Tombraider's Remorse....

"I bought this off of a desperate thief in Alexandria a few years ago, a Moondancer or something." The dragoness recalls. "Seems the young lady rogue had the misfortune in breaking into and stealing items from what turned out to be an Atlantian tomb. "I think she wanted me to try to lift the curse place upon her.....but the curse finished in one fell swoop and all that was left was a mink or something....."

"There's not much left...." Malachi warns as the others gather round and look upon the beaten and burnt journal.

"Lord Tessela's Technical Journals!" whispers Carradene and Sigin in awe and reverence. Fred and the other....less learned adventurers look at them in askance.

"I know that Lord Tessela was big in Atlantis and all," Fred says....having at least learned that in his magical studies under Malachi. "But I've never heard about this....so....?"

"With THIS one has the secrets of the slipgates!" Carrande 2 whispers in awe....and fear.

"I...don't think so," Inquirer says, gently leafing through the book (after looking a question at Malachi...who nodded it was okay). "There's not much left here....."

"The....damn thief was trying to destroy the book?!" Rosepaw asks in outrage....and then pauses to ask herself why she's so upset.

I seem to have inherited my love's love of fine art and Arte, the little vixen thinks ruefully to herself.

"Perhaps it's well that we don't have the knowledge," Alicia 2 sighs. "The fact that Sigin Vulpine's Synizn practically was having a fit about the dangers HIS Crystallic presented.....the danger of being able to recreate such a grand.....transportation system presents us with similar problems....on a larger scale. I've read you could transport whole ARMIES via those things!"

"You can transport armies with just one of THESE things," Carradene 2 corrects the princess. "But I do see the point you're making."

"For right now, we need the Crystallics," Malachi sighs. "If only to make whatever is needed by what our brave mechanized lady finds.

"Then we'll take these Crystallics to the newly redomed city of Atlantis," Fred says....referring to what they'd seen in scrying (that of robotic constructs having completed a clear bubble over the fell city....in order to....according to Inquirer....to shore up the city's failing magical shields). "And we'll perform the ritual that will cause the slipgates to explode just as the Crystallics explode."

"Huh?" Sigin Vulpine looks up at the dragoness, ears twitching in confusion. "You aren't going to smash the Crystallics with the hammer that created them? That would do the same thing!"

"It would?" Malachi D'Honaire asks, surprised. "The only way I know of is the remedy here....listed under solutions to rapidly failing slipgates. You see, right next to the page marked 'Symptoms.'"

"Hmmm," Rosepaw (who somehow got up on the shuttles wing and is looking over her mate's shoulder as he reads). "This solution is listed as the 'surest solution'....but warns that when the verbal command is given....the speaker will be within the 'blast radius' and most likely will perish in the explosion....doesn't sound too appealing."

"But...hey!" Inquirer chuckles, holding up a small item with buttons on it. "That's what recordings are for......"

A quick demonstration to the enthralled audience shows that the read/right CD recorder unit would more than fulfill the "verbal" component of this "surer" method.

"I wonder if my analog has this book?" the dragoness says as she places the book back into the pouch she had carried in dragon form. "I was able to read just ONE symptom-that of increase of gravity-and the one solution....but....."

"Maybe when this is over, we can ask her," Inquirer says.

"Perhaps," the dragoness agrees, resuming human form. "I'm just wonder if what happened to this world's slipgate system could somehow be related to how we got here.....and I hope to God that it doesn't have to do with failing slipgates! I got a feeling that it would be.....bad."

Inquirer thinks a few dark thoughts about what she'd like to do to a certain mink....and then sighs.

1. "Whatever comes will come," the female Golem sighs. "We just have to be ready to jump when whatever happens happens. Semper gumbi."

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