Time Travel According To The Gullies
After an extensive and heated debate with some of the finest gnomish minds in theoretical and actual time travel, I decided that not only did my brain hurt, but that everyone seemed to miss one of the most important rules of science. That being the rule laid out by Ackhim, a gnomish logician that spent a number of years living among gully dwarves, which states that 'All things being equal, when you have eliminated all other possibilities, what ever is left must be the truth'.
Now assuming that this theory could be applied to the concept of parallel universes, alternate timelines and hypothetical dimensions I decided to contact the leading gully dwarf researcher of time travel and ask his opinion. On the belief that the simplest answer must be the most correct, I traveled to the Ruins of Shard on the outskirts of Estwilde to the home of Kno Duh. It was the Duh clan of gully dwarves that Ackhim had spent researching and the inspiration for his most famous rule.
Finding the gully shaman was not very difficult. I managed to convince the gullies of my intentions with a show of good faith. I presented them with a present of three decomposed possum carcasses, which I discovered while traveling to the ruins. They accepted the gracious gift with much whooping and fighting. Once I had earned their trust, it was a simple matter for them to lead me to the wise-gully.
Kno Duh was quite old by now. He was upwards of fifty years old, a record among the gullies that have a life expectancy of about thirty-five years. So I engaged Kno in a number of different theories concerning the river of time. Most of the time he sat listening quite intently with a vacant stare which I took to mean that he was deep in thought on the subject. All around us gully children squealed and played and the gully women of the clan handed out portions of the possums for consumption. I declined a number of offers and wiped a number of tears from my eyes as the smell was horrendous.
Kno, who was chewing thoughtfully on a piece of possum, stopped suddenly and looked up at me. Rubbing his jaw he said "By all beings who squeal. When you have lamented about all our possum bellies, what ever is eaten might break the tooth."
Did he just utter Ackhim's Rule? I wondered.
Then he reached his grubby fingers into the back of his mouth and yanked out a black tooth. With a smile he exclaimed "The most I did ate every days of a two muddy possums see. Uhh, dem mentions for kin you'd have to beat the uhh belly see?" He grabbed one of the possums and began to poke it in what remained of its underbelly. Then he began to mumble "You injure an axe it. They all tear nut dem mention at moldy pull joints en die mmmm." Pointing at a rather large gully with a rusty dagger he said "With him one swords fine line whip out either plenty gore or axe its joints. He coming and starting at ending point."
At first I was trying comprehend the babbling. It appeared he was going on about how they prepare their possum or some such nonsense. Then it hit me! He obviously was not articulate enough to explain his own theories, with a bit of concentration and imagination it finally came to me and the logic was astounding! If I had heard correctly Kno had stated that "The most adequate evidence of a true multiplicity of dimensions for Krynn would have to be the ability to enter and exit the "alternate" dimension at multiple points in time within one's "own" time line without either entry nor exit point becoming a starting or an ending point!"
"Eureka!" I shouted, causing gully dwarves to scatter in a hundred different directions. It was all coming together now. After I coaxed the shaken Kno out from under a pile of refuse and calmed his nerves with the gift of a shiny pebble, I was able to get him talking again.
He was looking at the refuse pile when he mumbled, "One can hide poo that icky, special like that eat, no mint, seasoned, turd in pile, ick, spews I knew dem mention."
Oh my gods, what was he eating from that pile? No wait, I had to think on a higher level. What did this truly mean? Then it came to me, "One can hypothetically speculate that each moment, second, turning point, etc. spawns a new dimension."
Kno was right! He was so right!
Gesturing around the crumbling ruins he muttered, "Here, over there isn't really any mean rats we have." Kno shrugged, "Ate em all. From our port a few in the rear walls there is only one wall. You care eat that spec a lotion? For yards from high pot he sits. Tooth hurty?"
Concentrating with all my might I understood exactly what he meant. The genius contained in the gully dwarf was unfathomable. When he said, "However, there isn't really any means that we have (after all, from our point of view in the real world, there is only one world) to carry that speculation forward from hypothesis to theory." I knew that he was absolutely correct. In the end all the debate was pointless, it ended up just causing more debate that ultimately could just never be proven.
Kno stared at his blackened tooth, seemingly entranced. I reached for it and he looked at me with such fury. "You want duh tooth? You want duh Tooth? You can't handle duh TOOTH!" he screeched before disappearing into a crack in the wall.
A bit saddened by the loss of such a towering intellect I bade my farewell to the lurking gullies who could do nothing but sit idly by watching the discussion of theories and esoteric hypothesis. At least I could bring something new and enlightening into their lives now and again. Straightening my robes I exited back into the real world.
Dragonlance Underground is owned and operated by Mages of the Plains.
Dragonlance is a registered trademark of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. All contents are copyright of their respective owners. Please refer to our Legal Page.