Editing Announcements - 2007/06 - Evolution (section)

== Teaser ==

{{Turbine 2005
 |  Link = <nowiki>http://ac.turbine.com/?page_id=536</nowiki>
 | Title = Evolution
 |  Text =
Ardry felt like a fool.  He was standing in his Uncle Aliester's workshop, dressed in a thick suit of padded cloth armor.  His uncle circled around him, tightening straps and sealing him in tight.  The suit was made up of multiple layers of thick cotton.  Underneath he wore two full-body layers of silk, which his uncle had insisted upon.  It restricted his movement so much that he could barely bend his arms and he could only move in a waddle.  Worst of all, he was sweltering in the early summer heat.
<br><br>
"Tell me again what this suit is supposed to be for?" he asked.
<br><br>
Aliester the Loquacious grinned absently as he fastened the last buckle.  "Oh, it's to protect you, my boy.  We're testing something truly revolutionary here.  You'll be remembered far and wide for your part in scientific progress."
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"I'd like to hope that I'd already be well-remembered for my part in exploring every bloody inch of this island and leaving corpses all over most of it…" Ardry groused, but his words fell on deaf or inattentive ears as his uncle shuffled quickly into the next room.
<br><br>
Ardry watched in anger and some trepidation as Aliester returned with a steaming kettle and a thick paintbrush.  He almost gagged when the smell hit him – it smelled like blood and rot and a terrible, repulsive musk.  His uncle obviously found the smell unpleasant, too, because he'd returned with a wet cloth mask strapped over his nose and mouth.
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"Pwyll's bones, uncle!  What is that awful smell?"
<br><br>
"This?"  Aliester's voice was muffled by the mask.  "Oh, this is chum, my boy.  Hold on a moment, I must be very precise when I apply it.  Don't want to get any on the floor.  Or on myself, for that matter!  All your questions will be answered in time, I promise."
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Ardry was confused, as he often was when trying to catch up with his uncle's wandering attention.  The word "chum" meant nothing to him.  He tried to ask for clarification, but his uncle shushed him.  "Please be still and be quiet, my boy.  You don't want to get this on your bare flesh.  It's quite difficult to wash off!"
<br><br>
Ardry sighed and did his best to ignore the revolting odor as his uncle liberally slopped the dark, foul-smelling muck onto the chest, arms, and legs of the thick cloth armor he was wearing.  He put three coats of the pungent goop onto Ardry, taking care never to spill a drop on himself or on the floor around him.
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Finally, just when Ardry was beginning to forget what anything smelled like besides the awful chum, his uncle thought to wrap a wet cloth mask around his nose and mouth so that he, too, might have some respite from the overwhelming odor.
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Once that was done, Aliester the Loquacious stood back from his nephew with a critical eye.  "Hrm… Looks even… looks well secured… I think we're ready for our field test!"  He smiled eagerly, and he had the gleam in his eye that he got only when he was close to a true scientific breakthrough.
<br><br>
"Let's bring you outside for the field test, Ardry.  Won't have far to walk, just twenty or thirty paces from the front door…"
<br><br>
Aliester stepped into the other room for a moment and came back with a belt pouch strapped to his waist.  The sound of clinking bottles accompanied him as he walked.  He took his nephew by the wrist, making sure not to touch any part that he'd smeared the chum onto.
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"Uncle, I have to ask," Ardry said as he slowly shuffled along under his uncle's guidance.  "What is this chum stuff made from?  I've never smelled such a thing."
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Aliester smiled.  "My own creation.  Quite an ingenious recipe, if I do say so myself.  It's made from mite blood, ground-up shreth livers, scent glands from reedsharks…  A lot of ingredients, actually.  Very difficult to come by, and doubly difficult to make in useful quantities.  Now, here we are."
<br><br>
His uncle had steered him into a clearing among the trees, a stone's throw from the front door of his cabin.  "Please stand here, Ardry.  Stay still.  I'll let you know when it's okay to move."
<br><br>
With that, Aliester jogged back towards the cabin, stopping a few feet from the door.  He took a glass phial from his belt pouch and held it in his hand, all the while staring intently at his nephew in the offal-smeared cloth armor.
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"What is that in your hand, uncle?"  Ardry's tone was desperate with worry.
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Aliester brandished the phial and held it up in the air.  "This is progress, Ardry!  No more will our most potent armor-reducing and vulnerability effects be restricted to the hands of those who have mastered Life Magic!  Because, with my expert consultation, the council of sages has found out a way to capture the essence of those magical effects in an alchemical mixture!  You will be the first to test out this revolutionary advance in Derethian technology!"
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The old man began to wind his arm back like he was going to throw the phial at Ardry.  "All you have to do is break the phial on your target…"
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Ardry's eyes went wide and he waved his arms as much as he could to stop his uncle.  "Uncle, wait!  What's this chum supposed to do?  Your alchemical formula's not going to catch fire or something when it hits me, is it?"
<br><br>
"Catch fire?  Heavens no, my boy.  The chum is not alchemically active like the contents of this phial.  No, it's just there to attract reedsharks, you see.  Now please, hold still."
<br><br>
"Reedsharks?"  Ardry spun, looking to see if any of the vicious finned predators were on the way already.  He could see the bushes rustling in the distance.  In the undergrowth not too far away, he thought he saw a fin.  Then another.  And another.
<br><br>
He felt an impact on his back and heard the soft tinkling sound of breaking glass.  A grey mist washed over him as the alchemical bomb broke on his back and released its contents.  He felt a familiar sinking sensation, the same kind he was used to feeling when he'd been hit with the Imperil spell by a hostile mage.
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"You moved!" his uncle called out, accusingly.  "I asked you not to move, Ardry!  But no matter, I managed to hit you anyway, and now you can move as much as you like…"
<br>
Ardry wasn't paying attention.  All he could hear was the throaty rumbling bark of reedsharks on the hunt and closing fast.
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