The bean, it must be found. For MHD's Fairytales contest.

I have no idea why I wrote this. All I can say in my defense is that it seemed like a good idea at the ti--wait no that's a lie, I said, repeatedly that this was stupid and shameful every time I mentioned working on it.

The truth is I needed to publish something before the end of the year and there is CLEARLY a burning need for wolf stories in the psyche of children using the internet. But then they write them badly, or make their wolves behave like clans of cats. So here is a simple straightfoward story of a young wolf leaving his pack in search of a better life. Maybe no one will ever feel the need to write another one now, or if nothing else maybe this will give them ideas for how to do it in slightly more minimum-standards-meeting ways.

Final conclusion however is that writing about some dumb animal with no agency is not something I'd recommend.

If you don't know what this is for, then it isn't for you.

Congrats by the way @Will11, on being the only member of the Gazette staff to vote in the Gazette sponsored duel. :)

But the voting post is tiny and always needs padding. :(

Well, we ended up with a landslide for Story B. It's been said a couple of times by commenters, but it's actually amazing the quality level some of these duels have reached, as Story A would have been able to easily beat many of the past stories, but here lost so decisively simply by not capturing the heart of the audience as well as Story B. This was a great pair of stories though, and since Clayfinger and Liminal in THEORY are pretty evenly matched, regardless of how this went down, perhaps we may even see a new challenge issued between them some day. Anyway, Clayfinger beat the stuffing out of poor Liminal, lol. Over the course of the fight it's revealed btw that I goofed in the OP and Liminal is actually a male, despite the girlish shrieking when Clayfinger wins the fight by suplexing him into a conveniently placed tub full of angry Africanized bees, that are also possessed by angry Africanized ghosts. Congrats to Clayfinger for Story B! Anyway! Just another day in the Thunderdome. @Clayfinger and @Liminal, post here for your commendations!

Here is the Thunderdome link for Avo: https://chooseyourstory.com/forums/creative-corner/message/30734

Please, as you usually do, vote below and make a purely objective choice based on which of these completely anonymous stories you just read, with no idea of who wrote what.

Story B: Monumentals Ocean perils ___________________________________________ Hi. I’m Radiance. Weird name? Not to me. The world I live on is Earth 6, because we recreated an earth-like environment on this world since human population expands so much. This comes long, long after the unpublished CYS book Demon Dolls. Humans discovered magic a while ago and combined with tech, advancement accelerated quickly. Monumentals are massive creatures that appear like a combination of creatures, natural or mythological. Usually natural. Their DNA represents those animals as well. I live on a small island, in this particular Earth, there’s less of countries and tech and more of do what you feel like. I open the front door and, basket in hand, head down to the orchard to pick apples. My grandma slowly walks to the door, heavily leaning on her cane and panting. She’s 96 but won’t listen to me when I tell her to just rest and stop pushing herself. “Remember, stay far away from the shoreline!” she says in as loud a voice as she can manage. She always says this, even though she knows I’m well informed of the dangers of the water. We live on top of a turtle monumental. Original, I know. Going into the ocean would be dangerous because monumentals are dangerous. I begin picking apples, but I guess our good fortune of having long lives and a comfortable lifestyle is over because something woke Alimi [Al-leem-eye]. And yes, in this world the turtle is the animal of wisdom instead of the owl. If you didn’t know, the name Alimi (IRL) means one who is learned or scholar. This island had full blown mountains, the size of this turtle is unthinkable. The ground shakes violently beneath me and I fall to the ground, but it smoothes out and stops. I cautiously get up and just as I’m wondering what happened I’m knocked flat to the ground. The ground isn’t shaking, it’s going up at an alarming speed. Oh no! Grandma! She’s probably hurt! When I can get up though, I look over the edge of the beach and I am speechless. There's a seemingly infinite ocean in every direction. The turtle beneath us has stood up and we’re hundreds if not thousands of feet into the air. Then, I head back to my grandma. She was chopping vegetables and almost decapitated herself when the slam down happened, but besides that she’s completely fine, just a bit scared. I explain what I saw to her. “Someone or something woke up Alimi? What a fearless soul they must be.” She says in her creaky old voice. “This is bad. Bad, bad, bad. Very bad indeed, there will likely be shaking and slamming up and down and such. Right now, since the ocean floor is flat and the water does not pull on Alimi’s feet, it’s smooth sailing but things will be chaotic and difficult.” And just as I’m nodding my head in agreement, the whole place starts shaking again. I had left the door open and now fall out of it. Our house is atop a hill so I keep falling and tumbling and rolling until, to my horror, I fall over the edge. I fall rapidly and the last thing I hear before I impact on the water’s surface and black out is my grandmother screaming. Who knows how long later ________________________ I become conscious again. I don’t immediately open my eyes, but I feel warm. When I do open my eyes, I’m alarmed to see an eye over 10 times my size just a foot away from me, staring right at me. The eye pulls away and I see the massive head, the size of 5 Mount Everests combined. Her neck goes into a large pool that goes into a water filled cave system and for a moment I panic that everyone I’ve ever known is dead but Alimi seems to know where my distress is coming from. She slams her head backwards, smashing the stone wall there revealing a larger cave that Amimi seems to have made herself with the help of a monumental with claws that cleave through stone. Her back sticks above the water so that all those occupying the space on her shell don’t drown or get forced out. It occurs to me then that maybe some of the monumentals care about us humans and that Alimi may have never been a danger to us. She lowers her head and moves it closer until it’s brushing the ledge I’m on. I only hesitate for a moment, there’s nothing else for me to do and I have no reason not to trust Alimi now so I hop on and she slides me back onto my island, in front of my house but she stares at me too long with what I think is a sympathetic expression. Then a knot of fear and denial forms in my stomach. When I go in, my grandma’s going to be there, healthy and alive. When I walk in, I stop short. The worst has happened. At one point, she really DID decapitate herself and I don’t feel, hear, see, or anything about the world anymore. It’s just me and those blank eyes. Those horrible, terrible, blank, dead, eyes. I don’t cry. The tears just never come. At one point, I get up stiffly. When I walk out, I’m amazed. I’m encompassed in a bubble that covers my island, and Alimi is swimming forward and downward. I’m confused, but we see a massive glowing orb and I’m startled. There are many monumentals, ones that came out of nowhere from mytho (short for mythology) like the loch ness monster and others that are a combination of different things like a eel-sardine-shark I see somewhere to the side. Alimi presses her face against the orb, and some sort of rune on her head begins glowing. It was dim, but gets brighter and brighter and I look away and close my eyes and when I think I’m gonna go blind it stops and I turn to see Alimi is heading back up to the surface, but no longer at the sluggish pace that I thought was normal, she’s pretty fast now. I know that orb, from a fairytale. It’s the Ocean Core, also known as the treasure of the seas. Evil people who want to steal it for wealth have looked for it for centuries before deeming it a myth. It’s the source of energy for all sea creatures, because they’re vegetarian so animals like sharks that can’t eat plants or enough plants or are eating too many plants and screwing up the ecosystem come here. Without it, all sea life would collapse. Suddenly, Alimi makes a panicked shriek and all the sea creatures swim away as fast as they possibly can or surround the orb, which Alimi does too. Now I see why, a massive submarine with the symbol of one of the major pirate crews plastered on one side is approaching the orb. Of course, the first thing they do is fire a missile at Alimi. She cries out and the last thing I see is the pirates securing the orb in some sort of mechanical claw as my world blows up with me in it.

Story A Atocha: Lost at Sea Early in the morning, July 20th, 2022 in Forrest Meadows, California. "What's the assignment for today?" asked Adam Fisher, head detective at the Murphy's detective agency. "One, I'm sure you'll enjoy," Lieutenant supervisor Charles Pinkerson said, setting down a file that Adam read aloud: "Atocha: Lost at Sea"... "But this was already found and all the treasure was taken, is there a reason why you're bringing this up, Lieutenant Pinkerson?" Adam questioned, obviously curious and confused, but knowing that his supervisor wouldn't bring him a 40-year-old case, he awaited with anticipation for the explanation. "Well, it is true that it was found and most of the treasure was either lost or taken, however we aren't putting together an investigation and search team under your lead to find the remaining treasure on the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, but a missing compartment of the boat that is said to hold an even rarer and more valuable treasure. No one really knows what it is, and we would like to find it before word gets out and half of the world's national treasure hunters are on our tail." Adam listened attentively and showed signs of interest. "We both know that I love treasure stories and enjoy diving all over the world, so what's first?"... "Hey honey. How are you feeling?" Drake Myers was currently in his wife Mel Myers' hospital room, where she was undergoing her 4th round of chemotherapy due to her neuroblastoma disease. "I have been better." Mel began to laugh before quietly coughing up a storm. "Ok, take it easy, you'll have a lot of time to laugh freely when this is all over." The senior nurse tried to reassure Mel as she began to make sure everything was set up. "Well babe, looks like it is time for me to go, I’m gonna try to find the best way to get this settled." Drake kissed his wife's cheek before getting up and heading out the door. "Bye, love you," Mel responded before turning her attention to the doctors and nurses. Drake began to look up the cure for his wife's disease. He eventually found out there was a cure, Danyelza, but it was one of the most expensive cures in the world, costing one million dollars. Drake was astonished at the price! His career as a Marine Biologist only had a salary of $40k a year at Landry's Inc. in Texas, and he currently only had a net income of $90k. He decided to call it a day since it was 9pm and he had been researching and trying to find out ways to make enough money to pay for the Danyelza since 4pm. It was a new day, a fresh new morning, sunny with no clouds in sight. Adam and his group of 5 headed to the Meadows Field Airport to get to Florida Keys in nine hours. Once they arrived, they continued to conduct research on the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, but didn’t find much about the secret compartment. Drake woke up at 7am and ate his breakfast while proceeding to research for a way to earn enough money for the Danyelza. After looking through many different opportunities he finally came across a case of an artifact that would not only allow him to pay for the cure for his wife, but set them up for life. He then headed to SEARCH, Inc., which had some of the best marine archaeologists in the world and sometimes looked for sunken ships and artifacts. He met with the company owner, Kane Broen, to find out if they could help him. After talking, they made arrangements for Drake to go with a team of the archaeologists to Florida, where Drake would then meet up with a team currently looking for the sunken treasure. Surprisingly, it took Adam's team a few days in order to get all the equipment and gear they'd need to make sure they could make multiple trips to look for the treasure, which they had only been given one month to find. Drake's team arrived with all their necessary equipment a day before Adam's team took to the waters off the Florida Keys, where the Atocha had originally been shipwrecked, nearly 35 miles off the coast of Key West. However, Drake's team had only 2 weeks to find the treasure. Both teams set sail on July 26th, where they'd be 5 miles apart, but without knowledge of each other's existence. For the first 6 days, there was no progress from either team, and the two boats had crossed paths several times, but no conversation about either team was made. Both teams seemed to figure out that they were after the same thing, however, the 7th day provided some promise, as Adam's team recovered a little of the treasure from the shipwreck: 20 ounces of gold and 33 ounces of silver totaling 47k dollars. Both teams decided to preserve their findings in museums. Both teams continued to search and found little things such as gold, silver, and even a few of the sailors' possessions from 1622. Drake's archaeologist team was given two more weeks due to their findings. As well as finding possessions of the sailors, they found massive dents in seamounts and some man-made structures that were also smashed and destroyed. One night, after another sighting of a seamount that seemed to have resulted in a massive landslide, Adam's crewmate that worked in Florida Keys told a legend about something that 'ruled' the area they were searching, maybe even a cause of the Atocha's shipwreck back in 1622. "The legend goes along like this: 'Years ago... I think maybe 500 years... there was a simple caravel that carried a crew of 23 Spaniards who were sailing across the Florida Keys waters, led by Juan Ponce de León's fleet, and had been lost from a storm and separated from the fleet. They continued their journey through the waters, and one night, there was a big bump that slightly tilted the caravel, and there was a loud screech sounded below the sailboat, alerting the crew, but the crew had no time to react before some huge, scaled, multi-colored tail smashed the boat into two. Only a few members of the crew survived and swam to the Florida Keys.' Ever since then, there have been numerous sightings of a mysterious creature threatening boats. I have even encountered this beast, but no one really has seen it closely or clearly to tell what it is. It may just be a whale after all." The crew continued their work, and every once in a while shared tales about the sea and other legends they had heard. After 3 weeks of searching the Florida Keys, they still hadn't found anything about the secret compartment, and both teams of marine biologists and archaeologists started to doubt the possibility of the secret compartment's existence. To make matters worse, Drake just got a call from the hospital that his wife had just had a relapse and was now in critical condition, and she wanted to talk to him. "Hey babe, how's the search going?" she asked in a weak voice, but her happiness despite her condition was evident in her voice. "Not too good, found some gold and silver from the shipwreck, but nothing else… but we need to talk about you, how are you feeling?" Obviously concerned, Drake needed to know if he should go see her in the hospital, or continue his search for the "secret compartment." They continued talking. Mel was getting considerably weaker as the days went by. The doctors were only giving her a month left to live. They agreed that Drake would continue the search for one more week, and then return to the hospital, no matter what. The next day both crews headed out into the ocean at first light, on August 18th. After several hours of searching, Drake's solar scanner picked up something huge, causing it to blare constantly, sending the crew into panic. Within seconds waves crashed against the boat, as the boat began to keel, threatening to capsize. As the crew struggled to keep the boat afloat, they heard a loud shriek, one that was below them, and just as the waves started, they died back down, leaving the crew astonished. It didn't last long however, as the boat was smashed into pieces, launching the crew into the air, in multiple different directions. Luckily, Drake and the marine archaeologists had put on their scuba gear. Unfortunately a few of the crew members were knocked unconscious, some of their gear damaged, and some of them severely injured, yet Drake only had a minor cut on his left hand, causing a bit of blood to bleed out into the water. The loud commotion and waves threatening Adam's vessel drew the crew's attention to the destroyed boat, and Adam instantly plummeted into the ocean and swam over. The rest of the crew followed suit. Finally with their team underwater, they got a glimpse of the legendary beast. A greenish-blue scaled seahorse that floated at 25 feet tall. It began to dart towards the divers, smashing into every obstacle in its way. The legendary creature knocked a few of the divers into a spiral as it smashed into Adam's boat, denting it, causing it to keel completely over and sink slowly. Only some of the equipment left was not damaged, leaving a few harpoons with their quivers, nets, trowels, picks, and one underwater drone. The massive seahorse did a U-turn and headed over to the remainder of the conscious crew and stopped, its eyes moving back and forth between the crew. The silent seconds were filled with anxiousness and unease, causing an accidental harpoon fired toward the creature, slightly penetrating its scales, causing a loud shriek and a swift swing of its tail toward the crew, dispersing them. Drake and Adam ended up on one side of Adam's sunken boat, and the rest of the divers on the other side. "We need to form a plan!" Drake shouted, shooting a harpoon, lodging it into the side of the beast. "Ok, how about we put the net around the beast's head and make a run for it?" Adam responded, tying two nets onto the drone. "Ok, but where will we go?" questioned one of the archaeologists. "Well, we had sent an S.O.S out when we found y'all's boat in pieces, so hopefully they will come rescue us. Let's just try to stick together and figure it out as we go?" Adam then sent the drone towards the seahorse, catching its head in the nets, causing another shriek from the seahorse as it began to try to break free of the net, sending the drone flying through the ocean. The crew began to swim, using the ocean's habitat to their advantage as they swam deeper and away from the seahorse. After about 15 minutes of swimming their air started to run low, and they began to resurface. On the way up, Drake spotted an odd-looking box made of something that resembled pine wood with rusted iron latches. He descended and struggled to open it. Adam pursued him and handed him a knife to pry the iron latches, and they found inside a perfect-condition, 150-carat, tinted half red and half blue diamond. "Is this it!? The sunken treasure is an extremely rare diamond!" Drake began to ascend along with Adam. Once on the surface, the crew was spotted by the Coast Guard and helped aboard the boat, and taken to the nearest hospital. A few days later… The diamond was displayed under Adam and Murphy's detective agency, alongside SEARCH, Inc., before being placed in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The money was split between the divers, while Mel received the Danyelza, was cured, and released from the hospital.

All right, time to put the new kids through their paces. Blister and Avo both appeared out of nowhere very recently, and made themselves right at home with ONE BILLION posts, proving all other Newbie threads to be just rookie numbers. Avo has melted cold, icy, edgelord hearts with her perpetually confused wholesomeness, and Blister started a popular thread in the Writing Workshop and seems fairly wholesome too despite being a teenage boy. (the worst form of humanity.) Both are reading storygames and they don't need to be bribed with contest points to do it. But of course to truly test them, we needed to see some writing. So once again the Thunderdome gates roll open to the sound of the chanting crowd...and funny thing is, there was actually supposed to be a third combatant making a surprise appearance this evening, but they got lazy. Better luck next time. So, Avo walks out with a teddy bear, Blister has a baseball bat. Er, this might get ugly. Let's uh, just skip right to the stories shall we? And remember, these stories are ANONYMOUS. You all will have no idea who wrote what. It's actually impossible, unless you have mind reading powers, or you're some kind of stalker. ***** The Prompt, brought to you in this post by the Complaining Dutchman: write a story about an undersea treasure