|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- WEAVER--CUP 5--"SCULPT" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Weaver  ||  -------> (Cup SRwv005, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = But what am I saying? I haven't even decided whether or not this is an island! It gets awfully rocky going along the shore either way--tough to climb naked. This lack of clothes is also starting to bother me. Not that I'm embarrassed by my physique, I mean, I've been intimate with the other two inhabitants of this place. It's just, I feel like it would be more difficult to face a challenge without clothes. Like an aggressive animal--or climbing the rocks, as I've already mentioned. Wouldn't want to waste what's left of my superstrength... Anyway, I took a walk inland and got to an area with a lot of large rocks and boulders. I figured I'd try and find a bunch of smaller rocks to feed into my matter-thing, but there weren't that many to be found. I was carrying the matter-thing in my right hand, passing a large rock formation, when I heard a little click from the device. Looking down, I saw that a little push-button was revealed on the top of the left handle--just right for being pressed by my thumb. So I grabbed the other handle and held the thing in front of me, pointing away. Then I pushed the button. There was a brief flash of light and a smell like just before a rain shower in the air. In from of me, a large area of the rock formation was gone, gutted. I looked at the matter-thing, then back to the rock. God damn if the thing didn't suck in about a ton of the stuff! I smiled and nodded my head. I'd be getting A LOT of matter into this baby now. Too bad I didn't have a Warhome for it to power. But something had to happen when the needle read full, and I was dying to find out what. So I worked on the rock formation for awhile. It was almost like taking pictures with a camera. At times, I felt like a sculptor--I made some pretty cool shapes out of the rocks. Then I pointed the thing downward and snapped. Yup--the sucker ate up a big portion of ground. Awesome. Some of the needles were getting toward the 50% mark, others were hardly budging. If each needle represented a basic element, how was I ever gonna fill up the rare ones? I found out pretty soon. I had begun snapping up pine trees--only thing was, it gobbled the lower portion of the trunk, leaving the rest of it to collapse thunderously onto the ground. Almost got creamed a couple of times, I did. Anyway, as I was snapping up a fallen tree, the thing started to beep crazily. I looked at the thing and saw that the grating above the hole closed up, and the display turned a different color. It felt weird in my hands--it had already started to a while back, but now it was--you know what it's like to hold a gyroscope and try to move it around? It was like that. I felt a deep clanging from within thing, then another, and then another. As I watched, a few of the needles which were over 50% dropped, as others which had barely moved began to increase. Could it be? No. I mean--how could it? But there was no escaping the conclusion--the bastard was converting one element into another, at a fundamental level. From what I could tell, it may have even turned some lead into gold! Unreal. But then it hit me--if this thing was meant as a power source, what possible use could there be to changing one element into another? Then another thing hit me--I thought it was converting all the matter I was snapping up into energy--but now... From what I could tell, all that matter was still in there! Hundreds of tons of rock, there had to be! How could I still be holding this thing? It didn't weigh that much at all. But then I remembered my science lessons. Mass and weight are two separate things. Somehow, this thing was keeping it's weight constant, while massively increasing its mass. I felt a chill rush up my spine. Just what was I dealing with here? Okay--it was somehow building a huge stockpile of matter within itself--but how? It would have to be ultra compressed--but then I remembered another lesson--that most matter is made up of nothing but space. There was no other conclusion. It was building something, deep within its bowels, something that was hundreds of tons. And I was holding it in my hands. What could it be building? I looked at that display--the one with the picture of the Warhome on it. No. No. It couldn't be. No way. It couldn't be--could it? I took a deep breath, as the displays turned back to their normal colors, and the grating covering its maw opened up again. The Warhome needle was now around 20%. Could I dare believe? Could I dare believe it was building a Warhome? I thought of my promise to Treyess, of how I'd find some way of keeping our Warhome, and making it our home. Huh. Looks like I'll be keeping that promise, only we'll have to share it with the devil incarnate, Red Archer Booze. It was at that moment that I really started to hate Booze. A lot. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----