016: A Difficult Choice

Fight the slaves: 6 votes
Find the sequence: 5 votes

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Charleston knew what he had to do. Edolie might be quite a competent fighter, but Charleston had the edge of a body honed by years of training in the lost city of Uhld. Not only that, but Edolie could move faster than he could at the moment. In time, the handicap of a new bionic leg would become the advantage of a bionic leg he was used to. He had no idea what the leg could do, but that would come in time. Right now, he had some things to fight. He kicked himself off the nearest tree into the first thing, and he fell with it into the tunnel. In the distance, he heard Edolie cry out something, but his mind was on the battle. While he beat the thing into submission, heard the now familiar tones of the musical trees, and smiled. The Earth was not very happy about things like unstable terrain, and would put up as much of a fight as it could. The musical trees were the evidence of such a struggle, the Earth's last ditch effort to allow its defenders to stabilize things. Charleston stood up, the thing-slave at his feet. It had died the moment the tunnel things had touched it, and so he felt no remorse that it had entered its final slumber.

Then Charleston realized that he was now in the tunnel, but close enough that he could still see Edolie running through the clearing and hitting trees. He could still hear the tones, but they were faint. So now he had two missions: he had to get back to the clearing while fending off the thing-slaves. However, then he looked around, and realized that he not only had to battle the thing-slaves, but the tunnel things themselves.

He held up his cane like a sword, scowled at the nearest antagonist, and brought the cane down hard. It cracked the thing's skull, or what Charleston assumed was its skull, and it howled. He pointed it at the monkey-like tunnel thing he had seen before, still playing with its rocks but now with an unmistakable malevolence, and pressed a button. They weren't labeled, and were indistinguishable from each other, so it was a gamble. Gas shot out, and the monkey-thing screamed. He turned and brought the cane heavily into another thing-slave, then jabbed it into another thing. He pressed another button, and felt what could only be described as a poit. Charleston had been hoping for the electric shock, and made a mental note to label the buttons somehow. Since the dart did absolutely nothing, he pressed the other button and an electrical shock ran through the thing. Charleston nodded as the thing writhed and fell to the ground. This was incredibly easy, and this fact made Charleston uneasy. He looked up, and saw several thing-slaves heading out of the tunnel. He swung the cane heavily around himself while spraying gas, idly wondering how much gas was in the cane, and ran through the cleared path. He pressed the dart button three times while swinging the cane in a small arc, hitting three thing-slaves. It only annoyed them, and they turned to Charleston. He punched one in the fact with his silver-gloved hand, took a small amount of joy in the act of punching someone in the face, and used his cane to launch himself into the air and he kicked the other two in their faces, and then trod heavily over their bodies. He was in the clear, and just in time: he heard the sound of wood scraping against wood. Edolie had found the sequence. He felt her hand grab his arm, and the pair ran through the newly opened doorway. It was not a tunnel, but a gateway into a stable area.

There was a plop, and the door scraped close.

The area they found themselves in was heavily wooded, with a large body of water in the middle. Charleston noticed that it was edged with cement: a man-made lake. In the middle of the lake was a small cabin with a tree on either side of it. The poor devil who had lived there was probably dead by now, consumed by the things.

"What do we do now, Charleston?" said Edolie, her face flush from trying to find the sequence.

Charleston was not remotely winded, and he took a small amount of pride in this fact, "Well, something is plopping around here. We could either look for it, or try to get to that cabin. We could also maybe take a nap. Hey, I think I have some Lunchables in my coat somewhere, we could eat those."

"Lunchables?"

Charleston searched through the inner pockets on his coat. "Oh yeah. They're these little lunch things for kids. It comes with meat, cheese, and crackers. Some of them come with a drink and dessert, too. They're good."

"Wouldn't the meat and cheese go bad?"

"I've got a special pocket that keeps things fresh indefinitely. My coat is more than meets the eye, Edolie."

Edolie nodded, with a worried sort of smile.

Charleston finally found the pocket which contained the Lunchables, and he pulled some out. He had three. One was turkey with cheddar and wheat crackers, another was ham and Swiss cheese with butter crackers. The third was salami and American cheese on butter crackers. Charleston scowled at the Lunchables. The drinks and desserts were inconsequential. Indeed, this would be his most difficult choice yet...

WHICH SHOULD CHARLESTON CHOOSE?
CHOICE A (Turkey, cheddar, and wheat)
CHOICE B (Ham, Swiss, and butter crackers)
CHOICE C (Salami, American, and butter crackers)