I find that I just really have to try not to sound like I'm catering to Armok, really the reason he gets a lot of stuff in is because he offers a lot of ideas and generally gives good reasons why.
Then again, I may be just reacting to sentiment that isn't there.
About the ADOM reference, in ADOM, there was a casino, and if you won anything a guard would block your exit until you spent it all at the gift shop.
About the files... maybe I could box.com it, but what I was thinking is having all of the text, images, and the save files, all in a zip file. It's not a small download. I guess I could, maybe...
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Blitukus looked around, and smiled. He was beginning to feel the sense of being displaced in time... only this time, he felt that rather than himself being displaced back in time, the whole world except him was displaced back in time... such were the effects of a relative viewpoint. His curiosity came to front as it fully sank in that he was standing in a future that he had once daydreamed about as a child. He was curious in particular about that new metal. He kept looking around, and eventually spotted a potential power source. A large steel box, marked with a sign carrying the image of a lightning bolt on it. This box was placed near the wall, out of sight near one of the business places. If enough power was going through enough wire, perhaps he could sap some of the magnetic field from it, and convert it to mana. Blitukus walked over to it, crouched down by it, and held his amulet near it. He noticed his amulet begin to be magnetically repulsed by the box. The box was making a quiet hum. Blitukus held the amulet closer, using the force to determine the best location to hold it. He opened himself to receive the energy. He actually found he had to focus and intentionally draw energy for this specifically to work. The amulet glew brightly, and Blitukus felt a powerful surge of mana course into his soul once he got it going. Blitukus sensed by the force that the magnetic fields within the box were becoming perturbed by this, and much much larger amounts of energy began to have their direction shifted. The box began to buzz annoyedly. A second later, there was a distant POP, and the power ceased. The nearby business place went dark. Blitukus stopped, and stepped back, "Oops..." Blitukus wondered... the box carried power far in excess of what he was siphoning from it... why was it so vulnerable? Then, Blitukus heard a yelling from inside the darkened business place,
"Hey!"
"What the hell is going on NOW?"
"Get the maintenance guy, fuse 8 just blew and we're all outta replacements... I wouldn't doubt it was the pizza shop plugging their lights into the wrong circuit again."
"I swear those... rrh... bunch of morons. Ok, on it... you know I swear that pizza shop does those things as some kind of scheme to cut down their power bill... I think I'll call management too."
Blitukus snickered. That was the answer... the system was already under strain, and Blitukus messing with it just pushed it over the edge. On the up side, this facility was obviously capable of keeping itself maintained, and Blitukus sensed he had mostly replenished his mana. Blitukus walked away from the shop. He then used his newly gained mana to check his sphere of direction. It pointed straight downward, and a bit to the west. It didn't change as he moved. It pointed to a spot on the other side of the world, which just happened to be where Metropolis lay. A few minutes passed. A utility worker entered the shop. A minute after that, the lights came back on within it. Blitukus then looked around again... far to the rear of the building was an organically shaped long table, several large devices with glowing displays on it, and chairs at each one. Blitukus walked over to this area, and sat down before one of these devices. The device consisted of a display, a box with several slots on the front, a movable pointing device, and a control panel that contained a button for every recognized character in the local language. Stuck to the side of the box portion with an adhesive tape was a piece of paper. On the paper was an image of an odd silvery disk with a hole in the middle, then a buster bar over that. The text under it read, "Do not install private software on public terminals. -Admin". On the screen, someone had apparantly left whatever they were doing up, for there was a box with a white background, a slot, and a virtual button labeled "Search Database". Blitukus thought for a moment about how to use this, then reasoned it out fairly quickly. He selected the slot, typed in "Metals", and then selected the search button. A few seconds passed, apparantly the machine was doing something, the markings on the display changed. Then, a large list was printed onto the left side of the screen, images available to the right, on the very top a highlighted text reading "Definition of Metals". Blitukus, of course, already was satisfied as far as knowing what a metal was. He looked through the list... Aluminum, Antimony, Arsenic... many metals were listed that he had hardly heard of before, some of which he had truly never heard of before, pictures provided to the side. None of the pictures matched what he had seen. Magnesium, Manganese, Mercury, Molybdenum... nowhere was it to be found, although some things were mentioned he didn't know qualified as metals. He kept looking... Sodium, Tantalum, Thallium... Titanium. He recognized it immediately. The metal he had seen was Titanium. It was a metal he had never heard of before, with properties he had never seen before. He selected the text. A page of text was displayed with images depicting the configuration of the fundamental particle that composed titanium. Quite a lengthy description of the metal was available in several sections, with details of its use ranging from mining all the way to finished goods. Blitukus read through this... and snickered upon finding the primary ore used in the production was ilmenite... when he was a child the dwarves had regarded ilmenite as merely rock. If only they had known what they were in some cases literally sitting on... It became apparent why Blitukus had never seen it before. The smelting process was very lengthy and required relatively sophisticated technologies and techniques. Apparently it wasn't until 1892 when the dwarves first figured out how to properly smelt titanium, and even then its use was limited to only the most advanced nations until the early to mid 1900s. It seemed quite a bit of titanium was used as a component of paint, most nations using relatively little titanium metal, using steel instead. It seemed, though, that the high-tech entities of the world were distinguished in that unlike other nations, they had quite an appetite for titanium metal. Blitukus spent quite a while satisfying his curiosity regarding metals, finding much had been discovered about the innermost details of each down to the fundamental particles of each. He smiled as he noticed... the forces of unstable particles he had inadvertently caused an explosion with back in the days of the ancients were harnessed as a smog-free power source in this future. Uranium and Plutonium were listed as naturally unstable, but their decay had been contained and controlled for a gradual release of energy that fueled massive power-generating facilities. Blitukus smiled. It was ingenious... as long as it was properly maintained.
The sun was beginning to set. Blitukus finished what he was doing, stood, and walked away. Dracha had once mentioned the cats traded for minerals they thought were useless... but the cats had mastered both branches of civilization. They had mithril, and they had steel, titanium... but adamantine... He looked at his amulet. The black material that encased the non-adamantine part of his amulet... it was the technological equivalent of adamantine... apparently it hadn't been found by humans or dwarves as of 1999, for it was nowhere to be seen other than his amulet. Perhaps he would satisfy his curiosity regarding it eventually... strangely, it seemed to not even be a metal, yet in at least its strength and lightness was like adamantine in nearly every way. The future still held further secrets, deeper within. Blitukus walked up to the window, and looked out. As the skies darkened, the city slowly became lit. Vehicles on the roads sent out rays of light, the source slowly moving through the city. A faint orange, electric aura could be seen gently resting upon the city. Then, he realized... he had probably spent his hour already. Blitukus walked back to the middle of the building, looking up at the board. It was 5:24 PM, his flight arrived at 5:30, boarded at 5:50, and departed at 6:00. Blitukus walked back to the terminal, and looked out the window. Several minutes passed, and another titanium aircraft, its wingtips strobing with blue lights, slowly set down its rear, and then set down its front as it traveled down the strip. It slowed, turned, and taxied up to the terminal. From the electric lights near the terminal and the fading sunlight above, Blitukus noticed several markings on it that he had overlooked on the previous one. On the tail, the words "Metropolis MesoTrans" were painted in blue using an odd font he had never seen before. The bottom of the aircraft was decorated by various spray paint markings, various drawings in various colors, none of them vulgar. The aircraft parked, and shut its engines down. The corridor on the terminal extended, connecting with a door on the side of the aircraft. Soon, people began to exit the aircraft, leaving through the terminal. Meanwhile, several smaller service vehicles pulled up, and began tending to the aircraft. Many crates of cargo were unloaded from the side of the belly of the aircraft, other vehicles waiting for that to get finished to load on new crates, destined for Metropolis. Blitukus noticed the aircraft seemed to accept 2 types of fuel... a standard liquid propellant that seemed the staple fuel for turbine aircraft, and another fuel... seeming to require high-pressure-low-temperature equipment to handle. An announcement was made regarding the arrival of this flight. Boarding would begin in 15 minutes. In the mean time, Blitukus found a newspaper discarded on a table, and read through it. The front page read, "Heroic freelance pilot saves dozens after giant reptile invades coastal city! He states, 'I asked the mayor for a job and he gave me one.'" Beneath the headline was a picture of a well equipped human standing by a small aircraft that, although it was equipped with weapons, didn't seem to be military. Blitukus read through the paper. Apparently there were still challenges to be faced by the upstart adventurer even in these eras... although no longer were titans and hydras around... it mostly came from the results of civilizations actions. Apparently the reptile was actually of a peaceful and fairly dormant species, intending no harm... until a fisherman in a boat provoked it into action by stabbing at its eye. The newspaper mentions that the fisherman and the reptile were the only two deaths of the incident. Blitukus read through that, then the next story, "Small town left soggy due to poorly designed artificial waterfall: 'We didn't think it'd pump that fast!', remarks architect." Blitukus read the details, and snickered... it reminded him of a dwarven incident... in fact it mirrored it almost perfectly. Soon, the call to board was made. Blitukus set down the newspaper, and waited in line. Most people payed the employee there with some sort of card or paper note. Blitukus surprised the employee by paying in coinage. The employee didn't object... 214 moneys was 214 moneys. Blitukus stepped into the cabin, finding it rather spacious and long, seating enough for many people. Blitukus sat near the back, on the right side of the aircraft, sitting next to the window. He had a view that overlooked the middle-rear of the wing. Service vehicles began to depart, their job having been done. The cargo bay shut, the empty vehicles retreated back towards the building. Meanwhile, people were taking seats all around the cabin. A female human sat next to Blitukus, "Hello." Blitukus replied, "Greetings!..." He noticed... she looked familiar... she looked just like that mechanic from Oris army, the one who had wanted to chat over a meal, those many, many years ago. She asked, "Everything OK?" Blitukus responded, "Yes? Oh... for a moment I thought I had met you before, a long time ago." She replied, "Odd... I felt the same way looking at you."
Blitukus gazed out the window. After everyone had boarded and all vehicles had dispersed, the door closed, the corridor retracted, and the engines started. The human sitting next to him drew a small device out from a small bag, and activated it. Its prominent features were a single speaker and an antenna. She spoke, "They always say to put electronics away but since this thing can't transmit they don't care about it. I just like listening to the air traffic chatter." Soft but scratchy voices could be heard from it, communications chatter between the aircraft and the building. After all was readied, the whistle of the engines increased in pitch and intensity, the aircraft slowly beginning to move forward. Blitukus looked out the window as the aircraft taxied, Blitukus watching the other aircraft around. Strangely, only 2 of the 5 engines of the aircraft were being used. These 2 were relatively large, but the other 3 had their inlets shut to the airflow. The aircraft made its way to the end of the strip. As it approached, the pilot could be heard, "Flight 4314 heading out to Metropolis, requesting clearance to depart." The controller replied after about a minute, "Flight 4314... you are cleared for takeoff." The aircraft, having already moved onto the strip and turned to face down it, spun up its engines. The whistle became a screech as it rolled down the wide, paved strip. Blitukus was pushed into his seat by the acceleration, but kept looking out the window. The aircraft tilted upwards, then gently left the ground. Blitukus smiled... he wondered how this aircraft was going to make it half way around the world in such a short time, and soon he would find out. WhirrrrrR-Kclunk. The landing gear retracted. The aircraft ascended slowly, tilted up, obviously uncomfortable with such slow speed travel. It turned westwards, and began flying away from the city. Blitukus watched the city lights passing into the distance. A more distant and scratchy controller could be heard, "Flight 4314, you are leaving Rametaru airspace. Good luck, see you next time." The pilot responded, "See you then." The aircraft was uncomfortable and clumsy during slow-speed flight... but there were no speed limits in inter-city airspace. The engines spun up to their full power. The aircraft seemed to become much less clumsy in the air. The feathers on the trailing edge of the wing straightened out, no longer sacrificing drag for lift. Blitukus looked out towards the front of the aircraft... it was flying into the sunset. As it ascended high above the ground, nearing the clouds, the dim gas behind the engine burst into a brilliant blue flame, the whistle becoming a loud roar. Blitukus felt himself pressed firmly against his seat, the aircraft accelerating rapidly through the clouds, leaving trails of condensation from its wingtips.The aircraft accelerated further and further, ascending higher and higher. It ascended for quite a while, its speed reaching the point where waves in the air piled up upon themselves, forming a shockwave in front of the aircraft. The sunset rays scattered beautifully over its titanium wings as it ascended to almost twice as high as when Blitukus had first tried to reach heaven. The stars were a bit brighter, and the horizon ever so slightly curved. The aircraft then nosed down, diving, increasing its speed further. Eventually, the dull metallic roar of wind on titanium could be heard over the engine, the frame of the aircraft moving in the ripples of the high speed shockwave showing it was truly designed for these speeds. The roar died away to a whistle again, and the whistle died down. The inlets to the 2 turbine engines capped themselves as the turbine engines shut down. For a moment, no engines could be heard. Then, the 3 other engines opened their inlets. They looked like turbine engines on the outside but didn't seem to have a visible turbine, their inlets shaped rather differently as well as their exhaust nozzle. A dull roar could be heard from these engines as they started. They trailed a beautiful flame. The front of the flame, by the nozzle, seemed invisible. The middle and rear of the flame burned a brilliant orange in the inside, a reddish on the outside. The flame burned clean, no pollution visible. The aircraft continued to accelerate, nosing back upwards, the nozzles of the engines expanding as speed increased. The shockwave in front of the aircraft became more and more a cone. Blitukus recognized the flame from these engines as a hydrogen flame... likely that fuel was hydrogen stored at extreme pressure... perhaps even somehow condensed into liquid form. Blitukus grinned as he and the ground became more and more distant. The desert and swamp terrain of his homelands passed rapidly below, far below. The sunset seemed to occur in reverse as the aircraft outpaced the rotation of the planet. The aircraft ascended into the upper regions of the atmosphere, gliding seemingly frictionlessly on wisps of air as it moved at extreme speed over the surface. The stars remained noticeable in the sky as the sun rose in a reverse path, the smooth titanium aircraft piercing through the thin upper atmosphere, empty space all around, the suns rays scattering off of the metal, and back into the heavens, blue lights on the wingtips strobing on and off, blended with the light from the red-orange flame behind the engine. The engines reduced their thrust as the aircraft reached its cruising speed and altitude, softening to a quiet rumble. Blitukus took in a breath from the cabins air, still retaining the pressure from ground level, and let it out slowly, smiling. This was far beyond what even the average turbine aircraft could hope to achieve... yet it was commercial and available to all. The aircraft really was the product of a high-tech nation at least one step ahead of the city he had left. Perhaps he would find the artifact there, perhaps he would find answers there, but either way, he had a feeling, he wouldn't regret paying Metropolis a visit.
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Topic: A Kobold's Quest II (Read 76128 times)