Decapus
by Cab Davidsoni
On the first frosty autumn night of the year, an astronomer in Starpoint spotted a new light in the sky. High among the Northern stars, a dim but exceptionally blue pinpoint, standing out from all of the others. She was a student, Archamala, a Frislander, who having spent night after night hoping for just such a discovery, recorded this strange new thing in the sky, refracting the light output of the star by splitting it's light using the Great Prism, with which the astrophycisicist of Starpoint have learned so much over the years. For the next week Archamala kept track of this strange new light source, measuring its light output and recording its location. After this time she had worked out three things about it.
Firstly, it was not a star. No stars of that colour exist. Secondly, it was moving, fast, on a closing parallel course with Mystara - it had been slowly increasing in brightness and its blue colour and compression of light bands showed that it was travelling at extreme speed. And, thirdly, with great relief, it is slowing down as it got closer - she she could deduce this from its colour, it is becoming less blue every night.
She presented her work to the Professors of Starpoint, and they listened, but demanded that she obtain more evidence before diverting resources to investigating the strange new object. So Archmala had more sleepless nights ahead of her.
After a second week, and as the object approached, she made a startling discovery. Over the course of a night, she found that the colour profile of the object changed, rythmically and slowly. Recording this, the made the discovery she will always be remembered for - the light patterns represented a language, an entirely different form of communication based on patterns if light and colour. And with a simple read languages spell, she could work out what they were saying. Calling Decapus of Mystara. Repeat. Calling Decapus of Mystara. Are you receving us? Are you receiving us? Please respond. Over.
ii
Reading an alien language is one thing. Replying is another. Archamala reasoned it might take her years to work out enough of this new language to respond, and she knew that the Professors of Starpoint would take months to formulate a precise and, ultimately, boring answer. So she went to the theatre district to find an old friend of hers who might help.
Janto was a rogue by nature and profession, and he had travelled with Archamala and some other would-be adventurers until they had raised enough money to pursue other pleasures. For Archamala that was astronomy, for Janto it was theatre (or, specifically, women who worked in theatre). He was always delighted to meet up with his old friends though, and was as ever enthralled when Archamala brought him a puzzle in code. While the stuffy old wizards would no doubt be able to precisely reconstruct the language he was shown, it would take a code breaker and thief to rapidly get the gist of it and formulate a response. Then, all they had to do, was build a multi-coloured light source, put a whole load of oomph behind it, and feed it into the great prism to send a response. That would be Rivulet IV's department (a gnomish technician who had also been in their old adventuring group).
After another weeks work they were ready to send a response. "Greetings travellers, this is Starpoint calling. We hope for peaceful relations with you. You are entering Mystaran space. Please identify yourselves and state your purpose".
An hour later the response came. Archamala again cast read languages to rapidly decipher it "This is United Federation Vessel Pry Copyn. We come in peace. We seek the lost brethren. We must make contact with you. We are the octospiders, we believe that the progeny of our settlers call themselves decapus. We must contact them. We have news vital to the future of your world. Please provide a standard landing solution."