yet another? fantasy RP

[Aizar]

The last few slabs of ice and rock had slid past, and Jeylu had time to investigate the piece of paper sticking out of the insistent crossbow. He took a while figuring out the alien runes (aparently gnome letter dialect is not the same as Sirian elf letter dialect) but finally he was able to read out: "Ammunition 36903D3E, 90DE, and 63FDO0ED Depleted. Please insert proper ammunition into proper slots and restart the BLASTER 2000X Pnunomatic Gyrocopterstabilized Automatic Crossbow rev. 672h. Please do not insert the incorrect ammunition including but not limited to bullets, metal balls, rocks, paperclips, forks, gumballs, automatic wrenches, etc. except with use of the proper accessory slots accessible at your local BLASTER 2000X Pnunomatic Gyrocopterstabilized Automatic Crossbow retailer. Refer to owners manual pp. 55678-55888"

Jeylu blinked a few times, crumpled up the paper, and picked up the crossbow with a thumb and forefinger. He hopped off the rock and walked over to the newcomers, nodding slightly at the elf's wave. He was bewildered--his tribe rarely got visitors, and now here was a group of 6 others all on the mountaintop! Or 7, if you counted the drow... Jeylu looked over his shoulder for her, but she seemed to have disappeared...

[Aizar]

hello5346 said:

"Now for the heavy one," Nuyto jumped to the rock besides the Sirach elf. "Good day!"

((Keldor just pointed out something to me...did you mean Sirach as in Sirach the elf (refering to a character) or Jeylu the Sirian elf? (refering to a race) ))

[Deleted]

aizar said:

hello5346 said:

"Now for the heavy one," Nuyto jumped to the rock besides the Sirach elf. "Good day!"

((Keldor just pointed out something to me...did you mean Sirach as in Sirach the elf (refering to a character) or Jeylu the Sirian elf? (refering to a race) ))

((Sorry, Sirian, the race. I'm such a failure...))

[Deleted]

Alovi waved at all the creatures around her. When see saw Sirach she quickly whispered to herself, "Yummy!" Sadly, Nuyto heard he and smacked her across the legs hard with his tail. She let out a quick gasp of pain. Nuyto gave her a stern look.

"Hello my fellow creatures! By the order of King Lynor of the Gyrindo lands, I demand to know who you are and what you are doing here in the mountains." Nuyto annouced to the group.

"Loosen up Nuyto, this is why you don't make a lot of friends." Alovi chiped in happily. She giggled again.

"Fine, if you want, can you tell more about yourself." Nuyto muttered bitterly.

[Aizar]

((meh, we all make typos))

Jeylu stared hard at the demon. "These are my tribes' lands," he said slowly. "We have always lived here. And we always will," he added threateningly.

[Kat]

"I don't come from around here," said Sirach. "My name is Sirach Vinth, and I live beside Mount Mairr with Maianna's family. My good friend here is Maianna, and she's a fire fairy. You should thank her for raising the alarm."

"Oh, please, it was nothing," said Mai modestly. "But do I get an all-expenses paid trip to the Volcano Valley? If so, take me there!"

The elf shoved her glowing shoulder. "Look, you can nix the orb now before you exhaust yourself again from showing off."

Maianna tossed back her long red hair and made the flaming orb disappear with one snap of her fingers. "As you say, Master," she replied in a mocking tone. "Anyway, who are you all and what are you doing here?"

[Deleted]

"We're just up here to get away from iit all down below," Alovi said, joking around. "Maybe we'll go to the beach, get a massage..."

"Alovi!" Nuyto cut in, "My name is Nuyto and my good friend here is named Alovi Marth. We were sent here to explore and maybe even catch recent disappearances in the mountains. Anyone know anything about it?"

[Keldor]

"If ye must know, I be with that durned gnome over there on some rediculous expedition to the north pole." Thaligar growled.

Gimbosh, who had finished setting up his alithographic photovarigational memeograph (some weird sort of gnomish automatic sketching device - to produce those scientific sketches of the demon), was now near enough to hear. "Now don't be rediculous! The expedition to the northern physical pole, in contrast to the northern magnetic pole, which has already been visited by a previous expedition, indeed confirming its seperation from the northern physical pole of which I speak, Is of great scientific importance. For instance, knowledge of the precise location of the northern physical pole will, through aggresive use of triangulation, increase the accuracy of what the layman could term the gnomish catapulting mail system, by allowing more precise calibration of the directional and velocity vectors of the catapultic arm of the, again using the laymen's term, catapultic mail system, by use of the angular location of various celestial objects, such as the sun. In addition, precise knowledge of the seperation of the northern physical pole from the northern magnetic, as well as the reletive direction in which one is offset from the other, will help to provide evidence to test the theory that the northern magnetic pole is in fact not stationary, but has shifted over the course of several hundards of thousands of years, as would be indicated by the polarity of the magnetism of various volcanic deposits, which is out of synchrony with that of the absolute magnetic field of the earth with which one would expect them to be aligned. Of course, there is another theory involving the geological alteration of the said volcanic deposits at some point of time after the time of magnitism, which is presumably equal to the time of eruption of the volcanic feature that produced the said deposit, thus transporting the specimen to a different location, thus with a different alignment with the global magnetic field. However, the fluctuations of the polerization of the magnetic field of the specimens would indicate that the specimen would have to have traveled a considerable distance, some thousands of miles, in the space between two eruptions of what appears from all other evidence to be a rather frequently erupting volcanic, perhaps with volcanic events mere years apart. This would mean that the said specimen would have to be dislocated from its prior position by as much as 100 miles per year, which, although theoretically possible, seems unlikely in view that such changes are not recorded, as one would expect that they would be by various merchants trying to find a specific location in the landmass that was displaced, anywhere in recent history. Another feature of interest is that the variations of the magnetic field of a given specimen corrilate with those specimens of a similar age found in disparate locations, which would indicate that these locations were also displaced in synchrony with the original location! Moreover, since various such specimens from any given time period may be found near just about any location across the world, one may infer that it is indeed the entire earth that has moved from its former position reletive to the magnetic field. However, due to Horvley's law, which states that in the case of two objects moving reletively to each other, with no clear reference point, that one may say that it is the small object moving with the large object stationary, this would indicate that it is really the magnetic field of the earth moving rather than the earth itself, since the earth is more massive than its magnetic field, which appears to have no mass whatsoever, an interesting property in itself. Even so, there is another view held by some that the earth is in fact the moving party, oweing to the fact that the magnetic field is larger than the earth, which my be observed by any compass which is elevated from the surface of the earth, regardless of its location, which indicates that the magnetic field in fact surrounds the entire earth, and is thus in fact the larger party..." Gimbosh began.

"Would ye just shut up!" shouted Thaligar, inturrupting the beginning of Gimbosh's speech.

[Kat]

Mai's eyes hovered over Gimbosh for a while before turning to Nuyto. "Mount Mairr is a nice, quiet mountain, which is actually a volcano, and trust me, nothing much happens there except for the few lava flows that don't even reach the halfway mark of the slope. Well, that mountain's not much. And we haven't seen anything except all of you and that huge avalanche."

[Aizar]

Jeylu was silent, ignoring the gnome talking at high speed at his elbow. "The disappearances came from my tribe. Or...some of them," he began hesistantly, and paused again. Gimbosh's speech filled the space in between. "We don't get many strangers up here in these mountains," Jeylu continued. "You six are the first outsiders I've ever seen. But a few weeks ago, a trader came, claiming he wanted to trade his..magic..for our furs and other 'authentic Sirian elf goods'. The medicine man thought that was odd, but the chief agreed..."

"His magic came in the form of many strange items. I have one here--" Jeylu pulled a head-sized object, wrapped tightly in leathers, out of his pack and set it carefully on the snow. "--There were toys and weapons and--and other things that made our lives easier in the cold mountains. The medicine man wouldn't have anything to do with them. But the rest of us claimed the trader's arrival was a good thing, or so we thought..."

"One day, people started disappearing. There were tracks in the snow, from their dwellings. Odd tracks. Like...like something had melted the snow as it went along. No one could tell what they had came from, even the medicine man."

"At this point, the trader claimed he had a good load of our goods, and was to return to wherever he came from. At that point in time, we greeted his departure wih lots of sad goodbyes and wished him well. The chief gave him the gift of our tribal friendship. The medicine man..was not very happy."

"More people disappeared. Some people began to distrust the magical items from the trader, claiming their arrival was in conjuncture with the dissappearances, and now shun them and those who use them in fear. It's..not a good time for the tribe."

"I and several of the young hunters have taken it upon our selves to track down whatever has been stealing our people in the night. A few more suspicious ones are looking for the trader, but he has disappeared just as mysteriously as our clansmen. I was on the scent of those monsters...or whatever it was that t-took my people...when you showed up. Now with the avalanche...I...have lost the trail." Jeylu bowed his head, staring at the bundle silently. He kicked at the snow once.

[Kat]

"Tell me then," said Sirach solemnly, gazing at the package with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity, "why do you keep that - whatever it is - all wrapped up like that? Is it dangerous in any way?" He sighed. "My parents were archeologists on an important investigation in these mountains. They found something...something really huge and important, but before they could tell anyone, they were killed."

Mai glanced at the elf once and crossed her finger discreetly on her chest, their code for keeping secrets.

"Maybe I can have a look," she began hesitantly. "I've dealt with much worse stuff than a little present like that."

[Aizar]

Jeylu shrugged. "It doesn't seem dangerous. But you never know with magic. You can unwrap it if you like." With his foot he nudged off a flap, revealing what appears to be a glass window pressed into a hunk of metal. There's lots of bumps and knobs. "This one--" Jeylu presses one of the bumps, and a multicolored light appears in the window. "--makes light, but it's really too dim to be used as a torch or anything. Another one of these bumps makes these silver leg things pop out and move around..."

[Keldor]

Gimbosh suddenly leaped forward. "A cathode ray tube telecommunicator! You're doing it all wrong, you have to set the device in a stable position before you press the seek button..." Gimbosh snatches the device away from Jeylu, and proceeds to set it on the ground (with the legs pointing upward, to Jeylu's confusion) and starts twisting knobs, flipping switches, and bushing buttons...

[Aizar]

((wow, Gimbosh said something intelligible! ))

Suddenly the picture in the window starts to clear, and something began to move inside. Jeylu watched, fascinated, as Gimbosh worked with the machine until his hands were a blur. Now the picture was intelligible, but either the light on the party's side was too dark or the picture itself was shadowy, and no one could tell what was moving. Jeylu wondered if Gimbosh had worked some strange kind of magic and given a life force to the machine when suddenly a booming voice crackled out of the machine speakers.

"K2-SE, do you copy? Why are you contacting me at this time of night? Speak, you detestible..." The voice stopped, as if just catching sight (and sound) of what it was communicating to on the other side. Then the picture went blank, quite suddenly, and the speakers began to buzz.

[Kat]

"What the - " Mai swore under her breath. "It's talking! I don't know if that should be a good sign or not."

"Let me try," said Sirach, inching forward despite Mai's suspicions, which he knew were almost always right. "Umm...this is K2-SE, do you copy, over? We are - " He paused, wondering if he should reveal their location and if he should stretch his lie. "We are unharmed. Actually, this isn't K2-SE. This is a random elf who just happened by your device thing. What's wrong?"

The fairy slapped her forehead. Sirach couldn't lie if his life depended on it. He was too honest.