Sudden Short Story 59

A noise came from the book at the center of his study.  He eyed it, warily.  Another, similar noise came again.  Sighing, he closed the book that he was reading, stood, and carefully replaced it on its shelf.  He looked outside, seeing that it was mid-afternoon here, and that there was no sign of rain.  Even basic information like this could become vital - the people of Earth were utterly lacking in scruples.
He removed the key from its hiding place, opened the lock on the book, and hid the key under the lectern.  He opened the book, and saw through its window the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen.  This was a mistake:  By choosing the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen, they had already given away their hand, revealing that they had a complete psychological profile on him, one more impressive than could have ever been formed before he left.  Perhaps they thought that they were being subtle because she was clothed.
"You know why I am here, and I understand that you've been wont to dispense with pleasantries for some time now," said she, ever formally.
"You're here to negotiate," he answered.  "You want me, or access to me - it's all the same to you, really."  Despite his extended periods with no direct human interaction, he had lost all patience with the rest of humanity.
"We are willing to accept lesser terms.  Perhaps if you would permit us to spontaneous complex detailed dimension creation science...  As the first known discoverer controlled science, it would help us greatly in our attempt to understand the phenomenon."
"'Spontaneous complex detailed dimension creation science'... I suppose that that is direct and sufficiently detailed to serve as an adequate name."
"You call it something else?" she pretended to not know.
He played along.  "Heh," he let out, with a slight smile.  "'Age Science', though not officially.  I've gotten a bit poetical in my time alone, I suppose."
"'Age Science'?" she asked.
"Did you make that much noise just to play Pretend-We-Don't-Know with me?  It bears such a resemblance to what happened in the Myst series," he said, grabbing the cover and three-quarters-closing it.  "I did put the gate between worlds into a book, after all," he finished, opening the book fully again.
"I'll get right to the point, then.  Regardless of whether you can, we know that you will not create other people with your science.  Thus, unless and until you rejoin us, you will lack anything and everything that comes from other people.  There will be no novel recipes.  Nobody will act as your sounding board.  There will be no stories besides those that you write yourself.   And you will never have sex."
"I know," came his immediate reply.  He made sure that he was looking at his negotiator's face when he said it, though.  The stillness of her face during that brief moment of silence told him more than any tell.  After all of their simulations, all of their possible logic branches, had they missed the possibility that he'd say simply 'I know'?  Perhaps all of their supercomputers weren't nearly as smart as they thought themselves. "If that is all," he began. 
"It's not."  This answer wasn't entirely unexpected, though he knew that pretty much anything could happen now.  A case was placed upon the desk in front of her, and she opened it.  Three brittle scrolls looked like they might break at the slightest provocation.  "These appear to be a rather unique archaeological find.  The location of their discovery, as well as their condition, make it likely that they come from the early Han dynasty.  However, they have specifically not been scanned or otherwise inspected, but were brought directly here for our use.  Return to Earth, and we promise to examine them as thoroughly and as carefully as possible, learning from them as best we can.  Refuse, however, and they will be incinerated." 
They could have offered or threatened almost anything else ... .  For the first time in... perhaps ever, he was visibly shaking with rage, unable to control himself.  "So....  It has come to book-burning, has it?  Then let me start."  He slammed the book shut, locked it, and hurled it into the fire place.  Then, he sought out the materials to create a fire.  There was nothing left for him on Earth, not even hope. 

Reading Update: Late April 2014

I thought that I should give an update on my reading progress this month: 

• A Song of Ice and Fire:  Well, I don't think that I'm going to finish A Feast for Crows by the end of the week, especially since I've got such a busy weekend coming up, but I'm so close to the end that I'm pretty sure that I'll finish it sometime next week.  Then, I'll start on A Dance with Dragons.  
• Shadowrun Core Rulebook (5th edition):  I've barely scratched the surface of this mighty tome, but it's thankfully a reference book, so I don't really have to read it cover-to-cover or anything.  
• The Great Webcomic Catch-Up:  This has completely stagnated this month, but I'm going to give it the old college try, as they used to say, starting next weekend. 

That's all for now.  

Hearthstone: It's Highly Addictive!

So, I've seen ads for Hearthstone, a new online CCG from Blizzard and spin-off of their ever-profitable, ever-addictive World of Warcraft game, all over the place for the past several weeks.  However, it was actually hearing about the game from some addicts players on an unrelatd podcast that got me interested in it.  In particular, the fact that it's free to play convinced me to give it a shot. 
It plays similarly to Magic: the Gathering, but with a lot of differences, if that makes sense.  (I could list the differences, but that would be a wall of text that wouldn't convey much meaning without more details.) 
The main thing to note is that in-game gold can be earned both by winning normal matches and by doing daily quests.  Furthermore, daily quests seem to exclusively involve winning matches under certain circumstances, which overlaps nicely with the 10-gold-per-3-wins thing that's always on. 
Gold is used to buy booster packs, and also to enter the Arena - an asynchronous tournament similar to what SolForge uses - which guarantees a booster pack as a final prize, even if you completely wash out, so it's never really a waste - though one doesn't keep the drafted cards, just the after-tourney booster & possible other prizes. 
I also like the way that they do classes:  Each deck starts w/ a class, which has its own unique once-per-turn 2-mana ability, and the available cards are those specific to that class or the large set of neutral cards.  This allows each class to feel different, not just because of its ability, but also because of what cards are available to it.  For instance, it looks like only the Druid has any kind of mana acceleration available to him, while everyone else has to just gain 1 per turn until hitting the universal limit of 10.  Warlocks have Demons, Hunters have Beasts, Priests get lots of strong 1-off effects, Paladins suck, Rogues stab, etc.  I assume that this also somehow correlates to what they do in WoW, but I've never played that, so whatever.  Though, I do apparently get a free mount if I ever sign up for it. 
So, that's my overview of Hearthstone:  quite fun, pretty addictive

Reading List: April 2014

Well, April's almost upon us, so I thought that I'd post a list of stuff that I'm hoping/planning to read in the fairly immediate future: 

• Shadowrun 5th Edition - I get to play this at conventions, so I'd at least like to not have to constantly ask about both rules and lore. 
• Becoming - I've actually started it, but I want to read the rest of it.  
• A Feast for Crows - I put this down to play Pokémon X, but now that I've finished it, I should get back to finishing this.  (I'm about 2/3 through.)  
• A Dance with Dragons - I'd only start this, and it would really depend on how persistent I was on my lunch breaks with reading A Feast for Crows instead of playing Pokémon X.  
• miscellaneous RPG book - I've got half a shelf full of unread RPG books, so I should read at least one of them.  

Obviously, I plan to read a lot more eventually, but  that's the list of immediate reads, for the near future. 

Pokémon X: Victory 1

I've got good news, everyone!  I've finally defeated the Elite Four and their Champion.  Also AZ. 
I defeated them with a team of entirely Generation VI pokémon:  Meowstic, Gogoat, Hawlucha, Barbaracle, Doublade, and Greninja. 
Now, I'm setting out to defeat them again, with a team from each generation.  I'm also imposing a few other rules for my teams: 

• at least one mega evolution on each team
• at least one Eeveelution, if that generation has any (none for III & V)
• preferably, at least one pokémon that I'm using because I like it, rather than because it's "good"

However, before then, I'm going to finally catch pokémon from my Friend Safaris.  Specifically, I'm seeking females with Hidden Abilities.  I'll say this:  Meowstic's Role Play move is incredibly useful for this purpose.  

Another Case for the Oxford Comma

Recently, there has been some controversy over the necessity of the so-called "Oxford comma".  In particular, citations have been made as to how its absence can be misleading.  However, I recently encountered a case where its absence clarifies things, though only due to the expectation of its presence where necessary. 
This isn't a great example, since it's an ingredients label and not a sentence, but I think that this might provide some insight.  I had a honey lemon chamomile infusion, and its ingredients list bore something interesting.  I reproduce it here in full: 
Chamomile flowers, lemon and honey flavors. 
The absence of a comma between "lemon" and "and" tells me that the flavors are both of lemon and of honey, and that that there is no direct lemon in the infusion.  If the Oxford comma were not expected, however, then I would not know whether "lemon" described merely a flavor or actual lemon. 
Significantly, this non-sentence cannot be - as opponents of the Oxford comma oft suggest - rearranged, since ingredients must be listed in order, from most to least. 
While I don't expect this to be a game-changer, due to its non-sentence nature, I at least hope that this helps to further convey the importance of this grammatical convention. 

Briefly on Dietary Experimentation

So, I've got kind of a weird confluence of ideas in my life that has led me to messing with my diet a bit. 
After hearing about some bad stuff that gluten can do to people in general, I heard about the paleo diet, which is naturally free of gluten.  I have no plans to go full paleo, but it is an intriguing diet, partly in that much of what it contains is, or at least can be, tasty. 
I probably already consume plenty of meat, so I'm not changing that quantity, but I will be increasing my fruit & veggie intake, which is something that's often recommended, anyway. 
I don't expect to go gluten-free any time soon, but it's interesting to see how much gluten is in so much of what we eat, anyway.  For reference, the grains that naturally contain gluten are wheat, rye, triticale, and barley; all remaining grains are naturally gluten-free.  The caveat there is that, apparently, oats are frequently contaminated by wheat, but, since I'm not allergic or anything, I won't be picky about that. 
I'm working on what will probably be my easiest and broadest substitution that I'll end up making:  substituting peanut butter with an actual nut butter.  I suspect that I'll find cashew butter quite delicious, but also quite expensive.  For hard-to-find nut butters, I may resort to grinding the nuts myself, just to try them. 

It's also interesting to see what's so hard to find because of the way that the economy self-reinforces:  Nobody sells something because not enough people want it, but most people don't want it because they see it as niche (i.e., only for "health nuts" or whatever), but it's only that way because it's not already on every store shelf, anyway!