gathering momentum on their way to Xak Tsaroth, buried city within the Pitt.
As they disappeared into shadows, her dragon eyes picked out details: Tagg and Minna hand in hand, their hair blowing around them; old Gandy flailing his mop handle as he tried to maintain his balance at great speed; Clout busily swatting rats and gathering up their corpses; and the Highbulp — Glitch I was rolling, tumbling downward, a flailing tangle of arms, legs and whipping beard, and his panicked voice rose above the others.
'Make way!' he shouted. 'Get outta way! Highbulp on a roll!'
Somehow, even disappearing into the depths and the shadows — and the unsuspected horrors — of the ancient, lost city that was his destination and his destiny, Glitch I, Highbulp by Persuasion and Lord Protector of Lots of Places — including, now, the Promised Place — still managed to sound arrogant.
Clockwork Hero
This is a Gnome Story. Such stories turn up now and again, around hearths and over cups of mulled wine. The talespinner of a proper Gnome Story should always state at the outset that his is a story of the gnomish type, so that the listeners are not surprised by that which follows. The Lower Planes hold no fury compared to that of an intent and dutiful audience that suddenly discovers they are trapped in a Gnome Story, with no escape other than the bodily expulsion of the talespinner. Heads have been broken, families split asunder, empires uprooted, and all because of an unannounced Gnome Story.
This is a Gnome Story then, and that in itself is considered fair and proper warning. And it is a Gnome Story because it deals with, to a great degree, gnomes.
Gnomes, you see, have the boundless curiosity of men, but lack the limitation of sense, the directness of thought, or the wisdom to control this curiosity. This disposition makes gnomes a vital part of talespinning, as much as the country fool who proves to be the wisest person of the party, or the holy man who arrives at the last minute to resolve all the characters' problems. In a similar fashion, gnomes — with their insatiable curiosity, their gleeful cleverness, and their perseverance through frequent (and dramatic) failure — serve as a guiding light, a beacon for other races. In holding up their failings, their ramshackle inventions and plots, we see more than a little of ourselves, and consider ourselves cautioned against their excesses. So gnomes have an important place in the universe (at least fictionally), such that if gnomes did not exist, they would demand to be invented, and nothing short of another gnome could invent such a concept.
Fortunately for all, they do exist.
This, then, is a Gnome Story, with all of its vantages, AD and DIS. It is an odd tale, in that it tells the story of a gnome who succeeds, a gnome who creates a most wondrous thing. But that is getting ahead of the tale.
Gnome Stories usually begin with the talespinner speaking of some outsider stumbling onto the hidden land of the gnomes. The idea of a hidden land of the gnomes is usually an artistic 'cheat,' a stretching of the imagination, since there are very few places more noisy, smoky, smelly, and downright noticeable than a gnome community. Incontinent volcanos or a week-long reunion of gully dwarves would run a close second or third, and, like a cluster of volcanoes or gaggle of gully dwarves, a gnome community is generally well-noted by its neighbors and left alone. It is, therefore, remote from the rest of civilization, but at civilization's behest.
This particular gnome community — this talespinner must assure you — was an extremely noisy place, resounding with the clang of hammers, the hiss of escaping steam, and the occasional explosion. The louder the gnomes, the more remote their home, and this was a most remote location indeed. So remote that the events of the outside world — the return of dragons, the coming of the Highlords and heroes, the war and all manner of destruction — passed this place by. In short, it was the perfect place to be an outsider, since there was much more outside than inside.
The outsider in question was not the standard singular found in most Gnome Stories, but rather two, a doubleton of strangers, a windfall in terms of Gnome Stories. These strangers had two things in common: they were from outside this village of gnomes — yes, that's true — but more important, they were first found sprawled in awkward but comfortable-looking positions on the ground, next to a large, formerly leather-winged form. Said form had earlier been a dragon, but was now little more than an open buffet for the local scavengers.
The outsiders were both alive, however. One was a warrior wrapped head to toe in dark armor, while the other was softer, plumper, unarmored, dressed in tattered finery and bound firmly at the wrists and ankles. The warrior was a woman, though this was not immediately apparent from her armor; the one in ragged finery was a man. For gnomes, gender is as unimportant as eye color or taste in music, but since these are HUMAN outsiders, it will become important. More on that later, because the gnome had finally arrived on the scene to survey the damage. And this is a Gnome Story.
It was a gnome named Kalifirkinshibirin who discovered the comfortably sprawled outsiders outside (of course) his village. Kalifirkinshibirin (or Kali, shortening further a name already truncated due to space) was a smallish gnome, whose hobbies included spoon-collecting and putting dried flowers under glass. He also had what passed for healing skill, being versed in some natural poultices and potions that had the unique advantage (among gnomes) of not killing his patients outright.
Kali was gathering ingredients for said potions and poultices in that particular field on that particular morning, and so, it fell to him to discover those particular remains of that particular dragon, and the outsiders resting comfortably nearby. He was definitely not in the field because he was looking for new discoveries to be made, new revelations to be revealed, or new objects to muck about with. Kali was, to put it delicately, different from his fellows.
No, better to strip away the kindness of language and face this straight out. Kali was a queer duck among his people. Most gnomes live to invent. They have fives, even tens of projects in the works at the same time, one often spilling into another at random. Gnomes see the world as inherently wrong (not an unpopular sentiment), but gnomes differ from the rest of the universe in that they believe it is their job to set matters right. That's why they invent — continually, relentlessly, and explosively — all manner of gimcracks and snapperdoodles and thingamabobs. It's the thing that gnomes just naturally do, like breathing or taking tea.
But Kali didn't have that same sort of drive as his fellows. He was pretty content in doing what he was doing with potions and plants and poultices to relieve the occasional outbreak of flu or bad colds. He had his spoons/of course; inscribed with wildflowers, legendary heroes, and mythical animals (which was how he recognized the dragon, by the by), but none of them were mechanical in the least. He kept plans for a solar-powered lighthouse about his parlor — for appearances — but he hadn't added to them in years.
In short, Kali was an underachiever. (This was not a criminal offense to Kali's fellow gnomes — they tended to be understanding about it. Indeed, the fact that Kali's healing methods would not vary from week to week did something for his reputation as a healer).
In any event, it was Kali who found the outsiders. He determined they were within the bounds of 'still breathing,' and dragged the armored and unarmored forms back to his house in the village. (This is important, for it would make these outsiders — by custom — Kali's salvage and Kali's responsibility.) By the time he brought the second one (the unarmored, plumper, male one) back, a small crowd of his fellow gnomes had gathered about his front porch. They were armed with all manner of fearfullooking devices, and a sharp gleam shone in each and every eye.
To an outsider (particularly a human outsider), these gnomes would appear to be a horde of evil torturers prepared to initiate a cruel inquisition, but Kali recognized that these were merely his fellow inventors. The devices were hastily-assembled inventions that would straighten a leg, lance an infection, or immobilize a thrashing patient (the last invention was a necessity for experimental surgery). The gleam that seemed so evil was only the heartfelt and honest lust that every gnome feels when one of his inventions might prove useful.
To an outsider, though, the gleam would look undoubtedly and understandably malicious, and the size and number of sharp edges on the devices would tend to intensify said doubt. Were the two outsiders healthy, they would not walk into this apparently dangerous realm without at least a dozen more of their kind, and with a healthy reward promised on the other side.
Kali was dragging the large, plumper figure onto his porch when he found his way blocked. The first outsider,
