Sleeping Giants Game 35

Intro

The Reward

We see a man, maybe in his thirties, sitting at a desk. Everything is in black and white, to denote that what we are seeing is easily hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. The man is toiling, working on some kind of small metallic cage about the size of a human skull, perhaps a bit taller. As he works, the glint of metal on his finger indicates that he is wearing a ring. Behind the man, sitting on the floor in dozens of straight rows, we see many more cages. Hundreds of them. Many of them are copperish, but some are of other metals as well, such as silver or gold.

The scene shifts, and we see the same man journeying along a pleasant country road with a caravan full of the metallic cages. As he journeys, with a big smile on his face, he grabs one of the cages and magically launches it into the distance, then watches it disappear into the horizon. He grabs another and does the same, off the opposite side of the caravan. As he reaches for a third, the sunlight glints off of his finger once more, showing the same ring on the same finger. A wedding ring, perhaps?

The scene shifts again, and this time he is in a desert performing the same launching ritual. Soon he finds himself on a mountaintop, placing one of the cages down gingerly on top of the tallest peak. Then in a forest, hanging some cages from trees and hiding others underneath enormous rocks, moved easily by the wave of his hand. The final scene is of him in a small boat, tying completely unnecessary little anchors to the bottom of the cages and dropping them into the water to sink to the bottom. The whole time, the man seems to be having the time of his life, smiling and laughing to himself as he hides these cages all across the world.

Then a long pause, as the scene shifts forward in time. Many years have passed, and the same man that was once full of joy is now much older and much grayer. He stands in a vault, with a large heavy stone door wide open behind him. With a sigh, he places one of the cages down on a pedestal in the center of the vault. It is easily the most brilliant and intricate of the cages, and even in black and white we can tell it is made entirely out of platinum. He opens the door to the cage, and slowly slides the ring off of his finger. He looks at the ring for a few moments, as if admiring the three gemstones on its face for the last time.

Finally, he mutters something that we cannot hear, and one of the gemstones glows brightly, then floods the entire vault in a brilliant flash of light. When the light fades, the man places the ring inside of the platinum cage and closes the door. He turns to leave the vault, grabbing his staff from the entrance on his way out and waving his hand. As if following his instructions, the vault door slowly closes shut with a rumble. The last thing we see are four small platforms protruding out from the vault door, with the numbers 1 through 4 etched into them.