Hunger Option Bc. Inspect the Ring’s Location

Hunger Option Bc. Inspect the Ring’s Location

The honey fills your stomach with a sweet ache. You sip the remaining stickiness from your fingers while you give the woman a moment longer, just in case, before you move.

Your first instinct says to follow her but then you hesitate as the sliver of moon lights up the trees right in front of you. Blue needles. The constable was very specific about his hint.

You decide to check out the location where she found the ring.

Extracting yourself from the honeycomb stuck to your foot takes some time but eventually you free yourself enough to move. Loose needles and dirt stick to your soles but it’s not so cumbersome you can’t walk.

Up ahead you find where the woman broke open a chunk of hive to pull out her ring. The chunk proves to be brittle when you pick it up and another half hits the ground. It shatters. In the remains of honey and hive glint three more gold and jasper rings.

One for each competitor, you realize. You never considered that each competitor might be able to retrieve all of the objects.

You retrieve the rings from the mess. Then, on impulse, you find a stick and dig a hole where you bury two of the rings. You cover the hole and toss part of the broken hive over the area to disguise it even more.

Satisfied, you slip the last ring onto your index finger.

The world lights up and you’re no longer looking at broken hive and trees but at a bird’s eye view of the arena. The vision swoops in to focus on the very center of the arena where a meteor deeply cratered the ground. Right in the center of that crater sits a pedestal with a necklace of jade sitting on it.

Your next object.

The vision disappears as quickly as it appeared but the ring still glows softly on your finger.

The small amount of success and the honey you just ate fills you with a sense of euphoria. As you head toward the center of the arena, you barely see the trees or feel the extra weight of sticky dirt and needles clinging to your boots.

The euphoria disappears with a snap as a bright light shoots skyward from the direction you’re headed.

You break into a run and careen into the open crater just in time to see the young woman walk through a door in the side of the hole in the ground. Just as suddenly, the light vanishes and you’re left with the imprint of white on the backs of your eyelids.

When your vision finally returns to normal, the door’s nowhere to be found. Instead of looking for it, you head over to the pedestal. The necklace you saw in your vision isn’t there but the woman’s ring is. Unlike with the rings, apparently there’s only one necklace. Which means you’ll have to take it away from the woman to win. Great.

You pick up the other ring and inspect it, trying to figure out how it opened the door.

It doesn’t look any different than the one on your finger. You set it back down.

The ground shakes and that blinding light reappears. In its glow, you see the high walls of the arena and, at the very top, you make out tiny moving dots. The upper class watching the competition. You realize the lights tell them how the game’s going. It makes you feel like a mouse in a maze.

Shrugging off the feeling, you grab the second ring and race for the door in the crater. As soon as you enter the tunnel beyond, the door slides closed and you’re washed in darkness until your eyes adjust and you see your ring’s still glowing softly. You pocket the second ring, glad you grabbed it so the other competitors can’t open the door.

Following the tunnel, it heads straight with no variations until it dumps you out into the forest again. Just ahead is the arena wall. You’ve now crossed the entire arena.

To your left stands a solid line of trees. To your right, through a thinner patch of pines, you make out the back of the young woman. She lifts an object into the air and you see the shape of a crown.

If she puts it on, the competition’s done. You’ll lose.

You sprint toward her. In your rush, your only intent is to knock the crown away.

You brush against something and it gives a familiar hum.

More hives.

Do you…

Bc1: Continue running at her?

Or

Bc2: Throw a hive at her?

Blessings and I hope to see you Thursday for the end of the adventure!

Jennifer