Mountaintop Castaways: Page 7

Synopsis: An adventure guided by you, the reader, about amnesiacs stranded on mysterious mountains. You choose what will happen next.

(NOTE: IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST TIME READING MOUNTAIN CASTAWAYS, PLEASE START ON PAGE 1 BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK.)

Chapter 1, Page 7

Your name is HARPER HOPPER. You are 33 years old. You have insanely SHARP INSTINCTS and can immediately react to something as subtle as a distant noise or an approaching presence. You take extreme interest in HERPETOLOGY, the study of reptiles and amphibians. This interest takes up most of your waking time, as you spend both your career and your free time studying these creatures. While other people tend to have a singular spirit animal, you rotate through different spirit animals depending on which one captivates you the most during different phases of your life. Your current spirit animal is the IGUANA, and this is reflected in your outfit which includes both a T-shirt and a bandana with iguanas on them.

You were extremely fortunate to have been tasked by the Mountain Manager with studying the various salamanders and other creatures of this mountain. Never before had you seen such a diverse range of species gathered in such a small area! They have such a wide array of differing features: some have a skin that almost feels feathery, some have tongues that extend several times the length of their body, and a couple species even seem to have an intelligence that could potentially rival that of humans. However, you have recently realized that this may be just the tip of the iceberg. A couple weeks ago, when the Mountain Manager came to visit, a salamander from another mountain stowed aboard his helicopter. This new species, which had eyes that looked like tie-dye and the ability to run at extreme speeds, absolutely fascinated you. You began to wonder, could the other mountains around you contain even more species the likes of which you’ve never seen before??

The Mountain Manager refused to let you visit other mountains, but made a compromise and set up a gondola between your mountain and one other so that species from the other mountain could be transferred over to you. You were pretty happy with this at first, but now you’ve become familiar with all the species on both mountains, and are starting to feel inhibited by the restriction of only being allowed to work in one place. A proper herpetologist should have the ability to travel to different environments and see how various animals interact with their natural habitats.

Fortunately, you’ve recently received a walkie-talkie that lets you talk with two others on different mountains who have been planning an escape. The three of you use code names to hide your identities from any eavesdroppers who might be in your surroundings. You go by TREE FROG, and your friends go by WARLOCK and VENETIAN. Though you haven’t known them for that long, you have already started to become close with these two strangers, and hope they remain safe during their escape attempts. Especially Venetian, who, compelled by desire to escape as soon as possible, has recently started taking some major risks.

For your combat style, you use a unique set of weapons known as SNAKE WHIPS (patent pending). You felt inspired to create a weapon that could attack similarly to how certain snakes such as vipers launch themselves at their prey. In almost an instant, the snake pounces and latches onto its target, and you imagined crafting a whip that could travel at such speeds to quickly strike opponents at a distance. That type of weapon combined with your naturally sharp instincts would make you a formidable combatant. Unfortunately, the only whip-like object you could acquire was some flimsy threads of string, barely strong enough to hold together a parcel you might ship in the mail. Fortunately, with the DIME SPELLS, you could easily turn these strings into the Snake Whips you envisioned. You sure are glad you know about the DIME SPELLS. Life must be so much more annoying for people who don’t know what those spells are!

So, that’s a brief summary of who you are. But what will you do next?

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READERS, TYPE IN THE COMMENTS BELOW YOUR SUGGESTIONS FOR WHAT HARPER SHOULD DO! I WILL CHOOSE ONE OF YOUR SUGGESTIONS AND REVEAL IT WHEN I POST THE NEXT PAGE, LIKELY ON FRIDAY, JULY 17TH!

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