strength

You stroll cautiously into the gym. You look around, but it’s deserted. It’s dark in the big gym, so you walk cautiously through, straining to see and listen to your surroundings. You hope that you will find someone who can help you. You get to the other end and open the door. Finally, light pours into the dark hallway from the weight room. You see the outline of a very obviously physically strong man. You hasten toward the door and cautiously turn the handle. You step through the threshold and quietly murmur, “Hello?”

“Woah! I did not see you there!” the stranger starts.

“I’m sorry for sneaking up on you,” you reply, stepping forward, “I’m a student here, and I am looking for the Minotaur janitor, Mr. Bull.”

As you finish you sentence, you notice an ornately decorated wooden box sitting on one of the training tables. If you haven’t gotten it yet…go back….Ultimately, you begin to wonder….

Then, the strong stranger interrupts your internal discussion with a contempt smirk, “Hello, I’m Hercules, you know, the legendary hero.”

Hercules transfers his concentration back to his weights, a staggering 70 pound dumbbell in each hand, and you begin to become fascinated by his pure, brute strength but frustrated with his frank, abrupt arrogance. You do not like this Hercules character, but nonetheless, you need his help. So, you sigh and start walking over to the strangely beautiful box on the training table.

“What are you doing?!” Hercules asks accusingly. He drops his weights, and they fall to the floor with a crash that causes you to jump violently.

“I’m sorry?” you reply inquisitively, “I just wanted to see what’s in the box….It’s beautiful.Plus, it might have something in it that will help me on my quest. I’ve found the most interestingly useful things so far.”

Hercules scowls at you from beneath his curly red hair, and you realize how beautiful his big blue eyes are. You shake your head and try to convince yourself that this arrogant jerk is not worth your time, no matter how attractively heroic he is.

“You can never, absolutely never ever in a million years, open that box. That box, that box—“he trails of, obviously concerned with something else….

“That box is what?” you ask, slowly stepping toward Hercules, who has now moved in front of the training table on which the box is sitting. You step closer and closer until you can look directly into Hercules’s troubled eyes; he’s obviously concentrating on something very far away. Maybe he’s thinking about his 12 labors, you wager. You stare at him and hold his far away gaze to clandestinely snake your hand behind Hercules’s back and snatch the box without him noticing.

You dash out of the weight room, clutching the box like your life depends on it.

“Hey!” Hercules shouts behind you from the disappearing weight room. You slip into the pitch black gym, and Hercules follows you but soon realizes that his search for you is feudal. The darkness proves to be too big of an obstacle for Hercules to overcome, which is strange, for he never backs down from a challenge. Nevertheless, you find the bleachers and sneak under them. You sit and cautiously feel for the lid of the box. As you open it, you realize that there might be a reason why Hercules didn’t want you to take the box, and for a second, fear grips you, but you soon regain your courage, and curiosity gets the best of you, so you fling open the box. Suddenly, out of the box, rush spirits of all sorts. You see evil, pestilence, war, and the like, but at the bottom of the box, you find hope, and mutter to yourself, “Hope, that’s what I need to finish, that’s what I need to find Mr. Bull!”

Newly motivated, you exit the gym, eyes desperately searching for the light of the sun, and you flip over what you now know to be Pandora’s Box. On the bottom, three options are taped, and they are as follows:
 * 1) Place of Mystery
 * 2) Place of Convenience
 * 3) Place of Necessity