The passage-way was small and cramped but no dogs came rushing out to eat her, so it wasn't all that bad. And at its end it led Dabbler to another large warehouse room. Jumping down into the room, she ducked behind a large crate and cautiously scanned the area all around her. She didn't want to get shot at again. Although, to be honest, she wasn't really too worried about that - Sawyer almost never repeated himself. Whatever trap was waiting in this place, it would be something she hadn't come up against yet. But she saw nothing out of the ordinary and as far as she could tell she was all alone. Glancing at the crate she was crouching behind, Dabbler noticed that it was labeled - it said Sketchers. Another crate said Nike. And another, Addidas. Busting one open confirmed that the crates were filled with shoes. Dabbler felt the hair on the back of her neck go stiff. Shoes. She didn't know what kind of danger lurked here, but it wasn't lost on her that a warehouse full of shoes was a curiously ominous place to be for a person famous for never wearing any.
And she was right to be alarmed, for suddenly the roof over her head exploded downward and a pair of the biggest shoes Dabbler had ever seen came falling down on top of her. She leaped away just in the nick of time. The shoes immediately retracted back into the ceiling. But then another pair of shoes came crashing out of the ceiling to stomp her into squishy goo. She scrambled out of the way of that pair too, but was nearly flattened by a third pair of shoes. And then her life became a blur as the three pairs of car-sized shoes stomped and stamped and pounded the floor over and over and over again. Dabbler zigged, she zagged, she hurled herself this way, lunged that way, but Dabbler knew that it was just dumb luck that she hadn't been stepped on yet. If only she had enough mana to turn into the Man of Steel again, but her reserves were nearly tapped out.
She tried to find an exit as she dodged about, but it quickly became apparent there was none. No windows, no doors, no gates. There was just... the openings from which the shoes were dropping! That was it! But which pair of shoes would lead her to something other than a dead-end?
Was it the pair of dress shoes, the beach sandals, or the jack boots?
She racked her mind for any kind of clue that would give her the right answer, any kind of pattern from the other choices she'd been given.
And she actually managed to find something. Something hazy, something unclear. Something she couldn't even call a hunch. But at least it was something. And so, as the giant shoes of stompingness came pounding down all around her, she reached out for one particular pair, took a mighty leap, and rode it all the way to the top of the ceiling.
Go back - Go to the parent episode.
Tue Jun 06 23:20:23 2006