The HDC Fight of the Realms

[scouse mac]

Originally Posted by The Gate Master

I'm sorry to say, one very short phrase did let you down. You had the old woman reading a surfing magazine.

Just thought that might be amusing and different. Didnt want to have her reading knitting monthly or some celeb magazine.

Originally Posted by The Gate Master

Still, the entire paragraph where you had him reject the old woman's dentures was not necessary. It was a good read, but you had already completed the task and you did not need that in there..

Thought Id best explain why she wasnt killed like the other two and emphasise the motivation behind Franklins actions. I understand your point about it being superfluous to the task though.

[The Gate Master]

That was why writing it as a story was a difficult task. I thought all of you handled it very well though. There are many who would have come up very short.

[The Gate Master]

This task will mostly be testing your logic and perception.

You are each in three identical worlds. These are worlds I created. You can feel pain, you feel all the pain you would normally. The only difference is that when you die, it isn't the end. You come back to my home realm. This is the situation you are in.

You are in the woods, but near a road. You have a small moped with you but the woods are too covered in roots and hills and thick trees that you would never get anywhere. Up a relatively steep hill is the road. The only way to take the moped up is to drag it. The hill is about 100 yards from bottom to top. The road is flat and straight but there is no activity on it.

Alternatively, a ten minute jog away through the woods is a small hut with various garden equipment in it. The shed is locked but with a good kick could easily open.

There are large branches on the ground.

About five miles down the road is a small gas station. You know the owners of it. There is no phone there but they do keep a gun. Alternatively, splitting off that road is a dirt track that leads to a dried out quarry filled with old cars and animals. The track is quite long and there are several turns in it, as well as it being very bumpy. It would be difficult for a moped to go along it.

In the opposite direction to the hut is a very shallow river/ stream. There are trees hanging over it. It's about a five minute jog. All the trees in the woods are climbable. There are lots of pine needles on the floor. Now, the reason you need to know all this is that you have a violent murderer on your trail.

You stole a very expensive antique vase from him. It is in you backpack. It's worth a lot but is also heavy. The man is a fast runner and good tracker. He's no more than five minutes behind you. He carries several knives and a shotgun as well as a pistol. He knows the area well and is very trigger happy. There is no investigating for him. If he sees a movement he shoots. He also has a car no more than two minutes from the road, although he wouldn't be able to reach it in less than ten minutes. He does have people at home though.

Your goal is simple. Survive. Explain to me your plan. This is not a story, you cannot describe what he does. You can describe what you'd hope he does and how it fits into your plan. You also need to describe why you did it. It would be wise to describe why you didn't choose certain paths. All of the information about the surrounding don't mean you are limited to them. You are in woods, you can go where you want and stay where you want. They are the only places of interest though. The rest is just hills and trees.

Describe your plan and your reasoning. You are looking for perception and logic. How you see the situation and the most intelligent moves to make. Included with my judging I will explain your fate. It will not serve to boost or lower your marks. If you die, it doesn't mean you failed. It is why you die or live that I'm interested in. If you make a move that is very predictable then he is likely to find you. If you have a very good plan but there is one very small flaw that leads to your death it may not matter.

You have until Saturday at 12:00pm EST to submit your answers both as a post in this thread and an unedited PM to me. Do not be late, you cannot afford it at this stage. There are 15 marks available in this challenge.

[neverending]

Intriguing test, GM.

[Papillon Noir]

Originally Posted by neverending

Intriguing test, GM.

I concur. Very interesting. :)

[bwind22]

First thing I'd do is assess the situation completely.

Getting the moped up to the road would waste too much time. Ditching the moped and running down the road seems futile since the gas station is 5 miles away and that would take at least 25 minutes to run, plus I'd be out in the open with no cover.

Heading for the quarry just seems like it'd be a tremendous waste of time since it seems to be a dead end and there's nothing there but broken down cars and animals, neither of which would really help my situation in the slightest.

The Shed/Tool Hut may contain minimal items for self defense purposes, but really, what's a hedge clippers or even a chainsaw going to do against a guy with a shotgun?

After assessing the situation, I'd scan the ground, looking for a container of some kind. If I can't find one on the ground, I'd have to use the Mountain Dew bottle in my backpack. Since I've ruled out traveling the road, I have no use for the moped so I'd drain the fuel tank in to the container/Mt. Dew bottle. Ideally, I'd find a glass beer bottle laying around and create a molotov cocktail. If I can't find glass, plastic would have to suffice.

Once I had drained all the fuel (or as much as I needed to fill my container), I would ditch the moped approximately 30 seconds towards the Shed/Tool Hut (to lead the killer in the wrong direction) and then double back and head for the river.

Once I reach the river, I'd toss an empty pack of smokes downstream and the promptly start walking upstream, in the water along the riverbank. There are two reasons for this. 1 is that staying in the water makes a person much more difficult to track, 2 is that walking along the bank provides some cover from the trees lining the river.

Now if I am understanding the lay of the land correctly, the road and the river are perpendicular to each other so at some point they would intersect each other. For the road to go over the river, there would need to be a bridge. Since this is in the middle of dense forest, it's likely the bridge would be made of wood and not concrete and steel like bridges in more populated areas. I'd then cross the river, climb the bank and use my container of fuel to torch the wooden bridge. I'd then proceed to haul ass down the road, confident that he can't be approaching me from behind in his car. (For the record if the killer were to catch up to me before this point, the molotav cocktail would serve as my only line of defense and be chucked right in front of him, setting the forest ablaze while I haul ass in the opposite direction.) But for the sake of my plan, I'm going to assume he hasn't caught up to me yet and torch the wooden bridge.

As I run down the road, away from the Gas Station, Quarry and burning bridge I'd keep an eye out for any vehicles parked on the side of the road. If I happen to stumble across his car, the first thing I'd try to do would be hotwire it. If that didn't work, I'd search it for any stashed weapons and then let the air out of all of his tires and remove all his spark plugs. Then I'd continue running down the road. While I'm running down the road, I stick close to the edges, not down the middle in plain sight like a sitting duck. I'd keep moving until I came across oncoming traffic, which I'd flag down and get help from or until I hit the next local business. It could be miles, but with all the obstacles I've placed in his way (diversions to throw him off my trail, burning bridges to prohibit him from following in his car, possibly disabled vehicle if I found his car on the side of the bridge that I am currently on) I feel confident that I could make it out alive.

[The Gate Master]

Congratulations for turning in your entry. I will save my judgement for until either all entries are in or the deadline is up.

[scouse mac]

If the owner of a valuable vase was a violent murderer, I wouldnt steal it!

But since I have the first thing I would do is drop the vase. If its heavy and cumbersome then it will slow me down and with a killer on my tail there is no point carrying it. Id much rather live poor then get shot full of holes.

I think the key to survival is to travel light and fast so the moped can stay behind with the vase.

I would run in the direction of the stream and run through it downstream, although I would ensure a footprint was left in the mud pointing upstream. My thinking here is that going upstream will lead back into the hills and downstream is always to civilisation and that no trail would be left behind me. I would avoid all the local points of interest as these are going to be obvious choices for the killer to pick up a lost trail.

Should the stream meet the road, extreme caution would be used, using all available cover. At no point would I attempt to stop a car because, if the killer has people he could contact and a car available, there is no guarantee they wont have a connection. Avoid all contact with people and keep on running. Eventually, I would come to civilisation and hope he hasnt caught up with me

If he believes the vase is precious then hopefully he would have found it and gone home(doubtful) but if he has to carry it he would be slowed. Also, no matter how good a tracker and speedy, hes carrying alot of equipment (weight) and would have to cover alot of ground to ensure I never deviate from my track. My straight line speed should easily outpace his.

[Papillon Noir]

Apparently, I stole a vase from the wrong person (or I'm a terrible thief:p ), because now there is a psychopath after me! I'm not going to get away from this heavily equipped guy without incapacitating him because I'm unarmed and he is just too close behind me. Five minutes a not a lot of time and it seems like he would chase me no matter what. I don't have time to set up a trap yet, so I'm going to have to bide myself some time.

The first thing I need to do is ditch the vase. I can come back for it later and right now it's just slowing me down and it could get broken. With all the large branches and pine needles on the ground, I can very easily hide the backpack with the vase in it, off to the side. I can then drag the moped towards the hill to make it appear that I tried to ride it up the hill to the road, but realized it was futile and ditched it. I can then come back to where I started and shimmy up a tree before the guy comes into view. With all the pine needles on the ground, it will be hard to track my footprints and with him being so close behind, there's a real good chance that he'll run right past the tree and towards the road, especially with my ditched moped visibly in that direction.

After he's safely out of sight and hearing range. I'll jump down from the tree and high-tail it over to the tool shed. After I kick in the door I need to work quickly as he may have heard me, but that's okay since I want him to come back this way now. Every tool shed has a pick-axe or rake or something pointy that you use to till and I am going to use that to booby trap the door. I'm also assuming that there will be some rope, though if there isn't I could use part of my clothing if necessary.

So, I'm going to rig a trap where the pick-axe will swing down from above the door frame when the shed door is opened, the pointy end going into his face/neck and hopefully killing him. I'm going to grab some shears to take with me before setting the trap.

After setting the trap, I'm going to close the shed door so that it's just cracked. Then I'm going to cut my hand with the shears and smear blood on the door frame and drip some blood on the ground. Then grab a nearby large branch, half-bury part of it then snap it in half and scream bloody-murder! I'll smear some more blood from my cut hand on the protruding broken branch, use part of my clothing as a bandage, and then run and climb a tree (careful not to get blood on the trunk), several yards away. I will carry the shears with me to use as a back-up weapon.

The plan is that he will hear my scream (and hopefully the branch breaking), figure I got injured and come to finish me off. If he doesn't hear me, he will probably come this way eventually, figuring I may hide or look for a weapon here. When he approaches the shed he'll see the protruding bloody branch and a trail of blood going into the shed. Hopefully it will look like I injured my leg or something and dragged myself into the shed to nurse my wounds. He comes in after me, and eliminate himself. I can then take his car keys, retrieve my vase, locate his car, and drive away.

If this plan fails, either he dodges the pick-axe or comes to shed but doesn't go in, I will be far away enough (but still elevated enough to see the shed) that I can quietly slink down the tree and run to the gas station. There, I can retrieve the gun and fill an empty gas can or two with gasoline. I can hold up there until he appears and if I am unsuccessful in shooting him, I can sneak out the back, run a trail of gasoline and light it on fire, blowing the gas station and hopefully him with it. Ideally, I will be able to kill him and not have his body explode to steal his keys (and car), otherwise I'll will have go back for the moped and drag it to the road to leave the area. At any rate, I will retrieve the vase to take with me.

As for the stream, I don't see how that would help me. The quarry just seems too far away and a place to get cornered. Also, I don't know what kind of "animals" are there and they could be just as deadly as my stalker.

So, that's my grand plan and I hope I survive! :D

[bwind22]

Interesting. You both ditched the vase.

I held on to it because if I'm getting killed, at least it won't be empty handed. :)

Good luck you 2!