Status report

"First," Probe begins. "As you probably know....at least those of the Pack would....about the missiles that the Enemy lobbed at Terra hit various points on the globe here, causing extensive damage."

Red marks, making the globe of Terra look like it was injured, light up in various places. The area around the kingdom of Gelda (and incidently....neighboring Allaria and a few other small nations) are within the circle of destruction (the D'Honaire's feel their stomachs clench....even though for some it isn't THEIR Allaria.....and for others....had already guessed the truth). Another, centering around with those with sharp eyes see as a small island, is located in the Sea of Tarel. Another (this causes Alicia to squeeze Fred's hand tighter, who squeezes back in support) is in the western region of the lands known as Ethiopia, in the desert of Arabi....a desert found in the upper North Eastern portion of the dark continent known as Afrika. The last draws a sigh from Probe himself, who shakes his head sadly. The last area of destruction is the small chain of islands known as....Nippon.

It's ironic that one of the first places to feel the heat of nuclear fire is there, sighs Probe to himself. Centered EXACTLY.....where Hiroshima would have been in my world.......

Then, Probe told graphic details about radiation sickness, fallout....and with the case of all the millions of gallons of seawater vaporized and then condensed back into a GREEN rain over the Calimari desert.....rainout (radioactive rain or other precipitate) .

"Your description of this 'radiation sickness' is exactly like what I've seen in my.....home," Malachi says, with a trace of sadness in her voice. "And you say that this "ionizing radiation".....the damage it's done to my people....is permanent? I've tried to cure them, but have only had limited success, and it's only stopgap at that. Surely there is something your Alliance can do?" There's a note of....pleading?....in her voice.

"No, I'm afraid not." sighs Probe. "Fantastic though our science is, neither Alliance nor Lizard science can yet REVERSE the damage caused by ionizing radiation to living tissue. Care for the symptoms, yes. Cure, no. Cure the effects of birth defects caused by damage to DNA, no."

Probe spends the next ten minutes giving a quick explanation to the adventurers what DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, was and how it effected the operation of the cells that made up a living organisim. Then the next five minutes giving a bare bones explanation of what "cells" were. The adventurers looked interested (especially the manimals....who always struck Probe and the other AI as taking great delight at learning about new things....almost like a child would sometimes.....really).

"So....that's what Mendel was trying to explain to me back in Gelda!" Malachi says in awe to herself. "Here he was, talking about peas........" The dragonness shakes her head, feeling like a light just turned on.

Probe looked at her funny (since in his world, a Mendel had also done the same thing.....laying the groundwork for genetic study).

"Is he on the level?" whispers Dredrick to Sigin, who has a somewhat glazed look of amazement as the wheels turn inside his draconian mind, making connections that he had never made before with various magical experiments on some research animals he did.....long ago.

"It would.....go a long way to explain a few things." the dragon captain whispers back, blinking.

"Makes the things I and my father were working on pale in comparision," Alicia admits grudgingly. "All the descendants....and many of the citizens of his nation.....are by force many things.....including being conversant in the art of mechanism. It makes this look like small change!" Alicia drops something on the table, something that she was going to show off to her friends and allies. Probe glances at it, and does a comedic double take!

This brings the lecture to a screeching halt.

"Could....I look at that?" Probe asks gently, curiousity running rampant. The vixen shrugs and nods. The cyborg gently takes it in his hands, careful to not point the business end at anyone. He whistle in admiration....and mutters to himself.

"Six chambers for ammunittion with swingout cylinder....typical of the beast." he whispers to himself. "Iron sights at end of barrel for aiming at target. Hammer for igniting percussion cap....activated by....." the AI looks up at Alicia in open shock.

He gently places the revolver on the table.

"I take it this six shooter revolver....pistol....," Probe sputters. "Do you happen to have the bullets for this sucker?!"

Puxxled, the vixen plops down one, and Probe looks like he's going to have a fit. Then the AI....starts to....laugh in delight.

After five seconds he stops, but is smiling and shaking his head.

"Congratulations," he says. "You and your father are geniuses!"

The vixen actually blushes at the compliment, her fur turning a little more crimson around her face.

"Not only did do we have drawn brass cartridges with full metal jacket bullet heads," the AI says, dazed. "Not only do we have a revolver, which is head and shoulder above those piece of crap one shot flinlock pistols I've seen, the hammer that makes the bullet fire can either be caulked by pulling it back itself....as in SINGLE action.....but pull back the triger here below the cylinder that holds the six bullets which revolve to move the unspent bullet for firing next.....it's double....DOUBLE action."

"Bulllet, powder, and means of ignition in one single package?!" Dredrick perks up, interested in weaponry.....one of his tools of trade in his younger days.

"And.....not only that," Probe continues. "See those sprialing grooves? When the bullet fires and travels through the barrel....the grooves cause it to spin....increasin it's range and accuracy instead of just tumbling like a flintlock rifle does.

"I take it your impressed?" Alicia asked, fascinated at how this.....construct is showing such delight in such a simple thing. "Even about how the powder is....smokeless?

"Impressed?" the AI says. "Amazed is the word.....that's a few centuries ahead of it's time! It'd.....well I'd hate to be your enemy out in the lands of Arabi!"

A glance between adventures is shared, and filed for later......

"Ah...oh," Probe calms down, and returns to business at hand. "You....surpries me their, folks. Sorry about that. With the year being 1501.....never mind, just my stupid preconceptions about your world at work again."

Probe then finishes up the lecture about the grim facts about what the bombing has wrought on this world.

"Fallout is minimal," Probe states flately. "And the halflife is REALLY quick, goes down to safe levels in a matter of weeks to a month or so. Makes it easy for the Enemy to come back and set up shop and all. The some in the Alliance would sell their souls.....good thing they aren't down here on the planet....considering magic and all.....to be able to reproduce that trick....and the small delivery system with the missile once it reaches it's proscribed target. It goes and shoots out hundreds of warheads the size of....a pint of beer with the power of what flattened Hiroshima.....which would....pretty much swallow a big town here." Probe then explains the details of the firestorm and the mushroom cloud an atom bomb makes....bringing more looks of consternation from all present.

"So much damage from something that small?" Dragon Synizn gasps. A discrete spell to detect falsehoods hasn't gone off YET with this joker! "Which is more powerful than million and millions of tons of....TNT? What's TNT?"

"A explosive that's several times more explosive than black powder." Probe states. The dragon looks queasy, and nods.

"Now," Probe finishes. "With only four of those sucker going off....at the stage of development you guys were at as far as industry was going.....wooden ships and all.....you lucked out. Lucked out because in a world of high technology, those bombs would have incinerated cities and factories and other stuff that holds chemicals and plastics.....petroleum products....that when burned produces thick smoke and vapors that would do two things. One is create, when enough of it is burned by say....hundreds of nukes.....a cloud that would block out the sun for YEARS, causing what we lovingly call nuclear winter. It would cause......"

"Plants to die," Dredrick says in a flat voice. "Which in turn would make animals starve....and also peeople. Which sounds disturbingly like Ragnorak , the long and bitter winter before the final battle between the light and dark forces."

"A sword age," whispers Fred 1.

"A wolf age," whisper Fred 2.

Nobody looks happy.

"Ah," Probe goes on. "What happened is that while lots of stuff burned....and lots of people needlessly died--I'm not making light of that-it could have been worse. If that fifth missile aimed at the area near Panaras hadn't malfunctioned....and instead just fubarred the entire landing zone by playing meteor.....well."

"Terra would have died," Astra shivers.

"Yes," Probe stated grimly. "The jungles and several hundred open tarpools.....would have tipped the balance.... And....." Probe shakes his head sadly.

"Now," Fred says, guessing that there's a qualifier for this 'luck.' "What is going to happen?"

"Hotter Summers," Probe says. "Meaning less rainfall....less crops.....The ozone layer....a layer of gas....uh....do you know about ultra-violet light?" The dragons say that they can SEE ultra-violet light...and infra-red light.

"It's light located here....above the purple band here on that rainbow my prism makes." Manbear Synizn explains. "It looks REAL purple....for lack of a better word....to a dragon. Infra-red, which we manimals can see somewhat, is below the red band here......"

The humans look enlightened, and Probe looks relieved at being spared yet another back and forth session.

"That junk that the bombs burned is going to tear a hole or three up their in the ozone layer," Probe sighs. "It will lead to higher incidents of skin cancer. And.....could lead to global warming....which could melt the ice at the poles." The adventurers tell Probe that they know about ice at the north and south pole.....explorers had been their on magical expeditions.

"And that...could cause the ocean levels to rise a bit?" Fred 1 takes a wild guess.

"Depending on how much ice melts....it could rise rather....high," Probe winces.

The adventurers excuse themselves, raise a magical curtain of silence, and after only two minutes of talking, are back.

"After we discussed all we....saw," Malachi states solemnly (leaving out the part where Probe's voice had been analysised for falsehood seven hundred ways form Sunday). "Even the most....adamant of those who wanted the Crystallics destroyed....isn't crazy enough nor meanhearted enough to let all those who are suffering because of this madness......We will use the Crystallics to repair the damage....at least as much as we can....though it will take weeks to do so!"

Weeks?! Probe thinks to himself. Heck, even our best teraforming teams take decades to undo the damage done by massive nuke strikes..... Then something else occurred to the AI. Something that he had overheard.....

"And the shields that hold out the water out in Bermuda.....hundreds of miles away while we twiddle our thumbs in the tropical Afrikan city of Panaras?" Probe probes.....sensing the answer.

"It shall collapse LONG before we are through," sighs Demi-fox Synizn. "The final implosion of millions of gallons of seawater.....will be like thousands of pounds of black powder going off! It'll totally ruin that city....and thus close off any chance of neatralizing the threat that these Crystallics present!"

1. "Maybeee not," Probe winks. "I have an....offer for you......"

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