Wow, been a while since I posted something, hasn't it? Maybe I should put some more stuff up here...
A bit of writing, freshly composed (still has that oven-warm feel to it!):
The shop was dusty, cloudy. The small tinkle of the bell above the door even seemed to cough with disuse. Light poured in through a small window set on the opposite wall, exposing books, gadgets, and who knew what else strewn across every counter top, tinting everything in a dull orange color attributed to the years of dirt. It was as cozy as a hearth on a chilly day, Beth decided, and trotted into the mess to investigate.
“No, no, don’t touch that!” came a cry from the back of the store. Out of the corner of her eye Beth caught a glimpse of a figure that seemed to be more bird than man; tufts of white hair stuck out from odd places atop the man’s head, mostly concentrated near large ears that stuck out at odd angles; probably due to the heavy glasses he wore perched upon a large crooked nose, Beth thought. He shook the dust from his white smock as he raced across the store, upsetting a tabletop and letting forth a tremendous sneeze that threatened to take him right off of his feet when a cloud of dust erupted into the air. Beth held in a giggle and stepped forward to steady him.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’d be a lot better if you kids would stay out of my shop,” the old man grouched. He shot her a dirty look and stood on his own, continuing to brush off the front of his apron. “Walkin’ in here at all hours of the day, disturbin’ my work…” he muttered. “Well? Don’t just stand there picking your toes, help me with this!” He thrust a pile of books into her arms, sending up another dust cloud; Beth had to hold her breath to avoid sneezing. The old man scurried off into the back room; slightly confused, Beth followed.
“You can set those down over there,” he gestured; Beth set the pile of books on a table, getting her first good glimpse of the cramped back room. Beakers full of strangely colored liquid stood in a row across from her; on the far side of the room, a complicated-looking machine poured steam through a series of tubes, to what end Beth couldn’t surmise. The far wall was lined with diagrams, maps, blueprints overlapping each other to form a haphazard wallpaper of scientific instructions, which, apparently, the old man relied on for his work, as he consulted one of these before pouring one of the oddly-colored concoctions into another container, which began to smoke energetically. Beth could hear a low crackle and sizzle coming from the mixture, and made a mental note to avoid that section of the room.
“Are you going to stand there gawking or are you going to tell me what you want so you can be on your way?” the man demanded suddenly, shocking Beth out of her reverie and almost making her forget her purpose for being there.
“Ah, yes, I’m looking for some information about this,” she supplied, holding out a folded and dirty piece of paper. The old man looked at her suspiciously and snatched the paper away, unfolding it carefully and readjusting his glasses to study the contents.
Scrawled across the tattered parchment were a series of markings that must’ve made sense to the old man, for he nodded and narrowed his brow in concentration; to Beth they looked like nothing more than a pile of lines thrown across the paper, as careless as a child’s game of jacks. There were some strange cross-shaped markings, adorned with measurements and calculations, but Beth was unable to glean any more meaning from the strange paper. And at this point the blasted thing was getting to be more trouble than it was worth.
“This…” the old man said reverently, “this is a work of beauty. Imagine! A flying machine! Why, we’d be able to sail across land or sea in a matter of days. This could revolutionize everything.”
“Yes, I know what the paper says,” Beth covered, to hide that she hadn’t had the faintest inkling, “but that’s not what I need from it. Whoever made those instructions had more to tell us than how to make a glorified amusement ride. There’s something hidden in that paper, and no one’s been able to find it yet. So I brought it to you.”
The old man was once again regarding her with mistrustful eyes. “Why do you need my help with it? I’m a meager scientist; I don’t play at detective.”
“Ah,” countered Beth, “but you do, don’t you? Haven’t you been working on a way to hide messages within messages? Either by chemical means or by a formula code, I don’t know, but you’ve been holed up in here an awful lot lately; that must mean something.”
“Bah,” spat the old man, “what do you know? A kid like you,” he said derisively. “And where do you come off spying on an old man like me? I haven’t seen your mug in here before this; how would you know my habits as of late?”
“I have my ways,” Beth said evasively. “And we’re getting away from the original subject. Can you find out anything from my paper?”
The old man regarded the parchment. “It’s an awfully old relic; anything affixed to it by the original author has probably long since faded off.”
“But you can look.”
The old man watched her out of the corner of his eye, magnified by the large glasses perched on his nose. “What’s in it for me if I do, eh?”
“If you tell me what’s written on that paper, you can have it, flying machine designs and all. And I’ll pay you forty silvers,” she added hastily, seeing the look that came across his face.
“…Fine,” he agreed after a moment. “Let’s see what you’ve got here.”
Killer_Cactus23 Community Member 
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