Yay! It’s Friday.

Welcome back for the conclusion to Moonrise Mountain. Readers choices have led us to this ending and it’s been a fantastic week. Thank you everyone for your participation=)

If you’re just checking in, you missed a fun week but wait, you still get to enjoy the story that started on Tuesday. So click here for the start, then here and here. After reading those, proceed with this post and enjoy!

Moonrise Mountain Option Ab2: Spend the Night with the Old Man and Troll

Everything out side is wet and cold. Giving up your cloak would be a sure death sentence. Although you’ve had survival training, you doubt you’d survive long enough to find a shelter and start a fire.

You pull your cloak tighter with a look of defiance and approach the old man.

He laughs in what you guess is delight and leads the way back into a cave that has a small fire going.

You and Ingrid follow. She walks next to you and with every step you feel her foul breath on the top of your head. Sure enough, a drop of drool lands in your hair.

Cringing, you refrain from wiping it away, afraid she might take offense and eat you and the apples all.

Settling around the fire with the old man and troll, you securely set the bag of apples in your lap and pull one out. Polishing it on your shirt, you ask the old man his name.

He cackles a hehehe. “Can’t remember. No use for a name. Ingrid can’t say it and she’s the only one I’ve any pleasure hanging with.”

While he’s talking you see a knife sitting on the stones next to the fire. It’s nothing sharp that you could use against the troll, but it gives you an idea. Slowly, non-threateningly, you pick it up and slice the apple into quarters, not bothering to slice out the core. Ingrid doesn’t seem to mind the core anyway.

Her great big eyes watch you and then she snorts with glee when you toss her a quarter.

“How’d you end up here?” you ask, trying to keep the old man talking.

“Fate!” He exclaims. Then he tells you a stilted, incomprehensible tale about Ingrid, hated gofers  and a slouched hat he lost. You can’t make the right of it no matter how you try.

The time passes this way, with you scrounging for questions and the old man giving you off the wall, unintelligible answers.

All the while, you’re cutting apples and tossing pieces to Ingrid. Her heavy crunch as she bites each one punctuates the old man’s flailing arms as he tells you stories.

It’s about the time you reach the last apple that your see the flaw in this situation. You’re deep in the cave and can’t see the sun even if it is shining.

The old man and troll haven’t realized yet you’re on you’re last apple because of the way the bag’s settled in your lap. There’s only one way for it then.

Well into his newest rambling, the old man’s on his back with his arms waving about. Ingrid’s eyeing the last two quarters of apple in your hand. You keep your eyes on the old man and suddenly toss both chunks high into the air, in two different directions. Ingrid cries in consternation, a snoring, snot flying cry but you’re already on your feet running.

There’s a new cry, one of anger, more growl really and Ingrid’s after you, her heavy steps shaking the floor under your feet.

You can’t help your cry of hope as you round the corner and see faint light at the mouth of the cave.

You trip, coming down hard on your palms, but it saves your life as Ingrid’s claws miss and screech against the cave wall.

Scrambling to your feet, you strain your legs and fly out into the blessed sunlight.

Ingrid screams behind you and you don’t stop until you’re well away from the mouth of the cave.

When you look back, Ingrid’s still screaming her frustration but she’s well tucked into the cave, out of the light of day.

Thank heaven’s trolls hate sunlight!

You head home, exhausted and out of apples but alive.

The End

Good deal, you’re smarts have kept you alive!

But perhaps this isn’t the ending you were hoping for. Not to worry, there are 8 possible endings to Moonrise Mountain, so I will be posting it again sometime in the future for you to discover another path!

In the meantime, next week starts a new Wizard Whittlestrom story, so check back Monday for a wizardly story told through the eyes of a six year old. If you enjoyed the adventure of choice, be sure to check back in a week, (Sorry, I need a bit more time to set up another Adventure of Choice or I’d have it start Monday).

Thank you everyone for participating!

Blessings and have a wonderful weekend,

Jennifer