It was just an ordinary day on DS14. I was eating lunch at Miss Emmie's restaurant, French Fare, when a strange figure in a magenta coloured cloak approached. He pushed something into my hand. He told me not to look at it, not to examine it, not to tamper with it, but to give it to a Ferengi Merchant called Brent, who would be arriving on his ship that evening. The stranger seemed afraid, and told me he would probably be murdered before the day was out.
Well, what would you have done? Of course I looked at the item. It was a little gold metallic button. As I looked at it, I seemed to be drawn into it. I found myself inside a cave, suddenly, and a strange man with tattoos or paint on his face told me to "Move along home".
I was rudely brought back to reality by station commander Sol'ar, who slapped me in my face, and I lost the button. I knew it had rolled under the door of Miss Emmie's pantry. Obviously I was not just going to leave it there, and later that night, when the Promenade was quiet, I used a security doodad I have to get into the restaurant. I went into the unlocked pantry, and sure enough....the button was gone.
At that point, I was arrested by a security team led by Sol'ar. I was taken to Captain Drake and confined to quarters. However, while I had been removed from duty, a visit to my quarters by Brent and his goons resulted in my quarters being vandalised, and I narrowly escaped death by making an emergency transport out of my quarters. I then went into hiding in the home of my friend, Ambassador Serecke.
Unknown to me, the button had been in Sol'ar's possession all the time. He too, had seen the button roll into the pantry, and had collected it, showing it to Drake, and keeping it for himself. A day later, the games master race the Wadi arrived at DS14, and insisted some of the staff played their Chula game. Sol'ar, Dern, Sheridan and his girlfriend all entered the game but became trapped. Drake was desparate, and sent for me immediately. She said I would have the break in removed from my service record if I too, entered the game. Well, of course I volunteered, especially after I was pursued by another group of Wadi who had a racial problem with the Ferengi.
Upon entering the game, I found myself back in the same cave as the day before. Only this time, I was not alone. A man with a shredded shirt and purple trousers lay unconcious on the floor. I brought him round and he was frightened of me. I told him I was a Ferengi, although he kept calling me "Fur Energy". He told me he was a doctor too, Doctor David Banner. We felt an earth tremor, and the entrance to the cave collapsed, so we looked for another exit.
Finally, we found a hole at the back of the cave, through which I crawled into another much larger cavern. A waterfall fell from high in the ceiling into a shallow pool. However, Doctor Banner got stuck. Then there was another tremor and the ceiling began to collapse again. The last I saw of Doctor Banner, he was struggling to get through, but I guess he didn't make it.
The next thing I knew, there was a huge green ogre in the cavern. I assume he ate Doctor Banner, and then forced his way through into my cavern. He lumbered towards me, and I fell into the pool. It was quite shallow, and I waded into the waterfall, desparate to escape from the ogre or hulk-like creature. Unfortunately, on the other side of the waterfall, the pool was very deep. I was dragged underwater and drowned.
Or so I thought, since when I came round, I was on a bio bed in Sickbay. Apparently, my drowning released the other trapped players. The rule was that one of the players had to be sacrificed to win the game. I was that sacrifice. I know it was all a game, and Doctor Banner and the ogre creature never really existed, but it did seem very real at the time.
