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The walls of the castle were made entirely of glass, ostensibly to let in as much light as possible. I looked through the window-walls and saw green-armored Knights feeding and grooming horses. The doors to the horses’ stables were thrown wide open to let in the warm, magic breeze.

It was past the horses and the stables, deep inside a thick forest, that Eris left us with a quickgoodbyeand an encouraging smile.

“Ok, so we’re here in the North Woods,” Kylie said, pointing to a forest at the northern edge of the Castle map, “and we need to get here.” She tapped the trees at the southern tip. “To the South Woods.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Dutch commented.

Kylie frowned at him. “Uh, are you forgetting the part where there are five other teams out there whose only goal is to steal the treasure from us?”

“Treasure? I think you mean Object 2861,” Asher snickered.

“Yeah, what a great name,” Kylie said.

“It doesn’t matter what it’s called. All that matters is that we succeed in our Quest,” said Bronte.

“Yeah, about that,” I told her. “If we want to win, I think we need to think outside the box.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean we need to toss these so-called roles in the bin.” I shot my role card a loathing look. “And come up with ourownplan.”

“Why would we ever do a thing like that?” Bronte asked, horrified, like I’d just suggested we set the whole world on fire.

“Because these roles suck,” I said.

“You’re only saying that because you don’t like yours, Winters,” Asher chuckled.

“Ok, my role is particularly stupid,” I allowed. “But this isn’t about my role. It’s about doing something unexpected, something spontaneous.”

“Spontaneous?” A tiny crinkle formed between Bronte’s eyes. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that, Savannah. We have a plan.” She indicated the scenario card in her hands. “And we have our assigned roles. We won’t win if we don’t play by the rules.” She nodded along to her own words, like there was something especially comforting about the rules.

“And I’m saying we will win only if wedon’tplay by their rules,” I argued. “Think about it: all the teams know the plan. Everyone knows what everyone else is going to do. So that means this Quest will be five teams against one, and I don’t like those odds.”

“It won’t be five against one,” said Dutch. “The other teams are competing against one another too.”

“Yeah, they are, but only once they take the treasure from us,” I countered. “Up until that point, they’ll likely work together. And that means five against one.”

Kylie and Asher exchanged worried looks.

“And how do you suggest we shift those odds in our favor?” Bronte asked me. “None of the other teams will work with us as long as we’re in possession of the prize. They’ll come after us no matter what we do.”

“Yes, they will try to take the prize from us if they can,” I agreed. “But if we do something unexpected, like, say,nothead to the extraction point like everyone else, then we can avoid the other teams completely.”

Bronte shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. We can’t win if we don’t bring the prize to the extraction point.”

“Sure we can. We just need to bypass the bloodbath and bring the prize directly to the General ourselves.”

“That isnotwhat our scenario card told us to do,” Bronte scolded me. “We need to follow the card to the letter. That’s how you win. That’s how you do well on the Scoreboard.”

It was hard to argue with the person at the top of the Scoreboard—she obviously knew how to win—but that didn’t stop me from arguing anyway. I was pretty desperate. If our team didn’t win today’s challenge, I’d never earn enough Merit points to make the cut.

“The moment the other teams spot us heading for the extraction point, they’re all going to pounce,” I warned Bronte.

“Then we’ll just have get there before they do,” she said. “Which won’t happen if we don’t run there now. We’ve wasted too much time already. As team leader, I say we stick to the plan. Now let’s get going. And hurry.”

Our teammates nodded, even Kylie. Though she looked like she at least felt bad about voting against my plan. Unlike Dutch, who shot me a smirk before he took off running with Bronte and Kylie.

“Come on, Winters, time to go,” Asher said, nudging me. “Don’t worry. I’ve got your back.”