E. Rufus Rooper, 1647 GUE

     Rooper speaks through a tele-orb at the White House
     Rooper after Morphius defeat (A) / (B) / (C)
     Rooper's Pawn Shop, Ext. (A) / (B) / (art)
     Rooper's Pawn Shop, Int. (A1) / (A2) / (high) / (art)
     Rooper's Pawn Shop, Cash Register (art)
     Key to Pawn Shop (A) / (art)
E. RUFUS ROOPER

 E. Rufus Rooper, a veteran of beast-slaying and other great adventurers formed IT&L with three others (Canuk, Trembyle, Moadikum) in either the 1620s or 30s. This man was the Executive Vice Preseident. The premise of this corporation was to harness illumynite and translumynite as a dominant manufacturing material for resort construction and the development of high technology commerical products.

On Dismembur 12, 1635, it was discovered that the Cluster had been stolen from the Temple of Bel Naire. Unknown to the other partners, Canuk was the perpetrator. Since he had always been an intuitive wizard, and this impulsive, it take quite some time before the others noticed that his schizophrenic (Morphius-possessed) state was dangerous.

The 1640's saw the start of the effects of the magical curse which Morphius had brought upon the valley with the disappearance of the buildings of Shanbar. The first of these to vanish and be relocated within the Great Underground Empire was the historic Inn of Isenough in Augur. One at a time, the local buildings were transported to a mysterious subterranean parallel Shanbar. In wake of these disappearances, and other strange goings on, the four partners became curious. After some tedious research and exploring, they discovered a secret door beneath the Old Mill. It led to the old underground empire, which no longer looked the same. It was a whole new world down there. Rooper talked the Wizard Trembyle, the mage Canuk, and Moadikum into further investigating the underground with him.

The vanished buildings of East Shanbar were discovered with their original occupants, having been relocated to the new underworld and Moadikum was reunited with his wife. Illumynite lighted this new world and the transported people did not seem to mind. And over time, more structures above ground would find their way to the underworld. The countless bloits of cavern that had been abandoned and dismissed as legend for almost four hundred years were once again thrown open to colonization and economic development.

The partners were excited and quickly consumed by the marketing potential of this new world: an underground resort with glowing rock formations, a giant theme park, and architecture based on the excavations of the old empire. And these were just the folks to do it. The Wizard Trembyle was a bit concerned to say the least. To him, this return to the old underground world was highly unnatural.

The four partners decided to develop the glowing illumynite caverns as an underground resort. Thus IT&L’s first underground project was Dizzyworld. Canuk drew up the plans for this and other land development prospects. In short time, the mage oversaw the designs of high technology commercial products, which would include the prototype Tele-Orb, lighting products, illumynite magnets, and illumynite batteries.

Moadikum planned the actual construction of Dizzy World. As a master strategist, the theme park was built like an army going into battle. When the partners decided to produce the Tele-Orb and illumynite batteries, Canuk was asked (since he was apparently the most knowledgeable person on illumynite outside of the dwarven community) to develop an interface between the batteries and the telepathic orbs. Canuk agreed to the task, but not out of friendship. He had been “instructed” to take the job by the silent voice inside him. Already he was submitting to the mysterious cluster’s control.

Canuk succeeded in making a device that worked with the Tele-Orb, but his personality was changing and the partnership with Rooper, Trembyle, and Moodock became strained. It was the future disappearances of East Shanbar that finally pushed them all apart, when in early Ottobur of 1640, the recently constructed headquarters of IT&L and Moodock’s Arms and Armaments, both located in East Shanbar,disappeared along with Moadikum and his shop into the underground. Thus the bugs of the Tele-Orbs were never worked out by the time the partnership folded. The unfinished orbs cold only receive but were unable to send.

Trembyle and Rooper soon discovered that something peculiar and magical was definitely occurring underground. An odd form of architecture was adopted, using illumynite building materials. New buildings had sprouted up everywhere, as if in preparation for mass immigrations. The more Rooper and Trembyle found out about Canuk and his alteration of the original underground plans, the more confusion and mysterious it all became. Rooper sharpened his awareness and prepared for the unknown. They began to investigate and snoop around. A confrontation between Rooper and the Morphius-possessed side of Canuk occurred on the Ferryman’s Isle. During the altercation, Rooper, in an act of self-defense, turned Canuk into a duck (he deflected a changeling spell thrown at him by the mage). The partners decided to leave Canuk in this state until they learned more about his strange behavior.

When Trembyle and Rooper caught on to enough of the evil process, they set out to destroy it before it reached an unstoppable point. They had discovered what seemed like a plan to enslave the minds and bodies of the known world inhabitants and create a new world of evil-generating structures. The environment, unbeknownst to these two, was being transformed into a huge incubator, allowing even further mutation and growth for the Cluster.It did not take long for Morphius to respond to the presence of the two snooping humans. Trembyle was the first to be turned to stone, having stumbled upon far too much information. This disappearance of Trembyle caused Rooper great concern, and reacting in typical adventurer spirit, he donned his battle gear and prepared to find and defeat whoever or whatever was responsible.

On Arch 5, 1647, prior to the earnest beginning of the investigations and the disappearances, Rooper had prepared a help message disguised as a public-relations package to be sent to everyone in the Westlands on his mailing list. This package contained a notification that the bearer had just won the grand prize of the Dizzy World Resort sweepstakes, a map to Shanbar in the Eastlands, a camera, a tape recorder, and a gift Tele-Orb as a bonus. All the bearer needed to do to claim the prize was to journey (at his own expense) to West Shanbar and hear a presentation by Rooper and Trembyle. Although Rooper always kept well-prepared, he continued through the month of Suspendur 1647 leading groups of night spelunkers into the underground caverns.

With the help of a prototype Tele-Orb, Rooper was able to discover most of the route Trembyle had taken. It wasn’t too long before he was also turned to stone by Morphius during the month of Mumberbur. But just before he was petrified, he was able to briefly communicate via the Tele-orb with the one whom would soon challenge Morphius.

This adventurer from the undamaged Westlands, of whose name, origin, and sex have been lost to time, stumbled across the IT&L’s Valley of the Sparrows Resort package in the mailbox of the White House and with the guidance of Trembyle through through the tele-orb was able to raid the Citadel of Zork and defeat Morphius in a game of Survivor.

Morphius was furious at his defeat, releasing a terrible shriek of anguish that echoed through the Citadel of Zork, shaking its very foundations. Keeping his subjects as statues was very taxing. Unable to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, Morphius lost grasp of his confining spell. The statues began to dissolve. Rebecca, Rooper, the Holy Woman, Witch Itah, the Wizard Trembyle, and even Canuk were released from their stone imprisonment.

Rising to the occasion, the followers of good magic (Holy Woman, Itah, Trembyle, Canuk) moved to the center of the room and casted long forgotten spells which had been used during the First Great Diffusion. The spell travelled upwards towards the unsuspecting Morphius. He became stoned and fell out of the air that he was hovering in. The statue broke apart. The vile creature and all evil magic were dispersed into the atmosphere. The spell that kept the Citadel walls up collapsed and the room began to disintegrate. These events would be remembered as the Second Great Diffusion! Throughout the valley, from every tower to the depths of every crevice, evil magic had vanished.

It was not until after everyone had reconvened at Shanbar that Rooper was finally able to officially meet with his Sweepstakes Winner.


EVENTS OF UNKNOWN CHRONOLOGY
There are some snipets of Rooper's life to which dates cannot be accurate placed, but certainly happened prior to his stoning in 1647 GUE: