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Yes

4 (14.3%)

No

1 (3.6%)

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

6 (21.4%)

I wish I could have joined in.

17 (60.7%)

Total Members Voted: 28

[WillowLuman]

[Jerry isn't exactly "one of us." The reason he's not coming will be apparent when the meeting happens. We'll write it tomorrow.]

[Reudh]

[Raws indicate that females do not, in fact, have beards.]
[Wait, didn't Kenozi have stone eyes in the first place, and Reudh just made them functional?]

HugoLuman approached Eric. "We need to talk," he said.

"This about that tower again? I thought you told me about it yesterday."

"Sort of... but we need to talk. All of us, I mean. Private meeting, as soon as possible."

[Females do not have beards in DF, but like you said, there is almost no dimorphism. The only way to tell would be by looking at the dwarf and if they have no beard, they are likely female (or are female impersonators.)]

[I just looked back through the thread at Kenozi's introduction, and yes... Kenozi's eyes were made of stone and were attached to his optic nerve; but Reudh made them functional. Bit of an error in my storytelling then.]

[As for the meeting, Kenozi is not invited, but he is trying to find some of the forumites, especially the magically knowledgeable ones. He might stumble in on it?]

[If we don't have a shortage of dwarf women, would the forumites be able to overcome their "NOT A WOMAN" instinct? I think perhaps not.]

[Gizogin]

[I beat the water temple!  Dark Link wasn't too bad, but I kept accidentally stabbing him and he jumped on my sword.  The whole thing only took me, what, two hours?   Fire temple next.]

[Anyway, I'm debating whether or not to cut to Lana's POV.  I think it might be better to do so, but that means I need to figure out what she's doing.]

[wierd]

[I usually sequence break in OoT, enter the fire temple first. You need the hookshot from the hyrule graveyard, adult link. Dampe's ghost has it. The hammer item from the fire temple mashes dark link flat in water temple. He cant stand on it. Farore's wind comes in really handy in the desert temple... Naryu's love is a must later in the game, but it feels like cheating. IIRC, Farore's wind is in the frozen zora lake, on the small island to the right. Bomb the wall. Naryu's love is found near the desert colossus. Naryu's love makes you temporarily invulnerable to all enemy attacks, even gannon's. It, and blue potions will make the final boss fight a snap.]

[OK, Back on topic, Time to introduce Keshan and Themor-- Flame, and Boil, respectively. Time for a little gender politics....]

[wierd]

Everyone seemed to know where the two brewers were, and everyone had their own opinions on their chances of success, but they had wished him luck with getting something drinkable out of the items he was carrying all the same, and directed him where he needed to go.

Tucked away in one of the corners of the perimeter wall, near the lumber pitch, was a motley assortment of some of his and Rikod's glazed clay pots, scavanged copper cold-formed into hasty tubing and funnels, and two curious looking dwarves, clearly arguing with each other. Over what exactly he couldn't say.

"Hey there!" he said, approaching with his burdens. "Are you the brewers?"

The two burly and beardless dwarves looked at each other, then smiled broadly. "Depends on who's a askin' lad!" they said almost predatorially.

"That one's kinda fancy--" one of them said to the other with a smile.
"But the beard's so short..." whispered the other back furtively.

"Uhm...." said wierd totally at a loss for what they were talking about. "I brought some stuff for making alcohol..."

"Didja now?" Asked the first one rhetorically. The dwarf had frizzy red hair tied up in a long puffy braid. The other was completely bald with a shiny dome for a head. "well, Let's see whatcha got there boy."

'boy?' he wondered to himself in confusion. He looked side to side and raised an eyebrow, smirked slightly, and offered the honey locust pods, and the root rhizome up onto what settled as a work table, fashioned hastily from a section of downed tree drug away from the lumber pitch.

"What's THAT?" the two of them asked before looking at each other, then back at him.

Wierd smiled broadly. "Cattail root, and Honey Locust pod."

The two blinked, and look him with deeper incredulity. "...What?" the two said in unison.

"Here... Let me show you.." he said with a smile and a nod. The two dwarves raised their hands, and motioned toward the table, gesturing to 'Have at it.'  "You have a knife?" he asked politely. They clearly did, as the rough wooden surface had many plant juice stained cut marks in its surface. Clearly, these two had been experimenting feverishly all day. The bald one reached behind and pulled out a copper knife, clearly cold formed as well, due to the less than spectacular workmanship and stiffness in the metal. It would do though. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." the two said, supressing giggles.

Something was clearly strange about these two.

He decided to cut into the honey locust pods first, filleting the the pod, and opening it up like a book, then picking out the seeds.

"This is a honey locust pod." he said almost academically, but was cut off.

"So you said love."

...'love?'.. Wierd began to feel a bit uncomfortable, and could feel the color rising in his cheeks. This seemed to only embolden the bizzare behavior of the duo, who commenced belly laughing.

"What?" he asked crassly. Whatever kind of strange perverts these two were, he REALLY needed booze, and that meant he had to just deal with it.

"Oh nothing, Nothing at all--- You were saying?"

Wierd's eyebrow twitched in displeasure, and a wry half-smirk, half-snarky expression crossed his face, as he scraped the knife edgewise down the splayed open pod, gathering a thick brown glob of goo on the edge of the copper knife.

"Honey locust pods, contain an epic shitton of raw sugars. The inner pulp tastes a little bit like honey, which is where it gets its name... See?"

"That nasty lookin brown shite?" the bald one said incredulously. "Looks like something I might scrape from my boot."

"Cant help what it looks like-- erh.... I didnt catch your names."

The red haired one spoke up. "They call me Keshan, and this one Themor." The bald one straightened, smiled, and preened a little at the mention of the second name.

Wierd nodded politely at the names. "Keshan, Themor... I'm Wierd."

The pair looked at each other with that secret agenda glance again.
"That's a strange name.." Keshan said with a smirk. "Does it mean something?"

Wierd smiled almost obscenely. "It means 'Strange' or 'Unusual'." The irony of the question, coupled with the answer was too delicious to not smile over.

The pair cackled and laughed again, like a pair of old women. He really wasnt sure what to make of them.

"Aye, Ifn ye say so!" Keshan managed to croak between fits of laughter.

"If you are finished laughing at me now-- " wierd said cooly, but with the wry smile still on his face, "You can taste for yourself. The pulp is pefectly edible. Here--" He scooped off a finger sample of the goop from off the knife edge, and popped it in his mouth while offering the knife edge to the really odd pair. Sure enough, Sugary sweet.  The two dwarves looked hesitantly at each other, then each took a small dip, and tasted. their eyes brightened almost immediately.

"I bet we could make RUM out of that!" Keshan said to Themor enthusiastically.

"What else you got?!" the bald one, Themor, demanded right on Keshan's heels.

"Cattail roots." wierd said bemusedly. "LOADED with starches."

"Go on...."

[I would like to take this opportunity to point out..  SLOOOOW!]

-----

That had quite possibly been one of the most unsettling and disturbing moments in his life. Could dwarves be gay? The two he had just dealt with certainly had ....something... fruity going on with them.  Regardless, they had taken a sharper interest in the unusual food products he had dug up, and with any luck, they would have a few pots of brew cooked up in the next few days.  The "forest rum" would go faster than the "river brew", because of the simplicity of the sugars involved.

He had just settled into the large straw basket's shoulder hoops again when Hugo managed to catch him.

[There. If anyone was waiting on me.]

[WillowLuman]

[Everyone who feels like it can write their way to the meeting, I don't want to interrupt whatever you might be doing in story. Otherwise, you just show up.]

[Reudh]

Kenozi walked around and around, before espying a huge dragon. He recognised this dragon as Hugo, one of the forumites.


"Hugo, I need to ask you something about Reudh--"

"Ah, Kenozi." the dragon rumbled. "Could you go get him for me? I need to speak to him privately."

Good enough, Kenozi thought.

So, Kenozi left Hugo alone, and went back to find Reudh, who was hauling the fruit haul back to the fort.

"Reudh, Hugo wants to see you privately. You need to go to him."

Reudh nodded. He knew something important when he heard it.

I don't doubt Hugo could detect us. Archie supplied.

Reudh turned a little shade paler, then went into the fort, lugging the fruit with him.

"Hugo, you wanted to see me?"

[Gizogin]

X found Gizogin in the main hospital area, where he'd been when X had seen him last.  "Hey, have you seen Lana anywhere?" he asked.

"No, why?  I thought she was helping you."

"She was.  Then she disappeared somewhere."  Strictly speaking, he hadn't lied.  He just hadn't told the whole truth.  "Ah well, I'm sure she's around."  He set off in the direction of the entrance to the fortress proper.  Before he made it more than halfway, he was intercepted by a young-looking dwarf.

"Message for you," the dwarf announced.  "From that big dragon fellow.  He says there's to be a meeting for all, uh, somethings.  It was a funny word, farmer-knights?"

"Forumites?" X prompted.

"Yeah, that.  Meeting for all forumites, that's what he said."

"A meeting?  Did he say what about?"

"No, all he said was what I told you.  I'd look for him if I wanted more information.  I think I saw him down in the tunnels," he said, before running off, no doubt delivering more news.  X processed this new bit of information.  What did Hugo have in mind?  Whatever it was, it was sure to be important.  He fished out his comms crystal and called Gizogin.  X quickly relayed the message, and told Gizogin to head over to the fortress entrance at once.

[I don't think Lana's going to be able to attend.  Even if she could be found and asked, she'd assume that X would be there and refuse to go.]

[Also, it's Spirit Temple time!  I'll probably tackle it tomorrow.  I got the Giant's Wallet, Nayru's Love, the Biggoron Sword, and a whole bunch of other stuff today, because I have a pathological hatred of going directly from one major objective to another.]

[wierd]

[Mirror shield, sunlight, skulltullas, and giant lizard people ahoy! Farore's wind comes in handy. Lots of backtracking, and the potential of falling off of high places, only to have to go through lots of rooms again if you screw up. The warppoint magic is really handy. I don't know if they fixed the bug on the 3ds version or not, but on the N64 version you could replace the USELESS biggoron sword claimcheck with a fully functioning bottle! You just have to be good at slight of hand! Basically, use an empty bottle to scoop a fairy, then before link catches it, jump into the menu and set that C menu item slot to the claim check. The game will overwrite the claim check with a bottled fairy, and leave the original bottle alone! Whee!]

[WillowLuman]

[I'd want Lana to attend.]

"Oh, good, you're here. Just wait a minute while the others show up, will you?" The dwarven child returned. He was the same one that had poked Hugo 2 days ago, now repaying his debt. "Will you go see if you can find Lana and that mummy? It's important for both of them to be here as well."

[Your call whether she actually shows up, Gizogin.]

[Gizogin]

Lana was sitting on the bank of the river, watching leaves drift lazily along.  All through her childhood, she'd been unnerved by running water.  Still water was fine, and she wasn't a bad swimmer in a pool or lake, but she'd never been able to go swimming in even a shallow stream without being overcome with trepidation.  There were other things, too.  Her flaming red hair, shared by absolutely no-one else in her family.  Her inability to form lasting friendships.  The way cats seemed to seek her out.  Then, on the morning of her seventh birthday, she'd woken up to find herself on the roof.

She kept it a secret from everybody.  That had been a trick in itself, having to find ways to explain how she kept turning up in the strangest places, including, on more than one occasion, on the wrong side of a locked door.  Then her magic came in, and she had more secrets to keep.  She practiced in private, sneaking away to an old abandoned house in her neighborhood to work on her spells.  She grew more distant from everyone, from her schoolmates to her own family.  Even so, she managed to hold up her double-life for a few years, growing stronger with each passing week.  Eventually, however, her power began to attract attention.

The attacks started small.  An imp ambushed her when she was fifteen.  Then another six months later.  More and more minor magical creatures were drawn to her, like moths to a flame.  Finally, a lesser demon attack when she was seventeen forced her to realize the truth; she was going to be dealing with these attacks forever, unless she did something to stop them.  She called to her father, the demon Ngedlu.

Ngedlu had appeared before her in the form of a sharply-dressed man in his mid forties, with the addition of a pair of massive scorpion tails sprouting from his back.  She hadn't known, upon summoning him, that he was her father; at that point, she still believed herself fully human.  She'd picked up the name from a book of major demons, where it had stood out to her for some reason.  In truth, Ngedlu had manipulated events in such a way that Lana would learn of him and summon him.  It was then his intention to corrupt her to serve him, his half-human champion in the mortal realm.

He'd explained everything to her, from the details of her condition to the way in which he'd tricked and seduced her mother all those years ago.  He had then extended an invitation to serve him.  Lana, contrary to his expectations, had refused him.  Ngedlu's anger had been incandescent, but Lana had dismissed the summons before he could strike her down.  She had the information she needed; once she knew why she was being targeted, she knew how to stop it.  Then she had run away from home.

She'd traveled across the land for a while, never staying in one place for too long.  She would find a town with a resident wizard and study under him for a time, then pack up and move on.  It hadn't always been easy; bandits and bogeymen had troubled her almost from the outset.  One town had found out that she was a cambion and tried to burn her at the stake.  So it came to be that she found her way to this fortress, and to the brother she'd left behind.  And now this robot of his was going to take it all away again.

An approaching dwarf boy drew Lana out of her thoughts.  "Message for you, from Hugo," he said.  "He says he needs to see you for a group meeting as soon as possible."

"Group meeting?" she asked.  "Who else will be attending?"

"All the forumites, and a few other 'special friends' like you and that swearing mummy."

"Does that include X?  I don't want to see his stolen face again anytime soon."

"Gizo X?  Yeah, he's going," the boy confirmed.  Lana swore at the news.  "Shall I, uh, tell Hugo you won't be going?"

She sighed.  "No, I'll go.  I doubt Hugo would call a meeting if it weren't important.  Lead the way."

[Oof, I typed a lot there.  Now I'm going to bed.  Lana's going to the meeting, but she's not happy about the prospect of seeing X again so soon.]

[WillowLuman]

Everyone that had been called had turned up. Even, to his slight surprise, Lana, though he noticed she avoided looking at X. Roead was mumbling about what an overgrown gecko could have to say that was so bloody important. "Thank you all for coming," began HugoLuman. "During our trip yesterday, we made an important discovery. I don't know how many of you might already have been told, but ever since we came to this world, we've had an enemy. The one responsible, in fact, for our being brought here."

"Well, those of us not actually from this world in the first place," interjected Reudh.

HugoLuman politely paused, seemingly ignoring the interruption. "This enemy of ours watches our every move, and seems to want to see each and every one of us come to a sticky end. I suspect it wants 'Fun.' It works through subtlety, bad luck and random misfortune. Things far too small to notice but which eventually add up. It will probably try to work at our sanity, turning us against each other or trying to cause a tantrum spiral. Which is why it is important that we all must trust each other. Completely. If any of you have any secrets, now is the time to put them in the open. We can't afford to have anything that could make us mistrust each other."

[wierd]

Weird groaned, then spoke up.

"I used forbidden magic to create a horrible chicken monster." He said, carefully slipping partway out of his suit to gain access to the bacpack, and remove the adorable pidgeon sized creature to display.

"He seems perfectly tame, but he eats like a monster, and has been growing like a weed. I have no idea how big he will get. I created him after we were sieged by dragons 3 weeks ago. I thought we could use an ace on the hole if we needed one, assuming we survived, which we did."

Murmurs in the crowd told him that he should hurry up, so the next guitly party could take the floor.

"The magic I used came from Thari's tower, but I was not in the correct frame of mind at the time. That has since changed, and I have sealed that magic away, such that not even I can easily get to it. I did this because I do not trust that the magic could be properly used, but is too valuable to destroy. I don't trust even myself with it, as I have already misused it to create peepers.  I am fully responsible for his creation, and will suffer any consequence of his existence. I will kill him, if and when it should be shown necessary."

He heaved a deep breath. He hated being on the hotbox.

"There. I'm clean.  Who's next?"

[Reudh]

Reudh stood up shakily.

I do not mind you telling the forumites all about me, but I will oppose them any way I can if they try and remove me from you, for my existence is entirely dependent on being attached to yours.

"I... I am sure some of you have noticed I've been acting a bit strangely lately. I am pretty sure Wierd is aware something's up. I don't doubt X could've detected it if I'd been around him long enough.

"You all have seen my prowess with stoneworking. It's because... well, long ago, I had a desire to become the best mason the world had seen, and in my mountainhome masons were hard to come by.

"I snuck into the restricted section of our fort's library, for I had heard of a book that contained information on how to work stone well. I took a stone and cut its leather binding, read it; and after that I could shape stone with nought but a thought and a bit of elbow grease. Some of the harder crafts required saliva to aid it. I tried to avoid that..."

"Get to the point, Reudh!" Wierd said, not unkindly. He was standing in a position of great interest, with his little chicken monster curiously looking around.

"Y-yes. I continued crafting un-molested; everyone around me exclaimed how much better my crafting was; nearly at artifact level. I was given a larger room. More space. When some obsidian was found, it was sent to my room laboriously bit by bit until I had enough to craft anything I wished.

"Then, something bad happened. What I remember of it was that there was a brilliant black flash and the obsidian gleamed; three dwarves passing my room were taken into the stone, and I shrank back horrified. The dwarves had been sucked inside.

"For using this ancient masonry skill that was actually forbidden, I was sentenced to Forced Ejection. I've still got my papers, if any of you want to see them. Basically; I was hog tied by the guardsmen, paraded around the fort, then catapulted away. It is only sheer dumb luck that I landed in our local featherwood forest rather than the Carp Lake; that would've been a bad death. As it was I was badly injured by the fall.

"I left the fort, travelled through the land, and finally found you all as you attacked the weres and elves. One of Corai's minions, I forget who, gave me a boulder; and I crafted it into a cinnabar hammer; the one I have slung on my belt here.

"Anyway, getting to the point... not much has occurred since then. I gave Kenozi sight by making his eyes functional... and I've refrained from using my skills. Ironblood saw me and warned me not to use it much; and so I refrained from using it at all.

"Shortly after Othob took ill with the ngumrash fever, I ate some coffee beans. I abruptly felt another mind touch mine, and it briefly taunted me before leaving me alone.

"It comes and goes; it has now reached full maturity. It introduced itself to me as the seventy-eight manifestation of the Architectinomicron; it supplies me with the power and magic I need to perform my masonry. I call it Archie. By the way, Kenozi is fully aware of it; with his permission Archie went to his mind and spoke with him; slightly reshaping his stone eyes into a better fit for his head as a gesture of goodwill.

"I am not sure Archie is entirely servile to me: for all intents and purposes it feels simply like another sentient being in its mind. It manifests itself to me as the Architectinomicron with a human mouth."

Be sure to tell them of my binding of myself to only feed on that which overflows, and suggest to them the butchery method I devised for sating myself.

"Reudh, we really must know the danger of this Archie." This was Eric.

Stammering slightly from anxiety, Reudh spoke again.
"A-A-Archie requires life force to power his magic."

Wierd just about leapt in the air.

"I knew it! I knew something was wrong with you! I knew something was affecting you!" he shouted at the little dwarf.

"Wierd... I spoke with Archie regarding this. He bound himself to only be able to feed off 'that which overflows'; that is, when I feel healthy, or for that matter any of you, your life force is flowing at 110% strength. Archie takes a small amount, perhaps 5% to feed himself. Those of you with magic can block that, I don't doubt, but it will irritate Archie and might cause me slight to severe pain. I'm going to ask Archie to refrain from siphoning those who have no magic to block him unless they give express permission.

"The feeling when Archie feeds is strange. I asked for that hen-of-the-woods, Wierd, because Archie told me it was highly nutritious and would put me into a range where he could safely siphon off a bit of life. When Archie feeds, you feel the world very slightly dim for a second and your jubilance and feeling of well being diminish a tiny bit. It poses no harm to you, and Archie has bound himself to not be able to feed enough to reduce anyone below their normal level of health. He can examine you with your permission and judge how well your life force flows; in Kenozi's case he functions currently at 95% strength; not yet fully recovered from his injuries, but more or less so.

"I know that he is neither malevolent nor benevolent; his ends are his own and he sells a service to me that I pay with life force. As I said, he can feed on any of you, but he would ask your permission first and would only do so if I was too weak to be able to feed him. He says that if denied feeding for more than six to eight months, he would grow desperate and lash out blindly to keep his spark alive. This could result in the death of someone in the fort, so I am going to try to keep myself as robustly happy and healthy as possible to keep Archie sated.

"He suggests that he be used as a humane method of slaughtering livestock, if any we have or have in the future. He did not bind himself with the same vows with animals. He would drain all of their life force in one fell swoop, keeping him sated for a few months, giving the animal a painless and instant death."

"I think that's all I know about him; all I can add is that he is not on our side; he's best described as a neutral party."

Thankyou, Reudh. You argued my point very well.

"I hope none of you try to evict him; without him I am no more than any other dwarf."

Reudh shivered, then sat down.

[Oliolli]

"So do you think it's possible?"
"Probably, I just need time."
"Or we'll get lucky and... the people at the Twelfth Bay have already invented it. Can you send the infiltration group instructions on what to search for?"
The caster cracked his knuckles and stretched his fingers. Horrigan never asked for anything else than messages being sent. Got a bit dull after a while, but it didn't matter.
"Just keep in mind, as long as I'm looking for a route to spell immunity I can't work on those magic items for mobile communications you asked for."
Horrigan clenched his fists. That would mean it would take longer for them to be created, thus he would have to ask the caster for help more often.
"Just send the damn message."

The caster turned around. He was getting better and better at these messages. Even if Horrigan didn't like magic, he at least knew how it could be used in new and exciting ways. He shut his eyes and concentrated on the air in front of him. He let the magic flow, feeling the individual molecules of air zipping around him. After a moment of concentration he could recognize the vibrations in the molecules caused by sound waves. These were what he was looking for. He raised his hands and formed what could only be described as a magical envelope, ready to record any disturbances. He then explained the idea of magical immunity and some details for how something like that could be recognized. The words moved through the air, and were saved in the magical envelope. Once he was ready, he sealed the message and feeled out of the base. Far out, into the vicinity of the Twelfth Bay, where a group of dwarves were trekking. Seemed like a group of typical immigrants. The caster knew better. With a thought, he sent the envelope out to the group. As it reached them, the sound waves saved in the envelope poured out, and explained what needed doing. The rest was up to the infiltration group.

Later that evening a group of twelve dwarves arrived at the fort as a group of immigrants. A miner, two farmers, a fisher, a cheesemaker, two jewelers, two masons, a butcher and two woodcutters.