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As Albertigog entered the market town of Blackly Downs he got a feeling of tension in the air. For somewhere that he had heard so much about, this was not the busy happy place he had imagined. He tried to start a conversation with several people but was cut short every time as everyone seemed in a rush to pack up and get home. He turned a corner onto another street of stalls where everyone already seemed to packing up even though it was only late morning. Eventually he caught the eye of a baker who seemed slightly less worried than everyone else. “Excuse me, but why is everyone packing up the market so early?†“Don’t worry about that young man, but I suggest that if you’ve just arrived into town that you continue on your way quickly.†“But why? What’s going on?†“Just trust me young man, there are evil things afoot and you would be best to avoid them. I’ll give you directions to some good stall holder where you can pick up supplies quickly but then you should move on.†Disheartened that his hope of finding some awesome adventure to go on in this busy hub had been shot down, Albertigog accepted the baker’s advice. After collecting some more supplies he set off on his way into the mountain pass, that made Blackly Downs such a wealthy town. It was the only easy place to cross the mountain range for several hundred miles, so the two towns that developed on either side of the pass had become wealthy from all the trade passing through them. They also held a could deal of power in this part of the world due to their control on trade. As the town began to shrink behind him, Albertigog couldn’t help but wonder what evil thing was afoot in the town. Suddenly there was a loud cry, one of anger and rage. The sound seemed to come from everywhere without any source. Albertigog turned to look at the town, as a huge ball of shadow shot out of the town heading for the mountain pass. The shadow passed above the pass onto one of the mountain tops above. The shadow began to take move and shift until it began to take shape into some sort of creature. After what Albertigog could only describe as a dark equivalent of a flash, the shadow materialised into a great beast, which quickly began attacking the mountain sides. The creature’s attacks were so powerful that it started an avalanche, before it moved onto the next mountain to do the same. Albertigog quickly realised what was happening and began running back to Blackly Downs to escape the falling rocks. As quickly as he could go the rocks were catching up on him and soon began falling around him. With only a hundred yards to the end of the pass a rock hit him, making him fall. He regained his footing as fast as possible and continued limping, but soon started being hit by smaller rocks. He had managed to escape the main avalanche and the larger rocks, but the smaller ones swallowed him up before he could escape. *********************************** His eyes opened and he sat up quickly, still in panic of escaping the avalanche. He got half way before a paralyzing pain in his back took his breath and he fell back down. After regaining his breath he looked around and realised he was resting in a bed within someone’s house. Footsteps came to the door and the helpful baker pushed the door open. “So you are still alive! I was worried that you’d never wake up.†With the amount of pain he had now realised he was in, Albertigog could do little but nod to the man. “Haha a bit sore are we? When I saw the avalanche I knew that’d you be in the pass so afterwards, I gathered some help and went to see if you’d made it. You were lucking, if you’d been any slower you’d be dead, not that you were far off it. You’ve been asleep for a week.†“A week? But how am I still so injured?†“Like I said you were nearly gone when we found you, it’s going to take you a long time to recover. Not that that’s a bad things as it’s going to take us probably longer to clear the mountain pass.†“The Avalanche, the monster! What happened†“A monster aye? So that’s how he did it. The reason I moved you on was because an evil man had come to town, feigning partnership. He’s been gathering dark forces and creatures to him, and forcing towns and cities into submission to join him. Of course he eventually came here to gain control of the trade routes, but our town council refused his threats. That may have been a mistake, but what’s done is done. He caused the avalanche in his rage and punished us for not siding with him†“So what now?†“The town has shifted all of its resources to clearing the mountain pass, but that is no small task, it will take months but we have no choice, our livelihoods depend upon it.†“Ok as soon as I’m better I’ll go out and help too.†“Haha, I like your spirit but you’re not going to be any use moving those big stones for quite some time. You need to rest and regain your strength (challenge 1). You can rest here and live with me while you are still here. Unfortunately, with the trade gone we are down to fairly basic foods without any luxuries (challenge 2). As the town faces the east of the mountains we always get more sun in the morning and early evenings, that’s even worse now as the avalanche has blocked out much of the later sun, I’m afraid that’s going to mean early mornings and nights for you like the rest of us (challenge 3).†“That’s all fine, but what can I do? I don’t want to just lie here being useless†“When you have gained some more strength you can help look after the horses. We’re going to need them a lot clearing the stone, so they’ll need to be in top nick.†“Ok horses, I don’t know anything about them†“Don’t worry lad, we can teach you. (Life challenge) ************************************ Challenge 1 rest and recover So at the end of the last challenge I injured my back, preventing me from doing what I had planned for this challenge Weight lifting. Instead I’m going to focus on some body weight strength training, whilst keeping an eye on how my back is doing. For this I’m going to take inspiration from batman. In prison and having just had his spine punched back into place, he starts beasting out workouts. So I’m going to follow the batman workouts and see how I improve. With a goal of going up a difficulty in all the exercise by the end of the challenge and also hopefully having a healed back. A- Up difficulty on all exercises and healed back B –Up difficulty on all exercises and back not quite healed OR healed back and not up difficulty on all exercises C- Still limited by back, failure to increase difficulty on all exercise but more than 4 D- Still limited by back, failure to increase difficulty on 4 exercises. STR- 4 Challenge 2 ration the treats I’ve gotten bad at buying snacks or eating out/takeaway. So this is to control that and save money in the process. Each time I do something I get some points and my aim is to keep those points as low as possible. Snacks/junk that are not with a meal – 1 point Really unhealthy dessert – 1 point Take away – 3 points Unplanned meal out – 3 points (4 if I choice something unhealthy) Note: I hate waste more than I hate eating badly, so If food is going to waste (workmates not finishing lunch) that won’t add points as it’s also free food. A- 0-9 points B -10-12 points C – 13-15 points D – 15-16 points Challenge 3 Be a productive skylark. Cons – 2 Wis - 2 My aim here is to get up earlier and be productive in the mornings. I often start work at 10 and finish well into the evening making it difficult to be productive and have fun in the evenings. My aim is to get up earlier as I’m pretty sure I don’t need as much sleep as I’m getting. I’m just about getting up at 7 without an alarm at the moment so that is my bench mark. I’m going to set my alarm to wake me up slightly earlier but I’m going to go to bed when I’m tired, hopefully this will mean that my body makes me still get enough sleep and I can have fun in the evenings. A-less than 1 fail get up a week – Getting up at 6:30 or earlier B-less than 11 fail get ups – getting up at 6:30 or earlier C-less than 11 fail get ups – getting up between 7:00 and 6:30 D-More than 11 fail get ups – maintaining 7:00 wake up time. Cons- 2 Cha- 2 Life Challenge: Look after my steed I’d planned to do this anyway, but after some recent work that needed doing it’s time to take better care of my car. A-Achieve B and learn/do some other jobs to maintain car health. B-Achieve D and Complete a service on my car C-Achieve D and do some parts of a service on my car D-Do a weekly standard check on my car (lights, fluids, seatbelts, tyres, etc) and fix problems This may cost me a fair bit of money, and I don’t have a very work friendly environment (I park on a main road) so this may actually be my most difficult challenge this time round. Wis- 3