From: kjc@aramis.rutgers.edu (Kelly J. Cooper)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [MG] Jameson W. Walker about town
Keywords: money, mapping, munching, musing, meandering
Date: 16 Apr 93 01:03:17 GMT


"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion,
butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance
accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders,
give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new
problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight
efficiently and die gallantly.  Specialization is for insects."
                 - Lazarus Long (as transcribed by Robert A. Heinlein)

I'm sorry.  I'd love to, but...I promised to help a friend fold road
maps.            - 101 EXCUSES FOR ALL OCCASIONS



     Jameson twiddled her change with the tips of her fingers,
listening to it quietly jingle as she walked.  She was pretty near
broke, at least by the standards of this world.  There was definitely
a need for more cash.  Moving smoothly through Generica she didn't
look as if she were taking random lefts and rights -- just as the
occasional touches searching for her coin didn't seem to be thieving.
She had a specific purpose, just no particular direction.  Eventually,
what looked like a blind alley twisted and opened onto a small
cul-de-sac of odd shops.  The one that caught her eye was the
Generican Guild of Cartographers.  Smiling, she pushed open the door
to the small building...

     ...and was greeted by a huge cloud of dust in an even larger
room.  The walls were lined with cubbyholes and between the walls at
the back half of the room were towering shelves made up of hundreds
more cubbyholes, all filled with maps and more dust.  Above the
shelves Jameson could see a second level with more storage area.  A
spiral staircase was off to one side, connecting the upper level to
the floor.  Directly before her, in front of the shelves, was a jumble
of tables, or at least Jameson supposed they were tables since she
couldn't see them under the many burial mounds of maps.  In the middle
of the room amidst the chaos a grumbling dust-covered dwarf was
sitting at a drafting table and scribbling furiously.  Pulling his
grimy bifocals down his nose he looked up at her and chuffed dust
through his mass of facial hair.  

      "Well?  Whaddya want?!  Don't just stand there ..." he fell
silent watching Jameson's right hand sketch a quick symbol in the air.
He returned the greeting, his thick fingers moving with surprising
deftness, and hopped off his stool.  Walking over, he squinted up at
her and something that might have been a smile crossed his face
briefly.  "Well, siddown, ye great lump.  D'ya expect me to get a
stiff neck jes' fer the privelege of speaking with ye?"  Jameson
stepped forward and snagged a stool out from under one of the elevated
map piles.  Settling on it, she leaned her pack against her leg and
folded her hands.  The dwarf looked at her a moment, then trotted to a
particular pile of maps on one side of the room and dug around in what
might have been a desk.  Having found what he wanted, he returned,
dragging his stool over with him.  Settling on the stool he opened the
book, courteously blowing the dust off to his left, away from Jameson,
and pulled a pen out of his tangled beard.  He scratched a few notes
in his book, then handed her both book and pen.  She noted her name,
station and the signature of a Walker, then handed pen and book back.
The dwarf looked at her entry a long time before blotting it and
closing the book.  Looking up, he said in a quiet but gruff voice,
"Grumbli Blisterthum's the name, Walker."

     Jameson smiled and held out her hand.  As he clasped it, she
replied "Jameson.  And thank you."  He waved away her thanks.  

     "Duty, Walker.  Never forget one's duties.  Now, what does an
emissary of the Onari want with a dusty young child as myself?"

     Jameson ducked her head, "I'm sure your beard's older than my
mother, sir."

     "Yes, yes.  I'm honored."  Grumbli hurried over the respect,
"Just call me Grumbli and tell me what I can do for you."

     "I've come to offer maps, Grumbli, in exchange for some coin.
I don't know how much they'll be worth to you -- the Mage Guild
refuses to certify them."

     The Dwarf's eyes opened rather wide.  He yelled over his right
shoulder, "Slim!  Git down here!  Now!"  A tall, bone-thin elf looked
down at them from the upper level and nodded.  During the time it took
him to arrive, Grumbi had regained his composure, recovered his mug of
ale and drunk half of it.  "Slim, this here is Jameson Walker,
emissary of the Onari.  I need for you to get some clean parchment, a
new pen and good ink from the back."  Slim ambled off.  Grumbli
cleared his throat, "Now, Walker ..."

     "Jameson, please."  She interrupted quietly.  Grumbli cleared his
throat with a growl.

     "Jameson, tell me, who refused to certify your maps?"  He took
another pull from his mug.

     "Archmage Fateuil."  

     Grumbli almost spit out his mouth full of ale, then had an
apoplectic moment of nearly breathing it.  "Th' old fool!  Bloody
idiots we 'ave, wrapped up in th'most blind projects, makin' nothin'
worth attention, couldn't recognize a dragon if it bit 'em on the
nose... Well, I don't give a rat's arse!  I'll certify any bloody
thing you give me, Walker, and that's on my honor."

     Jameson grinned and they got down to negotiating the which,w
the where, and the how much.  

                          *       *       *

     The passing of several hours found Jameson leaving the
Cartography Guild with a bit more coin than when she'd entered.  She'd
added major detail to a local map covering the road from Generica out
to Verland and over to the Barony of Stifer.  She had been careful to
add more specifics to the Bottleneck pass between them -- it could be
a dangerous area, especially in bad weather.  Finally, she'd sketched
out some more information on the layout of the Great Heath, recording
some of the most recent political re-arrangements of various baronies.
She'd also secured temporary part-time employment until she ran out of
Nexus-specific information.  Grumbli had even implied he might keep
her on retainer for low-level exploration of both Nexus and local
planes.  He wanted to both verify maps he already had and expand his
library with new information.

     Feeling a bit more secure, Jameson made her way back to the Inn
for a late lunch.  She ordered something light from Littlefair and
settled into the dwindling lunch crowd.  When her food arrived, she
began eating, only to be distracted from her lunch by an odd flash of
light.  She looked up, blinked several times at what she saw, then
finished bringing the food on her fork to her mouth where she chewed
absently, not noticing its taste at all.  A couple of tables away, a
group of people that included a man, three women, a large cat-man and
a small unicorn were looking at a hologram-type image that greatly
resembled Jameson's own star map projection style.  The deck from
which the image eminated was smaller and slimmer than her own.
Oddness and odder still.

     The group dispersed, a tall woman limping over to the bar, the
cat-man disappearing and one of the other women and the unicorn going
upstairs, leaving the man and one woman at the table with the deck.
Jameson finished her lunch and leaned back against the wall of the Inn
to think.  There was a chance these people might be of a similar
technological advancement to the Onari.  In which case, there might be
a lot to learn from them.  Then again, they might be ... well,
trouble.  There were a million things that they could do or be that
would put Jameson in jeopardy.  Quietly, she watched the couple.  The
woman was beautiful and the man very handsome and ... something tugged
at her memory.  She thought hard for a moment, trying to pin it down,
but it was gone.  Sighing, she wondered what the hell a bloody
advanced memory was good for if it didn't always work.  She looked
back at the couple.  They appeared ready to leave.  She leaned
forward, then settled back.  They seemed to be on familiar terms with
Littlefair ... her hands fiddled with the strap of her pack, but
stayed where she was.  Finally, Jameson chose to remain silent.  There
would be other chances to speak with them, once she'd asked around and
checked ... suddenly, she started listening to herself and smiled
privately at her own paranoid whining.  She had survived thus far and
would survive again.  Or not.

     She was idly thinking of getting up and speaking with Littlefair
when she suddenly had the urgent feeling that someone wanted very
badly to speak with her.  Concentrating, she suddenly heard Nescie's
voice loudly in her mind's ear:

"JAMESON!  Oh!  There you are.  I'm not going to be able to make
dinner.  I've got a huge amount of work to coordinate before the
meeting of the Archmages and I'm really trapped.  I'll speak with you
soon, right?"

Then the presence was gone before Jameson could respond.  Rubbing her
eyes distractedly she stood, leaned over and scooped up her pack, then
wandered over to the bar.  On her way, something on the wall
distracted her -- a bulletin board.  She blinked.  In a medieval bar
there was a cork board, complete with pins and notices written on
parchment.  She changed direction and angled toward it.  Some of the
notices were well-worn, some ill-composed.  One, possibly the most
recent, caught her eye:


                        FEMALE ROOMATE/HOUSING WANTED

                Looking for a female housemate to share a
                house and expenses who doesn't mind late nights,
                no smoking and Toad the Wet Sprocket on _Fear_.


She softly murmured, "I love the wings of butterflies" and ran a hand
through her rumpled hair.  Distractedly, she wandered over to the bar.

     "Sir?"  Littlefair looked up from the glasses he was stacking and
smiled at her.
     "Littlefair's the name, lass.  Might as well use it."
     Jameson smiled back.  "I wanted to ask about the notice, looking
for a female roommate?  Who posted that?"
     Little fair blinked a bit, "Tall girl, walked with a limp.  Not
been around long.  'Raelf, the big blond mage?  He seems to know her."
     "Uh, yes, um, who exactly is Ralph?"  Jameson smiled up at the
barman.  
     "'Raelf.  Softer, like.  He's a good one.  All in trade,
everything he does.  His friends are a bit odd, though."  Littlefair
nodded his approval and Jameson felt oddly relieved.  Interesting
things, instincts.  She thanked him and returned to the board.
Rummaging through her bag, she pulled out a slender black rod and
shook it before using it to draw the shape of a butterfly on the
woman's notice.  The ink came out a rainbow of five or six different
colors.  Then she wrote "JAMESON" across the bottom and tucked the pen
back into her pack.  Now that she was somewhat solvent, she wanted
something more private in terms of living space.  

     She headed out the door, intending to pick up a few items she
needed.  In a tanning shop she paid a bit extra to have heavy gloves
made for her while she explored a nearby small store filled with
random junk.  She secured a pen with an ink cartridge and extra
inserts, some loose paper and a blank book before returning for her
gloves.  Then she spent the next few hours at a smithy, a little too
near the heat of the forge, sketching outlines and designs on the
loose parchment she'd brought.  It took some time to get the
journeyman to take her seriously enough to let her speak with the
shop's Smith.  But the older man's eyes gleamed when Jameson described
a process for making lighter, tougher metals.  She offered to teach
more in return for a custom job.  The man had a nephew who would be
able to carve the pedals for her and he himself would do the fine gear
work.  She promised to return early the next morning, ready to get
dirty.  The Smith thanked her respectfully and cheerfully recommended
his nephew when Jameson asked about staves.  He even had his
journeyman escort her over and secure a reasonable price for a solid
fighting staff.

     By this time, dusk began to fall and Jameson returned to the Inn
for a simple supper and quiet rest.  She wanted to get to sleep early,
to get up early.  She leaned her new staff against the door, hoping it
would be undisturbed all night, and sank thankfully into the bed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Kelly J. Cooper         \     Whistling in the dark...
Tragically Hip Waif      \      Comments appreciated.
...individual at large... \       kjc@cs.rutgers.edu
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