Food/Beverage Concentrator

[Brodder FoamyMugs]

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[EloMist]

Missing! Part I

Norrathians far and wide, I bid you greetings.

I am Eloriel Mistglimmer, wanderer, collector, maker of things, servant to the god of Storms, and battlemage for the illustrious city of Felwithe.

I write this missive to relate to you an unusual experience and to seek your help in locating a dwarf of some probable notability. While I generally have little problem in locating information about people, places, or things (thanks to the esteemed postion I hold in Felwithe) in this situation I have met with a great deal of resistance from those that appear to know anything at all. Therefore, I beseach you to endure my tale, and should you have any information that could be of assistance, please contact me directly as soon as teleportation or divine intervention will allow.

During my many travels I have made the acquaintance of a great many folk. One of a particular fondness to me is a gnomish paladin by the name of Starreyn. She was introduced to me by an evil little gnome that had too much of a fondness for the darker arts. I never will understand what she sees in him, considering the extreme opposition of work they are in. Regardless, I digress.

Starreyn and I frequent Pub Kal in South Kaladim to share tales, a root beer float or three, and swap rare or unique items. Kaladim seems a great place for us, a kind of neutral ground as it were, and Dura and Hanamaf hardly ever scowl at us anymore... well, as long as Starreyn keeps that crazy toolbox of her's closed.

That toolbox! That is truly where this trouble began. Not being a gnome myself, I have never really understood the fascination, or how all those really amazing devices gnomes make come into being. Having seen it with my own eyes, I warn you now, don't seek the answers to some things, you are much safer that way.

....

Starreyn and I were sitting at our favorite table, exchanging information and items, tossing down our usuals one fine summer day. "I don't think this thing does what I've heard. In fact, I think its just a ploy to get us out of the city for a while so that the councilmen can make some ill favored alliance, again. Not that I will ever know since I can't seem to chance across those other items we spoke of." I bemoaned, setting a container of hydrolized ether on the table between us.

"You, sir, are far too impatient. I've spoken to Walnan several times, and I assure you she would not lie to you about these things. Like you or not, it would be beneath her dignity, and you know it. As I've told you many times before. You are just upset because she still calls you a youngster" my gnomish compatriot assured. "Now, where is that sprocket I just had laid up here? I'm telling you I can make these floats better and faster if I can just figure out how to..." At this point she sprung into a diatribe of mechanological jargon that for some reason slides right around my brain. When she gets on a real tear I can almost feel the words trying to pound a hole back out of my head.

Now I must say, I enjoy the portable devices she has filled my travel packs with. But I will never forget that day as she absently reached out and began grabbing items from the table. It seems I had pushed things around a bit for she (failing to notice the change) instead of grabbing the root beer experiments she had been attempting, placed in the ether, something so black that it seemed almost to suck light from the area, and the ordinarily expected ice.

"... but this is merely a hypothesis. Ah! There it is." and the lid of the churn snicked shut with no portentious indicator whatsoever. She picked up the sprocket and returned to rumaging in her toolbox, zinging mechanology terms at me like darts while I drudged the churn.

Ordinarily I'm quite used to doing this sort of work, but I could feel eyes bearing down on me. I turned my head seeking the source, and there was Hanamaf with more knowing in a smile than I've seen in centuries. The sheepish grin I tossed his way was met with nothing more than a snort and a wink, then he returned to buffing the tankards.

"Oh! Do pay attention, Eloriel! What was that noise?" Starreyn demanded. It was that voice that gnomes get when they are devizing, or whatever they call it, something gnomish. Very focused on the right now with no room for nonsense. Sadly, I was clueless to any noise aside from those common to the pub, and the whishking of the churn. Of course, I was suddenly quite focused myself when the handle of the churn snapped free from the rest of the device.

"What have you done to MY ice cream churn!?" she wailed.

"Me? All I've been doing is turning the handle while you work on that thingymajig you've been babbling about." a plausible retort I thought. "What I want to know is this: Why did YOUR ice cream churn break? I've never had a problem with anything you've made before. Have you been getting your parts from that schyster shop near the Plane of Knowledge again?"

"Schyster shop? Have you lost your mind? I don't buy deficient parts anywhere! I don't know what the problem may be, but I WILL find out." I cringed at the threatening tone in her voice. "Calling observer armor 'thingymajig' is an insult..."

"As you say." I interjected.

"... and I never babble! It's not my fault you elves just don't understand the simplest of things. Now be quiet, I'm looking at this."

Strange it was to watch the entire churn begin to disintegrate right before my eyes. Well, that's what it looked like to me anyway. But really it was more that the parts and pieces began crackng, breaking off, or flaking until there was nothing recognizable of the churn but a mass of dust and pitted parts that even I could tell would be useful for nothing.

"Ah! Now what is this? I think this could be quite useful for something. Oh very interesting! I wonder what beneath the works this could be."

So much for my value as a salvage estimator I thought.

You could almost feel it radiating something, right at the edge of awareness, though it wasn't much to look at. Just another pile of dust in the mess really. Rather non-descript in color and there certainly wasn't much more than a pinch of it, but it certainly had Starreyn's undivided attention. The mumbling began, followed by a flurry of activity. Items started coming back out of her toolbox. Brushes, pinchers, little shovels, bottles, jars, corks and a mass of devices I could never hope to describe. All to clear away the now unimportant remains of the ice cream churn. All with such care and precision that nothing was missed, nothing failed to make it into a container of some sort and then back into the toolbox. After only a few moments, the only things left on the table were this new thing and my various sundries. The later having been almost casually pushed to the end of the table then given a dismissive wave as the only indication that I might want to put them away... I did finally get the hint.

At this point I wish I had previously noted Starreyn donning her safety gear, standard issue multi-purpose cultural armor she tells me. She had completed her observations and non-contact measurements, and what not, and was attempting to retrieve the substance for a hopeful containment for later study. As her gauntlet came near, but not quite touching, there was a bright flash, a clap like thunder, a cloud of smoke, and a yelping gnome (She swears she didn't yelp, but that it was I who had done this.) all nearly simultaneously. Upon inspection it was clear the substance was gone. It was clear my eyebrows were gone, which is quite fashionable in some circles though I found it a less than pleasant experience. And it was also clear that Starreyn was not going to be able to move her arm without carrying the table around, as the gauntlet had become firmly fixed to it by some inexplicable means.

We spent several days attempting to remove the gauntlet, but finally ended up having to pay for the table, its demolition, removal, and installation of a new one. Starreyn kept the section with the gauntlet attached later discovering that one of the bolts used to secure the table had fused with the gauntlet. Further research involved many trips to the Planes, Everfrost Peaks, Discord, on and on. I would list them all but Starreyn is pretty adamant that I not be too forth-coming until we get the prototype back.

The prototype. What prototype you ask? Well, certainly I am finally coming to that part of the story. You see it took Starreyn months after this incident to come up with just the right combination of things, powerful but not too powerful, lightweight yet sturdy, and amazingly enough, functional. She is very meticulous about these things.

(to be continued)