It’s the craze that’s taken the planet by storm. Matthew Martin, the founder and owner of Matty Martin’s Chocolates and Treats, is opening his factory to the public for the first time in its long history. Even your boss, usually so gruff and humourless, dismissed you from work when he heard about it so you could all race over and get in right away. Of course, he then un-dismissed you when he learned only six people were being allowed in.
And then, he re-dismissed you when he learned that it wasn’t just the first six who showed up: no, those six people would win their places by finding special tickets hidden inside Matty Martin products, which could be anywhere in the whole world.
Here’s the thing: you
know where one of the tickets is. Word hasn’t gotten out too far yet, which is good, because otherwise the whole world would be descending on it like angry vultures. Only a select few in your town have heard. Your local Candyman, Sarah (yeah, you still call her ‘Candyman’ by tradition) – well, she actually found the ticket herself, in a bar she’d bought from her own stock. Only six tickets in the whole world, and your town got one! Amazing, right?
Unfortunately, all chocolate vendors were barred from winning the contest because of their insider access. So Sarah should have handed her ticket back to Matthew Martin’s employees, so they could put it back into secret circulation. But she didn’t.
For a while, she held onto it, figuring out a plan. Then, she came up with a perfect idea: hiding it in her own shop, somewhere unexpected, where people could only find it if they proved themselves worthy. If they were clever enough. If they wanted it enough.
Sarah must have started the rumours about it herself. They spread slowly, secretly.
You doubt even a couple of dozen people are in on it. But like an unwritten rule, every lunchtime, one single contender enters the quiet little shop, and searches. They search for their entire lunch hour, desperately hoping to be the one to win it.
Nobody has yet. But then,
you haven’t given it a try yet.
(Part 1 of 3. And you can guess that parts 2 and 3 will be in a certain location.)I will be using modules from a few episodes of
Escape This Podcast which inspired me to open this forum.
