Chapter 9: Getting Colder

“YAHOO!” shouts Melvin, giving you a high five as he skates by. You start to wonder how it is possible to get a high five from a hologram, or whatever Melvin is, but then you think the better of it.

“Good game,” says the older brother, handing you a patch that reads, "ALL-STAR HOCKEY TEAM."

“Yeah,” says the younger one, “you guys aren’t bad. Hey! Wait’ll I tell everybody that we played against a real Player!”

“Ha, yeah, wow,” says the older brother, “NO ONE will believe us.” 

You are all laughing, but just then an angry looking man with a beard walks up. “WHY AREN’T YOU BUILDING IGLOOS?” he shouts. “YOU KNOW YOU ARE ON PUNISHMENT! If you and your no-good friends don’t get EVERY igloo you melted rebuilt, don’t even bother coming home!” He stomps away.

The boys hang their heads. “Sorry about that, we’re kind of in trouble,” says the older one. “We borrowed Dad’s heat ray, and well, got kind of carried away. Now we have to rebuild a bunch of igloos.”

Melvin pipes up, “Well, that’s okay, we need to be going anyway. Maybe you can help us, we’re looking for a cave.”

The boys look at each other. “There’s lots of caves around here,” says the younger one.

You are not glad to hear that. “Well, this cave has gray bats living in it,” you say.

The boys’ eyes get big. “That’s the cave of the Mountain King!” whispers the younger one, with some concern. “You don’t want to go there – it’s haun…”

The older brother claps his hand over the younger one’s mouth. “Don’t listen to him,” says the older brother calmly. “That’s just a dumb legend to scare little kids.” The younger brother’s eyes get big, and he squirms under the grip of his older brother’s hand on his mouth.

“Well, do you know where it is, or not?” demands Melvin.

“Oh, sure, we know where it is.” The younger brother squirms a lot now. The older brother kicks him. “And we’ll tell you where it is, too, if you’ll help us rebuild the igloos.” The younger brother suddenly stops squirming and looks on to see your reaction.

You whisper to Melvin. “What do you think? Can we trust them?”

Melvin thinks it over. “Well… they did save us from freezing to death. That heat ray they’ve got seems pretty handy. And they seem to know something, anyway. I say we help ‘em out, learn where the cave is, get the crown, and head back home.”

Now you think it over. “Yeah, I guess so. How hard can it be to build a few igloos? Okay, boys,” you shout, “we’re in!”

Both boys smile, somewhat wickedly. “Great,” says the older one. “Follow us down to the river.” 

“Yeah,” says the younger one, still smiling. “And mind the bears!”

Put the Frostbite cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set difficulty switches to b, and choose game select 1. Play until you have scored 40,000 points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.