Gulping down your fear, you come closer and closer to the great beast's flank and, slowly, you rest your hand against it. The scales are smooth under your palm, and lukewarm. You don't know whether dragons should be warm or cold, so you can't deduce anything from this contact, but you do take the time to run your hand up to its back and through its thick mane. You are most likely the only person alive to have touched a dragon!
As you move your hand, you slowly begin to realise that the dragon is barely breathing. You can definitely see some movement in its great sides, but it is nowhere near the heaving breath one would expect from a creature that size. Checking from the corner of your eye that its eye hasn't opened, you rest your ear against its scales.
The heartbeat is feeble, so very feeble that you have to strain to hear it. The dragon is alive, there is no denying it, but it is at the brink of death, and quite possibly only hanging by a thread.
As you near its front legs, still searching for a place to better hear its pulse, you notice that the dragon seems to be hugging something in his foreclaws. The only way to determine what that thing might be would be to lift the leg clear, then force the claws open.
Do a Strength test, casting two dice or a 1-12 random draw.
1 or 2: the leg is much too heavy and falls from your grip as you wrench your back. You're going to have to sleep on it until it's better and you can try the test again, but you don't have much food. You will have -1 to your dice throw for your next Constitution test. Try to lift the paw again.
3 to 5: nothing is happening! Put your back into it and try again!
6 to 11: you manage to lift the leg, your muscles straining and your knees shaking, until the claws are almost free to be opened. However, you need to grab on to one of the claws before the leg drops back, and you can neither hold the leg nor the claw with only one hand. Do an Agility test, rolling one dice for a result of 3 or more, or get a random number of 3 or more from a 1-6 draw. If you manage, move on along the story. If you fail, go to paragraph "1 or 2".
12: you knew eating your spinach was worth it as a kid. You lift the leg, shift your stance and drop it to the side, exposing the closed fist of the dragon's claws. With the shock, the hand springs open, revealing its contents.
Now that you've managed to open the claw, go to Appendix 7.
Then, if you want to explore the rest of the cave, go to Chapter Ten.
Otherwise, there is nothing left for you here. If you took the Road North to the cave, go to Chapter Eleven.
If you took the Road South, go to Chapter Twelve.
YOU ARE READING
The Rains of Sichuan {Choose Your Own Adventure} // Wattys 2019
Adventure"If we want to survive this drought, you will have to make it rain." In this short-and-sweet Choose Your Own Adventure book, you will be taken on a quest to discover why the rains haven't fallen on your tiny little chinese village - and to remedy...
