Welcome to a brand new adventure story! If you’ve never participated in one of these before, first, thanks for stopping by, and second, here’s how this works.

You get to be the main character in the story below. At the end of the post, there will be a choice on what you should do next. Leave a comment with your choice. I’ll tally up readers’ choices on Monday and then next Thursday we’ll explore whichever one gets the most votes. This adventure will run for four weeks, so you’ll get three chances to vote, one each week, before finding out how the story ends. Choose carefully, for some paths lead to fame and fortune and others to danger and even death!

Now on to the adventure!

Frost covers your horns where you sit in the spire work of the Sergi Cathedral. Another quiet night has passed as you guard your sacred home although you would never say that aloud. Speaking such things has power and inevitably brings chaos. 

But you can feel the peace in your bones, and you savor the sweet stillness. The organist is warming up inside, her music gently vibrating the stones. Her footprints in the frost on the flagstones below lead to the side door she entered by. Soon, those footprints and the frost on your horns will melt with the morning sun promised in the glow on the horizon. 

A contented hum comes from inside your stone chest. Its mirror sounds from the other corners of the cathedral where your siblings keep watch on their spires. 

“It’s been a quiet night, hasn’t it?” asks a bright, feminine voice at your elbow. 

You groan. “We don’t say such things aloud, Ana.”

“Ooops.” The tiny gargoyle ducks behind the spire to your right. Her club tail, however, still sticks out from its sandstone base like an added ornament. “I always forget that,” she whispers, peeking back out at you for forgiveness. 

You’re not even sure where she came from. Usually new gargoyles are commissioned by the priest and show up when the sculptor is ready to unveil him or her. Ana just appeared one morning about three weeks earlier. 

Refusing to let the comment ruin your peaceful morning, you close your eyes to enjoy the first rays of sunshine and smile. “All is—” 

The words die on your tongue as the sun disappears. Your eyes pop open to find the formerly clear horizon boiling with clouds. 

“Brace yourselves!” You shout and take your own advice by ducking behind the spire next to Ana. Unlike her, your larger body doesn’t fit and the roiling cloud bank hits your shoulders, wings, and sides. Your exposed tail curls down the side of the cathedral. Sharp ice chinks into the stone coils. 

You cringe but know it’s just the prelude. The ice giants will follow, bringing another heavy cloudbank with them. 

Inside the cathedral, the organist’s music stops.

Beside you, Ana shivers and actual tears flow down her stone face. “Not again. Not again,” she mutters. “I can’t do this again.” 

There’s no time to question what she’s talking about. “Go inside.” Ana’s face falls as you speak. “And protect the organist,” you finish. 

Instantly her face brightens like you handed her a flower and she zips off through the spires. 

That taken care of, you notice your siblings gathering to confront the oncoming cloudbank, their heavy wings creating their own wind down the face of the cathedral. You spread your wings to join them and then hesitate. 

The giants are often straightforward in their attacks, but not always. Sometimes that mass of clouds that precedes their advance hides different tactics. The last time that happened, they came up through the floor of the cathedral. 

One word from you and the force in the air will split in two to cover both areas, but if you’re wrong, that also weakens the defenders. 

Do you…

Join them in the air?

Or

Split the force?

Leave your vote in the comments below We’ll return next Thursday to see how the story continues.

Until then, many blessings,

P.S. If you enjoy adventure stories like this one, you can be a dragon in Discarded Dragons and Zap Dragon.

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