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[Reign on your Parade]

And then I didn't even manage to get Paradoxes BACK. They just added onto my portfolio, giving me suicide as well. I AM going to get Phil back for that, I know he drugged me into that depression.... I'm sorry, was I ranting again?

[AlanL]

It's fun reading the RP   :p
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Blitukus spoke, "Thank you Dracha, I needed to laugh." Dracha replied, "Well what are friends for? After what you've been through you're welcome to any kind of support you need. It's really the least I can do." They smiled at each other. Blitukus spoke, "Knowing that I have a true friend in these times is quite a lot in itself." Dracha replied, "I'm glad I have a friend as well, gets kinda lonely sittin' around on a glacier by yerself y'know.... I guess we should just put it behind us." Blitukus nodded, "Yes, but, they killed my mother... I may have avenged her, but I have still yet to speak my last words to her... I have retrieved new technology, and designed a new machine to allow me to send signals into the heavens." Dracha replied, "What a coincidence!" Blitukus tilted his head a bit, "What coincidence?"  Dracha continued, "I'm puttin' together a new set of runes to pick up on messages hidden within astral vibrations! What you've planned sounds like the technology equivalent." Astral vibrations? If his mother were to try to contact him... it would be more direct that way. Blitukus found a new reason to be grateful for his friendship with Dracha. Blitukus spoke, "Good luck, and listen carefully, please. I do not know the inner workings of the heavens, but if anyone should try to contact me... please tell me." Dracha replied, "Sure thing! I guess we should get started then... maybe when I take a break sometime I'll come over to visit again." Blitukus nodded, "I look forward to that. Until then... we both have much work to do." Dracha nodded and waved, "Good luck on your end as well." Blitukus waved back as Dracha parted. Blitukus walked back to the armored vehicle, and took the remaining plump helmet back to the food barrels.... he found the barrel he was placing it in was nearly empty. Blitukus sensed a mistake had been made. He opened all the barrels and looked in... a bag of seeds, a few bits of food.... other than that, empty, empty, empty.

   

Meat: None
Fish: None
Plant: 3
Drink: None
Other: None

Blitukus grumbled under his breath... in his pursuit of industry, he had neglected the other side of a civilizations productivity... agriculture. Indeed, the farm room was bone dry and had nothing growing within but a spiders web. Luckily, it was still early spring, and there were several seeds. In an emergency, he could cook these seeds and eat them... but it didn't look like it would result in a tasty meal, considering they were fungus spores. When he had first struck the cliff face... he knew nothing of farming, and now he had a sufficient knowledge to pass as a grower... but not enough to earn any title of merit in it. It would still do. Blitukus pulled the lever, opening the farm room to the river. The water from the river was taken in by the floodgate, flooding the room, washing away the spiders web. Blitukus pressed the lever back, and the floodgates closed, the water rapidly soaking into the ground. For the first time in a long time, the dust had now become moist soil once again. He tilled the soil, and planted the spores. He thought about the balance of industry, production en masse, gadgetry and technology... and old fashioned, simple agriculture. The dwarves had, in their desire to exploit, created a large industrial base... but at the cost of polluting and corrupting the environment around them. Production en masse, especially with the use of steam generating loops, actually reduced the environmental toll of production when used efficiently and wisely... but if it were to be used for the sole intent of power and wealth, used without heed to its effects and costs... the friendly and familiar grasslands and lakes could become wastes of soot and sludge. Technology was an amplifier of the will of its user... for better or for worse. Which direction would the humans take it? The humans were, historically, a fairly neutral species... there were some instances of honest bravery and dedication... as well as some instances of corruption and apathy. Fale had instilled a sense of morality in the humans, and they saw for themselves the results of abusing technology... they could be trusted, for now. He remembered the book "The Worlds Easiest Atom Smasher", the vast dedication of a vast civilization... civilization would still be alive and thriving in 1991, the people well and educated enough to develop such exotic theories. A bright future was ahead... but still, times change. He remembered the nightmare he had had that one night... the explosion in utopias metropolis, buildings shattered, vehicles thrown... what would happen after 2000? Blitukus sighed. He couldn't think of a way to change, or even predict the events of the third millennium... it was beyond his influence. But, the ones who committed the atrocities in that dream... they were not humans... they were demons. Likely the whole dream was just generated, none of it a true prediction of the future. Hopefully.

Blitukus finished planting the last seed, and walked down the tunnels. In the book "Of Electromagnetism", he read about the conductivity of metals... copper was a decently efficient metal for carrying energy, but silver, despite its rarity, was even more effective... in fact, aside from a note about adamantine "predicted to have no resistance to energy flow whatsoever", silver was the best conductor. Right in front of Blitukus, a large vein of galena, an ore containing silver along with decent amounts of lead. Since Blitukus didn't need to armor anything with steel, and the wave generator would be a stationary structure, he could build the majority of it out of bronze. He walked back and reviewed his design. The actual generator itself was relatively simple, consisting of a few electrical components... large components designed to handle large amounts of power, that would modulate a waves amplitude by the input then amplify the result. This device was also meant to work in reverse, disassembling a modulated wave back into its components... in theory allowing audio to be transmitted and received. But, although it seemed relatively straightforward to transfer electrical waves to air waves due to the motion of wires and magnets in a changing field, he knew of no way to make a device sensitive enough to air flow to transfer audio to electrical waves. He would be able to listen, but only able to speak in pulses, on or off. The wave itself would oscillate at an enormous rate... nearly 2 billion cycles per second... but the encoded wave, the wave that would be modulated into it, could very well be in the audible range. In order to be sensitive enough to receive any reply, it would follow the same principle as the reflecting telescope... a dish would reflect the energy waved into another reflector, which would focus them on a receiver beneath the dish. This dish would have to be very large, and heavy. Only the force of steam could conveniently aim the machine. He included two large pistons per axis to aim the dish on a ball joint, levers controlling steam flow allowing Blitukus to aim the dish. The assembly would be mechanically linked to a chair where Blitukus would sit, causing the chair to point in the same direction as the dish. Mounted on the chair would be an optical telescope, just big enough for Blitukus to get a closer look at what he would be speaking to. The wires insulation and mirrors as well would need glass to make... green glass would do for insulation, but for the purposes of the telescope, the glass would have to be made much purer, preferably crystal glass. Pearlash was out of the question, and the only rock crystal he had seen was located on the opposite end of the magma flow... green glass would have to do. Blitukus did have magma to fuel his glass making, and that meant that he wouldn't have to worry about smoke from fuel getting into the glass though. Luckily, as far as bronze went, the dish substrate would be pouned very thin, meaning there wasn't much metal required for that. The whole project would take 5 steel bar stacks, 14 bronze bar stacks, 4 stacks of silver bars, and 5 good chunks of cut glass. Magnetite and the other materials he would need were embedded in stone and could be smelted out from the ore. Luckily, not much was needed, and there was a vein of stone he had previously not identified before as magnetite.

He would start with the steel first, as in order to make a magma glass furnace, he would need steel. First, he retrieved his pickaxe and walked back down to the exhausted vein, and dug through the stone, laden with the previously ignored minerals and magnetite. He noticed a deposit of rock crystal in the wall... but he could get by with green glass. He had a feeling he should save it for when he really needed it, as it was a limited resource. He continued digging through the stone, crossing a platinum vein, coming to encounter a large amount of hematite where he previously thought there was little. He dug out 6 lumps, and took a break to eat. It was the third to last plump helmet... he had faith that his farm would yield food before he had to resort to cooking and eating the fungus spores. He brought 3 lumps of hematite back to the smelter, melting them down into iron, stopping to drink. When he finished, he walked back down the tunnels, to the coal, and dug out 3 lumps of it, bringing them back, processing the large, heavy lumps into 2 stacks of coke bars each. He let out a deep breath. He worked the furnace with efficiency and skill, and worked with a precision that would've made his former teacher proud. He had survived for 3 years on this frozen glacier, and had become skilled in many fields... all in the name of being with his mother... one last time.  He continued, digging along the cave river, unearthing more limestone to use. He then brought it back, converting the molten iron to molten pig iron, using the coke as a carbon source. He then hauled the rest of the hematite back, and, using up most of the rest of the limestone, smelted the hematite into the pig iron, adjusting the carbon content to make steel. He remembered how those years ago, he had produced his first steel, he was so proud of his accomplishments that he hugged the bars... and now it was becoming a process he took for granted. It was only a means to an end, even though it was marvelous in its own way. As Blitukus worked, the plump helmets matured, and mature mushrooms began cropping up on the fields. At the moment, food was more important. Blitukus got to a stopping point with what he was doing, and stopped to pick the mushrooms, storing them as they cropped up. He planted another row after picking 3, seeing as he would need to rebuild his stockpile of food. He stopped for a drink, then kept picking them. The night had worn on, and the sun was rising. When he had picked all that had grown, he found he had quite enough food to last for a while. He had reversed his food problem... now it was time to maybe finish making steel, if his drowsiness didn't get to him first. Just before finishing... he felt his drowsiness get to him. He found a new sense of how even though the resources of the mountain were vast... they were limited, and botching a steel recipe would be a waste of those resources. He left the metal simmering, and went off to bed, studying and perfecting his designs for a few minutes, then putting the book down, letting himself fall asleep. That day, he found himself in the same dream he had the last time... the puzzle of the universe, beautiful in every way, sitting nearly complete before him. He felt he must complete the puzzle, and unveil the full picture of the universe... but again, no matter how he tried, no matter how clever he was in his attempts... the two realms of large and small never fit together. Blitukus tried and tried... but eventually gave up, the dream ending there. As he awoke, he sensed Armok was becoming a bit frustrated. Blitukus realized... this was the goal Armok had placed for him, solving this puzzle... but why? As a test of faith? The gods performed in mysterious ways... and Blitukus thought to himself, he shouldn't be troubling himself with it. He got up, stretched, then finished adjusting the carbon content of the still sizzling metal, pouring the metal to form 6 stacks of steel bars. Armok seemed to feel strongly about this one kobold... why did Armok have such a strong desire for him to solve the puzzle? Blitukus kept it in the back of his mind as he went back to work. He went into the work room, and dug through the wall by the magma channel. He shut off the magma feed in order to work safely, and extended the channel, allowing for another magma-fueled workshop to be built within the new room. He then restarted the magma feed, and forged a stack of steel bars into the parts needed for a glass furnace. He extended the steam tubes from the magma forge, and with the feeds in place, built the magma glass furnace.

Now he was faced with a separate problem... he needed sand to make glass, and needed a bag to put the sand in, as using his hands was too inefficient and using an entire barrel would be a bit overkill. He collected cave spider webs, wove the silk into cloth, stopped to eat, then continued to make the cloth into a bag. He took the bag out to the shore of the cave river, stuffed it full of sand, then brought it back, melting the sand down, creating a decent lump of glass with it. The raw glass was far larger than the amount he had used to make his goggles with... but it was rough, and needed to be properly smoothed and cut in order to obtain optically viable quality, and it would also have to be cut into the proper form if it were going to serve as an insulator. He needed yet another workshop, but luckily this one could be made of stone. He chiseled out proper blocks to make a proper surface, and made the tools for the job out of the leftover stone. Then, he brought the material over, cleared a space, then assembled the workshop. He took the rough green glass into the adjacent workshop, then cut it into several pieces, trimmed it down and smoothed it until he had created several sections of insulation for the wires, and a smooth eyepiece for what would eventually be the optical telescope. He crafted it to the specifications mentioned in Glass Optics, and found it worked in an interesting manner. He pushed his goggled up to his forehead, and looked through the eyepiece, one eye shut. It distorted his view within the area it encompassed, the rays of light changing course as they passed through the glass. Coincidentally, waves of electricity and magnetism behaved in the exact same way as rays of light... implying directly that light was nothing more than waves of electricity and magnetism. Blitukus smiled. Electricity, waves of electromagnetism, optics, flying machines and machines to send messages wirelessly through the sky... he felt he was peering into a future beyond that of simple production en masse, where such production was only a foundation for more advanced and refined arts. Technology seemed to have no upper limit, and he felt that not even he would be able to truly comprehend the scale and complexity of devices truly built upon the highest standards of technology physically possible... such was the subject for civilizations perhaps far beyond even the year 2000... but it wasn't of much relevance. Of all the details of the universes workings and technologies to use those details, they were nothing but a means to an end. Blitukus had only one true goal remaining, and even though he had surrounded himself with fascinating concepts and wondrous inventions... it was all mere gadgetry, and no mere gadget held any weight compared to that goal.

[ November 17, 2007: Message edited by: AlanL ]

[Armok]

First to the BQ award!  

"This is a Beyond Quality award.
It menaces whit spikes of tin.
It is encirkel whit bands of awsomenes.
On the item is a image of a kobold and a flying machine, the kobold is rising the flying machine.
On the item is a image of a kobold and a tank, the kobold is rising the tank.
On the item is a image of a kobold and a giant radio telescope, the kobold is rising the giant radio telescope.
On the botom of the item is a label saying '-3258 eB ; 3258 pB'.
This item emits an eerie feeling, as where it displaced in time.
This item grants immortality to the owner."

[AlanL]

Thanks  

[ November 17, 2007: Message edited by: AlanL ]

[AlanL]

I don't have much new to say, so, here's the update   :p

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Blitukus sighed, and set the eyepiece down, closing his eyes. His one true goal... HE whimpered slightly and began crying as he remembered the day he found Fale 'Siege Engine' Siegedriven The Ageless Purple Spear, his mother, his best friend... laying motionless in a pool of her own blood. It made his heart feel as if he had just been shot in the chest... If only that never happened... Blitukus wished he could just step back to the happy and prosperous days of before the assassination, retreat into the past... but alas, it was not so. He muttered the words he spoke, when he ran up to her body, the last words he had spoken to her those 3 long years ago... "NO! Mother! What happened?! No, you CAN'T be dead! You can't!" But... she was... he missed her, every bit of her unique personality. He reached out and hugged, opening his eyes to find himself once again in the cold dark rooms of his new home, having hugged nothing but air. If only... Blitukus sniffled, wiped the tears from his face, wiped the dripping from his nose, and walked back into the main work room. He held himself silent but tears still formed on his face. The wound in his soul wasn't healing, for it was much too severe. Only one thing could allow him to mend it. He walked to the forge, and took his pickaxe in one hand, the hammer of the forge in the other. No longer did his mind flood with images of the past... it now flooded with images of the future. His technology, the lines and symbols and numbers and sketches that would be forged into reality... the means to finally bring closure to the past, and prosperity to the future. He held up his hammer, his pick, and smiled at them, a tear dropping from his cheek. He coughed, then muttered to the magma and steam, metal and stone... "It will be done." He found himself overrun by a mixture of emotions, a clashing of sadness about the past and optimism about the future. He slowly placed the hammer back down, then held the pickaxe with both hands, looking at it, smiling yet still teary eyed. Those words he spoke 3 years ago... they were by no means proper last words... his mother never got a chance to speak her last words to him... It was time to make it happen.

He raised his head, his determination renewed, and left the room, walking down the hall. He reached the galena vein... remembering that day a little less than 3 years ago when he had first struck the ore of silver... how he regarded it as nothing but an ornamental metal, useless, suitable only for decoration and luxury commodities. Now it was by far the most useful metal to Blitukus... it would be used to make valuable energy. It would carry the electrical waves... it would carry the electronic voice of the heavens above. Blitukus had built his old experiment in free energy... a giant, crude steam generator, right into the galena vein, and the galena behind him was all that stood between him and molten rock.

   

He looked through the window at the familiar interior... remembering the failed free energy test that resulted in a successful invention. It was a milestone, a historical monument to his achievements... Blitukus raised his pickaxe, and smashed through the stone of the window.

   

Out with the old, in with the new!

It had stood between him and the silver that his future needed. It was historical, but it was irrelevant compared to his goals. He dug through the walls, ruining a loop and breaching it, until he had gotten 5 lumps on the ground. He then brought the galena back and, stopping for a drink, melted it down, dumping the slag into the magma, pouring the silver from the top of the cauldron, lead from the bottom of the cauldron. He set the lead aside, but stacked the silver bars. He might find a use for lead eventually... until then... He remembered the diplomatic fiasco of 1078 involving dwarves offering lead goblets to a human leader, causing the leader to become a babbling wreck and soon after die. Luckily, both Blitukus and his mother had aided an investigation that proved that these specific dwarves were isolated from human information flow and also proved that dwarves, who had used lead objects and dishes for centuries, were immune to the poisoning. Those facts together convinced the humans that the dwarves were unaware of the poisonous effects of lead on humans, resulting in the humans settling for material compensation rather than all out war... although this compensation was a bit steep. Lead caused rather nasty sickness in humans, everyone was informed after that fiasco, but what it would do to kobolds was still unknown. Blitukus didn't want to take the chance. Blitukus began to pound the silver into wire, but realized that if silver were heated to nearly its melting point, it could be forced through a small hole, wire coming out the other side. He found that the stacks of heavy bars produced great lengths of wire. After forming the wire, he let the remaining silver stay molten within the smelters cauldron. After finishing that, he went back to making glass, producing more lumps of raw green glass, stopping to pick the last few plants that were sprouting. Luckily for Blitukus, he had dabbled in working with glass before the assassination. He once made a few fake gems for fun. Time passed as he gathered sand and brought it back to melt down into glass.

It is now summer.

After he had 4 sizable lumps, he took them back to the adjacent workshop and chipped them into suitable sheets of insulation, using the most flawless glass to form flat dishes and lenses. He considered himself lucky to have worked with glass and gems before, as even though he could only qualify as a novice at it, it was the only reason he could chip th glass into anything resembling optical quality. Using the last of the pooled silver, he dipped the optical glass dishes in the silver, and when the silver cooled, a nice, reflective mirror resulted. He repeated this for the other mirror, and then had all that he needed to make the optical portion of the telescope. He set the mirrors and lenses down. He had the glass, silver, and steel, but he still needed magnetite and minerals as well as 14 stacks of bronze bars. He took his pickaxe in hand, then walked back down the tunnels, digging out 7 lumps of malachite and 7 lumps of cassiterite. He then began the routine of bringing back the malachite and cassiterite, smelting them down into high quality bronze. The routine was becoming rather old hat now, but it was still a vital process. Cassiterite... He looked down at a lump of it as he hauled it... it was the very first metal he had struck within this mountain. He remembered his grumbling about the lack of copper those years ago. Now, he had as much as he needed, having located large veins of it, and despite the distance of his early experiences with it, it was still critical to his goals. The night wore on, and Blitukus began to feel sleepy. He kept working even though he was starting to get drowsy... but despite his determination, he noticed he was starting to find it difficult to concentrate due to it. He needed something to wake himself up. It was the monotony that was causing a lot of it, rather than just physical exhaustion. He stepped out to the river to drink. If only something would come and wake him up again, he might be able to get the entire project done quicker. At that moment, that something swept in with a roar. SPLASH! He was overtaken by a wall of water, knocked downstream. He found he had come to rest on the shore, near the river, but the river hadn't taken him in. He pulled himself up as the water roared by.

   

The water smacked into him again, forcing itself down his throat, knocking him into the river, dunking him, then promptly depositing him on the shore again. He picked himself up and coughed up some water, finding himself a bit winded from having the air forcefully removed from his lungs. He continued coughing as he treaded through the water, the ice cold water sinking through his fur and making him shiver. He walked back into the tunnels, and shook off, sending water onto the walls. Despite a rather unpleasant experience, he had wanted something to wake him up, and wanted a drink, and the river had, albeit forcefully, provided both. Blitukus laughed.

The river... I guess it's as close as one can get to a friendly demon at times. Well, thank you oh sadistically benevolent being!

He continued snickering a bit, then went back to what he was doing, feeling rather refreshed. He found his concentration renewed as he continued smelting the malachite and cassiterite. Eventually, he finished. He poured the bronze, cluttering the smelter with bars of bronze and steel. After this, he began to gather mineral-rich rocks and magnetite, bringing them back. He then chiseled the magnetite, getting rid of the common rock within wherever possible, and chipping off the rust on the surface. If he were to actually smelt it, it would lose its magnetic properties. Afterwards, he smelted the mineral rich rocks, separating the minerals and using them to form electrical components... some minerals resisted the flow of energy by a certain amount, some could be used to only allow current to flow one way, and coils allowed for beautiful use of the interaction between electricity and magnetism. Finally, he had finished producing materials. Now, he moved the materials outside, picking a spot on the glacier. But, his physical exhaustion soon became apparant... and he decided to save the rest for the day after. Blitukus finished his current hauling run and went to his room, laying in bed. He reviewed his designs again, checking the schematics for the wave generator, imagining what it would be like to be a particle, tugged along through the wires by the electrical current. When he was satisfied that he knew the details of his designs thoroughly, he set the book down, and allowed himself to sleep. That day, yet again the same dream happened. He found the puzzle, laying beautifully yet incomplete on a flat, nearly transparent surface. He was completely out of combinations to try, and spent the dream, unsuccessfully, trying to think of new combinations. It was all to no avail. When Blitukus awoke, he sensed deeply that Armok was becoming annoyed, but not annoyed at him... Armok seemed annoyed at the world, indeed the entire universe as a whole about this. Blitukus stood, and let out a deep breath. There was nothing he could do to solve the puzzle, he lacked an important piece of knowledge needed to solve it, but what that was... he didn't know where to begin searching for that answer. He walked out from his room, down to the river, and took another drink. Dracha said that Armok was using him... indeed, it seemed as if Armok had inadvertently caused the death of his mother through the dwarves... was it inadvertent? The thought ate slightly at Blitukus, but he forced it from his mind. He was still merely a mortal, and it was best for him not to start a conflict with the gods.

A snow storm blew as he moved the glass items, mineral items, bars, and spools of wire out to the glacier. Eventually, the storm ceased. More time passed... He stopped for a drink, and noticed a tower cap had reached maturity near the farms... a tower cap was threatening to compromise his door as well. If it did th...

An injured giant bat has sprung from ambush!

Blitukus drew his pick... but hesitated to strike at it. It was injured, and suffering, crawling along the ground... but it still wanted Blitukus dead, likely it was hungry on top of it. It was unfortunate that the creature couldn't ask for help. It crawled toward Blitukus, but Blitukus decided to kill end its misery. He knocked it unconscious, and hacked at it with his pickaxe until he had pierced through its heart and lungs. It rapidly died afterward. s supposed to have fixed that... why was it injured in the first place anyhow? That wasn't his business, but what was his business was these creatures attacking him. If it happened again, he would find a way to discourage further attacks. He continued moving material, and another snow storm began. He stopped to eat, and continued. Hauling had always proved a rather tedious task, and this made it all the more clear. The storm cleared. Most of the material had been hauled, but still much remained. The night wore on, and he stopped to drink again. Another snow storm began. Blitukus took a short break from it, but interrupted himself to get back to hauling. The weather cleared again. Time was passing rapidly, but his determination never faded. Again, he felt himself becoming exhausted, and stopped what he had doing to return to bed. He remembered what he had carried, and what was left. The hauling was nearly complete, and that meant the day after would be the day in which he would build his wave generator. It was taking a very long time and becoming tedious in the process, but it was worth it. He would do anything to speak with his mother again, no matter how long it took. Luckily, he had just about finished preparing the construction site, and actually building the machine wasn't going to take such extremes of time.
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I know it's a bit on the short side but a lot of time was eaten up waiting for hauling to get done. It really does take forever when it's just one person and there are glitched squares slowing him down on top of it.

[ November 18, 2007: Message edited by: AlanL ]

[Armok]

Beyond Quality!!!

*Looks around*

I'm first again!
Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!! Beyond Quality!!!

[AlanL]

Thanks  

I'm honored to see the first-post effect cropping up in my thread  :p

[Bringer of Ironic Deaths]

EPI-...who am i kidding.Its beyond quaility, but unless theres some awesome battle going on, it cant count as epic...now i have to think of a word...hmm...uhh.
EXCELLENT!!! *Goofy Guitar sound*
^_^

[Armok]

I am glad you are glad, because I want you writing this FOREVER!
*echo: ...forever...forever...forever... *

O YESZ, FOR ETERNITY!
*echo: ...eternity...eternity...eternity... *

*Grins a grin more ancient than time and more cruel than ancient, the eternal grin of Armok*

[AlanL]

This story has an end, but I have more stories in mind after this. Although, certain emotions won't be driving me anymore, I still feel confident that I can do a good job with it.

Still, thanks for the compliments  

The story would've never come to be if nobody had interest in it, so thanks.

[ November 18, 2007: Message edited by: AlanL ]

[Reign on your Parade]

We have nothing to say that could make this thread any more awesomer.

[AlanL]

Thanks  :p
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Slowly, Blitukus allowed himself to fall asleep. That night... the same dream, an order to pick up where he had left off. Yet, nothing was different about this dream from the last. This time though, something occurred to Blitukus... maybe the secret lay not within the puzzle... but within the very nature of the space it occupies. Perhaps he didn't understand this space well enough? Maybe he just wasn't realizing something that was right in front of him. He searched, but couldn't find any way to modify the nearly transparent plane the puzzle rested upon. Perhaps there was an entirely new way to view the puzzle that he hadn't thought of yet... he tried to think of it, but whatever it was didn't come to mind. The puzzle was so tauntingly close to completion, yet it wouldn't be finished. Blitukus woke up... still the same as before. He heard a deap grunt of anger, and the sound of lightning striking.

THOOSH!
THUMP!
THUMP!
RUUUMBLE!
...
POOFH!

Armok was becoming rather angry with this obstacle. Blitukus sighed, got up, stretched, and continued the hauling. Just a bit more... he noticed that a large amount of snow had been toppled from the top of the mountain, forming a new hill on the glacier. A snow storm started as Blitukus hauled the last set of bronze bars out. He punched through the glacier and drank the freezing water beneath, then continued, moving the bronze bars the rest of the way to the site. As he reached the designated spot, he stood and grunted, the breath taking a nebulous form in the bitter cold. He then dropped the bars, the bars clanking together as they hit the surface. It was all ready.

Blitukus walked back to his armored vehicle, crawled under it, then removed a steam generator, configuring it to function as a magma loop. He then set it by his site, elevating it to prevent it from melting through the glacier under it, then smoothed the glacier where he was going to place the base of the wave generator.

Then, he proceeded to use the heat of the magma loop to forge the plating and rivets that would form a solid base for the structure. He also used the heat of the loop to keep himself from freezing out in the arctic cold. After forging the plates, he dug indentations into the floor, and used those indentations to secure the base of the machine. This would just hold the antenna... the actual wave generator itself and the control seat would be fine resting upon the raw glacier. He then pounded out the casing for the electronics box, and placed it at the side of the machine. Next, he bound the magnetite blocks together into a cylinder, and bent the silver wire into coils, separating the wires with glass insulation when needed. After that, he forged the base of the energy generator, mentioned as a 'dynamo', and set it near the electronics box. After that, he carefully mounted the magnetite rotor within the base, and placed the coils around it. Then, he retrieved another steam generator, and forged a simple steam chamber and steam engine to drive it.

Autumn has come.

It was getting colder and colder. Blitukus feet became very sore.... he tripped, and fell. The frost had damaged his foot, and it was unproductive to try to continue further. He picked himself up, and went back to his room, resting for a slight bit as he tended to it. It didn't take long at all for him to tend to his feet. When he finished, he went right back to work, despite the cold. The snow storm cleared. He grunted... the frost was biting into him, and yet again it was damaging his flesh. He went back to tend to the frost damage. This was costing him more time. He was able to settle the damage quickly, but still... he would have to resort to standing by the magma loop for a decent amount of time. It would cost time, reducing the efficiency of his work, but it would be worth it as he would keep himself from being injured by the cold, in turn keeping himself from spending even more time waiting for his skin to heal. He continued on, perfecting the coils and setting up the bronze infrastructure of the antenna. He stopped frequently to warm the extremities of his body, and grumbled at the inconvenience, but it was better than losing them to frostbite. He stopped to eat, then continued. Eventually, the foundations were all done.

The dynamo was ready to operate. He was unsure of weather it would work... the technology was beyond what he had previously attempted. He pulled down the two silver wires that came out of the end, and placed them close to each other. Then, he walked behind it, turned on the steam loop, then pressed the regulator up on the piston driving the dynamo. As pressure built, it slowly chugged into action, turning the magnetite core of the dynamo. Blitukus walked back to the front of it, then watched the wires as the spin accelerated. Nothing was happening, but just as Blitukus was about to shut it down, there was a popping sound, and a blue arc shot between the wires. The spinning magnetic fields were dragging an electric current through the wires. Blitukus smiled as another arc jumped the gap. He had told himself he would pry this technology from the dwarves dead hands... and here it was. He had his energy, he had electricity. Still, there was much to do. Blitukus walked back to the piston, and pulled the regulator down. The machine spun down to a halt. He had energy... now he needed to use it. He continued, opening the electronics box and arranging the components within to fit the schematic, wiring the components together with silver wire. He also created a simple device that would provide a raised reading for a signal that was high frequency and constant frequency... it would return a high result if he was listening to a true reply... a low one if it was just natural noise. The cave river gushed over its bounds once more. Speaking of noise... that dynamo would drown out any reply with its whirling magnetic fields. He would need to build a shield around it. A simple metal mesh would catch and absorb any unwanted noise from the dynamo. He stopped for a drink. As he used the steel to forge the pistons that would aim the machine, he used leftover steel to make a mesh to fit over the coils, a thin mesh, but dense enough to catch unwanted magnetic radiation like fish in a net. The snowstorm cleared as Blitukus finished the base of the antenna, using the rest of the steam generators from the armored vehicle to power the pistons along with newly forged steam tanks. All that was left was the dish and the chair.

The night was wearing on, but dawn was still distant. He knew he would be speaking into the heavens that very day. He continued as the night wore on, pounding the bronze out thin, forming the hyperbolic dish, strut, and reflector to focus the rays down the middle to a silver receiving antenna, which in turn fed into the electronics box. Blitukus smiled as he noticed Dracha landing and sitting to watch him work. He finished the large dish. It had an enormous area, but was very thin, meaning it contained little material. The rest went to making his chair and the linkages. Leftover silver wire was used with magnetite to make the speaker, electrical meters, switches, and wires that would be on the console, the speaker mounted behind his head. He finished the chair, and linked it all in, bronze linkages swiveling the chair to point in the same direction as the dish... the only thing missing was the optical glass, the optical telescope being nothing but a small, hollow bronze cylinder. All that was left was installing a few lenses and mounting the dish... it was nearly complete, next, he... started thinking about how he was going to lift that large, heavy dish to the top of the base to mount it...

Blitukus walked up to Dracha, and spoke, "Greetings Dracha." She replied, "Hello there my fuzzy friend! Seems you've got a bit of an elevation problem?" Blitukus smiled and replied, "You knew what I was going to ask before I even spoke. I really could use some help with it..." Dracha stood, raised herself onto her hind legs, and spoke, "Sure thing! It's been a while since I've worked on a collaborative project." They smiled at each other, then Dracha looked at the dish, collecting snow, resting on the glacier. She gestured, her hands glowing a dim blue. The dish then began to glow a dim blue as well, then levitated slowly into the air, rotating, and positioning itself over the base. Blitukus laughed, climbed up, then riveted the dish into the mounting of the ball joint. He checked the metal, all of the rivets, then slid down. Dracha asked, "Secure?" Blitukus nodded. She stopped levitating the dish, and the dish tilted slightly, then came to rest. Blitukus shut down the magma loop, then set it near the rest of the machine. They stood side by side, and smiled at the nearly complete machine.

Dracha spoke, "Reminds me of the old days, we used to make giant towers that pierced the clouds, built by magic and supported by mithril. More often than not they were also a public power supply too. That is an impressive machine, but maybe you could help me out?" Blitukus asked, "Sure, how?" Dracha replied, "I dug all the rock crystal out of my cave long ago and I'm fresh out of sapphire. Lookin' at those lenses and mirrors I know you know what you're doing, so maybe you could spare me a couple of sapphires and a rock crystal? I need it to finish upgrading my energy crystals. More and more stuff takes more and more power y'know." Blitukus nodded, "Sure, I know just where to dig for them. I will have it ready by the end of the night. It's the least I could do after all you have done for me." Dracha smiled, "Thanks! I was digging around a while ago, found some rock junk from some dwarves, some cloth junk from some elves, but at the bottom, I found a spell book the contents of which date back to the year 211. If you think of something to ask for I can have a look through it and see if it'll still work, especially since I'll have more power to play with after I finish upgrading the crystals." Blitukus replied, "Perhaps... speaking of old magic, I keep seeing references to a metal called adamantine. I'm curious as to what it truly is." Dracha replied, "It's a highly valued product of the most advanced magic civilizations. Production reached its peak around the year -600, but from around -400 to -300, demons, using the most powerful magic, enslaved the people and wrecked our civilization. It was a long battle, but eventually the races of the world, fighting side by side, drove the demons back. We then took apart our valued adamantine possessions and buildings, and used the metal to trap the demons within the mountains. Haven't bothered us since. Been the occasional report that Dwarves have every now and then gotten a little too eager for the stuff and ended up letting loose one on themselves, but it's always been taken care of in one way or another.... oh, yeh, and about its properties... it was the ideal conductor of all energies magical and otherwise, offering no resistance whatsoever at any temperature. It also happens to be about 100 times the strength of mithril and light as air compared to most metals." Blitukus asked, "What is the strength of this 'mithril' then?" Dracha replied, "I don't have a number for you but apart from being a bit shinier, mithril is in most ways just like this 'steel' stuff that you've been making. It's just iron that's been enhanced by burning a power crystal into it, basically." Blitukus nodded. So, it really was real... but Blitukus dared not risk an encounter with a demon by searching for it. He was close to being able to talk to his mother... and if his soul were to be consumed by a demon, that day would never come. Blitukus spoke, "Thank you. I will have those gems ready by the next time we meet... hopefully I would have established contact by then as well." Dracha nodded and waved, "If you need me you know where to find me. Good luck!" As Dracha flew away, Blitukus waved, "Same to you, comrade."

He sighed through his nose, a puff of fog escaping into the cold air. He felt it, the time when his quest would end was finally nearing... although... it felt as if it wasn't exactly the night when it would happen. No matter, it was only a gut feeling. Blitukus took up the lenses and mirrors and installed them in the bronze tube mounted upon the chair, finishing the machine. He was eager to hop in the chair and test it. It was pointless to try to operate it if a target couldn't be locked on to during the day, but still a lot of night was left. He would have all of the rest of the night to speak into the heavens. A snow storm began to blow outside once more. He went back and checked the components of the machine, making sure they were all properly holding together. There was readily available proof that the structure was sound and sturdy... the snow storm was depositing a large amount of snow on the dish, and the dish wasn't budging. Blitukus decided to give the machines aiming its first test. He powered up the generators that drove the aiming pistons, and sat in the seat. By moving a lever, he allowed the dish to lower, spilling the snow to the ground with a loud "FOOMPH". As the dish tilted, so did the chair. The aim worked. He thought... how was he going to broadcast with only pulses? He could send numbers... either 1 or 0... base 2. Blitukus walked back into the work room, and took up a slab of stone and used more stone to form a small bucket full of coal dust. He then returned, holding his new makeshift documenting tools. He sat down in the bronze seat once more, and leaned back, positioning his eye against the eyepiece of the optical telescope. The image was all in shades of green, but it was sharp and decently magnified. He looked up into the night sky. The universe presented itself to Blitukus, celestial clouds of gas and dust, shining stars, twinkling planets... where to begin? Blitukus read about the definite speed of light... it would be impractical to communicate with the stars and nebulae, as he didn't have a thousand years to wait for a reply. The planets, on the other hand, were within a much more practical range. He remembered his dream, a long time ago... the white planet with the ring, in this same solar system... he didn't know why, but it seemed important. Perhaps he would happen upon it in reality?

For a moment, Blitukus sat, and looked up, smiling in awe at the stars and galaxies beyond... it filled him with a sense of the grand majesty of the universe, on a scale that, he dare not say within the gods realm, exceeded that of Armok himself... by several orders of magnitude. Blitukus got up, and walked behind the dynamo, engaging the piston that drives it. As the dynamo spun up, he walked back and sat down in his chair again. The moons light shined down. He watched the meters... the voltage rose until the dynamo had reached its operating speed, the piston chugging and hissing. Some of the racket was diverted away by the bulk of the dish itself, but still, Blitukus had taken care to create a system that could steeply amplify the sound waves before they reached the speaker. He also had a meter indicating the integrity of the signal... at its bottom, since there was no signal at the moment. He had also installed a variable resistor to control the amplitude of the sound... if somehow it were to end up too loud. He turned it up all the way, and flipped the on-switch. The signal integrity meter jumped, then fell back to zero, a moment later, the speaker behind him beginning to emit a loud but dull hiss. A hiss that was similar to the sound of a close waterfall... even the noise of the universe was beautiful. Still, it was not what he was searching for. He turned the sound down a bit, then looked around for a target. He spotted a planet, then turned the dish to face it. He lined up with the planet, and looked through the optical telescope... it was a distant world, a giant world, covered in churning clouds and seeming to lack a surface. Its surface was red, and it was ringless, yet surrounded by many smaller bodies. It was difficult to tell much from the small fuzzy ball the telescope portrayed, even after adjusting the focus, but it was enough. His search would start here. He looked up, and guessed the angle the planet was at on the horizon, and from that, where in the sky he was to be seen from the 'surface' of that world. He converted the angles to base-2, and switched to transmission mode, the sound from the speaker ceasing. He held his finger above the pulse button, and looked down at his numbers. He had 2 different tones of pulse... one tone would mark the beginning and end of his transmission, the other a 1, a pause being a 0. He pressed the buttons in sequence, and for the first time, a coherent transmission left the surface of that blue-green world. The energy waves flew at the speed of light across the cosmos, passing away from the local sun, being scattered and split up by an asteroid belt, and the bit that did eventually reach the planet... idly absorbed by a monstrous magnetic field. Blitukus waited and listened for a response. The planet responded with a dull howl, the howl of its powerful magnetic winds blowing through its atmosphere and dense inner core. It was a cold howl, much like the arctic wind... no-one home. Blitukus looked around, and found another planet, this one near to the horizon, close to the local sun. He turned the dish to face this planet, and looked through the optical telescope at it. The atmosphere obscured much, but he could make out that it was a small, rocky, grayish world, lacking an atmosphere but active within. Blitukus once again broadcast his coordinates in the sky to this world... and waited for a reply. The planet responded with a dull cracking as the suns powerful rays smacked into its magnetic field, like hail falling upon a roof... a roof under which nobody resided. Blitukus sighed. Time had passed, and his hours of night were ticking away. He checked his timepiece... it was nearly 4 AM. He stopped for a drink, then returned, sitting back, looking for another target. Where could his mother be?... maybe if he found that white planet... He found another planet near the local sun, and turned towards it. He looked at the obsidian colored, volcanically active planet through his optical telescope, then calculated his coordinates relative to the planet, sending them when he finished. He waited, and waited. The planet replied in the dull simmering, bubbling, and crackling of an active mantle... the surface scorched and lifeless. Blitukus sighed, and looked around... somewhere, out there... Blitukus turned the sound all the way up, and then looked for the whitest twinkling planet he could see... it was low on the horizon, likely to set within the next few hours. Blitukus closed his eyes and let out a breath slowly as he turned the dish in the direction of that world. Something seemed to disturb the monotony of dull noise, "PT-PT-PT". Blitukus was startled by this, and nearly jumped a bit. He immediately moved the dish back, centering on it. It continued, "PT-PT-PT-PT-PT". Blitukus looked at the signal integrity meter... it had risen... but it quickly fell back down to zero... it was a natural phenomena. He looked through the optical telescope. He was looking not at a planet but at a star, a puny star, immensly hot, sweaping beams of immense energy out like a cosmic lighthouse. The star continued in a monotonous tone, "PT-PT-PT-PT-PT". It was beautiful, something that his peers back in the golden days of Anthath Sizet had never seen before, and never heard the voice of before... but it was not what he was looking for. He continued turning the dish, and centered it on the planet. He took in a breath as he looked into the optical telescope... and spat it out rapidly in excited laughter as he found the rocky, white, ringed planet, the planet from his dream, truly existed, and it was right there, right in front of him. Why was it important? It was time to find out. He calculated his position in that worlds sky... he based it on his guesses and came up with an angle of 30 degrees up by 10 degrees right. He transmitted this to the planet, and waited... and waited... he listened, and the planet didn't reply. The planets mantle had long ago siezed up, frozen. Its crust was unmoving, and nothing stirred upon its surface it seemed. Blitukus heard nothing from the planet but a cold silence... a dead silence. It saddened him as it reminded him of his mothers state... An aurora began to slowly emerge, a crackling and whirring arising as the very edge of it interfered with the wave machines line of sight. Blitukus sighed out of his nose, and lay back, eyes closed as the arctic winds blew around him, the whirring of the aurora playing behind him. Had he gone through all of that trouble just to remind himself of his mothers death? The thought filled him with a sense of frustration and sadness... but something else seemed to catch his attention. He heard a dull throbbing among the whirs. Eyes still closed, he checked his pulse... and found the throbbing didn't match his pulse. The throbbing seemed to intensify, not as if it were getting louder... but as if it were targeting him exactly, focusing on his machine. He began to recognize it... those were energy wave pulses, the same type as the ones he had sent. Perhaps the aurora was slightly disturbed by his signal and was playing it back at him somehow? Blitukus began to sigh, then took in a deep breath through his nose. No, something was different. The sound of the pulses intensified quickly, drowning out the whirs of the aurora, and reaching a point where they became so loud they were painful. The timing wasn't the manual button presses... it was precision. Blitukus opened his eyes and looked down at his console. The signal integrity meter was pegged full. Pulses booming behind him, he looked through the optical telescope... the planet still looking as it was, but now shouting loud and clear, its voice blasting through the edge of the aurora. Blitukus widened his eyes, and let the breath out. He turned the volume down to a comfortable level, and took his tablet and coal dust in hand. It was happening... he was receiving a reply! And he was ready to record the contents. The pulses stopped. After a brief pause, a different tone sounded... the tone that marked the beginning of the coordinates. The pulses then continued to play out numbers in base 2... a tone between 0 and 1 sounding between numbers at times. Blitukus wrote these numbers down... between 0 and 1? Perhaps a decimal place? Blitukus wrote until the pulses ended. He frantically converted the base-2 to decimal... and found that this was not what he had expected. The sender of this transmission was not using aetherial magic, was not referring to him as "Blitukus" or "Son" or any word at all... he had identified himself by his coordinates, his guesses, (30 up, 10 right)... the sender of the transmission refered to him, in precision-timed pulses, as (+31.212, +8.905), booming in an electronic voice an order of magnitude more powerful than what Blitukus could transmit at. Whoever was sending this transmission was obviously technological in nature, and must've been in the business of energy technologies for a while... seeing the precision and power of their equipment. The pulses continued, this time with a double mark... a type of mark Blitukus had never used. The planet in the distance boomed out numbers for quite a while, Blitukus writing down every single one. That segment, likely the body of the message, concluded with another double mark. Then... the signal integrity meter fell... and the raw power of the signal faded away to the dull whirs of the aurora once more. He converted the numbers one by one into decimal... and found the message made little sense. In essence, "Dear (+31.212, +8.905),((1082, 93783, 1092, 5497, 0001, 4302, 50312, 8108, 96432, 110631, 7781)). *END*"

The sun was beginning to rise... he repeated it in his head, "1082, 93783, 1092, 5497, 0001, 4302, 50312, 8108, 96432, 110631, 7781"... 11 numbers... but what do they mean? Who exactly was it that sent that anyhow? He found he had a new faith in his dreams, and trusted that this was significant somehow... but how? He shut down the wave generator, got up, and shut down the steam equipment. He continued pondering the numbers... but it didn't make sense. They didn't seem to belong with anything. For now, though, he could spend the rest of his productive day fulfilling his promises to Dracha. He walked down the tunnels, took up his pickaxe, then struck the sapphire deposit, easily knocking loose two large chunks of rough sapphire. He continued further down the tunnel, then dig free one lump of rough rock crystal. He then took that lump back to the jewelers workshop, then chipped away at it until he had produced a decent cut gem, as big as the sides of the rough lump would allow. Then, he repeated this for the sapphires. He looked at the gems... maybe Dracha would know what to do with these 11 numbers? Maybe it would take breakthroughs in technology to make use of the numbers... whether the answer lay within the wisdom of the past, or the secrets of the future, still remained unknown.
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Sorry it's a bit late, I wanted to fit all that in.

[Reign on your Parade]

Waot a second. this took place at +31.212, +8.905? I was crowned on the exact same coordinates on tis world! Small multi-verse aintit?

[Armok]

Wow, Beyond Quality, the best update yet, EPIC!

[AlanL]

Thanks  

In fact, I feel grateful to a lot of people for a lot of reasons, but I'll wait until the end to roll the 'credits'.