The Misadventures of the Missed Adventurers

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ooc:[yep. ugh. post later. feel horrible now]

[Jack Simth]

ooc:[Hope you get to feeling better.]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ooc:[as long as i don't think much it's bearable. lets see...]
narp swings at the golems neck, decapacitating it. the golem still holds together, though. thinking fast, narp aims at the spot where the anti-magic runes glow the strongest, and puts a big ragged line through them. magic flares out in a big light before it's re-routed, but it's to late. the golem doesn't have enough magic to defend against the physical wounds and the magical heat. quickly collapsing and drying out, the golem turns into a pile of dirt on the floor, revealing the end of the cooridor.
at the end of the cooridor is a mage, behind him is a stone wall. he looks like a mage, he has a robe like a mage, and it looks like a mages robe.
"i have a proposition for you." he says. "in an underground labrynth, gaurded by traps and monsters needing both a fighter and a mage or two, are some spheres of stability. these spheres will stabilize the area in five miles around you. even with my great power, i can only manage a mile's radius. my proposition is this: i will give you certain items to ease your journey as well as provide you with a dimensional door there and back. in return, one of the spheres is mine. now, the dangers in this labrynth are greater and more than what you have faced now, but, i am in a hurry and you are the only adventureres for fifty miles. what say you?" outside the cavern, the lurking wolf has heard every word, due to magic done by the mage. originally, the wolf was startled and ready to run, but his innate curriousity kept him there. now, the wolf hear's, for his ears alone: "and what about you? a sphere of stability would be of use to a wolf, and i would even fashion something for you to carry it with."
back to our intrepid hero's:
narp says "why shouldn't we attack you? you tried to kill us."
"your attacks would be futile. besides, you where in no danger. well?"
"then my second question is, why didn't you get them yourself?"
"a dimensional door cannot be opened from within the labrynth. even your skill at teleportation would be futile, jack. now, please, confer."
the mage dissapear's, although nobody has any illusions of privacy.
narp says "i don't trust him. but i do want one of those sphere's. and, if we get the spheres, he has to get us out. but, he could kill us. but, there's danger in every adventure."

ooc:[it sounded like a wizard with a quest cave, but i didn't want to do a normal wizard with a quest. i've tried to leave an uncertain impression over wether this ones good or evil, although i suppose we'll find out later .]

[ June 10, 2003, 20:00: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ooc:[yep. update.]

[Jack Simth]

The battle done, Jack cancels his sun spell, and the temperature goes back to normal.

"He does seems to be wrong about one thing, at least. His reason for staying is that nobody can open a door from inside the labrynth - that wouldn't be a problem, given a powerful mage. You could just hold one open. It's likely that he can't get in that way, either. Then again, that could be why he mentioned the traps, and I just misheard. If it were just a matter of opening a portal, sending someone through, having that person grab a sphere, and come back, he wouldn't need adventurers; he'd need a brick-carrier. It's likely he would open a door to the entry of the maze, and keep it open while we went in to move the spheres around. Oddly, once they started moving his direction, they would actually stabalize the portal, too, so that he wouldn't need to. This is about the only way he could get his hands on them in a timely fashion, as you can't teleport the spheres themselves or open a dimensional door near them."

"About the spheres of stability: ultimately, they won't be necessary. The instability of the forming region imports life of various sorts; we have already seen it bring in wolves, trees, grass, and us; the imported life has a cumulative stabalizing effect. In a few days, perhaps weeks, things will be totally stable anyway, and the spheres would be unnecessary for what he seems to want them for. Interesting though - he didn't say why he wanted one - he simply listed a few facts about his own abilities and the spheres' abilities, leaving us to draw the conclusion that he wants them to stabalize his domain."

"If the spheres work the way I suspect they do, he may want them for the bound-up energy. Remember those rocks I tossed down the stairwell? In theory, both of them will have a stabalizing effect similar to that of the spheres, only on a much smaller, more local scale - about an inch or so, just enough that the rocks themselves won't be absorbed by the next change. I didn't need to put much energy in there. Someone who knew how could extract that energy, but there isn't much, so it would be rather pointless. With enough energy to stabalize five miles . . . you could turn a human into a dragon, a very BIG dragon, permanently. He does appear to be getting along in his years, and dragons never die of old age - they just keep slowly growing in size and in power until something kills them. Some other things you could do: keep a rather large castle floating above the clouds for a millenia; produce a healing spring that will Last nearly forever; end the world; feed a zillion people for a century; feed a hundred people for a zillion years; nearly anything, really. Mind you, this doesn't necessarily say anything about his motives; there isn't any way to tell what he wants with one of these spheres."

"As for not teleporting and no dimensional doors - that's almost certainly an effect of the spheres. As far as that goes, he's right - I couldn't teleport within a thousand yards of such a thing. I've got other ways of traveling that wouldn't be affected by it; however, they are much slower and I would have difficulty bringing much with me."

"Personally, I don't have any use for a stabalizing sphere, either way. I can infuse things with energy to prevent their dissolusion in an unstable region, or (given time - and I have lots of it) into a building to protect everything inside. I'd much prefer a good reference on planar travel, as I will need one of those to get back to my master's tower, so I can read more of his books."

"If these spheres aren't what he says they are, I should be able to tell once we get close. I'm game, especially if he'll give me a good book on planar travel."

ooc:[Even if he gets the book, it will take Jack a while to read it, and he likes traveling around like this. Besides, he has a decade or so of vacation built up.]

[ June 11, 2003, 03:55: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ooc:[does jack have to talk so much? i'll come up with something brilliant for mr. mage to say. and D., since he should probably say something.]
"your partially right" the mages voice comes out in midair. "the labrynth cannot be teleported into except at the entrance, not just because of the spheres influence, but because the labrynth was deliberatly constructed that way. teleportational travel is cut off so well that the research to get to the entrence took me a noticable portion of my years. the research to move a sphere of stability took a substantual portion of them."
ooc:[gotta have paragraph's] "the protections inside the maze only have the difficulty of the additional time it took to learn how to transport more than one person. in truth, that might have been suffient against most who could try the attempt. as for what i could do with one? have you considered the difficulty of drawing magic out of an imposed partial change nullifying artifact? nothing so crude or nearly futile, i assure you. i will tell you no more. i guard my secrets. if you do not wish a sphere of stability, i will offer a spellbook of spell mastery, instead. through it, you could learn all the spells of a paticular realm, up to master level. of course, you must wait from six months to fifty years for it to update itself, but what matters years to those who measure in centuries?"
D. says "what do you call yourself?"
"sometimes, an idiot."
ooc:[yeah, all that and the only thing i could think of for D to say is 'what do you call yourself?' i've got to try harder]
D. "what use would you suggest for a sphere of stability?"
"perhaps you could consider using it's influence to nulify changes you disaprove of, to speak of only one advantage. not the easiest thing for one of your learning to do, but it has possibilities. enchantments can be detected, but how do you detect stability? you three must learn subtle. your dispatch of my golem was not subtle. effective, but noisy."
ooc:[so i moved something he said, and gave a question to D.]

[ June 11, 2003, 04:15: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Jack Simth]

"A book of Mastery? It is worth much trouble to obtain such a tome. And yes, I would prefer such a tome over the sphere, as the sphere would hamper my own movement, which I consider very valuable."

"As for the golem, subtlity wasn't needed; we were herded here, so you already knew we were coming. The stealth of a subtle attack would have been quite pointless. However, the speed of a noisy solution was useful. Wisdom lies in knowing which tool is most appropriet to the situation."

Jack stops speaking, and thinks:
.elbissopmi krow 'srotitepmoc sih ekam dluoc ti ,niaga neht ;tluciffid erom krow sih ekam dluow tI ?ytilibatS fo erehpS a htiw tnaw egam noitamina na dluow tahW .ytlaiceps sih eb ot mees soed noitamina tub - srood lanoisnemid dna gnitropelet eht htiw tahw ,dezilaiceps yllatot t'nsi egam eht ylsuoivbO ?egam noitamina na eb siht dluoC .deilppa eb ot ti rof tiaw neve t'ndid ti ;noitulos a dah ew ees dluoc ti sa noos sa delf rood eht dna ,ecneserp ruo ot dednopser melog eht ,efil gnissap fo sulumits eht ot dednopser spart eht :tca yllamron tonnac taht sgniht ot ytivitca gnitnarg tuoba erew ereh deretnuocne ew slleps eht tsoM ?cigam tsuj naht rehtruf sezilaiceps egam siht taht eb ti dluoC .ylkciuq stcurtsnoc tnemtnahcne egral fo yteregetni eht gniyfiyrev rof euqinhcet ralimis a esu I .tsiser taht secalp rof gnihctaw dna retfa yletaidemmi gniwollof evaw retnuoc a htiw egnahc ronim yltnatropminu fo evaw niht a tuo gnidnes fo rettam elpmis a s'tI ?tluciffid eb ytilibats gnitceted dluow yhW

ooc:[For those of you having migranes, that is perfectly sensible. Jack's strange (if you haven't noticed) and doesn't think in a manner compatible with mind reading (so the mage can't read Jack's mind). For those of you who don't want to take the time to puzzle it out, a translation can be found here. But that's cheating!]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
ooc:[does jack have to talk so much? ]

ooc:[YES! Of course he does! He has a lot to say! ]
ooc:[Seriously though, how many specialists don't have a lot to say when they are talking about some fine point of their specialty? Jack's specialty just happens to be magic and energy.]
ooc:[Also, even if Jack does get a good book on planar travel, he may very well need a different reference to be able to find the right plane to go to.]

[ June 11, 2003, 06:28: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]