A Minature Gallery

Fred replied, "Melissa. We are very much strangers. I hope that you are not an enemy, and that you will be a friend. I will offer you a choice. If we are indeed so obnoxious to you that you cannot bear the sight of us. We will leave you alone and try our luck at leaving this place and bring the dragon to justice. We will send help once our mission is complete. On the other hand, if you are at willing to listen to us with an open mind, then I will explain to you as much as I know. And maybe you can help us out."

"You still have me locked up. It is not like I have any real choices. Go ahead and talk."

"I am Lord Fred of Suffex, a part of the Kingdom of Allaria, here on a mission. This man is my lord, the King of the Great Kingdom of Allaria, to whom I owe allegiance. This is going to be a silly question, but have you ever heard of Allaria?"

"No."

"I was afraid of that. Your homeland is probably far removed from mine. Just believe me for now. Our kingdom has had a problem with a dragon. Damned thing comes out of the blue and burns our crops. Also steals our children. And up to now, there hasn't been a damned thing we have been able to do about it. Believe me, we have tried, but it is impossible to catch and seems to be impervious to iron."

Melissa looked at him skeptically.

"Yeah, when we first got the news from the country people some of us wondered whether it was really a dragon or just some sort of tall tale. But once you see it once, it is real enough. So the king called upon some of the leading men of the kingdom and asked for ideas. And I said that we need to take the battle to the dragon's home ground. As I said, the bastard is greedy, and likes gold and silver. And we had a good idea of where the hoard of gold and silver was. So if we endangered the hoard, then we could at least fight the dragon in a place of our choosing instead of having it come from out of nowhere and attack."

"And so you and your king decided to go into the dragon's cave alone?"

"Actually it was just me. There is less chance of one person being detected. My idea was that if I could kill or otherwise neutralize the dragon, then do so. But if I could gather information about his lair and bring it back so that we could send additional men to exploit any weaknesses found, then that would be good, too. But once I got here, the lair and the dragon turned out to be a lot more than I expected."

Fred continued, "The dragon - or at least somebody familiar with the dragon - has the nasty ability to move people between distant places an instant. I don't know how else to describe it."

"Teleportation," Melissa suggested.

"Is that what you call it? Do you know how to do it?" Fred responded with some hope that Melissa might have that power.

"No. Um, not as such. Doing it instantly is a fairy tale. Sci-Fi, like the Star Trek stories. But in a way, we kind of do. Have you heard of tall tales about flying carpets?"

"No," said Fred.

"Yes," said the King. "It is a Hespaniard story. A carpet can fly through the air and take you anywhere that you want to go."

Melissa aid, "Ah, good. We kind of have that, actually. But instead of a carpet, it is more like a giant metal bird that can carry hundreds of people."

The king said, "Oh, come now. A great idea for a tall tale, but we don't have time for that."

Melissa said, "Tall tale, schmall tale. Look, I think that you are just a couple of creeps indulging in some weird role playing. Let me go, please. You are taking it too far."

Fred said, "Your majesty, let's go. I don't think that she can help us."

Melissa said, "Look, give me the phone, and I can prove it."

Fred said, "Oh, no. The dragon mentioned that he was bringing you here. If we give you that phone, you might be a demon that the dragon will use to do worse than it already has."

"Stop it. This isn't fun for me. I just want to go home." Melissa started to sniffle.

The king and Fred looked at each other silently. The King raised his index finger, and nodded, a signal to Fred that he had an idea.

The king said, "So this block of glass is called a phone, right?"

"Of course." replied Melissa wearily.

"So will this phone summon one of the big birds?"

"Probably not here. But I was thinking of something simpler. I was going to show you a likeness of one of the birds."

"If you can tell me how I can see one of these likenesses, I will release you."

"Please don't lie to me."

"I am not lying. I want to see how this phone thing works."

"Can you come a little closer so that I can see what you are doing? First you have to unlock it. Do you see the square with the number "0" on it. Just touch it with your finger. OK, hit the area with the arrow in the left direction, but touch it a little more gently. Good. Now touch the "2" key. Good. Touch the zero key again. Good. Touch the "9" key. Top right. Great! Now touch it two more times."

Melissa thought to herself, "It is lucky that I hadn't activated biometrics yet. I don't know that this guy would let me touch the phone. All I have is a PIN, and the security guys at work would lecture me if they knew I was using my birth date. February 9, 1999. And the battery is at 100%. No reception, but I am not surprised. Even if I am in a cave near my hometown I wouldn't expect reception if I was too far underground."

The phone changed and there were many colorful tiles.

"Don't touch anything yet. There should be a red tile with a white flower on it. Do you see it? Put your fingertip on that."

The king had opened the gallery on Melissa's phone.

"Click on that first square. There you go."

The king saw a photograph of four people dressed in a dark blue livery. Three were attractive young women and one was a thin, young, athletic man.

"I am impressed. Your artists are far better than ours. I can tell that you are the second one on the left. You look much nicer in your livery. So this phone is like a very fancy miniature container."

"It is more than that. Touch the phone with your finger and move it right. That is called a swipe. Keep swiping until I tell you to stop. I know what you want. OK, stop."

The king now saw a photograph of small jet parked near a gate at an airport. He motioned Fred to come and take a look.

Fred said, "Where are the people riding the bird?"

Melissa was starting to warm up a little. It was most likely that these were two creeps that were doing a role play of some sort - but they were really convincing as clueless quasi-medieval characters, and since they were letting her do the explaining, she didn't feel so powerless.

"They are inside. I think that you can see one of them if you zoom in. Take your thumb and forefinger and move them apart. No, on the glass. No. OK. Click on the square again. Touch the glass and move your index finger to the right."

After a few minutes, the king made the executive decision to let Melissa work with the photographs, and she was able to expand a plane photo to show one of the passengers staring out a window. It was a little blurry, but still a wonder to the king and Fred. And when Melissa talked the king into taking his photograph using the phone, his respect for the magic of the phone increased.

"I did promise that I would release you if you could teach me to see one of these giant birds on the phone. I am not sure that I can do it yet, but these portraits are such marvels that I believe that I should at least keep my promise." The King grasped Melissa's cuffs, and they popped open.

1. The three adventurers explore.
2. Melissa shows them some additional phone features.

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