Gnoric: Island of Gnomes

In days long since past the greatest gnome to ever live, Gnoric, found an island and declared it a gnomish haven for them to come and practice their tinkering skills. In the years after Gnoric’s disappearance the gnomes came to call the island after the one who found it, Gnoric Island. The island was small, only taking a day to travel all the way around the outside edge. In the center of the island was a dormant volcano that the gnomes carved into creating their home city. They named the volcano Mount Gnoric, also after the finder of the island. The gnomes had no worries about the volcano they called home, because Gnoric froze the core with his ring of power before leaving the world.

The gnomes believed that those of them that could create something that worked most of the time were the best at what they did. The ones that made things that worked once or twice and then failed were a few steps away from perfection. Then there were the gnomes that just couldn’t get it to work at all. This last group of gnomes was considered the failures, sometimes forced to work outside the volcano, in rare cases, exiled from the island all together.

The gnome who went by the name Toast was one such failure. If he could create half as good as he cooked, he would be a step or two away from perfection, but sadly Toast had never made something that didn’t explode, fall apart, combust, or just fail miserably at the slightest touch. It wasn’t long before the other gnomes named failure after him. Sayings such as, “I just toasted my mechanical spider,” or, “You here Gnimish toasted his sling of auto firing?” Then there was the always good, “What did Toast toast today?”

These sayings struck Toast hard, but he never gave up. He knew that one day he would succeed at creating what he would call the Toaster. Every prototype of the toaster so far had failed, The Liquid Fire Toaster, The Bottled Dragon Fire Toaster, The Lighting Bug Toaster, even the extremely simple, Over the Camp Fire Toaster, had gone up in flames.

Toast sat in his little bedroom inside his tiny house outside the big volcano. He came to a realization. The problem with all his attempts to make his beloved toaster failed because of one important design flaw. He was making the toaster out of wood, and wood would never hold up to the flames that were needed to make the toaster toast.

He got up and walked out of this house. The first thing he saw, after the surrounding ocean that is, was a large stone. A new idea sparked by the stone took hold of him and he ran back inside the house. He emerged a few minutes later with his chiseling tools. This prototype would be called The Stone Toaster. He chiseled out a bowl shape in the stone. After he had the walls of the stone bowl about an inch thick all the way around and an opening on the top that he could stick his head through, he put down the chisels. Next, he needed someplace to put the things on that would be lightly burned by the toaster. He knew that just shoving things into a fire burns the life out of them but holding them a little away will cook them just right. That thought gave him what he would put on the toaster first, sliced bread.

He weaved his own iron mesh to cover the top of the stone toaster. The final touch would be a single drop of alchemist fire, also known as liquid fire. But before he dropped it into the stone bowl, he wanted to take the stone toaster into his kitchen for that is where the toaster would be used at the most. He picked the stone bowl up and realized that his counter may not be able to hold the weight of the stone toaster; he would have to make a lighter version after he finds out if it works. So, he left the stone toaster outside and went in to get the bread.

Toast came back outside with three slices of bread and a bottle of liquid fire. He knelt next to the stone toaster and placed the bread on top of the mesh. He made sure there was a place to drop the liquid fire into the bowl, so he didn’t drop it on the bread itself. Once it was all perfect, he sat back a little holding the bottle in his hand. This was it, the moment of truth, the moment he became almost perfect in the eyes of his peers. He leaned forward and pulled the stopper from the bottle. The second the stopper was out, the liquid fire did exactly what it was meant to do, burst into flames. Toast dropped the bottle, his hand was burnt, and his bread was charred. He rolled on the ground to extinguish the flames that got on his pants. When the ground didn’t put out all his flames, he jumped up and ran into the ocean. It was cold, but it put the flames out.

Toast came back out of the water and began stripping his burnt and wet clothing off before he went into his house, still a failure. His head hung low. His self-esteem was gone, if it had ever really been there. He would never get the toaster to work right. He lay on his small bed and stared at the ceiling, wishing the fire had just killed him. He was not meant to be a gnome. Gnomes made things that worked from time to time, he just blew things up, which is ok when that is your goal, but went you just want to lightly brown something it’s bad.

Before long Toast drifted off to sleep, although it was afternoon. It was his destiny to make the toaster, this last failure was the last step to him making one that worked. The nap that he fell into granted him a vision of what his toaster would do for the world. There were families sitting down to dinner with browned bread and butter, farmers waking in the morning and grabbing a lightly cooked piece of bread with an egg on it. All of it coming from his toaster, but the toaster in his dream looked different from everything he had tried to make so far. It was made of metal. There was a steel case around some sort of gear mechanism that one could use to slide the bread into the toaster, and it would pop back out when it was done. He knew how to make that. He had never tried it himself, but a college had made a catapult elevator that worked in a similar way.

Toast suddenly came awake. It was late, the sun had set already, but invention knew no time. He had the toaster in his mind and if he didn’t start now, he would lose it again. He had his personal smelting pit behind his house. Though cast out of the volcano, he still had access to materials he needed. The gnomes believed in second chances, they also believed in thirty second chances, which was what Toast was going on. He melted down iron and mixed in the metals to make it into steel. His pounding and hammering woke half the island and midnight sounded. This night’s quiet hour was filled with Toast’s hammering. Most of the gnomes of Gnoric Island just stuffed cotton into their ears and went back to sleep, but a few came out to see the fevered work of Toast.

Toast built the toaster just as he had seen it in his dream. It was rectangular in shape with a lever on the side. On top were three slots for the bread. Inside was complex. It had a mini elevator that was lowered by the lever in each slot. The lever was attached to a spring that would allow it to stay down for only a minute. Between the slots was where he used a small amount of magic. There was a panel of steel wrapped in wire. The wire was enchanted to produce heat for ever. He put a permanency spell on it so it would last. He placed the panels on each side of the three slots so the bread could be browned on both sides at once. It was perfect and lightweight. Dawn was breaking when he finally had it all together. He stood up with his creation and found that half the gnomes of Gnoric Island had come out and surrounded his house to watch him work. He smiled and walked into the house. This time it would work, he knew it would. The gnomes outside closed in on the house, peering in through windows and the door. Each wanted to see if Toast was going to get toasted again.

Toast put his toaster on the counter. Then he sliced up three loaves of bread. There were a lot of gnomes outside his house that would like some buttered brown bread. He placed three slices into his toaster and pushed the lever down. It clicked into place and all the gnomes held their breath. A whole minute went by and a few of the gnomes holding their breath passed out. Then the toaster popped the bread out. They were hot and brown. Toast grabbed the three slices and spread butter on to them. He then put three more slices into the toaster and handed the slices through his window to gnomes outside. A cheer went up; Toast had made his toaster at long last. Not only that, but it worked and produced the most wonderful tasting bread ever.

A gnome took off running for the volcano. He was shouting for anyone who hadn’t come out to see toast, but he was also going to get something he recently created. He too was a cook and had made something that he thought would be good in Toast’s toaster. He came back to Toast’s house and pushed his way to the door. The entire island of gnomes had arrived; some brought their own bread, others just wanting to confirm what they thought to be a rumor.

The gnome pushed his way into Toast’s kitchen. Toast looked at him and asked, “What do you need? There is a line you know.”

“I do know, but I want you to put this in your toaster,” the gnome said as he handed Toast a round piece of bread with a hole in the center. Its crust was thicker than normal bread, but Toast honored the cook’s request. He cut the round bread in half and put it into the toaster. After a minute it popped out. Toast put some butter on it and gave half to the gnome that brought it down. They both took a bit at the same time and were surprised at the taste. Toast looked at the other gnome and asked, “What do you call this food my friend?”

The gnome shrugged his shoulders and said, “I guess if you can call your invention The Toaster, I will name this after myself too. My name is Bagel so this is a bagel.” Then he took another bite of the bagel.

Another cheer went up later that day when the island elders accepted Toast back into the volcano and gave him a plaque engraved with an image of his toaster that he could hang on his wall. Not only had he finally made something that worked, but it also stayed working throughout the day, making thousands of slices of toast and toasted bagels. By the end of the day there was a shortage of bread and butter on the island. Toast was accredited with being a master tinkerer and given his own shop on the ground floor.