Nothing Happened

At a loose end on Saturday 10^th of July I popped into Ae’Gura, around 11 am KI time to see nothing happening. Among the 40 odd explorers waiting for nothing to happen was OHB (Orange Haired Boy). Ten minutes into all the nothingness OHB’s arch enemy, named OHB's Arch-Nemesis, popped in to the city and proceeded to taunt OHB. This taunting was followed by the Arch Nemesis’s walking and talking robot bomb called BOMB, catchy name, appearing.

Of course OHB was alarmed at this revelation and suggested to his Arch Nemesis that the two of them should talk in private. Arch Nemesis suggested his own Relto for the conversation. This gave Arch Nemesis the opportunity to relieve OHB of his Relto book and cage him. Fortunately OHB still had his KI. One thing could save OHB, the community working together to deactivate the BOMB.

But OHB Arch-Nemesis overlooked one important thing; the cage was too close to the BOMB’s design plans. OHB could, at a stretch, reach these designs giving valuable information regarding the deactivation code. Code being the operative word. With OHB still pocessing his KI he was able to contact an Explorer in the city with the information, a code that needed to be unlocked.

In the meantime Explorers we busily testing the BOMB. Getting to close to the bomb made it reset the countdown which when you think about it, is perfect as it would never go off. Being somewhat sadistic some wanted to see what would happen if the BOMB was left to its own devices and therefore reach “0”. I was ready to link out if that happened.

The amusing part of all this was what the BOMB said. If we touched the BOMB it would say, in a voice that resembles John Cleese the famous Monty Python star, “I don't like being touched, thank you. It bothers me” and “EXCUSE ME! Saying "please DON'T touch me" does NOT mean "GO ON! Do it AGAIN!" followed by “It's hard to know how I could be more CLEAR about this! You are invading my personal space, and I would like you to stop it!” and would then proceed to restart the countdown.

BOMB also became all self conscious with us talking and starring at it. “Please do not speak to me while I'm counting. I am just a simple counting and exploding device, and am not equipped for philosophical discourse. Don't talk to me...don't...don't talk to...I'm...I'm just doing a tricky bit! Eight hundred and one. Eight hundred. Six hundred and...eh, I mean seven...seven hundred...seven hundred and...DAMN. DAMN DAMN DAMN!!! This is very unfair of you know you! A bomb needs to be in an appropriate frame of mind for blowing up! Calm, focused, and purposeful. Again it would reset the countdown.

It wasn’t long before tension rose in the City and some Explorers couldn’t take the stress and started to take it out on each other. Soon after a consensus was formed, nearly all the Explorers worked together in deactivating the said BOMB. I was hoping that the Bahro would help out by spiriting the BOMB away, linking it to a deserted age to happily blow itself up but alas that never happened. After about six long hours some clever clog figured out the code and finally averted disaster by deactivating Mr. BOMB.

I must admit I was very happy doing nothing for six hours. That was the best nothing I have seen in years.

You can get a full transcript of the event over at the Guild website plus some folks caught the action on camera:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJPx217gCl8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D14I_ZaOYMQ