When your boss, dAnkan, asked you to show up at 5am for a tour of the arena, you expected them to be late, so you calmly strolled in at 5:30. But when 6:00 rolled around and the construction elfs clocked in without any sign of dAnkan, your patience started to thin. After that you don’t remember much until you were woken up from your snow-pile nap by dAnkan looking very cross.
“Am I paying you to sleep or to sport?” they ask, beak practically pressed against your nose.
“Ohh, sorry, I was just, uh, practicing in case Professional Icesleeping makes it in as a competition. I haven’t played it since I was a kid.” You glance down on your wrist watch. It is 10 am on the dot.
“Hmmph, alright then, but let’s focus on the more mainstream sports like Reindeer Sledding in the future. Things that we know will make it in.”
“Got it boss,” you answer while brushing snow off your sleek, new Olympic tracksuit. “So what’s on the agenda today?”
“It’s time to inspect the arena. The elfs may not be done yet, but we should be able to start preparing some strategy. There’s going to be a lot of competitions, so we’ll have to do some multitasking to win over the Norwegians,” says dAnkan, the competitive fire blazing in their eyes.
You and dAnkan enter the arena. Elfs with green safety vests and red conical helmets sprint in every direction, desperately trying to finish construction in time.
“You know…you could recruit more people for the team. It would mean you would have to run less between competitions,” you suggest cautiously as dAnkan waddles over to a vending machine.
“Who said anything about me running? That’s your job, I’m here to work on my own strategy,” dAnkan retorts, feeding coins into the machine and selecting an item. Then, dAnkan carefully tilts the machine… then a not-so-polite shake… then a full-blown rattle. Two satisfying thuds echo from the bottom of the machine.
“Heh, my strategy always work,” dAnkan snickers, strolling back toward you while chewing on one of their bounties. “Man, this duck bacon is real tasty!”
“DUCK bacon!?!?” you ask worriedly.
“Yeah! It’s bacon for ducks: has all the nutrients needed to keep a mallard like me in perfect shape. The ingredients list is a bit ciphery however, think you could help me out?”
You look over at the duck bacon packaging and try to decode it: Ingredients: ddAAA dAAdA Adddd AdddA ddAdd