Scavenger Hunt: Closing Ceremony

Despite the horrific nausea, the splitting headache and the fact that you are still seeing cartoon ponies in your peripheral vision you force your eyes to open and attempt to focus on the elevator controls. With your last remaining abilities at muscular control you reach up and hit the 'Open Doors' button.

You feel the breath of air on your face as the lift doors open and the bright light makes you reluctant to open your eyes.

Hands grab your wrists and you feel yourself being pulled along the floor, out of the elevator and back into the brightly lit mall where this all began.

"Hey!.... Hey....!"

You hear a familiar voice and cautiously blink open your eyes....

"Hey Max!" You reply.

"Hey man! By the time I got to the Mall for the meet up it'd all gone crazy.... cops everywhere! The AD guy had managed to escape through the vents and told us what you guys were trying to do. That's crazy man. I can't believe you actually did it! There are a load of army guys getting..."

Your heart fills with dread as Max keeps talking...

You look around anxiously for anyone wearing red.

Max slaps you on the back "It's ok man. Things are bound to feel a bit weird after everything you've been through."

The pain that runs through your head makes you think that this must be reality.

You lie back against the cool floor of the mall as Max keeps talking about how the army are working to contain the zombies above ground with the help of the vaccine, and the teams heading underground to retrieve Dr. Aurelian have only come across zombies rendered unconscious by the chemicals released into the ventilation system.

Your team join you on the floor of the mall...

"Do you think the air is still full of poisonous gases?" You ask.

"Only the ones coming outta me." Ichi says.

Everyone groans.

*****

Dr. Aurelian has managed to calm himself down after the initial anger of seeing the team escape the lift.

No matter. Once the countdown of the Eschatron 9000 is complete they will all die in the explosion, along with the SWAT team he can see making their way through the facilities to his lab.

He watches the last seconds of the countdown...

He waits for the rumble of the explosion.... which does not come.

'Device deactivated' flashes on his computer screen.

"What?! No!" He screams at the screen when the image appears....

******

And. We. Are. DONE!

Through your efforts over the past 4 weeks, bringing us all joy with your photography and bomb diffusing skills you have raised an amazing £520 / $635 for charity which will go towards those suffering after the fires which devastated Maui.

It has been an absolute pleasure hosting the Scavenger Hunt for you all again this year. These games are only ever as fun as the people playing them and you have all truly risen to the challenge this year.

Initially my aim was to whittle your numbers down as much as I could, but there came a point when everyone left truly deserved to win the badge and I was truly routing for you guys at the end.

I started planning this hunt months ago, but when you guys started to breeze through the tasks in a few days I had to start upping my game, so basically everything from week 3 was done on the fly.

It was wonderful to see the teamwork that went on this year, and not once did people care if fellow team members were playing with a Daytona or a Seiko on your wrist.

We're all equal when we're dressed like ponies.

Deepest thanks to my coconspirator @Aurelian , who kindly agreed to get involved, and gave me a very welcome helping hand in week 4.

Thank you to @Ichibunz and @Whitesalmon for agreeing to be team leaders earlier on and to @DH_NYC for also stepping up and pulling everyone together in the later weeks.

Thank you @Max and @WatchCrunch for providing this space for us all to play these games. It must be hard balancing the desire to keep WC focused on the watches and yet allow us the freedom to build our community in different ways.

Thank you to all the other Crunchers who had zero interest in the Hunt but tolerated our game this month and resisted blocking me!

And most of all, thank you to the wonderful players who joined in this year, if it was for just one week or the full four.

Winning this game is not (always) about finding a duck, it's about creativity, humour and, this year, teamwork.

You all 100% deserve your badges guys.

@WatchCrunch Your 2023 Scavenger Hunt Winners are:

@SpecKTator @Droppingin @Whitesalmon @solidyetti @AnalogExplorer @Chubbs @MaverikMe @Watchovski @Icarium @Darkoverlord @Adamasuta @leighb666 @honedwatches @IanCognito @BtownB9 @Fiatjeepdriver @Fonda.Dix @DH_NYC @Strap_Man @Kalsota @Ichibunz @valleykilmers @Mr.Santana @casiodean @Urkraft @Fieldwalker

Now... tell me what watches you are going to buy to commemorate this glorious event! 😂