Hiking a ridge through August Forest, you happen upon a campsite. There is a fire-pit with silvery ash. In it, a nail as if from a horse cart. Nearby is a table covered with a cloth, secured with string. A pie is on the table. Pumpkin, it seems. A plea for help rises from below.
Empty the satchel of its contents? Flip the pumpkin pie onto the table cloth? Wind up and pitch the pouch?
My lady’s allergic to bee stings,
but now she has been stung.
Our gear is near the table,
or so it was when flung.
We left our goods at the site,
all placed beside the table
She needs her venom antidote,
hurry fast as you are able.
The cure, so fragile in its wrap,
soft leather worn and brown.
We cannot climb the ridge in time,
nor could you make it down.
Send down the pie tin like a spinning saucer. Tossed upside-down it glides.
Not with a pie in it, of course. You flip the pie onto the table cloth. A sweet sacrifice of pumpkin.
A spinning tin can glide, but it also has to carry the allergy antidote.
Fill the tin with ash from the fire pit? Punch the bottom of the pie tin with the nail? Slide the pouch in the tin down the ridge?
The top of the over-turned pie tin is curved, forcing air to go over it faster than the air going under it. Faster air means less pressure. Less pressure on top means relatively more pressure on bottom, thus lift — keeping the inverted pie tin aloft. The spin of the inverted pie tin adds flight stability similar to the way a gyroscope is stabilized by its rotation.
Make an anchor in the pie tin. Take the nail from the pit. Punch two holes near the centre of the tin.
Holding the cargo to the holes requires a restraint of some sort.
Beat a nail into wire with one of the rocks? Break off a bit of string from the string around the table? Examine the table cloth for loose threads?
Break off a bit of the string securing the table cloth to the table. In the absence of a breeze, the table cloth stays put.
There must be some hold for the cargo.
Find a stick to make a bow with the string? Place the pouch inside the pie tin? Roll up the pouch inside the remaining table cloth?
The antidote is in the pouch. Put the pouch in the tin. The cargo hold is where that pie was.
The cargo is in the hold, but isn’t secure in its hold.
Thread the string around the pouch then into the holes? Tie one end to the pouch and the other to the tin holes? Shout down-ridge “How much time left?”
Thread string around the pouch and through the holes. The pouch is now bound to the pie tin by the string.
Winding the string around, the cargo still wobbles in the tin.
Put a nail on the back of the tin and tie the string ends to it? Tear off a strip of table cloth to attach like a kite tale? Tie together the ends of the string on the other side of the pie tin?
To secure the string, tie the ends together. The pouch now rides in the tin like a hang-glider rider. A rider secured to the glider.
The air is calm; the ridge, steep.
Add the nail for extra weight and slide the tin down the ridge? Move to a grassy patch and roll the tin down the ridge like a wheel? Turn the pie tin upside-down and toss it?
Toss the tin. The tin and pouch inside glide down to the lady and her aide. Nice throw. That was quite a distance down.
What else is a hero to do?
Eat what is salvageable of the pumpkin pie? Slip away with their satchel? Wait to see whether the lady revives?
What a shame had the knave not caught the tossed tin. You wait and see the lady revived. Your reward: their thanks, of course. Plus any pie you care to salvage.