On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 5:38 PM, Keith <keith.nellist_at_iPz_aDQKeYLMOhRwClH-uQhNslT_dUQmqb-ipje_a2pcEPdoDlnBH9_bi-EVmBWQ-E_cQ3803eq52Mbc5y5x.yahoo.invalid> wrote:
> A Praxian named Bullthrash was overseeing his herd in the remote wastes of
> Outer Prax when suddenly a band of strangely dressed people flew toward him
> out of a cloud of dust and air elementals.
>
> The leader, a young man in woven aluminium armour, catablepas leather
> boots, a silver helmet and a blue spider silk cloak, lowered himself to the
> ground and asked the Praxian, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and
> calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?"
>
> Bullthrash looks at the man, obviously a Godlearner, then looks at his
> peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"
>
> The rest of the group land, they whips out magic sticks, ignites a bronze
> brazier, burns some strange powders and summons a lesser flying demon, which
> he commands into the air to get an exact fix on his location which he then
> feeds to another spirit that scans the area, and begins chanting in a high
> pitched ululation.
>
> The young man then opens a casket of carved ebony and brings forth many
> shells from a peculiar deep sea mollusc only found on the edge of Daliath's
> Well of Wisdom which he uses to represent the cattle.
>
> Within seconds, the mollusc shells rearrange themselves to represent the
> herd beasts and a counting imp, some sort of essence demon, makes a
> reckoning, gibbering to himself in a forgotten language. Finally, it writes
> a number in dog script using the ink of a flayed walktapus, on a piece of
> vellum made from the stretchable hide of a nasobeme. He turns to the Praxian
> "You have exactly 1,586 bison and calves."
>
> "That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says
> Bullthrash.
>
> He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with
> amusement as the young man surrounds it with air elementals and lifts it
> from the ground.
>
> Then Bullthrash says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly who
> you are, will you give me back my calf?"
>
> The young godlearner thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why
> not?"
>
> "You're a magician from the court of Emperor Ilotos", says Bullthrash.
>
> "Wow! That's correct," says the Godlearner, "but how did you guess that?"
>
> "No guessing required." answered the Praxian. "You showed up here even
> though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew,
> to a question I never asked. You used uncountable resources of power,
> spirits and magic trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and
> you don't know a thing about how Praxians make a living - or about Bison,
> for that matter. This is a herd of Impala. ...
>
>
> Now give me back my dog.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
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--
Greg Stafford
Game Designer
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