Day 10: Pages 165-180
Today's study started innocently enough, reading the "Yellow Pages" as it were of Terra, the main adventurer's hub on Synnibarr. As I explore the text further though, I begin to notice a strange undertone. While it initially appears to be an innocently corny attempt at humor and wonder, I have begun to fear that perhaps Mr. McCracken is more devious and sinister in his writing than I first imagined. Some samples:
"Map Shop Owner: Tomarr, a 50th level something. No one knows."
"Aladen can duplicate a B.S.C. at a cost of $181,667,112,566.23!"
"We also carry a brand of rope that is alive and will attach itself to objects, stretch double length, and then contract on command. It can lift 1,000 pounds and its movement is similar to a snake's. It feeds on small microorganisms. It is in no way dangerous to its ownwer once it has been held for 5 continuous minutes. It is thin and red."
However with each additional phrase or sentence I read along these lines, I cannot help but notice how potentially frightening the writing is. Not one knows what he is? Not even himself? Was the knowledge of his class/race struck from existence as some form of punishment? What could one possibly do that is that terrible? Also, it may not be dangerous after 5 minutes, but I fear what could be done to one in the previous 4 minutes and 59 seconds by a rope that has the faculties to move on its own, stretch to double its length and has the strength to move 1,000 pounds. It is easy to imagine the trouble that merely 1 foot of this could cause.
Despite these worries, I had to press on. I soon found myself reading through what I could only imagine as Mr. McCracken's muddled take on multipe-dimension theories, curved space-time, and relativity of time. Areas I have studied and consider myself fairly competent in understanding. However his text has caused me to cast doubt on even things I thought I understood before. His descriptions seemed to fit so well with other clearly mad ideas he presented. What I thought seemed perfectly reasonable and understandable from my collegiate education seems to reside quite comfortably next to magical storms and creatures that can magically remove the oxygen from their victim's entire body. Who is to say what I have learned is in fact not the imaginings of a raving lunatic?
Despite all this however, I must steel myself for tomorrow I begin Chapter 8, Combat...
I leave one last excerpt for posterity, from Mr. McCracken's description of the source of the original adventurers who were magically gifted with incredible abilities and then teleported to Terra, and underwater city:
"Now I don't know about you, but I would find this fairly unnerving. One moment you're flossing your cat's teeth in good ole' suburban Katmandu, and the next you're a Ninja master on an artificial world, made from Mars, in a city under millions of gallons of water. Granted you have had some hint as to what was going on, but gosh darn it, something like this is liable to put a crimp in your social calendar, even if you're a llama trainer."
