AVALANCHE!

December 24th, 5:00 A.M.

Milo Vandol skid over to some trees that lined the edge of a forest on the mountain, a mysterious unknown stranger was waiting for him. The stranger was holding a ridiculously small yet clearly visible Auditorium crystal.

"What is with that?" Milo asked. "There's nobody out here."

"I'm not taking chances; you never know who is watching and listening." The stranger stated. His voice was being distorted by the crystal. "So, what is your choice? You can join us and help us out and continue with your career or die."

"I am not going to help you out, what you do is too dangerous, if I get found out to be helping you then my career ends. I would rather end my career on my terms than yours."

"I was expecting that answer, I am sorry to inform you of this, but the true colour of the world is not yours to decide. At this moment, the terms on which your career ends are under our control, not yours. So, I will give one last chance, are you in or out?"

"I'm out."

The stranger sighed. "Well, I did give a choice, you could have lived the rest of your life, but now, you will die." The stranger took out a ski pole that was hidden behind the tree he was to the left of and stabbed Milo in the chest.

Milo could not dodge in time, and he was now dead on the cold snowy floor. The stranger picked up the body and placed it further away from the forest and went up hill. He set up some explosives. The trigger for the bombs were set to a certain phrase that someone will say later that morning.

#

7:00 A.M.

David and Billy walked into the room that contained the fireplace and noted that there were now three new English-speaking patrons.

"Top of the morning to you." Cathair Brennan, an Irish man that was the average height of other Irish men, stated. His hair was blond and short, and he had some whiskers, an exceedingly small moustache. He also had a tattoo of a shamrock (three leaf clover) on his left cheek, and it was a glorious emerald green. "Or as the locals would say: शुभ - प्रभात। (good morning)"

"Yes, you can speak Nepali." Yvette added. "He wouldn't stop talking up our hostesses, we couldn't even ask any of them to show us our room, so we fell asleep on the floor."

Yvette Kyson was a tall slender lady who looked like she was in her early thirties. Her breasts were nothing of note, about average size. Her face was of a heavy golden tone, you could tell she had spent many days upon the beach, her hair was brown, and her eyes shared the same colour as her hair, it was very neat so you could tell that she had not yet taken on the slopes. She was wearing a light blue woolly sweater. Her pants were dark bronze and looked warm and comfortable, there was a pair of glasses affixed to her jumper, it was likely she needed them to read. The glasses also had a chain affixed to them, so she could wear them around her neck like a necklace if she so chose.

"Well, at least the floor was actually soft enough to sleep on." Gerald Kyson laughed. He was taller than Yvette by 12cm. He was wearing something you would see a teacher wear. His tie was very neat and very straight and a bright enough red that it could have blinded you. He noticed the two newcomers (David and Billy) were staring at the fascinating tie, and he twisted the tie around to show a much tamer brown colour. His pants were made of linen and were a tan colour. His face was bear of facial hair, his eyebrows were very neat, and his black hair was short with some bits at the end having a clear brown colour, he must have dyed those bits of hair to stand out just a bit more.

"You guys weren't here yesterday." Billy stated, gesturing to all the unfamiliar faces in the room.

"I think they came while we were asleep." David concluded.

"That is right, we came extremely late last night. करिब मध्यरात (Nearly midnight) in fact." Cathair announced.

"Can you please stop talking Nepali, you look Irish, so you should be speaking Gaelic if anything." Yvette exclaimed with impatience.

Cathair laughed with a very Irish laugh. "Oh, come on lass, we are all just trying to have fun here."

"Coffee?" Laksmi Maharjan, the youngest of the female locals that David and Billy saw yesterday stated. She was quite short; one would think she was underage. She spoke with some difficulty and in a Nepali accent.

David and Billy just now remembered that they had left their Auditorium crystals in their separate rooms. They could have realised it earlier if they realised that they heard Cathair speaking in Nepali instead of in English. If they had their Auditorium crystals on them then the only way that they could realise that Cathair was speaking Nepali when he spoke certain sentences was if someone without an Auditorium crystal said he was speaking Nepali.

As soon as David and Billy were upstairs, Cathair decided to make his order. "Coffee? Yes, I will have an Irish coffee if you know how to make it." Cathair laughed, but his laughter did not last long before a clear loud explosion could be heard.

David had found his Auditorium crystal mere moments before the explosion happened, thankfully the lodge was far away and was unaffected by the shockwave from the explosion. David knew that only one thing would follow an explosion on a snow covered peak.

"Avalanche!" David shouted as loud as he could as he exited his room and headed downstairs. "There's an avalanche coming!"

"But we only heard an explosion, I don't hear any snow tumbling down." Gerald noted.

Suddenly the floor started rumbling as if there was an earthquake.

"You feel that? I was right." David announced. "Everyone upstairs and stay as close to the floor as you can, if you can get below door frames that would be great!" David exclaimed as loud as he could so everyone in the lodge could hear.

Everyone passed by David knowing that he was serious. David noticed two things before he too went upstairs. One thing was Arbane exiting the room which was locked very tightly the day before and the second thing he noticed was a new local that was not seen yesterday, a thirty-year-old Nepalese man. The man headed upstairs, and David went upstairs last. David was not expecting this, not at all. Now they were in the middle of an emergency, but luckily David was there. All the skills he had as a search and rescue officer were about to be put into full use.