Greetings traveler,

Welcome to the thirty-first edition of the alcarin.com newsletter.
There is an archive of the previous newsletters in the Townhall and the columns are added to the Town Square, so you can always read it again.
This month was a very quiet one. For the site at least. No new submissions, one old one added and although several are still waiting to be added to the site, I have had no time for it. University has been keeping me way to busy this month. Fortunately, the coming month will be far less busy, so I hope to do a lot of work on Alcarin then. Again, no Close-Up this month, but this month's column, in which Wouter continues the Jonathan Saga, is quite big.
Enjoy reading.

This letter's content:
1. What's New
2. Coming Up Soon
3. Column: Men with a Mission

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WHAT'S NEW:

20/05/2003 - new character in the School: Jonathan (level 10)

Visit http://www.alcarin.com/townhall/updates.htm for the latest updates.

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COMING UP:

I've decided not to move to another hosting provider this year. This because a lack of time to find a good replacement, and attempts so far turning up with nothing, and because things are looking rather good as for the quality of the provider's services. Altough they've swiched servers, including switching IP adresses, without even mentionning it to me, the new servers are really good. All of the Forums pages now actually work! I can actually backup the database again through the Forum and the Forum's index page actually works if yo go there directly (originally the index could only be accessed through another forum page, but not by going directly to it). So, http://www.alcarin.com/forum will get you there again.
With easy backup and reinstall facilities back online, I will soon try to install the latest patches for the Forum software. This should fix some minor problems with display of topics.
Furthermore, the most important item on the list is to get the submissions, that have been waiting for a while, online These will be a new monster (with 2 versions) and a new character. I am also working on a new item, the Tinker Rod, which is similar to a Rod of Wonder (Dungeons & Dragons), but a little less lethal and much more diverese (40 random effects). Although less lethal, it will still contain some spells that are very useful in combat and also a lot of really mad effects. The item will also use several new spells, which will be added to the site as well.
As a last note, I also hope to write a Close-Up for next month's newsletter.

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COLUMN: MEN WITH A MISSION
A column by Wouter vd Zandschulp; wouter@alcarin.com

"On his own"

On a marketplace, people gathered. They heard it from miles away. Jonathan the Bard and his old assistant were moving in their direction! They all stood by the road and cheered as much as they could.
"JONATHAN! JONATHAN! JONATHAN, WAKE UP!"
Jonathan awoke. The old man called him.
"We have to make some money today. We will go to the market-place, over there, and do our Magic Act of the Disappearing Coins."
Jonathan sighed. The old man thought it was only because he was still tired.

"LADIES, GENTLEMAN AND THAT PERSON" the old man shouted, while pointing at one person. Everyone laughs, but that person, who walks away angrily. This method works most of the time to get a laugh.
"Do you want to meet up with the Big Mystery?" the old man shouts with a mysterious intonation in his voice and a mysterious look in his eyes.
The people got excited. "Big Mystery... Big..."
"Yeah... Big Mystery" Jonathan softly said, not convinced.
"You watch this boy, you will learn" the old man whispered to Jonathan excitedly.
"Again?" Jonathan whispered so that only he could hear.
"ALL WE NEED ARE SOME COINS... *cough* cough*"
The old man started to cough when shouting lately, which worried Jonathan a bit. This was a reason why he was quite gentle with the old man and why he didn't tell him about some of his recent irritations about their performances.
"COINS... DON'T YOU WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT THE BIG MYSTERY IS?"
People got afraid that no one would throw coins, so that they would not find this out. So they started throwing some.
"Thank you! Thank you! *cough* Thank you! Now you all will..."
The old man paused for a bit, watching if they wouldn't throw more coins than this.
"Now you all will find out the mystery... but I'm not sure there are enough coins for it... Jonathan, will you go by the people who want to give more coins?"
Jonathan reluctantly went by the people, collecting their coins. The old man thought he was not quite enthusiast enough. But he couldn't whisper to him, since he was in the crowd.
"Thank you, Jonathan, we might have enough now for the Big Mystery" he said, when Jonathan put the coins with the rest. "Cheer up, please!" he whispered to him, but Jonathan felt like doing nothing of the kind.
"The Mystery of the Disappearing Coins will start... now!" he shouted and he and Jonathan started tap-dancing and singing some kind of magic trick above the coins. While doing that, they gently kicked the coins as much and as fast as they could under the carpet, while distracting the audience with their smiles and dance-methods so that they would not see it. When the old man in this highly difficult and precise exercise felt the audience was not distracted enough, he whispered to Jonathan: "Distract them somehow."
Jonathan felt he had done quite enough at the old mans' commando.
"Dumtiedumtiedum" he said.
"Come on, try harder!" the old man whispered.

"YOU TRY HARDER" Jonathan shouted. "What am I, your puppet? Is all I am good for collecting money and following orders?"
Jonathan forgot his gentleness and ruining the act did not care to him right now.
The old man was baffled.
"I can perform on my own, you know!"
"You are not ready yet!" the old man shouted back. "You have become arrogant, since I met you again. I have gotten you speech therapy! I got you of the roof of a house! Is this the thanks I get?"
The both were quiet for a moment. The old man continued:
"You are not ready yet. You have not got the skills; I haven't educated you enough. You have got talent, but not enough ground under it yet." "But I am loved by the audience! I can be successful... but you always perform your way. I've got my own style" Jonathan says, moved. He was quite moved by the confrontation, but did not want to let it persuade him to forget his own objections.
The audience looked quite interested.
"They think its part of the act," the old man whispered. "Let's play we make up and get out of here with the money."
"You have learned me so much" Jonathan said and cried.
"You have taught me things as well, Jonathan" the old man said and hugged him.
This had the expected result on the audience. They cheered and even threw more coins.
"Is that Gandalf?" a small boy asked.

Later the old man and Jonathan divided the money.
"Are you sure?" the old man said. "I stay with my opinion that you need more guidance to become a bard."
"And I want to try on my own" Jonathan said determined.
"Well, we will see. I will be in this bar this day next month, let's meet up then and see how it went. But I myself think it's a waste of your talent. You could become so much..."
"We will see how it goes" Jonathan said and decided to leave quickly so that the old man could not persuade him.
The old man looked after him. He had a tear in his eye and gave a big sigh.

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Well, that's it for this month's newsletter. I hope you enjoyed it.
Lord Gildor
"May the stars guide you on your journeys"
http://www.alcarin.com

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