The Adaptive Game

"BEG FOR IT"

- Buck

What the fuck is Conner doing?

First he fell into the mud, and now he's begging for the guard not to kill him?

"CONNER! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

He doesn't hear me. I walk closer.

"Please, please give me another chance. PLEASE!"

Oh my fucking god. He thinks he's eliminated because he tripped with the clue. He doesn't even realize he never let go of it.

"CONNER!"

"Huh?"

"IT'S NOT OVER! WE'RE NOT DONE YET! YOU DIDN'T DROP IT, LET'S KEEP GOING!"

"What? OH! OH OKAY!"

He tosses it to me and I bring it to Vector.

"Vector, you figure anything out yet?"

"NO! NOT A SINGLE ONE!"

"Alright alright, calm down. We just need to-"

A loud beep comes by again. We have to have all three by now.

Fortunately we do!

The team beside us doesn't. On their side, all the guards surround them and unload their mags on the entire team. Eddie is still alive on a different team, they're already working out the puzzle."The relay part is now over. You have 5 minutes to solve the puzzle and unlock your team leader. Use the clues to your advantage." says the Square Mask.

"Alright, everyone should be coming over now. Vector, what do we got?"

"First clue is 497, which I don't know what it could mean. Second clue I figured out. It wants us to look down. Or do something to the ground. Third clue, I haven't figured out. It's a riddle."

"Read the riddle."

"I'm everywhere, but only sometimes. You swim in me but you never like to. I'm two of us, but we're not the same state. What am I?"

"I don't know what that could be. Jeez..."

"Okay help me with the first already! What are these numbers?!"

"Oh, I think it's supposed to translate to a word. Because the number means nearly nothing if it wants to give us a word indication of how to get your key."

"That's... that's right. So what kinda complicated cipher is this?"

"Could be many ciphers since there are a lot of ways to decode this..."

Conner, Emilia, Shaun, and David gather round and look at the riddles laid out.

Suddenly, I get the first clue correct.

"OH! DIG! IF YOU TRANSLATE EVERY NUMBER TO A LETTER YOU GET 'DIG'!"

"Okay, so what?" says David.

"The third riddle... here. 'I'm everywhere, but only sometimes. You swim in me but you never like to. I'm two of us, but we're not the same state. What am I?'"

Conner pushes David aside.

"Two of us... not the same state. Easy. Mud."

"Mud? Oh, yeah, yeah! Everywhere, but only when it's raining... We swim in mud but we didn't enjoy it huh... Two things, dirt and water, but they're solid and liquid!"

"GET DIGGING! AROUND THIS AREA! We're running out of time, we gotta get Vector out before it's too late!"

Pushing my hands into the mud, it's so thick and tough, yet it flows through my hands like pudding. But suddenly, I find a small box in my grasp. Taking it out of the ground, I immediately take a key out of it and unlock Vector's chains. He jumps out and hugs the ground in relief.

"WE DID IT!" Conner yells.

All of us come in for a group hug, except for Emilia who can't reach all the way around so she just wedges herself between all of us and grabs us.

"Man, that was tough. I'm completely pooped. I'm glad we worked for that win together, guys." Emilia tightens her grip around David and Conner.

"Well, did you want us to beg for it?"