the silence to mitigate his nerves. Tight spaces, like mushrooms and water, are not high on his list of favorite things. If he doesn’t talk to distract himself, it’s likely he’ll throw up on your shoes. As you listen, the chute narrows further, which makes you crouch in your crawl, bowing out your elbows until you go down to crawl on your elbows. Peter gulps and his questions speed up.

“Do you-remember-Timarain, where-we-found-the-Ruby-of-Sight?” he asks. “I-can’t-get-the-color-out-of-my-head. You-remember…” He rushes on, his words getting faster, as you slide your hands along the floor. It’s this motion that warns you of the oddity in the floor before you pass over it.

You stop. “Strike a match again,” you tell Peter.

He grunts in the effort to get into his pack, but a moment later, a match flares to life. You carefully reach back and pinch it between your fingers to light the chute ahead.

The chute narrows even further right where two pressure plates, one is in the ceiling and one in the floor, are built into the tunnel.

Peter curses. He’s scrunched so tightly you wonder if he can draw a full breath, but you’ve got to agree with his sentiments. Usually tight spaces don’t bother you, but this is getting ridiculous even for you.

“Problem,” you say. “We can’t get past without pressing one of these and we can’t go back.”

The match burns out and Peter whimpers. He strikes another one and hands it forward. “Any clues like with the levers?”

Trying to hide the shake in your hand from Peter, you hold the match farther out and crane your neck.

“There’s the symbol for fire on the ceiling,” you say, “and the symbol for water on the bottom. What do you think?”

Peter shudders. “Neither sounds good in here, but I guess I like fire better than water.”

“The gold lever talked about the Salamander’s Crawl. Think it was talking about the small lizard that swims or the fire elemental of myth?”

“Your brain has to be about twenty pounds,” Peter grumbles, “but then, you ‘ve gotten me out of tighter spots than this, so you choose.”

Fire?

Or

Water?

Comment below whichever option you’d like to explore and we’ll return next Thursday to continue this adventure! Thanks for stopping by and joining in the fun =)

Blessings,

Jennifer

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

 

The Well

It’s already February! Wow. We had a great January fighting a giant and helping small twig creatures, but now it’s time to go looking for a mythical well that grants special powers.

What’da’ya say? Shall we get started?

The Well

Stale air surrounds you in the dark cavern, holding in its every dusty particle the feeling that you are the first person to breathe it in in several hundred years. The dust you see floating in your lantern’s light has already started to coat your jacket and skin in a fine layer.

There’s a thump behind you and a cloud of debris wafts outward from the dropped pack that now sits slumped on the stone floor. It matches the pack you carry. A moment later, the rope trailing down from the hole in the ceiling quivers and Peter’s leather boots appear as he belays himself into the cavern to join you.

“Thick in here, isn’t it?” he says, looking around. After years of searching for this place and finally finding it, he shows no more enthusiasm than an old dog.

You grunt.

“They’ll kill us for opening the door without notifying them,” Peter mutters as he lights his own lantern.

“Not if they don’t know,” you say. The dry chalk taste of stale air coats your tongue. You spit but it doesn’t help.

Peter snorts. “It’s not likely we’ll find the Well and get out before they notice us missing from camp tonight.”

You don’t answer. Peter would complain no matter the situation, and you don’t want to give him more ammo by validating his comment. Although admittedly, he’s correct.

Arnold and Horace are the group’s two other companions but they’re in the group only to keep an eye on you, and to dispose of you as soon as you serve your purpose. Baron Avedo hired them as your ‘help’ in searching for the Well, but you and Peter quickly realized neither muscle-bound man knew anything about treasure hunting or archeology.

That morning, knowing you were close to the Well entrance in your search, you convinced the two men to dig out the vines obscuring part of the mountain east of your location for the day. Beneath those vines they’ll find a wall of ancient script, which they’ll spend the time copying because you’ve repeatedly told them to do just that. You’ve already translated the script, but they don’t know that.

They’re under the impression that Peter and you are doing the exact same thing on another section of the mountain.

You have no intention of giving Arnold, Horace, or ultimately Baron Avedo the Well. When the Baron first realized what you were searching for on ‘his’ land, he threatened to take your research and leave you for the scavengers if you didn’t include him. Cornered, you’d agreed to take along his men.

“Which way, my stoic leader?” Peter cuffs you on the shoulder.

“Let’s see.” You move through the cavern with lanterns held high. The scuff of your footsteps echoes, telling you how vast the room truly is. It takes a good hundred yards before your feeble light touches a wall.

“Think the Well will grant me waterbreathing?” Peter asks.

“Perhaps.”

“Knowing my luck, it’ll give me an unreasoning craving for mushrooms,” he goes on as though you didn’t speak. Peter hates mushrooms and water.

“Mushrooms?” You frown. “Really?”

Waterbreathing is part of the legend, but you’ve never heard the Well and mushrooms mentioned in the same sentence.

“Mushrooms.” Peter shudders. “I’d crave them but my logical brain would still know about their fungusiness. It’d make me crazy conflicted.”

“You’d have to have a logical brain for that,” you say as you stop before the cavern wall.

“Huhh, guess that’s true.” Peter stops beside you.

The lantern light flickers off two levers sticking out of the cavern wall. They’re coated in a layer of gold, which bears etchings in the soft metal. Peter reaches out a finger to touch the gold on one handle.

You read the the etching on the other one, “To continue, you must trust one path or another, never both. Choose the Raven’s Flight or the Salamander’s Crawl.” The lever you’re reading has wings below the words. When you check the right hand lever, it bears the same words but instead of wings, it finishes in the sinuous body of a reptile.

When you look at Peter, he shrugs. “Don’t like ravens or lizards,” he says.

Raven’s Flight?

Or

Salamander’s Crawl?

Let me know in the comments which option you choose! Next Thursday we’ll continue the adventure with whichever option gets the most votes. Until then, I hope you have an amazing week.

Blessings,

Jennifer

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

Guest Post: The Tablet by Kat from The Lily Cafe

Hello dear readers! Today I’m doing something I haven’t done in awhile. I have a guest post to share with your from Kat with The Lily Cafe. Kat is incredibly supportive of authors and I love that I can encourage her in her own writing as well.

So without further ado, here’s The Tablet.

The Tablet

Professor Anna Langely, emeritus, though the word always rubbed her the wrong way, ran her thumb along the jagged edge. Her eyes, magnified through her thick lenses, stared owlishly and almost unblinkingly at the squiggles and lines, but her brain couldn’t put them together. What message was the ancient civilization that had carved this trying to send?

The man hovering over her shoulder was peering anxiously at the symbols carved into the stone tablet, twisting his fingers in a sweaty dance. She knew he was nervous; after all, it had been in his family for years, and the story passed down with it had been one of doom.

“Why don’t you give it to a museum?” she finally asked, turning to look at him, putting her back to the tablet lying on her impressively large mahogany desk.

He jumped away and wiped at his shiny forehead. She was surprised to see sweat running down his face. If he weren’t careful, he’d be making a puddle on her Persian rug. She frowned at that thought. It had been an anniversary gift from her husband right before he died, though it had been his fool idea to lay it out in her book-crammed office. She hadn’t had the heart to move it in the decade he’d been gone. Now she was starting to regret that decision.

“I can’t,” the young man muttered, not meeting her straightforward gaze. “Promised Gramps I wouldn’t let it out of my sight.”

“Look, George, I’ve seen this language before, but am no expert.”

“What does it say?” he asked anxiously, as though he hadn’t heard a word she’d just said.

Anna frowned, turning to one side, and tapped a fingernail against the tablet. What was wrong with this man? If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was about to destroy the world. Or was on something. Her eyes flickered to the landline, making sure it was well within reach. Just in case. You couldn’t be too careful with these young people these days. Too much time on social media and staring at screens was starting to melt their brains. And their bodies, apparently, what with the increased amount of sweat starting to roll down George Pernipulous’s nose.

“What does your family think it’s supposed to say?” Anna asked, trying to keep her voice even and her hands from picking up and flinging the heavy tablet at his thick head.

She could see him swallow hard. What had she gotten herself into? This was the last time she let some nut job call her up and do a translation. At eighty-five, she was through. Though she would miss the work. It kept her young. And alive. No matter how much she missed her late husband, she was still determined to see her little girl have her own little girl. Never mind the fact that fifty was a little old for her little girl to be getting married and popping out her own little girl. Then again, science had made some great strides.

Madeline would have gently taken her mother by the arm and guided her to a nursing home straightaway. She’d been telling her mother it was time to give her mind a rest, but how could Anna rest and wither away when she was still looking forward to a little granddaughter, a little girl she could teach everything her landscaping daughter wasn’t interested in?

That was really why Anna had picked up the phone the day before. The voice on the other hand had been shaky and maybe a little panicked, but his words had made sense. He’d requested a meeting so he could show her a tablet inscribed with an ancient language. Well, ancient languages were her domain even though she was eight-five and that young whippersnapper of a boy had bounded into her office the day she’d cleared out, promptly and proudly claiming her space as his own. As though he knew anything about ancient! He probably considered something like modern French to be ancient, not the Etruscan and Phoenician she was proficient in.

But this George Pernipulous hadn’t sounded threatening. A little shaky, but mostly curious. She was curious, too. A tablet with a language no one else on Earth had been able to decipher. She may be eight-five, but she wasn’t dead! There was nothing like an old relic with a dead language on it that could make her feel young and dreaming of the days she used to impart her impressive knowledge to young twenty-year-olds who would take it out into the world and do good with it. Or give birth to children who would become so enamored with screens that they began to melt.

Now, as Anna stared off into space, George flapped a hand and his eyes darted around the room filled with dusty books, antiques clustered around the edges, and small tables littered with pages of cramped writing. He licked his lips and reached for the heavy stone tablet.

“If you can’t tell me, I’ll take it somewhere else.”

She was eighty-five, not stupid. With a frown, she yanked it up from the desk and cradled it almost possessively. When would she next get the opportunity to hold a piece of ancient history, one not claimed by one museum or another?

“Don’t be ridiculous, George,” she snapped, ignoring how heavy the thing was. “Just tell me what your family thinks this is.”

“A warning,” he whispered, a haunted look floating into his sky blue eyes, eyes that seemed to turn ever more sky-like until she had to blink when they turned white to get them back their blue color. “A warning from an ancient civilization to us, telling us of our impending doom.” His voice faltered and he had to clear his throat. “And maybe a way to save us all.”

She frowned as her eyes strayed back to the tablet. She ran one hand over the surface, the tips of her fingers carefully, lovingly tracing the lines and squiggles. There was an entire line in the middle that was completely abraded. She ran one finger over it, feeling the rough lines of what was left and the smoothness likely acquired by millions of fingers running over it for goodness knew how many years, decades, centuries.

Then she frowned and held the tablet to her nose. Though, because of the weight, she ended up more bent double to make tablet and nose meet.

No, not abraded, she thought as she blinked at the section. It had been completely removed. What had it said?

“I don’t know, George,” she said slowly, moving her nose away. “It looks more like a description of an ancient city. It talks about a thriving metropolis that was ruled by a kind king. But this king died one day and his successor was prone to excesses. The city’s wealth was spent and the city floundered and died.”

George nodded, his fingers twisting so hard she began to think he was trying to break them. “Yes, that’s true.”

“Where is this warning, George?” she asked tersely, coming to the end of her patience.

“Can’t you see it?” he asked, his voice a few tones higher than normal, his eyes wide, the sweat rolling off of him and onto her lovely Persian in waves.

She frowned, trying to ignore the damage being done to her rug, and her eyes returned to the tablet. She ran the fingers of one hand over the surface again. “See what?”

“The line in the middle,” George said, his voice reed thin and high pitched with panic. “The warning is there. Right there. You can see it, can’t you? You must!”

Slowly, Anna shook her head, frowning at the dark puddle around George’s feet. Her Persian was never going to be the same again. “That line has been abraded, almost completely rubbed out. What did it say?”

Agitated, George grabbed the tablet back and stared hard at it. His eyes darted back and forth, the panic emanating from him starting to stink up her office. Her nose twitched. She wasn’t sure which was worse: the odor or the sweat. There was something very wrong with this man and, if Madeline ever heard of this, she’d be whisked off to a nursing home whether or not she liked it.

“You don’t see it,” he muttered, his shoulders sagging and his knees giving out so he could sink into the puddle of his own sweat. “You’re the last person in this world who knows this  language and you can’t see it.” He looked up at her, hopelessness and fear twisting in his eyes. “You don’t see it.”

“No,” she said flatly, crossing her bony arms over her thin chest. “There is nothing there.”

“Oh, but there is,” he moaned as he sank back on the heels of his feet, the tablet thudding dully on the Persian. “It’s all there, but only one of divine grace can read it. I thought it might be you since you’re the only one who can read this language. But I was wrong and now we are doomed.”

“Pull yourself together,” Anna snapped, turning to undo the latch on her window and throw it open. The stink was getting worse. “No one is doomed.”

His eyes were hollow as he lifted the tablet and clasped it to his chest. He looked up at the grandfather clock ticking its way to midnight. The will to live seemed to have gone out of him and the image of a noodle came to Anna’s mind.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said softly. “We will learn of our doom in two minutes.”

Two minutes later, the only thing to be heard in the office, aside from the ticking of the clock, was a very soft, very pointed, very short expletive coming from an eighty-five-year-old throat.

The End

Kat blogs at The Lily Cafe about books, food, writing, motherhood, life…anything that strikes her fancy. But under it all, she looks for the story involved. As she says, she “lives and breathes stories.”

Thank you, Kat, for sharing this story!

Blessings

Jennifer

Twigs and the Giant Option Ab2: Steal the Giant’s Hat

It’s time to see how our January adventure finishes.

To recap: You were investigating an old man concerning the food heists happening along the road into the town, Layfatte. While sitting in his cabin, the trunk by his bed gave a thump. When you investigated, you found clothing, and no bottom in the trunk. The old man donned his hat while you were distracted and grew into a giant. To escape, you dove into the trunk with a tiny, twig like creature. Once inside, the giant locked you in, and you met all the twiglets the giant has imprisoned. He forces them to steal food for him because he has their matriarch. When the giant next reaches in to gather a crew for another food heist, you all attacked him. While the twiglets tied his boots together, you knocked him over and have now decided to steal the hat that give him his giant size. (If you’d like to read the first three parts, click here and here and here.)

Twigs and the Giant Option Ab2: Steal the Giant’s Hat

Although the matriarch looks rattled from being shaken around in the jar, she appears unharmed where she braces against the glass. You focus then on the ratty hat atop the giant’s head.

He’s still lying on his back amidst the rubble of the table, so the hat’s not out of your reach. You bolt for it before the giant can sit up, vaulting over a chunk of the shattered table and reaching for the hat at the same time.

The giant had started to lower his hand to swat the twiglets but he catches your movement and slaps his hand on top of his head just as your fingers close around the brim. With the momentum of your jump, you pull the hat almost free but then those thick fingers squash the material against the giant’s thinning white hair.

Your jump stalls midair and you hit the floor with a huff, but you still have ahold of the hat’s brim.

The giant’s muscles bunch, giving you a second’s warning before he jerks upright. You grab for the edge of the cold stove with your free hand and hold tight when he moves. Your own back muscles protest but you hold tight. There’s a sharp ripping and you slump to the floor with a chunk of the hat in your hand.

Everything goes still and you feel the hair on your arms stand straight up. There’s a concussion to the air that, if you hadn’t already been on the floor, would have flattened you. It washes outward through the cabin and out through the walls, throwing everything outward in its wake.

Twiglets fly through the air and you watch, unable to move, as Inslee sails out the window. The giant hits the wall, and goes right through it, but he loses hold of the glass jar with the matriarch. The jar falls, hitting the edge of the fire box with its load of wood, and shatters, leaving her in a ring of sparkling glass on the dirt floor.

When everything stills again, your ears feel packed with cotton, then give a high-pitched whine before sound comes back to you like a slow-moving wave.

Squee and several other twiglets dash to the matriarch so you head for the hole in the wall to find the giant.

Stepping through, you freeze.

Sure enough, the giant’s now a scrawny old man who lies on his back cackling like you just told a great joke.

But it’s not the sight of the old man that stopped you. When you approached the cabin during your investigation, it was in the middle of nowhere, but you could still see the mountains in the distance and the forest that obscured any sight of the cabin from the road.

You can still see such things, but they’re huge and very far away.

There’s a pulling on your pant leg. You look down to find Inslee, ant sized, trying to climb up the fabric. You reach down and pick him up.

The old man runs out of breath. Gasping, he still manages to say, “Y’ let it loose. Y’re twiglet sized now.”

“You’re twiglet sized too,” you shoot back.

He grins and it’s not a pretty sight. “Only till I recover me brim.”

Realizing his intent, you flee back into the shrunken cabin before he can stand up.

“Time to go,” you shout to the twiglets as you pass from the hole in the wall to the door on the far side.

As you run by, twiglets jump onto your legs and shoes until you’re running with dozens of them attached to your legs.

The old man gives chase, but you’re now the same size and he’s much older. You lose him in the trees on the far side of the cabin.

***

“He won’t stops till he’s got his hat whole again,” Squee says that evening as you sit in the bowl of a tree, hiding.

You hold the brim of the hat in your hand, considering. “What if we make the hat whole again? Can it return us to normal size?”

The Matriarch, Annaslee, shakes her head. “No ways to says,” she admits, “but the giants gots to wear the hat to be big.”

You realize the problem. You don’t know of a way to release the power in the hat all at once like what happened when it ripped.

Inslee crawls up onto your knee. Since the twiglets are still the same relative size to you as before, being around them helps you feel normal despite sitting inside a tree like a baby bird.

“What ifs we unweaves the hat?” he asks. “We’s okay being smalls and if the hat don’t exist, he can’t ever be bigs again.”

They all look at you because, as Inslee said, they don’t mind remaining small. Is it so bad a choice? Inslee reaches out to take hold of your pinky finger. He’s got such a hopeful look on his narrow face. Now that you know such magic exists in the world, there’s no telling what other options exist out there, but you do know the giant doesn’t care for anything but his food. You make your choice.

“If we unweave it,” you say, “we should steal his portion of the hat too. There’s no telling if he can make part of it work.”

The twiglets grin. “We’s can do that.”

The End

Thank you for joining in the adventure! It’s so much fun to see what options everyone chooses. February will start a whole new story, so stay tuned for new choices =)

Blessings

Jennifer

Author Reading at The Lily Cafe

I know I’ve said this before, but it’s worth saying again. There are some amazing people in the blogging world. Back in December, Kat at The Lily Cafe approached me because she wanted to do something different on her blog in 2021. She wanted to start hosting author readings just like a walk-in cafe would and she asked if I would read for her January post.

I’m a stalwart introvert.  So my initial response was something like “AHHHHH. Hide!” But my more logical mind prevailed by the time I responded to Kat’s invitation. So although it terrifies me, you can find my author reading of Quaking Soul over on The Lily Cafe:

Author Reading: Jennifer M Zeiger, author of Quaking Soul – The Lily Cafe

 

Thank you, Kat, for your amazing support! As a fellow introvert, I appreciate you pulling me out of my shell =)

Twigs and the Giant Option Ab: Attack the Giant

Today we continue with the third installment of the Twigs and the Giant Adventure!

To recap part one and two: You were investigating an old man concerning the food heists happening along the road into the town, Layfatte. While sitting in his cabin, the trunk by his bed gave a thump. When you investigated, you found clothing, and no bottom in the trunk. The old man donned his hat while you were distracted and grew into a giant. To escape, you dove into the trunk with a tiny, twig like creature. Once inside, the giant locked you in, and you met all the twiglets the giant has imprisoned. He forces them to steal food for him because he has their matriarch. Readers voted to attack the giant the next time he opens the trunk. (If you’d like to read part one and two, click here and here.)

Now ATTACK!

Twigs and the Giants Option Ab: Attack the Giant

One thing the twiglets do not lack is courage. None of them shrunk away when you suggested attacking the giant the next time he reaches in to gather a crew for a food heist.

The hard part about the plan is waiting. Spree insists the next heist should be soon. It’s been a couple days since the last heist and the giant gobbles through each take of food in a matter of days.

But still, you end up leaning against a tree with the child twiglet, Inslee, sitting on your knee, just waiting for the click of the trunk’s lock that will be your only warning the giant’s about to reach in.

“I’s nowt scared,” Inslee insists again. He sits cross legged on your knee cap, but his hands are clenched so tight in his lap, you wonder if he’ll break a finger.

“Hey,” you say, “he’s big, but that also makes him awkward. We can use that to our advantage.”

“His feets are clodhoppers,” Inslee grins.

“That’s exactly it,” you agree, “and we’re going to make those clodhoppers stumble.”

Inslee squees in excitement…and his fingers clench tighter.

You share his smile and nudge his hands with a finger until he relaxes a little with a duck of his head.

There’s a click that echoes in the twilight glen. Twiglets appear from amidst the trees, looking up at the floating rectangle of wood in the sky. It creaks upward and you glimpse the cabin’s ceiling before a hand the size of a pony keg reaches through the opening.

“I’s nowt scared,” Inslee squeaks as he crouches beside you in the glen. He starts to shake as you all wait for the hand to draw near.

The fingertips almost touch the grass by the time Spree gives the shout. “ATTACKS!”

You join the twiglets, running at the giant, but you have the advantage—or disadvantage—of being able to reach the giant’s elbow in your first move.

A grunt of surprise accompanies the giant’s sudden twitch as dozens of twiglets swarm up his arm. In moments, you’ve scaled from elbow to bicep to shoulder as you emerge from the trunk.

The giant growls and snaps his teeth but he’s still crouching with one arm inside the trunk. It lessens the space between his center of mass and the solid wooden box. Ducking under his chin, you plant your feet against the trunk’s edge and shove against his collar bone.

He stutter steps backward. The timing’s perfect as the twiglets race for his feet and grab ahold of his bootlaces. In quick order, they unlace halfway down each boot and then tie the laces together just as your shove pushes the giant off balance.

“ERRR,” he cries out with his stutter step. The laces pull tight and he throws out an arm to catch himself as he falls over.

Jumping free when he crashes into the table, you roll and come to your feet, ready for him to come after you but instead, he clutches a large jar to his chest with one hand and holds his hat firmly on his head with the other. Around him are the shattered remains of the table, which he made no effort to catch himself on.

He bares his discolored teeth at the twiglets who are using the laces they’ve untied from each other to tie his ankles together. Which leaves it up to you to keep him from swatting at them with his heavy hands.

The giant’s eyes lock onto Inslee, who holds the end of one boot lace, helping a dozen other twiglets pull the knot tight. It’s now or never to distract him.

His hat is clearly the source of his power but as you take everything in, you realize the jar he’s holding tight also holds a long-haired twiglet—the matriarch. Would it help more to take away his giant size or to free the matriarch?

Ab1. Free the Matriarch?

Or

Ab2. Steal his hat?

Thank you for joining this week’s adventure! Post in the comments which option you’d like to explore. The option with the most votes will get posted next Thursday and we’ll see how this story ends =)

Until then, Blessings and have a wonderful week,

Jennifer

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

Twigs and the Giant Option A: Dive In

It’s time to continue our January adventure.

To recap: Last week, you dropped in on an old man who lives in the middle of nowhere because all evidence points to him being the culprit behind the food heists happening along the road into the town, Layfatte. It seems odd, but you find he has a ton of food for just himself. As you’re asking him questions, the trunk by his bed gives a thump. When you investigate, you find clothing, and no bottom in the trunk. The old man dons his hat while you’re distracted and starts to grow into a giant. A tiny, twig like creature appears from inside the trunk and tells you IN or OUT. The vote went strongly toward diving into the trunk to get away from the giant. (If you’d like to read part one, click here.)

Let’s see what happens next!

Twigs and the Giant Option A. Dive In

A breeze, like winter air through thick pines, wafts from inside the trunk. Glancing back, you shudder to see the old man almost as tall as the ceiling and still growing. The grin on his face stretches ear to ear. You don’t resist when the twig creature tugs on your arm again. In fact, you push off with your feet to slide into the trunk all the faster.

The twig creature screeches, surprised, as you slide into the tight confines with it, and then you pass through the empty trunk bottom and thud into a soft patch of blue-green grass. Breath wheezes out of your throat where you lie on your stomach. The twig hops to its feet and stares up at the sky where a deep belly laugh echoes like you’re still inside the tight confines of the wooden chest although there are no walls that you can see.

There’s a thunk, and then a click that echoes into the sudden silence left after the belly laugh. You follow the twig’s gaze upward, flipping over to stare at the purple-gray twilight sky and a small patch of wood floating like a cloud in the otherwise clear expanse.

“I just jumped from the frying pan into the fire, didn’t I?” you mutter.

“Not really,” says the twig. “He doesn’t fit in here, so least aways y’r a little safer here.”

You roll your head to look him. “What are you?”

He puffs up his skinny chest and proudly proclaims, “I’s called Spree. And that’s Arwee, and that’s Alsmee, and that’s Brismee…” as he talks, other small, twig creatures peek out of the trees surrounding the glade you landed in. Some are thicker, some shorter, some are so thick with leaves sprouting from their heads that it looks like green hair.

You sit up, realizing there’s no way you’ll remember all their names. Dozens of them creep out of the trees to create a loose circle around you.

One tiny creature dashes forward to poke you in the arm, and then skitters away giggling. A matron snags the kid and pulls it close with an admonishing sound.

You repeat your question when Spree finishes the introductions. “But what are you?”

Spree huffs. “We’s twiglets. Don’t you know about twiglets?”

You shake your head.

The entire ring of creatures slumps, disheartened.

“Tell me,” you encourage.

Spree puffs himself up again. “We’s the forest’s gardeners. We trims and plants and do important stuffs for the forests.”

“Nowt anymore, we don’ts,” mutters a stout twiglet. You think his name is Brismee.

“Why not?” you ask.

Collectively they look up. “He’s captured us. And he holds the Matriarch. We’s now do as told.”

It all clicks together for you. The old man must need an enormous amount of food if he’s actually a giant, but there’s no way he’d be able to sneak into the camps of those traveling into Layfatte without being noticed. Instead, he captured himself these tiny creatures to do the dirty work for him.

“Your Matriarch,” you ask, “he’s holding her hostage somewhere?”

The tiny twiglet that poked you before breaks loose from the matron and skitters up your leg to stand on your knee. “She’s caged,” he cries. “She doesn’t even have the twilight glen to smells the forest breezes.” Remarkably, a tear trails down his face, leaving a trail on the bark like surface. You wipe it away only to find it’s sticky.

“If you get free, you could help her and leave the giant high and dry in his food heists?”

They all grin. Every single twiglet shows rows of blunt, brown teeth. It’s creepy, but then, at least they have some sort of defense.

“What are you’s proposing?” Spree asks.

You take a moment to consider. The giant has to open the trunk at some point for his next heist. At which point, you could jam the lid and sneak out while he’s away. However, that still leaves the giant wandering around free. There are enough twiglets that you might succeed in overwhelming him if you all worked together.

Do you…

Aa. Sneak out?

Or

Ab. Attack Giant?

Thank you for joining in the adventure today! Leave your vote in the comments below and we’ll return next week to see how this adventure continues =)

Blessings,

Jennifer

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

Twigs and the Giant

Welcome to the New Year! We’re going to do something that we’ve not done in a while, we’re going to go on an Adventure!

So without further ado, let’s see where we start.

Twigs and the Giant

It’s impolite to show up unannounced right before dinner…which is why you did it on purpose to the old man’s cabin. The log cabin sits out in the middle of nowhere, so it’d be rather suspicious for the old man to turn you away as the smells of cooked meat waft from inside. Plus, it gives your suspect no time to prepare for you.

Because he is a suspect of the food heists. Dozens of wagons and carriages have been stolen from on their way into Layfatte, usually in the middle of the night, thieves unseen. And now the town’s starting to feel the pinch of too little food. The Mayor sent you out to investigate after his usual detectives failed in figuring out just who is stealing the town’s food.

Now, although it seems so unlikely it’s laughable, your only solid suspect happens to be the scarecrow of an old man who sits across from you at the wooden slab of a table in his single room log cabin.

You’d walk away, laugh at yourself for being daffy, but your gambit worked. The table before you groans with food.

Even as the old man claims “Nah, it’s just me hangin’ around,” you stare at the platter of sliced apples, the smoked ham, and a steaming heap of mashed potatoes. There’s even a plate of cookies waiting on the window sill. It’s enough to feed a family of five or six, much less one scrawny old man whose ribs show through his threadbare shirt.

You’re trained to see the things that just don’t fit and, well, this doesn’t fit. The kitchen’s a wooden slab set across two barrels, a wash tub, and a potbellied stove. Out here, where the closest neighbor is five miles away, where did all the food come from?

You must have stared at the spread a bit too long because the old man begins to fidget, his heel tapping a rat-a-tat against the dirt floor.

“I’ve nothin’ to be concernin’ the mayor’s investigator with,” he mutters, crossing bony arms across his chest as he leans back in his chair.

“Well,” you say, “I’d like to believe that but there’ve been attacks along the post route, supplies are being taken. Mostly food. And now the Mayor’s looking into it because the town’s starting to run low. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

The old man almost reaches for an apple slice, thinks better of it, and shakes his head. “Just me ‘n my horse, Bonnie, out this ‘a ways. I wouldn’t know the first thing about sneaking food stuffs from travelers.”

“Hmm,” you lean back in your chair as well, mimicking his attempt at nonchalance, “I never said how the food’s being taken.”

He goes still at the exact same moment that a wooden chest beside the bed gives a thump. He jumps to his feet as you move to stand.

“Nowt but me, I promise!” He tries to block your way but he seems unwilling to lay a hand on you, so you simply sidestep him and approach the chest. You flip the lid open and stare at the contents.

A couple folded wool shirts, A spare pair of boots that look like they’ve never been worn, and a hat that’s too large for the old man.

You pick up the hat and the old man groans. There’s nothing under it. Literally nothing. No trunk bottom, no dirt floor, not even a hole where the old man could have dug out a tunnel. It opens into empty space.

Setting the hat aside on the bed, you reach inside. Your fingers encounter nothing. “What’s this?” you look askance at him just in time to see the old man don the hat.

Sure enough it sits down past his eyes, but you can still see the toothy grin that spreads across his stubbled face. “Tried to warn ya,” he says, his voice deepening into a low base as his shoulders begin to fill out into those of a much younger, much bigger man. He thumbs the brim up as his head fills into the hat and his body starts to grow taller.

Something grabs your hand where it still dangles into the empty space inside the chest. A quick glance meets the tiny eyes of a creature the likes of which you’ve never seen before. Stick like legs and arms, leaves growing out of the top of its head, and a body like a twig snapped off from a tree. It gives you an oddly pointy toothed grimace.

“In or out.” It tugs, then pushes at your arm. “In or out afore he’s done.”

Do you…

A. Dive into the chest?

Or

B. Scramble for the door?

Thank you for joining in January’s Adventure story. If you’re unfamiliar with how these work, you vote in the comments below for whichever option you’d like to pursue. Then next Thursday I’ll post whichever option gets the most votes. This will run for four weeks, with a total of three votes before you find out how the story ends on the fourth post.

Until next week, blessings,

Jennifer

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

Time to Capture Thoughts

I sit at my desk, smelling the coffee steaming in front of me and simply reflecting. The dog snores beside me and the cat pushes at my back from where he sleeps behind me in my chair. I love these quiet moments, and I forget to appreciate them far too often.

It’s been a crazy year. I haven’t done a book signing since January, but I’ve developed a novel, moved over 2,600 miles, and set up a completely new office. Many say this year’s been hard, and in a way it has been challenging, but it’s also been good.

There are people who probably don’t agree with me. That’s fine. I saw a comment on Facebook the other day that said something to the effect of, “Instead of telling our children how much they’ve lost this year, let’s teach them how much they’ve gained.” It went on to focus on the family time, the time spent outside hiking or walking in a quiet park, the ability to eat home cooked meals, and more. There’s an underlying principle to this that I believe applies to all of us.

We believe what we constantly tell ourselves.

If we’re constantly telling ourselves life is hard, or we’ve lost so much, or we can’t stand the isolation, life will be hard, we’ll focus on the loss, and isolation will drive us crazy.

But we don’t have to be victims of our own thoughts.

So here’s my twist on this year as I capture the bad and look at the good:

There’s a book sitting on my desk with my name on the cover. I turn a little giddy every time I see it.

There’s a cup of coffee steaming at my elbow and a couple furry creatures keeping me company. The Writing Sidekick is even howling just to hear himself howl and I can’t help but laugh at his antics.

My husband, who thankfully has a job despite Covid, will be home later and we’ll get to eat dinner and enjoy an evening sharing about our day in this new location we call home. I cherish the time we spend together.

The heat just kicked on and the clear, fall sunlight is streaming through my office window, highlighting the spines of the books on the wall. I’m thankful for a warm home and the beautiful daylight. I look forward to reading one of those books soon.

I choose to be grateful, to focus on the beautiful, and to cherish the family God’s given me. As usual, I will be taking the rest of December off from the blog to more fully focus on those things, especially the family part =)

I will be back next year, and I’m excited to start posting adventures on the blog again! It’s been far too long. Until then, I pray you enjoy the season with those you love.

Blessings,

Jennifer

P.S. What are you thankful for this year?