Accidental Dimension Walker

"Ok so which one do we choose?" asks Zoe, looking at everyone else with a confused look.

"I immediately vote that we do not go to the farmhouse." Yin declares, determined to not go there no matter what.

"What? Why?" Esther asks tilting her head slightly, clearly not understanding.

"Yeah why? That one seems rather reasonable, if anything I would vote out the forest since it seems too dangerous." Ren speaks up, crossing out another one of the options.

"At least the farmhouse seems to have a way to get food, with it being a farm and all, and with any luck the house should be stocked, it would be a good base till we figure out what's going on." reasons Zoe, trying to convince Yin to change her mind.

"Look closer at the woods on the left side, do you see the eyes?" Yin points out, gesturing towards the general area that the eyes were.

Ren, Zoe and Esther all lean in closer to the photo, one by one their faces light up with realization. 

"Ok, so maybe not the farmhouse. So that just leaves the forest and the mall." Ren says, agreeing with Yin's first statement. "I'm still against the forest."

"Personally, I don't think the forest will have that many ways to get food." Esther adds, agreeing.

"Yeah but will the mall have food??" inquires Zoe, pointing out their biggest priority.

"It's a mall, they usually have some restaurants, plus all of our other bases would be covered if we went there" Esther argues. 

"That's right, what if it's cold? The forest is only gonna make that worse, and we might struggle to keep that fire alight." Ren agrees. 

Yin adds,"That's true, plus the mall should provide some technology, maybe we'll be able to contact someone"

"That seems like a bit of a stretch, but either way I agree the mall is probably our best choice." Ren replies.

"Ok so now that that's decided we just hit the vote button?" Esther ponders, scrunching her eyebrows slightly.

"I think that's how this works" Zoe responds, looking at the board. 

Yin cautiously reaches out and taps the VOTE button on the screen, there was a small click. On the screen it displayed text over the photo. 

-Votes:1-

There was also a system message that popped up,

Ding!

'Player:Yin has selected 'The Mall'

Next, Ren reaches out. 

The votes on the screen changed

-Votes:2-

Again another system message,

Ding!

'Player:Ren has selected 'The Mall'

Zoe and Esther follow suit, reaching out and also pressing the VOTE button.

Ding!

'Player:Zoe has selected 'The Mall'

Ding!

'Player: Esther has selected 'The Mall'

The votes for the map now read as 

-Votes:4-

After each of them had finished voting there was a final system message:

Ding!

All players have voted.

-reading votes-

There was a few seconds of silence before another message:

Ding!

Good choice!

-Mall has been chosen-

–Preparing to teleport…

There was a pause and then it said:

–Choosing a hunter…–

Each of their names appeared on a wheel

Esther, Zoe, Yin, Ren, Esther, Zoe…

After each second passed the wheel got slower until finally,

Ding!

– a hunter has been selected!-- 

Congratulations Esther! You are the hunter.

"Wh-what does that mean?" Esther asks, widening her eyes, with a slight bit of panic in her voice.

Ding!

The role of the hunter: Catch all other players before they escape! 

Role of the players: Hack all the computers containing the security systems to the doors, then escape. If you are caught, hope that your teammates are able to free you in time. 

There are 3 computers that need to be hacked.

And then just in the corner of each of their visions a bit of text appeared:

-Computers hacked: 0/3-

After the system was done explaining the roles they felt the familiar feeling of weightlessness, and then a blinding white light filled their vision. They were being teleported to another location.

 A moment later the light clears and the weightlessness disappears. 

Looking around Yin, Ren and Zoe find themselves in what appears to be the food court of a mall, although, something was off.

 The walls on either side of them are lined with empty restaurants, the tables outside of them were abandoned with no signs of life in the area. The room was dark but there seemed to be enough light coming from some unknown source to just barely see. 

On either side of them there are also two sets of spiral staircases. Leading to two balconies that didn't seem to have anything on them. 

Lining the edges were glass panels that looked to have been cleaned recently. The whole room gave off the feeling that it had both been abandoned for many years, and was also still a functioning mall.

"What do we do?" asks Zoe, looking around the room worriedly, breaking the silence in the room.

"Well we should split up" suggests Ren, thinking a few steps ahead of the rest of the group, per usual.

"Why?", Yin questions, "That doesn't seem smart"

"Well from the explanation it says that there is a hunter, and sticking together just makes up a bigger target." Ren explains patiently.

"Yeah but the hunter is Esther." Zoe reasons, feeling confused about why they needed to be afraid. Their friend surely wouldn't hurt them… right?

"I don't know if we should completely trust that," Yin cautions, worried about her friend's naivety of the situation.

Zoe had come from a rather sheltered life, her family wasn't ridiculously rich like Esther's, nor talented like Ren's. 

Her family could be considered upper middle class and rather average, and as such Zoe never had any experiences that would lead to her not trusting her friends, or facing dangers of some of the worlds. 

Out of the three she was the most oblivious to the situation.

"Yeah I mean it kind of feels like we're just playing a giant game, and some higher power is controlling it, I wouldn't be surprised if the Esther we meet isn't the Esther we know" Ren follows up, giving her thoughts on what was going on. "I've heard stories about challenges like that" 

Ren was the one of the most reasonable of the group. Like her family, she was very talented and quick thinking, early in her childhood she was trained to fight and she was taught a lot about other worlds. Her intuition was very spot on, and her intelligence was unmatched in their community.

The whole thing seemed suspicious for her, and plus, these were supposed to be the challenges, and the challenges were supposed to be complicated.

"Yeah there's no guarantees," mutters Yin, agreeing with Ren's line of thinking,"I think splitting up would be good."

Despite agreeing with Ren, Yin couldn't help but wonder where she could have possibly heard about the content of the challenges, after all, not many people made it back out of challenge worlds.

Yin, although not as smart as Ren, had a clear mind and was able to adapt very quickly to the situation. Her uncertain origins meant that she needed to learn how to adapt very quickly.

"Ok, so it said that we need to 1. Not be caught 2. Find and hack the computers and then 3. Escape the facility." Ren lists off, holding up another finger for every number she said.

"Does anyone know how to hack a computer?" asks Zoe, pointing out a big problem in their list.

"…"

"Not at all… that might be a problem…" Yin trails off, going deep into thought.

They were all silent for a few moments, each trying to think of how they could get past this problem.

Suddenly, Yin's eyes light up in realization,"I wonder if just straight up destroying them would work…" 

"That might, but how many computers are there? Do you think we would be screwed if we did destroy one?" says Ren, considering the possibility.

"Ok so first thing that we should probably do is find out how many computers there are and then meet back here and decide what to do after that" suggests Ren, but before she could continue she was interrupted by a system message.

Ding! 

1 minute until hunter is released 

"Ok that sounds like a great plan, let's start looking." Yin agrees hurriedly, realizing that they only had a limited amount of time.

After they all agreed on this, they split ways. Ren decides to head up one of the spiral staircases in the food court, noticing that there was an unnatural white light faintly coming from a corner up there.

Yin chooses to head through a set of double doors at the end of the food court, hesitating right at the door. She took a deep breath and pushed them open.

She glances back, noticing that Zoe goes through a single door on one side of the big room. 

Yin steps through the door and freezes for a second, looking around. She was now in what should be described as a dark and desolate hallway, very cramped, and very maze-like.

She decides to go through the first door that she sees, and ends up in what looks to be a storage room for the building.

The room is stacked with rows upon rows of racks filled with boxes and an assortment of oddities, and there are a few big old school computers.

 Yin, remembering that she needs to be looking for computers, goes over to investigate them. Against one of the old school computers is a much newer looking monitor, the screen is on and emitting a dull white light. Seeing nothing on the computer she gets closer and looks at it curiously. Taking another step forward, she jumps, having been startled by another system message.

Ding!

The hunter has been released. 

Good luck!

Freezing up and looking around the slightly dark room, Yin, not hearing or seeing anything out of the ordinary, continues towards the computer cautiously.