Chapter 18
Rune hoped she could do all right with the memory game. She wondered how the Game Master would count all the challenges. Some were teamwork, and some were individual.
"Okay, you may begin," the Game Master said.
The Game Coordinators removed the covers from the boxes, and Rune's heart was already racing. Thirty seconds went by so fast as she tried to remember everything. A whistle went off. Before she was ready, the Game Coordinators covered the boxes back up.
Rune began writing as fast as she could: matches, flashlight, bug spray, poncho, emergency blanket, flare gun, cutting knife, axe, rope, can of food, package of food, water bottle, saucepan, fishing hook, fishing line.
She couldn't remember the rest. And she didn't want to say the wrong thing and have something taken away from her.
When the time was called, she remembered spices, a whistle, and hand sanitizer were included in her box. But it was too late to add it to the list.
She glanced over at Stone. "How many did you get?" she whispered to him while the Game Coordinators checked everyone's list against the items they had in their box.
"Twenty."
"I got fifteen and then remembered the other three items."
"I did the same thing, but it was too late to write them down," Stone said. "But that's good."
"Twenty is great."
Stone and Rune were both okay as far as guessing what was correctly in their boxes. Lolita had a whopping twenty-seven.
"Great job," Rune told her, smiling.
"I wish I could have remembered the last three."
Vesper had twenty-five, Xena nineteen, and the others anywhere from seventeen to twenty-five.
Rune had thought she'd done pretty well until she learned that everyone else had beaten her! Stone hugged her. "I still say you did great."
The Game Master said, "Lolita won that challenge.
The next challenge is a low-to-the-ground army crawl under a net to reach a stake at the end, and then, as a team, you'll untie complicated knots.
Each of you has a knot to untie. Rune and Stone's team has an extra knot to untie.
You must wait to untie the knots until all your team members are at the stake. "
"We still have an uneven number of players," Vesper said.
"You do. And that person will have to untie their own knot. But the other team will have to untie an extra knot. Everyone, line up in two lines behind the start of the course."
Then they headed over to the net and lined up with Lolita at the last on Vesper's team.
"The team that finishes all their knots first will win the challenge."
Rune was afraid she would mess up their team's challenge. She wasn't as fast a runner as the guys, and she wasn’t sure how fast she could untie knots.
Stone kissed her forehead. "You will do great. And we'll help whoever is having trouble with their knots."
"You may begin," the Game Master said.
Elon headed under the nets, Caspian following him. Rune wanted to go last, but Stone insisted she go ahead of him.
They were all going as fast as they could. Stone kept touching her foot as he was right behind her. She wanted to laugh, but she just dug in even harder and managed to get to the end, where her other teammates pulled her out from under the netting, and Stone quickly followed.
Vesper's team was still waiting for the last two of their team members to finish the net course.
Stone and Rune's team were already working on their knots as fast as they could. Rune just knew she was going to have trouble. They were complicated, but she was doing really well at untying her knot.
She finished hers first! And then began working on the one no one was working on. Stone finished his, then Elon, and then Silas.
Rune finally finished the last one.
Vesper's team was working on their knots. Lolita finished hers first and sat down to watch.
The others worked to finish theirs, Iris first, Xena following her, and Vesper finally got his. Then Caspian got his and finally finished.
"The winner was Rune and Stone's team. The next challenge is leaping over logs and getting over quickest. Lolita will sit this one out so that the teams will be even. Lolita, you can go to the other side of the logs so that your team can join you when they're done."
Everyone lined up, but Stone and Rune shifted into their wolves. Then the others did the same thing. Even though Xena, Iris, and Rune weren't as tall as the guys, they could still do better climbing over the large logs as wolves.
"Go!" the Game Master said.
They all hurried off, and Rune was really having fun with this one. She felt she had all this energy, and she was able to get it out, the adrenaline flowing.
Lolita cheered them on, not saying anyone's name, and Rune figured she was cheering Rune and Stone's team on, not Vesper and Xena's team.
They kept running between logs and jumping over them. The guys could manage with one leap, but the women had to leap onto the logs and then run to the next one.
Rune was so excited to reach the end of the logs and did a little jump at Stone, knocking him over. He had been watching Vesper's team, and he hadn't expected her pouncing on him. He licked her, and she nipped him back.
She loved him. He pinned her down and nipped her neck in playful fun, just like they had done when they were in their glens visiting each other.
She had missed that special time with him, just the two of them together, playing, carefree, then fishing together for dinner. It had been such a change from when they were just in their own glens, catching their own fish, spying on each other. They were meant to be together.
Vesper and Xena's team finally reached the other side of the logs. They were all getting worn out, and because Vesper and Xena had been delayed finishing the ball balance challenge, it was getting dark, and it was time to eat dinner.
The Game Master said, "Rune and Stone's team has won the challenge: the log mission.
We have one more obstacle course for this challenge, then we go home to dinner.
For this trial, two of you will pair up and walk through a rope maze.
One person in each pair will be blindfolded.
The other will give instructions to the person wearing the blindfold so he or she can make it out of the maze as fast as possible.
You must give good directions to your partner. "
"Again, we have an extra person on our team," Vesper complained.
"For this competition, Lolita will join Stone and Rune on their team."
Lolita glanced at them to see if they were okay with it. Everyone had shifted into fae, and Rune held out her arms to Lolita to give her a hug. Lolita ran toward her, and they hugged.
Then they decided who would be blindfolded, but since there was an extra person, they blindfolded Rune and Lolita, and Stone would tell them which way to go.
Since the Game Master hadn't given them special rules on how to navigate the maze with an extra person, they figured they would do it their way.
It also gave them the opportunity to make decisions for themselves when faced with a complication.
"Are you ready?" the Game Master asked.
The blindfolded participants stood at one end of their maze, and their partners at the other. So it would be a lot of chaos as the partners were shouting to the blindfolded fae to meet up with them.
Everyone said yes, and the Game Master said, "Once the first competitors reach the end of the maze, they are the winners. Get set, go!"
The partners started hollering for their blindfolded companions, and Stone said, "Rune, Lolita, take a left, walk four steps, and turn right."
Rune took hold of Lolita's hand, and they moved together.
"Now go straight about eight steps and then stop. I'll tell you where to go from there, once I know the distance you've actually moved."
They counted eight steps together and then stopped. "Two more steps and then turn right and go, five steps."
They followed his command. Rune and Lolita's hands were growing sweaty. But so far, they hadn't run into the rope so he must have been guiding them fine.
Nobody seemed to be getting to the end of the maze yet. They hadn't been able to see it when they were first brought to the maze, so they had no idea how long it was or how to get through it, especially blindfolded.
Rune smelled Lolita's anxious scent. "We've got this."
They continued following Stone's commands verbatim. They heard someone trip over a rope and swear at her partner, who was giving her directions. “You took a left instead of a right, Xena!” Caspian said.
Xena had tripped and fallen with a thud, and she was cursing Caspian.
Rune was glad that she hadn't had to work with her. Xena would have probably run her into every rope there was, even if she had known she and Rune would lose that part of the challenge. Then Rune wondered if Caspian had done that on purpose.
Stone's voice was nice and commanding, and of course, totally recognizable over the other voices.
After hearing only men calling out directions, Rune realized that the women were all the ones who were blindfolded.
She didn't know who Iris was partnered up with.
But she suspected that the guys thought their voices would carry better.
Maybe they thought they would be better at giving directions. Which she didn't believe.
"You're almost here," Stone called out, encouraging them.
Rune wanted to run to him, but she didn't want to trip over the rope. She had to be patient, and she for sure didn't want to drag poor Lolita over the rope with her if she went the wrong way.
Stone kept giving them directions, his voice steady, loud enough, perfect. Vesper, meanwhile, was exasperated with Iris and was yelling at her. "No, Iris! I said three steps to the right."
Rune felt sorry for Iris. But Rune also wondered if Iris was trying to make Vesper lose. Or was she really just confused about the directions that Vesper was giving her?
"You made it, Elon!" Silas said.
Rune was so glad they had reached the end first.
Elon howled. "We did it! Great job guiding me, Silas."
"You had the hard part," Silas said. "You're almost there, Rune and Lolita!"
Stone called out four more commands, and then he pulled off Rune's blindfold while Silas pulled off Lolita's.
It felt great to have the blindfolds off and see the maze. Rune couldn't believe Stone could guide them so well. She was glad she had been the one blindfolded, and Stone had been the one to call out directions.
Then Xena made it out of the maze, looking grouchy, giving Caspian a dagger of a look for “making” her trip over a rope and fall.
"Elon and Silas won that challenge. You should be proud of yourselves. That's one of the most difficult challenges we have," the Game Master said. "It's time to retire to the gaming facility where you can wash up and go to dinner."
Rune was so glad the challenges were over. She was so tired. Right after dinner, she was going to bed.
Then they returned to the facility, took showers, dressed, and went to the dining hall.
There, they had a sit-down dinner, and everyone got to choose their meal from a menu.
Rune thought that was really nice after all that they had been through. "We did really well," she said to Stone.
Lolita was sitting with them, which was fine with Rune. The others were all sitting together, as if they weren't really trying to help Rune and Stone out, which worked well if it was all a ploy to keep Vesper and Xena from knowing the truth.
They wouldn't be able to talk to them about anything without Vesper and Xena hearing them, Rune figured.
Lolita was all smiles, as if she hadn't had to be on Vesper and Xena's team all day until the end.
They all ordered steaks, and then Lolita whispered, "We were having a lot of fun on the first challenge."
"Caspian fell," Rune whispered back.
"Yeah, on purpose. We already had an extra player, but we were all moving slower than necessary, even me, and then Caspian decided to fall, aggravating them, you know."
"Yeah, I could see it on their faces before I took my turn."
"What happened on the blocks?" Stone asked.
"Caspian fumbled them."
Stone laughed. "I love it."
"I loved the part where they couldn't keep the balls on their plates. Both had terrible balance, and they were trying so hard to make up the time by going too fast," Lolita said. "I thought we would be there all night."
Stone said, "That's what we all thought. I'm glad we were able to finish the rest of the challenges and return to the facility so we could have a great meal."
"I'm glad we got whatever we wanted to eat," Lolita said. For being the smallest wolf, she ate as much as everyone else.
"I wonder what tomorrow's challenge will be," Rune said.
"I can't imagine it will be as hard as today's. Well, some weren't that hard, but it was just a long mission of individual challenges," Stone said.
"I hope they don't make us do teamwork where I'm with Xena and Vesper. It's bad enough to be stuck with Xena as a roommate," Lolita said.
"I agree," Rune said, glad she wasn't stuck with her.
When they finally finished their dinner, they all said good night and headed to bed. Iris soon joined Rune in the bedroom. "Hey, you all did a great job. And I loved how you and Lolita did the last challenge together, blindfolded. That was real teamwork."
"You and the others did great on the challenges." Rune climbed under her covers.
"Oh, I have to say Caspian was hilarious on the relay challenge."
"We loved that. We didn't laugh as much as we wanted to, just in case he hadn't done it on purpose."
"He did it on purpose. None of us tried to drop our balls while balancing them on the plate because Vesper and Xena were having so much trouble. That way it didn’t look like we were sabotaging the other challenges."
“Well, we appreciate it. Hopefully, we can beat them tomorrow on the last of the challenges.”