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It was fun for a long time but towards the end it just started to drag

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I wish I could have joined in.

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Total Members Voted: 28

[wierd]

Nonchalantly, weird looked both ways in the infirmary's waiting room, and seeing it empty, deftly creeked open the "staff only!" Door to gizogin's office and workshop.

"You can't..." started X from the corner, electricity vanishing from between his fingers as he stood up.  "Oh, It's you."

"Can't what?" Asked weird, piqued.

"The door says "staff only." You would be surprised the number of fortress inhabitants that can't or won't read the sign." X sighed. "I was about to tell you that you couldn't be in here. Have you come to return my research notes? It's been two weeks. I processed your annotated and redacted document fully withing 36 hours, while performing complex waveform analysis and integral quadratic derivations on a new core design, in addition to my other duties. I have been wating patiently for your return. I had almost concluded that you had forgotten our agreement."

Weird shot the robot a scowl.

"I was just immersed head first into a fundamentally new form of physics, while also working on making raw materials for Eric. Its a bit hard to concentrate on waveguide designs while almost searing your lungs on nitrogen tetroxide. Some 'delay' is to be expected." He rebutted. "But despite those 'paltry distractions', we now have enough ETN, Nitro, and black powder stored up to blow up a small mountain. And I made some discoveries you might find interesting.  I even brought my research notes."

Weird smiled, and held up the collected, if disorganized bundle of paperwork, holding the pair of gloves against it with his thumb as he did so.

X's eyes sparkled in genuine interest.

[WillowLuman]

[Paintball gun would certainly be painful, but only with an eyeshot could it be potentially lethal, and then only potentially. And that's only for unarmored troops. I'm thinking it would be some kind of flechette gun that used compressed air to shoot sharp metal darts (flechettes.) They would need a very powerful but compact pump to reload the air if the weapons are to be practical, or else the smallest combat air rifle would be the size of a bazooka. It wouldn't be the kind of thing you could pump by hand. It needs a lot more air compression than a paintball bun because in warfare these things would need to pierce things like armor or dragonscale. To give you an idea, a standard pistol would not break the skin on a grizzly bear or an alligator. You'd need a rifle for those. Likewise, it would take advanced technology to make an air-powered assault rifle comparable to a modern ballistic one.]

Ninja edit:

HugoLuman started. He'd heard Wierd talking to the robot in the other room. Getting of the bed he limped over to the outside of the door and waited for a polite opportunity to interrupt.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

They could be improved to be lethal, but the main goal of the current generation is to deliver the Anti-Phyrexis gas and is specifically designed not to be lethal in order to save as many as possible from the grip of Phyrexis.

After the war, there could be an agreement to give those at the fort access to the non-letal era, as the dragons disarm themselves.  They maintain minimal military in peace in their efforts for true peace, but if threatened, the whole nation could rise up at once and form a grand army.

Hey Hugo, you would probably be more comfortable upon a pile of gold.  Dragons here are able to modify their body temperature, and you would probably like sleeping on molten gold in your current form.  There should be a small stash in Maectur's old room.

[Gizogin]

"Well, you have my notes.  They're less organized than I would like, but that's a small matter.  If I might ask, what are those gloves you're holding?  I'm picking up some very strange readings from them."  As he spoke, X walked over to the row of metal filing cabinets where he kept all his research.  Originally there had only been one, but as his experiments picked up, he found himself needing more and more space to store his notes.  Strictly speaking, he didn't need the filing cabinets at all, since he had more than enough memory space to store all his notes, but he found physical copies to be a comfort.  He walked over to the first in the line and opened up the bottom drawer.  Rifling through the folders within, he quickly found wierd's notes.  "Here you are," he said, handing over the bundle in exchange for his own notes.  "Now, about those gloves..."

[wierd]

If he did that, the gold that whicked into the crevises on his scales through capillary action would stand out all sparkly! If he wasn't having problems with klepto dwarves and kobolds before, he certainly would after!  Poor guy would be bald in a week!

-----

Weird smiled.

"Data speaks better than anecdotes." He chided playfully, and pointed at the hastily and sloppily recorded data log and napkin-back, hand-drawn henscratch schematic drawings he had included in the updated package.  "Since you are so quick on the uptake, it would greatly speed things up if you looked that over first."  Weird was practically beaming. Rubbing the robot's nose in it was a sadistic, if childish delight.

X simply raised an eyebrow, hesitated a second with a bemused expression, then began scanning the documents. The expression incrementally changing from bemusement to rapt curiosity as the seconds passed.  He examined the henscratch "mini-core, conversion mode prototype" drawing for several seconds, then spoke.

"Your handwriting and spelling are attrocious." X chided.

Weird raised an eyebrow in amusement.

"And your notes are poorly organized."

Weird laughed. Guilty, both counts.

"However, unless you have seriously bungled your data, this is indeed interesting." Said X, holding up the hand-drawn seal concept drawing. "I have never seen this before. I cannot interpret the data, despite your annotations. Could you please elaborate?"

Weird looked confused.

"I fully annotated that drawing. I admit that its a bit sloppy, but I assure you, it's completely defined. Even the sigils I invented for it!" Weird protested.

"The data appears to be incompatible with my cognative processes." Said X, his voice terse. "The information deletes itself from the processing queue shortly after being registered. I have scanned and attempted to process this diagram 1000 times before requesting assistance. I cannot retain an internal copy of this information."

"Whoah, hold up there. If you can't parse a litte drawing, its not my fault. That thing is fully annotated. I even included flag-notes to fill in the gaps! If you can't interpret it, its because your software is faulty or something."

X scowled. "I have run 10,000 self diagnostic cycles while you were talking. I cannot account for the deletion. I have attempted to store the information in protected memory. The value returns to blanked zeros shortly after recording. What is the source of this data?"

Weird was getting irritated. "It's a concentration circle. It's like a pictographic representation of a reaction and logical process. It's a mneumonic tool to assist in performing necromancy.."

"That might account for the data loss." Asserted X. "I managed to sneak a peek at Eric's stone slab, but I cannot recall what I saw. I know I have attempted 6 discrete times to accuire that information, but have been unable to. If this information is similar, this might be a related phenomenon."

"Maybe..." said weird. It was really odd that X couldn't even read the tablet. Then it hit him. X couldn't complete the contract, because he didn't have a soul! He was physically unable to contain the information! The idea made him laugh audibly.

"Is something funny?" Asked X irritably.

"The reason you can't process the data, is because you aren't really 'alive', in the traditional sense. The tablet can't be copied by any conventional means, and that includes you."

"Explain." Demanded X.

"I'm quite concernd that you tried to add necromancy to your skills list..." mused weird. "But I'm glad you failed. You need a soul to use necromancy. No exceptions. The information isn't stored in your head. It gets stored in your core being. No offense, but you're software, cogs, gears, and wires. Just like I can't factor the square root of 'e' to 2000 places as a trivial matter, you just don't have the needed components it seems."

"Frustrating..." mused X under his breath. "No matter. I an curious to double-check your recorded data. Your research notes have recorded an interesting phenomenon related to the activity of the G-core and this unprocessable information. I might be able to store inferrences concerning the other factors of the process."

"So, you want me to use the gloves?" Weird asked.

"Not exactly. I want you to use one of the gloves, and leave one here for analysis."

"If you think you can solve the power regulation problem, be my guest... but I wouldn't put it on, or put it on a non-necromancer. The energy it produces is potentially dangerous."

"As you pointed out, I do not posess a "soul". The annotations you have elsewhere in your notes suggests that the function of the unprocessable pictogram is to redirect energy of some kind, and notes that the core becomes saturated with that energy. I lack the feature that would be damaged."

"Well, if you put it on, and short circuit, that's your problem."

"Weird! You don't really mean that!" Coughed hugo, interrupting.

[WillowLuman]

HugoLuman was concerned by what he heard. Wierd and Gizogin X had been collaborating on something while he'd been indisposed. He trusted Wierd's intentions, and knew that Wierd must be trusting the android's, but he didn't like the idea of this proliferation. Had it stopped here? Had everyone found out about the books? He had to know. He was too tired and bleary-headed to bother with proper judgement about when to be cautious and when to interrupt, anyway.

"Elaborate on what?"

[Gizogin]

"Oh, for the love of..." Gizo X said as he saw the enormous dragon's head poking through the doorway.  "Does nobody read the sign?"

[WillowLuman]

"I don't recall there being any employees in this entire fort. If we've adopted currency in the past 2 weeks, well, that would be different. Anyway, going to be blunt here, how much do you know?"

[wierd]

[Ninjad x2. Ninja edit!]

[Gizogin]

"I know a great deal.  It would take far too long to explain even a fraction of the knowledge I hold, though I suspect you know that already.  As such, I can only assume you are referring to the discussion wierd and I were just having, in which case I cannot answer you.  That information is highly sensitive, and it is not my place to decide who has access to it."

Even as Gizo X said this, weird and Hugo were having a heated discussion, and didn't seem to hear him.

[Ninja edit so it fits in with wierd's post]

[wierd]

"Damnit!" Weird shouted, startled by hugo's unnannounced ingress and intrusion on the conversation.

"Weird, what did you tell him?" Hugo demanded tersely. "I want to know right now."

Weird felt like a fly stuck to flypaper. He thought about it very carefully.

"Remember the redacted "research notes" we were making?" He asked finally.

"What about them?" Asked hugo irritably. His golden, lidless eyes were difficult to endure.

"You were seriously fucked up when they drug you in here..." weird started. "I had no choice but to expose the secret. You were bleeding way too much. I don't think you would have survived without the intervention. It turns out that X here has a secret too. In exchange for his silence, we exchanged secrets. Unless he says its OK, I can't tell you more than that all he got from me were the redacted notes. I denied his request for the original material."

[WillowLuman]

"How many people witnessed the healing magic? Are the books safe? Did you come up with an excuse, and did anyone buy it?"

[Gizogin]

Gizogin heard all the shouting coming from his office, and saw Hugo's body sticking out of the door.  He sighed, realizing he wouldn't be able to get back in until they were done arguing.  With that, he set off for the dining hall to get something to drink.

[wierd]

Weird winced.

"2 others." He forced himself to utter, almost croaking.  "Olli, and.....eric-- but he only saw the results."

"Eric!?" Shouted hugo. "The books! Where are the books!?"

"Safe." Weird responded. "I don't rightly know 'exactly' where they are, and that's why they are safe. I involved a 3rd party that appears immune to eric's jedi mind tricks, but didn't tell him what I gave him. I ensured they couldn't be seen or read. That's as best as I can say."

[WillowLuman]

"And you are absolutely sure that they're secure? Or at least reasonably confident?"