Path: orb!leggy.zk3.dec.com!jac.zko.dec.com!crl.dec.com!crl.dec.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.kei.com!eff!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!not-for-mail From: robotech@worf.infonet.net (here she comes again) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [HouseStorm] A Trap is Sprung Date: 13 Aug 1994 14:15:39 -0500 Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway Lines: 291 Sender: nobody@cs.utexas.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: news.cs.utexas.edu Xref: orb alt.pub.dragons-inn:1697 The authors of this piece are: Chris Meadows Christopher Motherway Steve Hutchison This segment is copyright 1994 to them. Andrea walked between two dusty, cobweb-strewn shelves, her fingers idly tracing a trail along the spines of one of the rows of books. The break she'd called was almost over, and it would soon be time to continue on their way. She turned to the shelf, picked a book at random and brushed some of the dust off. She looked at the title engraved upon the cover of the tome, not really noticing what it said. She used it as more of an excuse not to think, to do something other than give in to worries and fears. Why on earth had no one the good sense not to allow Jay and Sheryl to come? It was all very well for them to say that with all these skilled people around they couldn't possibly come to any harm, but how on earth could they tell? None of them were prescient--er, wait a minute. For all Andrea knew, 'Raelf, ar'Elya, and various facets thereof might quite well be prescient. She knew they had senses that she couldn't possibly even hope to understand. "Argh." Andrea put the book back. It hadn't helped her any. "Does it really bother you that much?" a voice piped up from behind her. It was Jay, of course--she didn't need to turn, didn't need to face him. "Of course it does, Jay...I'm worried about you. I don't want to see you get hurt." Any more than you already have been, she didn't add, thinking of the scars she'd seen on the boy's back. There was a unicorn nicker of something between amusement and exasperation, also from somewhere behind her. Sheryl. And then a voice insider her mind said, -Your feelings do you credit, but there is such a thing as excess. Life is life. If it happens, it happens.- "That's a nice circular argument you have there, N'graytha." Sheryl tossed her head and snorted, quite used to and bored with Andrea talking to "herself" by now. Andrea chuckled. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I should stop worrying. But yet, could I forgive myself if something DID happen?" She walked on down the aisle, toward the shelf at the end of the row. Jay and Sheryl followed closely. "You can't protect me forever," Jay said, bending over to look at some of the books on the lower shelf. "I know, I know...but I'd like to think that I can at least protect you for a little while lon--AIEEEEE!!!" The scream that cut Andrea off in midsentence was the result of an interesting chain of events. Jay, perhaps in emulation of Andrea's earlier action, or perhaps simply because he wanted to see what it said, had grabbed a book from one of the lower shelves. The book only slid partway out, but in doing so tripped some kind of mechanism. Gears turned, stones shifted, and the floor upon which the threesome were standing suddenly developed a sharp incline. Andrea, Sheryl, and Jay dropped suddenly and rapidly out of sight. A second later, the book popped back into place, the floor replaced itself, and all was as it had been, save for some footsteps in the dust that led into a kind of strange kind of scraping trail that ended at the junction with the bookcase. ----- Everyone heard the scream and turned. Lance immediately ran to where the scream eminated from, and found nothing but the trails of dust where Andrea had dragged her fingers, and the peculiar trail of footprints into the bookcase. Miro muttered an oath in an arcane language and pulled a handful of glowing marble-sized spheres from inside his cloak. He loosed them, and they floated over the floor for a moment before they faded like soap bubbles. "Sure, and they're not dead yet, nor injured," he said aloud. He dropped flat to the floor, looking down the row of books. Meanwhile Blaze closed her eyes and lengthened her trap detecting spell. After a minute, her eyes opened. "Beloved," she said to Lance, "a trap door has been activated here." "That would explain the skid marks," the knight replied. Miro smiled grimly to himself. He observed the smudges of dust on the book that Jay had touched, and rolled a glowing sphere through the air towards the book. It shattered when it touched the cover. A second and third had the same effect. "And so, me darlin's, the wee question is, what to do now?" Blaze looked in surprise at the elf where he was sprawled along the floor, and Lance spoke solemnly, "I swore to myself that Andrea would come to no harm. So I wish to follow and lend her what service I can." Blaze nodded in agreement to her mate. She then added, "Give me a moment and I might be able to learn how this trap operates." She closed her eyes again and started chanting silently. ----- They half fell down a stone chute in the dark, screaming. Andrea, using the additional senses that her bonding to a unicorn had given her, was able to see the directions the chute was heading and align herself accordingly. Sheryl, her equine form being not especially built for slides, went down it lying on her side. Jay tumbled a bit, but managed to point himself in the right direction. After about ten seconds, all three of them shot off the end of the slide and landed in a pile of what felt like straw. Andrea was on her feet in a second, sword drawn. "What the hell?" Jay stood up. "Where are we?" "Somewhere in the catacombs under the house, I think. Hold on." Andrea made a gesture and said a word, and a blue flame danced in her left hand. By its light, she looked around. "Sheryl, Jay, are you all right?" The little unicorn clambered to her feet and whinnied an affirmative. Jay nodded. "Nothing hurt but my pride." Andrea examined their surroundings. The room they were in was round, roughly thirty feet across, and had stone walls. There was only one exit, to what Andrea felt instinctively was the east. The slide's egress was in the opposite wall. "We'd better get going if we want to get back in touch with the others." "Can't we go back up the slide?" Andrea shook her head. "Too smooth. We'd never be able to climb it, and even if we could, Sheryl probably couldn't. And even if teleportation were an option, we don't know the layout of this place well enough for that. There could be traps." "Well, then." Jay pulled out the dagger that Andrea had given him. It fit comfortably into his hand. "I guess there's only one way we can go." Andrea started to move toward the exit, then stopped. -I sense something,- N'graytha thought to her. -Something...dark.- Andrea stood very still, closed her eyes, and reached out with her other senses. There...not too far away. It was more than dark. It was evil, malevolent, and very strong. And also, it was familiar. "Raykor..." Andrea breathed. "He's near, very near." She gripped her sword firmly enough to cause her knuckles to whiten. "And he's probably blocking the exits to the upper levels. If he's near enough for us to sense, I very seriously doubt he's unaware of our presence. He probably orchestrated the whole damn thing." Andrea sighed. "Looks like we're going to have a chance at our revenge, whether we want it or not. Follow me, but be careful." Moving more like a cat than a unicorn, Andrea slid out into the dark passage. Jay and Sheryl had no choice but to follow. ----- Blaze opened her eyes and pointed toward a book on the case. "There." she replied. "Pull that book and the door will open. But we will have to stand directly on the door in order for it to open." "Very well. Get ready to pull that book." said Lance. "Wait," Blaze said, "there was something else...I saw that face again, Lance...the face of the spirit of the man who enslaved me. And, this time, a name was spoken...I think Andrea spoke it...'Raykor.' Raykor IS here!" "It matters not! We shall do to him what we did to his boss, Raoh! Pull that book!" Miro shook his head. "This is nae a guid idea. Sic' a trap will most surely send the ones tae follow, down a false alley." He pulled four more spheres out of his cloak and threw them at the floor. They sank through as if it were air, and four heartbeats later, they returned. The elf looked carefully at them and nodded. "Aye, it has just the two guides. Let me go first, and it'll switch back an' send ye tae the same place Andrea went." They waited, impatiently, for Miro to trigger the trap, and he disappeared down the slide. It reset itself, and the dragonet that had been riding on his shoulder chirped impatiently at Blaze. Lance reached down and pulled the book. A minute later the couple was in the same dark room that Andrea, Jay and Sheryl were just in. I took them a minute to get their bearings. Blaze was shivering. "Beloved," she gasped, "the evil of this house...Raykor...is very close by." "I know." replied Lance. "The evil stench is stronger than ever down here. Do you think you can find Andrea?" Clutching her amulet, the archmage replied, "If she has love in her heart, this will find her." The amulet started glowing dimly. "It should grow brighter as we get nearer," she added. Drawing his sword, Lance said, "All right, then. Let's go." ----- They crept in silence through dark and gloomy tunnels, lit only by the occasional flickering torch. Andrea could see easily, and moved through the shadows like a professional, sometimes disappearing from Jay's sight. Jay's eyes soon adjusted to the dark, and he moved through the shadows like a talented amateur. Sheryl brought up the rear, hopefully safe from any dangers that the others might run into ahead. At one point, the rough stone tunnel intersected one of Generica's city sewer branches. The edges of the intersection were rough, like someone had cut them. Andrea paid it no mind, stepping over the trickle of offal in the middle and continuing onward. Jay stopped for just a moment and looked off down the dark, sloping, round corridor. What lurked down there? And could it come out here? Jay shivered and ran after Andrea. Andrea worked her way down the corridor, sword unsheathed, gazing cautiously ahead at each crack and loose stone on the floor. She had not only herself but her younger sister and an innocent kid to worry about, and if anything happened to either of them, she'd never get over it. She smiled grimly. It was just like old times. As she rounded a bend in the tunnel, her unicorn-sensitive ears picked up something. She signalled a halt and drew her crossbow. Jay knew better than to say anything, and he didn't know the appropriate hand-signal to ask "What is it?" so he contented himself with drawing his dagger and waiting silently. Sheryl had been through all this before. She braced herself and canted her head forward, horn pointing straight ahead. It wasn't long before they slunk into sight. They looked kind of like dogs--mean, mangy dogs, the kind that have been on their own on the streets for a year or two--except that they walked upright, wore crude leather armor, and carried spears. Kobolds, and there were five of them. Andrea felt a wave of hatred and revulsion that surprised her momentarily, until she realized that it wasn't her own but N'graytha's. -Whoa, take it easy,- Andrea said. -They're just kobolds.- -Horrible, evil, dark creatures,- N'graytha thought (hatred, fear). -Relax. They can't hurt anybody down here.- Aloud, Andrea spoke. "We aren't looking for a fight. Let us pass and no harm will come to you." She heard them talking among themselves in half-snarled whispers. After a few minutes of this, Andrea slung the crossbow. "Will you let us pass?" she asked. The kobolds looked up from their impromptu huddle with murder in their eyes. They brandished their spears. "Guess that means no," Andrea said, gesturing. There was a blinding flash and several tortured screams, followed by a frantic commotion as the kobolds fell all over themselves to get away from the light. "Wow!" Jay gasped. "You're absolutely amazing!" "Be that as it may, I've just exhausted my limited repertoire of spells," Andrea said drily. "Anything we meet from here on in, we'll have to handle without magic." ----- Raykor tracked Andrea's progress through the corridors on a screen projected from the green, glowing orb he held in his hand. This was better than he could have hoped. He had been intentionally keeping a low profile, shielding himself against detection by the magic-users who had entered the structure with Andrea and Sheryl. He'd been honestly amazed at the power wielded by some members of the party. Generica seemed to have the highest per-capita number of archmagi of any place he'd ever visited. He'd restricted himself to passive magic, just so he could watch without fear of being seen. This meant, of course, that he couldn't magically influence the searchers to do certain things or head in certain directions...which meant that he had to let Andrea find her own way through the house, and thus a confrontation might not come for a long, long time. But Andrea had fallen down into the catacombs, and there was only one way out of those that he hadn't sealed off--through the central control complex. Right where Raykor was waiting. He smiled, seeing the elf trigger the slide that had taken Andrea. That one led to a bottomless pit, a hole so deep he believed it might end up in the Underdark itself. One problem out of the way permanently. If Raykor hadn't turned his attention back to Andrea and Sheryl with an intensity they could almost feel, he would surely have noticed the other intruders in his domain, who had somehow wound up where Andrea had emerged instead of falling forever. ----- The door at the end of the passage was big and heavy, made of oak. Andrea could sense Raykor's dark presence behind it. She knew he was making no effort to shield himself from her--it was as though he wanted her to find him. And he probably did. Andrea slid her sword into its sheath so as to pull the heavy door open with both hands. As it opened a crack, and Raykor's mocking laughter emanated, Andrea's blood boiled. "You two stay out here," she ordered. "I'm going in to confront Raykor, and I don't want you two in danger." Then she slipped inside. Jay and Sheryl looked at each other. "We can't let her face him alone," Jay said, echoing what Sheryl was at that very moment thinking. "I don't care how powerful he is, she's going to need our help!" Steeling himself, drawing on all the courage he possessed, Jay went through the door after Andrea, and Sheryl followed. -- Chris Meadows/Robotech_Master | "The only lucky round that'll kill an cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu | A-10 is one that goes through the cmeadows@ozarks.sgcl.lib.mo.us | forehead of the pilot." robotech@ins.infonet.net | --Col. Christopher Russo robotech@worf.infonet.net | "A-10 Tank Killer" instruction manual Path: orb!leggy.zk3.dec.com!jac.zko.dec.com!crl.dec.com!crl.dec.com!decwrl!parc!barrnet.net!agate!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!col.hp.com!csn!yuma!lamar.ColoState.EDU!not-for-mail From: arsmith@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Alan Smith) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [HouseStorming] Pygmalion, I asked you not to come! Date: 22 Aug 1994 19:17:26 -0600 Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 Lines: 121 Message-ID: <33bin6$305e@lamar.ColoState.EDU> NNTP-Posting-Host: lamar.acns.colostate.edu Xref: orb alt.pub.dragons-inn:1757 ADMIN: The cast, characters, and techie crew of the [HouseStorming] Thread: Alan Smith ...............Palandun Lintesul Spider .......................Selna Chris Meadows ...................Andrea, Sheryl and Jay. Andrea Evans ...........Kadrys Penny Hutchison .................Leah and Errol Stephen Hutchison ...........Miro Alfvaen ...................Eowyn/Teonyl Wolvie ...................Lance and Blaze Invaluable help: Colin Sebastian Roald nevyn@camelot.bradley.edu Kelly J. Cooper Liralen Li All characters are copyright their respective authors, and shouldn't be used, copied, etc. witout said authors permission unless you really like being sued. We will make exceptions for normal archiving. All rights reserved. Background: Just after the storm Andrea and Sheryl bought a house which proved to be loaded with traps. So they gathered together the rest of the team to help them discover the secret to their new home. The party is spread out into teams throughout the place, with Palandun Lintesul serving as a central coordinator. ****** ****** ****** ****** ******* ******* ******* After Jay and Sheryl had left, delivering the paper, Palandun was, if anything, busier than before. But, since he wasn't being distracted by the kid and the 'corn he felt a lot better. Besides, if he wanted to accomplish his own project, he was going to have to be able to handle this much information flow and swing a sword at the same time. Typically, the pattern went thusly: A team member would find and defuse a trap, telling another team member (who was near a dragonet) the salient details, and remarking on anything novel or interesting they found. The second team member would put this into images and send it telepathically to the dragonet, which would in turn relay the image to the dragonet sitting on Palandun's shoulder. Palandun would relay (or, rather, have relayed) the same information to Leah, who was outside, and anything novel about the trap to the other team. At the same time, he would note down the trap's location, trigger, and kill devices on his plans of the house, which were rapidly becoming crowded. Whoever the previous owner was, he was probably the most paranoid person Palandun had ever had any association with. "Holy Sheep!" Palandun exclaimed, taking a breather and looking at the sheer density of marks on his plans. "I'm gonna have to write smaller. "Cheep!" The dragonet, which Palandun had dubbed 'Metabolism' on account of his ability to go through the stored rations like they were going out of style, replied. "Exactly." Palandun said, who hadn't the vaguest notion what the dragonet was driving at. The dragonet, sensing that the human and it weren't exactly seeing eye to eye, attempted to fullfill it's obligations to communication by projecting a mental image of some rock-food that wasn't standing still like rock-food usually does. Palandun, unenlightened but slightly hungrier, reacted to the dragonet's next "Cheep!" by pulling out (another!) strip of beef jerky, pulling it in half, and feeding the half he wasn't eating to the dragonet. The dragonet, resolved that it would get it's message across or cheep itself hoarse trying, emitted a bloodcurdling "CHEEEEEP!!!" and pointed behind Palandun in exactly the same manner that an irish setter would, had it had six limbs and been named "Smaug". Palandun turned, looked where the dragonet indicated, and saw nothing. "There's-" He said, and did a double take. He then uttered a word or two which, this being a family thread, we shan't repeat here. Suffice it to say, he was very surprised and not a little worried. The reader will perhaps remember that when we first entered this ballroom that there were four giant granite statues situated along the wall. Palandun and the dragonet were staring at just one of these statues, specifically, its left foot. Rather than being beside its mate, as was the situation when they entered the room, this foot was extended a foot or two forward as though the statue was going to take a step. There was then a breaking and tearing sound, a cloud of plaster, and that's exactly what the statue DID, steeping away from where it was embedded in the wall. There was another such sound behind them, where another statue stood. "Get outta here!!" Palandun commanded, drawing a small sphere from his belt loop and throwing it with all his might at the archway of the door they entered by. "Send these to everybody." He continued, and imagined himself and the heroic dragonet beating a very brave retreat, and Leah, outside, taking over as coordinator. "Now GO!" Without needing any more imputus than that, the dragonet took off through the door, now enshrouded in smoke from the broken sphere. Palandun siezed the opportunity to stuff some maps into a bag, saw that he wouldn't have the time as three statues were approaching him a little too quickly, and fled through the doorway. Or, at least, bonked his nose on the fourth statue. Palandun reached for his sword and pickadze. **** ***** ******* "Now," The mage said, or at least Palandun guessed it was a mage. You pretty much had to be one in order to animate one statue, let alone the three which were guarding him (one was left on the floor of the ballroom, incapacitated). "Who are you?" For his part, Raykor examined the captive Bismanian with a contemptuous scowl. Palandun's sword and tool had done their job well, as was evidenced by the gashes and missing appendages on his working statues, but that only made Palandun a halfway dangerous enemy, and not much of that, so long as he had the Horn. Palandun had been thinking on what would happen if he was questioned on the one hand, he knew he could resist anything the mage could throw at him, but it might not be exactly pleasant. On the other hand, if he answered the questions, the mage, having no further use of him, would simply kill him. He would have to buy time for his rescue. So therefore the reply was: "What's it to you?" "A good deal." Raykor said. "Andrea's friends may be...inconvenient to me. No, I don't mean you, sword-grunt, but I do mean the others. I'm sorry to fry your mind like this but..." He raised his arms, with the Horn in one hand and uttered the Mind-Drain incantation. Green fire shot from the Horn to Palandun's forehead. "Let me know when you start to fry my mind." Palandun said, leaning nonchalantly against a statue. Path: orb!not-for-mail From: spider@Orb.Nashua.NH.US (Spider Boardman) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [HouseStorming] Half a league, half a league, half a league onward.... Date: 23 Aug 1994 17:51:39 -0400 Organization: Duchy of Wabesylvan Obspauk Lines: 162 Message-ID: <33dr1b$os4@orb.nashua.nh.us> References: <1994Apr6.064811.73767@yuma> NNTP-Posting-Host: orb.nashua.nh.us Xref: orb alt.pub.dragons-inn:1762 ADMIN: The cast, characters, and techie crew of the [HouseStorming] Thread: Alan Smith ..........Palandun Lintesul Spider Boardman .........Selna Chris Meadows ..............Andrea, Sheryl and Jay. Andrea Evans ......Kadrys Penny Hutchison ............Leah and Errol Stephen Hutchison ......Miro Alfvaen ..............Eowyn/Teonyl Wolvie ..............Lance and Blaze Invaluable help: Colin Sebastian Roald Heather Loresch Kelly J. Cooper Liralen Li All characters are property of their respective authors, and this story is a group effort, copyright 1994 by Aaron V. (Alfvaen) Humphrey and Spider Boardman. Permission is granted for the distribution of this story on the usual alt-net channels and for archival but all other rights, including repost, are reserved to the authors. Background: Just after the storm Andrea and Sheryl bought a house which proved to be loaded with traps. So they gathered together the rest of the team to help them discover the secret to their new home. They split up into two teams after leaving the ballroom. This picks up the progress of the team heading toward the master bedroom. === === === === Teonyl watched as Selna cast a trap-detection spell from the base of the main staircase. Instantly, several areas lit up on the steps. Useful things, she mused. She caught herself making a mental note to mention this to the Florians when she returned. But of course she wouldn't be returning. Besides, magic was just used less on her world. She still wasn't used to its ubiquity here. It was considered useful as an untraceable assassination tool by the Florians, but not trusted for other purposes... She paused, following another line of thought. If trap-detections spells are more common here, then a master thief would take that fact into account in setting up his house. Therefore... "We should double-check these traps," she said out loud. "The ones we can detect may just be decoys for magically concealed ones. And there may even be concealed ones layered under the detectable ones." Errol and Kadrys exchanged glances, and then nodded. "Good idea," Errol said, approvingly. Teonyl recognized that voice. It was the one a master used to tell a student he'd passed a test. She was torn for a moment between embarrassment at having stated something so seemingly obvious, and satisfaction at having figured it out for herself. They began moving carefully up the stairs, disarming the obvious traps and checking for the less obvious ones. Kadrys discovered a concealed trap in the apparently clearest path; Teonyl herself found one under another previously-detected trap, and once again felt herself flushing with mixed emotions at Errol's approval. When they had climbed almost halfway up the staircase, the group took a break to allow tense nerves and numbed senses to rest. As he stood up straight for the first time in an hour, Kadrys began peering into the gloom. After a moment's distraction, he turned to his companions and asked, "Do you smell something?" Errol half-shook his head, and started trying to smell something. Teonyl's "No, wh--" was interrupted by Selna's sneeze. "The dust has been bothering me," she apologized. The mage then put her hands over her nose, and began drawing in air slowly. The inhalation and the subsequent "Hmm" sounded oddly distorted. Her pensive look gave way to a look of recognition as she lowered her hands again and stated "Wood rot." Errol nodded and confirmed, "Indeed yes... that's it! Wood rot!" "Well, how bad is it?" Teonyl asked. Instead of answering, Selna began chanting softly and quickly. An orange beam of light spread between her hands, dropped to the stairs, and spread to match their width and thickness. The light then went up along the staircase and faded after crossing the landing. In its wake, the next one-third of the total rise was still illuminated in varying shades from dull red at the edges to an almost fiery orange in the middle. "The darker parts have wood left," she explained. "Is there anything left solid enough to stand on?" Teonyl pressed. "Maybe the traps?" suggested Kadrys. Errol shrugged, "Ah, we didn't really want to walk up these stairs." After a quick consultation through the dragonets with Palandun, the team descended the stairs again and went around them, disarming yet more traps along the way. When they were beneath the upstairs landing, Kadrys and Errol rigged a rope ladder with their grapnels. They flung it up to the railing; it stayed. As they tugged on the ropes to be sure they would stay, however, Kadrys said, "This doesn't feel right." Selna, following his glance, sent a witch-light up to illuminate the balustrade. "There," Kadrys said, "You see that?" He indicated the top section of the ladder. Teonyl squinted, and after a moment made out the thin wires positioned to cut through the ropes when adequate pressure was applied. So they'd anticipated someone's taking _that_ shortcut, too. "How do you plan to get around that?" she asked. Kadrys raised his eyebrows and looked at Errol, who shrugged and looked at Selna. "My turn!" the latter agreed, and leapt for the ladder and started climbing. "NO!" Teonyl shouted, dashing under the rope ladder to catch her comrade, then gasped in astonishment when she didn't fall. "What the--How'd you..." Teonyl suddenly felt a bit foolish when she noticed that there was no sign of tension on the ropes and that Selna wasn't working hard enough to explain her upward progress. Hmph. Why couldn't she just _float_ up while levitating, like other mages? "Oh, I'm sorry," the elf said, looking chagrined. "I didn't meant to alarm you." Her expression returned to normal for a moment. "But thank you," she added with a smile. She then resumed her 'climb', finally abandoning the pretense of using the ladder when she neared the wire. Her staff floated up to join her, and she cast another trap-finding spell to cover balustrade and landing. The area itself was mostly clear, but the points at which the wire attached to the walls glowed a warning. Selna nodded to herself. "It doesn't look safe just to cut this, folks. Relax for a bit while I try to fix it another way." She produced a small shank of steel, and began chanting at it to make it bend in her fingers. She molded it around the rope to her left, armoring it against the wire. She chanted again to restore it to its proper hardness. She sighed then, produced another shank, and repeated the process for the other rope. "O.K., folks, I think this will hold it," she called. Errol jumped up and down on the bottom loop to verify the relative safety of the ladder, and then climbed up, followed by Kadrys and Teonyl. They quickly cleared the landing of its remaining traps. When they were done, Selna indicated the direction they were to go. "I've informed Palandun of our progress," she said, indicating a nearby hovering dragonet. "He indicates that the other team is doing fine, and confirms that this is the most direct way in." Slowly they made their way through the halls, the traps getting denser with every step, until eventually they came to what the dragonet-linked mapper called the door to the master bedroom. Kadrys whistled softly as he looked over it. "I've seen worse," Errol said. "So've I," Kadrys replied, "but it takes a real paranoid to do *this*." "Not *too* paranoid," Selna noted. "This is the real door." She cast another, longer trap-detection spell. The whole door, all the jambs, and the walls, ceiling, and floor for several feet away from the door lit up. "This," Kadrys said, "is going to take a little while." "Palandun's running out of paper," Selna reported after they had cleared the traps along the floor and halfway up the door and jambs. "Didn't he just get some?" Errol asked, pulling out a pressure trigger. "Yeah, but he sent it away. Seemed to be really happy to do it too." "Never met someone who didn't get along with paper before," Kadrys remarked. -- --Alfvaen(Web page:"http://ugweb.cs.ualberta.ca/~aaron/") Current Album--Loudon Wainwright III:Fame And Wealth Current Book--Edgar Pangborn:Davy "We meet with friends, we talk carcinogens" --Happy Rhodes Path: orb!not-for-mail From: Andrea.Evans@Orb.Nashua.NH.US Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [Housestorm] A Learning Xperience Date: 23 Aug 1994 20:26:32 -0400 Organization: Duchy of Wabesylvan Obspauk Lines: 122 Sender: news@Orb.Nashua.NH.US Message-ID: <33e43o$hau@orb.nashua.nh.us> References: <1994Apr6.064811.73767@yuma> <33dr1b$os4@orb.nashua.nh.us> NNTP-Posting-Host: orb.nashua.nh.us Xref: orb alt.pub.dragons-inn:1766 ADMIN: The cast, characters, and techie crew of the [HouseStorming] Thread: Alan Smith ..........Palandun Lintesul Spider Boardman .........Selna Chris Meadows ..............Andrea, Sheryl and Jay. Andrea Evans ......Kadrys Penny Hutchison ............Leah and Errol Stephen Hutchison ......Miro Alfvaen ..............Eowyn/Teonyl Wolvie ..............Lance and Blaze Invaluable help: Colin Sebastian Roald Heather Loresch Kelly J. Cooper Liralen Li All characters are property of their respective authors, and this story is copyright 1994 by Andrea Evans. Permission is granted for the distribution of this story on the usual alt-net channels and for archival but all other rights, including repost, are reserved to the author. Background: Just after the storm Andrea and Sheryl bought a house which proved to be loaded with traps. So they gathered together the rest of the team to help them discover the secret to their new home. They split up into two teams after leaving the ballroom. This continues the progress of the team heading toward the master bedroom (begun in "Half a league, half a league..."). =========================================================================== The last of the lights kindled hours ago by Selna's trap-detection spell, faded from the handle of the bedroom door. Errol straightened, and turned, bowing toward her and Teonyl. "Ladies first..." he smirked. Teonyl was tempted to take him up on it, not out of bravado, but because she felt sure, despite his mocking manner, that he wouldn't have made the offer if it wasn't safe. But in the same moment Selna chuckled, saying "Nono, _kind_ sir. Age before beauty." At that, Errol glanced sideways at Kadrys, and drew breath to speak, but grinned and stayed silent. His gloved hand caressed the doorknob, and it turned with an anticlimactic click. Errol poked his head round the door, assessing the room at a glance. The others, waiting in the hall outside, heard him snicker suddenly. "What did Andrea say her landlord's name was? M. Valdemar perhaps?" Kadrys leaned forward, peering over Errol's shoulder. "Now that's what I call a late sleeper." He pushed the door fully open, and as the two thieves moved further into the room, Teonyl and Selna caught their first glimpse of what lay beyond. The master bedroom was a wooden-panelled, windowless space, with few furnishings apart from a massive carved double bed. And the bed was occupied. The withered corpse of the master thief lay sprawled across the bed. Teonyl caught her breath, only now picking up a faint, faded reek of mold and dust and rot. The body was so old that the worst of the decay was years past, and the leathery skin had dried and shrunk tight to the bones. Errol glanced back over his shoulder at Teonyl, his round eye catching the light in a sudden sharp glint. "What do you think?" She needed no further prompting. Another test, then. Very well. Her lips tightened and she surveyed the room in a detached, businesslike way. Beside her, Selna's voice rose and fell in the clear song of elvish spellcasting. Teonyl paused, waiting for the telltale glimmer to pick out any further traps. Nothing. She released the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. "Well, uh, apart from the lack of unpleasant surprises... present company excepted," she added with an ironic nod toward the corpse, "there are no hidden rooms off this one, there's no spare space in the layout for them." She glanced at the dragonet perched on Selna's shoulder. It chirruped its agreement at her. She took a few slow steps toward the bed, hesitant not from fear but from recent experience in this house of traps and more traps. She stared more closely at the body. Its left hand was clawed against its shrunken chest, and its head was thrown back in an agonised contortion. Heart attack? Who knew. Its other hand, crooked as an eagle's talon, was stretched out over its head. Toward the wall? Teonyl stared at it, straining her sight. Nothing, not a crack. She tapped on the panelling, listening for any hollowness. Solid as stone. Not the wall. The bed? She stepped closer still, staring at the carved wooden frame of the bed, the tall bedposts, spiralling in mockery of a unicorn's horn. The bedhead, carved in a simple repeating pattern of crosses and circles. She leaned forward until her nose was almost against the wood. Circles. Crosses. Nothing. Nothing. ...Wait. There. Tiny marks of abrasion, almost too faint to be seen. Marks surrounding a single element of the repeated pattern. Teonyl stepped back, looked over at Errol, and allowed herself a smile, as she pointed toward the particular piece of carving. Errol nodded. "Heh. Yes. 'Hugs and kisses' go together, but it's still X that marks the spot." He spoke no word of praise. He did not need to. The grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes was enough. Teonyl raised her eyebrows, moved her finger a little closer to the carving. "Should I?" Errol shrugged, nonchalant as always. "It's your discovery, it should be your honour." Without hesitation she pressed it, trusting in Selna's magic, in Kadrys' skills, above all in the ability of Errol as a mentor in the Art. Under her touch, the X sank into the headboard with the faintest possible click. And, all over the silent house, there rose a running tide of tiny noises, snaps and sproings and twangs of arcane mechanisms, as traps mundane and mystical were at long last secured. *** Interlude *** "Hugs and kisses, uhh, nowait, noughts and crosses, that was it. Hey remember that one? How 'bout we play another round of that?" A man grins eagerly across a gameboard that is a living, turning world. His grin is met by another, changeless grin. A skeletal hand is extended, and gives an emphatic thumbs down. "Oh fooey. You're just sore cause we tie in that version. Spoilsport." Path: orb!leggy.zk3.dec.com!jac.zko.dec.com!crl.dec.com!crl.dec.com!decwrl!parc!biosci!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!csn!yuma!lamar.ColoState.EDU!not-for-mail From: arsmith@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Alan Smith) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [NTY][HouseStorming] Nightcap at 'Raelfs... Date: 26 Aug 1994 15:13:46 -0600 Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 Lines: 431 Message-ID: <33llua$34mc@lamar.ColoState.EDU> NNTP-Posting-Host: lamar.acns.colostate.edu Xref: orb alt.pub.dragons-inn:1788 ADMIN: The cast, characters, and techie crew of the [HouseStorming] Thread: Alan Smith ...............Palandun Lintesul Spider .......................Selna Chris Meadows ...................Andrea, Sheryl and Jay. Andrea Evans ...........Kadrys Penny Hutchison .................Leah and Errol Stephen Hutchison ...........Miro Alfvaen ...................Eowyn/Teonyl Wolvie ...................Lance and Blaze Invaluable help: Colin Sebastian Roald nevyn@camelot.bradley.edu Kelly J. Cooper Liralen Li All stories are copyright their respective authors, and shouldn't be used, copied, etc. witout said authors permission unless you really like being sued. We will make exceptions for normal archiving. All rights reserved. Background: Just after the storm Andrea and Sheryl bought a house which proved to be loaded with traps. So they gathered together the rest of the team to help them discover the secret to their new home. Once inside they split up and Palandun Lintesul (who was acting as a central coordinator) has been captured by the person controlling all the traps. ****** ****** ****** ****** ******* They should have hurt, but he was beyond feeling anything. Blue lightning played across his face, coming from a spiral-twisted wand in the hands of something too dark to be seen. It hovered close, and its breath smelled vaguely of too much rat-aux-ail. Palandun tried to wince and close his eyes but he couldn't move, couldn't twitch. The lightnings hurt, a little, like having someone slap him in the face with a length of raspberry cane. He felt a pressure growing against his brain, a sensation like the worst sinus headache he'd ever had. The pain began to blot out vision and he dimly heard a voice, commanding, "TELL ME NOW." The world swam away, like a salmon going upstream to spawn. He was left with disjointed shreds of reality, bits of feature in the empty darkness. The darkness was too cold, so he stuck two of them together and wrapped them around himself for warmth. -- ** -- Palandun came up to the door to the lighthouse and pounded on it for a while. It was very important that he see 'Raelf, he remembered, because... Why? He had a reason when he walked up the path but he could not, to save his life, remember what it was. If 'Raelf opened the door and he just gawked at the mage, he (the mage) was probably going to feel somewhat put out. A mage that felt annoyed was not a good thing. Palandun had just turned to go back down the path when 'Raf appeared, looking like something the cat threw out. "Could you please not breathe so loud... Oh, hey, Palandun. How goes it?" The satyrlion blinked at the young Bismanian with eyes that looked like they had been sandpapered. "Uh, I, uh, you're 'Raelf's brother, right?" Oh no, not a hung-over annoyed mage... "Right." 'Raf tried to collect his wits about him. Just a few solid hours playing, that was all he needed, but the band was all worn out. He blinked, and Palandun was still there, so it wasn't an hallucination. In that case, he could guess what he (the Bismanian) had come here for. Just in case, he said, "What can I do you for, dude?" "Huh?" Palandun said, taken by surprise. His brain nearly froze, but hit on something to ask. "What is this?" he said, holding up a statue that he couldn't remember taking with him. It was a small wooden piece, with a picture of something an artist in one of the hallucenogenic dens must have dreamed up. It was a squid-lizard-bat thing, with most of its tentacles spread and one covering the beak, which was open. The statue sort of looked like something a truly deranged mind came up with trying to burp politely. Palandun was surprised when he didn't get the expected answer of 'It's a statue. Ugly one, too.' Instead, 'Raf merely got a very serious look on his face and said, "Where'd you get that? You'd better come in." Palandun found himself inside before he realized that his feet were moving. 'Raf had taken the statue, and it was locked in a shimmering blue sphere of something not like light. And they were in a big room that went off quite a ways into the distance, with a white roof some thirty feet up, with bright magelights at regular intervals lighting up the utilitarian workbenches below them. "Sorry, I had to take a shortcut. Welcome to my lab." "Nice place." Palandun said, taking it in and being impressed. He had been in mage labs before, but this was a very well equipped one. "Lotta room. What's the deal with the statue?" "How much do you know about the Shunned Center?" 'Raf asked, puttering around with some alchemicals. Palandun addmitted that he knew very little, beside the fact that nobody wanted him to go there, and the few times he had he hadn't found a single halfway-normal rat. "There's a reason for that." 'Raf said. "A very ugly reason. And I can't really tell you what it is unless... With your permission?" "What?" Palandun felt a strange sort of sensation as the satyrlion stared at him, eyes like pools of molten glass. "May I touch the surface of your mind?" "Uh, ... all right, just don't get too personal." 'Raf laughed quietly, and Palandun had a brief strange sense of being off-balance, and when he grabbed the table to keep from falling, he wondered why his hand was olive brown and with the tracing of black hairs instead of the tan with gold fur he ... no, that wasn't him, that was the other guy. The sensation vanished. "Sorry, dude," 'Raf said, "You got some feedback there. Anyway, you know about her already so I can tell you. The Great Mother." "Who?" Palandun asked, trying to remember why he associated the term 'Mother' with that statue. "Great Mother is a... well, there isn't a classification you know about. In some places she'd be considered a god. She's been worshiped as a god here, but she's not really the same kind of thing. The statue is one of her tools, it's an image of one of her morphs." "Cool!" Palandun said, suddenly heading for the door, "New species!" "No!" 'Raf said, swiftly moving to head off Palandun while turning up the blue not-light around the statue. "You don't understand. She's a chaos being, something that doesn't really belong here on this nice quiet mundane plane. She isn't a part of the life-web here, except by accident. If you get too close to her, she'll _eat_ you like a kid gobbling candy." Palandun felt his mouth opening like a fish, and closed it. "And when she eats someone, it's not that superficial kind of chew-up-and-digest way you're used to thinking about, either. The people she eats live through the experience, and they end up as cells in her group-mind. If they're lucky and she doesn't just put them straight into her own version of hell, then she lets her Overmind play with them, and the Overmind is a council of the twelve most vicious and malevolent assholes that this city has ever known. You do _not_ want to meet them, trust me. Palandun, if you have any sense at all you will not go in there, being eaten by her is probably the worst fate you could find." Needless to say, Palandun was kind of stunned. "You mean to say that there's a thing that rips peoples souls out of their bodies and puts them in some kind of wallet *here*? In Generica?" "No, dude, she eats them, soul, body, and wriggly bits." Sitting on a lab stool, 'Raf continued, "It was one of my main reasons for not wanting you guys to put your colony there in the Low City. See, you're right on the edge of her personal space. And she hunts, dude. She sneaks into the minds of the locals while they're asleep and vulnerable, and she grabs the ones that seem like what she wants at the time, or she sends out one of her Spawn to collect them. Your colony, fresh new meat -- she's gonna want to taste a few Bismanians. She can take about ten people a week from the town in general, and get away with it clean, by making the right people forget. This is a big city. We don't want you to lose people, Pal. Maybe you should have them move." Palandun cogitated on this, then finally spoke. "What about the rest of the city? Can they leave as well?" At 'Rafs shrug, he continued, "Right. Running away isn't going to help, we have to stop this thing." "You can't." 'Raf said, "Not by force of arms, and all the magic power in Generica is about half of what you need, and that's being optimistic. Palandun, get them the hell out. She's got her hooks into your folks already, get them to safety. There is nothing you can do." Palandun sat down and closed his eyes "Ever hear of Sovia? On the western Continent? Danuib, Andria, Bismania and Newmeanor together can't defeat that behemoth, couldn't ever since the first orc war, 150 years ago. We fought three more wars though, you know why?" he opened his eyes and gazed intently at 'Raf, "Because an evil you cannot defeat you may be able to contain, or attenuate. That is what I'm going to try to do, but I'll need some help. Can you help me? At least to remember?" 'Raf sighed. "You really want this, don't you." "To remember? Yeah-" "No, that's not what I meant. You really want to be able to fight against evil and make a difference." "Yes. Of course. With all my heart." "I was afraid you'd say that." 'Raf stood back from the glowing blue sphere holding the statue, drawing one fist back in what looked suspiciously like an Etarusian fighting posture. There was a loud roar, Palandun jumped, and Raf's fist had penetrated the globe, shattering the statue. "Why the hell did you do that?!" Palandun half shouted, watching the pieces of the statue fly around wildly inside the globe of light, grinding themselves ever smaller. 'Raf shook his hand, wincing in pain. Drops of blood flickered redly on his fur and vanished. "I have a curse, my friend. You've invoked it." "What are you talking about?" 'Raf smiled, showing lions' teeth. "You told me your hearts desire. You want to be able to fight evil and make a real difference. I'm cursed to grant heart's desires, Pal, so please don't go telling everybody, ok? Anyway, this is the first part. When those pieces are done flying around in there, they'll be the basis for an alchemic process. I'm going to extract a component that, when I blend it in the right potion, will protect you from the Great Mother." "Hey, that's great!" "Hold on. This is the first step. There will be four more. Go downstairs and tell Kev to show you the library. I'll be down with the elixir in an hour." Palandun saw a glowing yellow line on the floor, starting at his feet. He followed it and found himself on the ramp leading down into the living-room area of the Lighthouse. Kev was there, making a kite. "Hey, kid," Palandun said. "'Raf said for you to show me the library." "No prob, kid," Kev replied, and jumped up. "Follow me," and he sprinted through the door and down the hallway past the kitchen and a number of doors. Palandun ran to keep up. This wasn't the same layout that the place had during the party. All the little cubby-hole rooms were gone from the main living-room, and this hallway had been closed off. Kev stopped suddenly and Palandun had to brake hard to keep from running him over. "Here y' go, da libry. Have fun, an' don't let da books eat ya." Kev giggled and ran backwards, returning to where he had started. "Weird kid," Palandun muttered. The door opened at his touch, and he stepped inside. Inside it was dimly lit, but after a second the light began to rise, revealing a wall covered in books. "Wow," Palandun muttered. "I wonder if they've got a card catalog." "ook!" said something behind him. He whirled. There was a transparent orangutan hunkered on top of a shoulder-height cabinet, filled with small drawers labelled in the Bismanian alphabet. "Thanks," he said to the orangutan, and began flipping through the cards, looking for "Great Mother." There was one card, and it showed, in green, the following headings. "Mother Love, collected religious poetry of Old Generica" "The Life and Slimes of C'Tulhu" "Old Ones, Great Old Ones, and Not-So-Great Old Ones" "Chaos and Spawn" "Ecological Role of Chaos Entities in Magical World Complexes" The last entry caught his attention. He touched it with his finger and looked up at the placid face of the orangutan, which said "ook" once and swung across the bookshelf, disappearing around a corner, then coming back out suddenly from the opposite side of the room carrying a thick black treatise. It crooked a finger at him, and he followed it across the room. Behind a rack of shiny-covered colorful magazines was a small sunken rest area. There was a study carrel like the one he had at the University, and a comfortable chair, and a small window which looked out over the city. He frowned for a moment, remembering that he had gone LEFT into the library, and that the city was off to the RIGHT down that hallway. Oh well, mages, what can you say. At least the whole area had good light. He sat down to read. He half-felt the presence of someone watching him and looked up, blinking hard. Strange images swam in his head and he wasn't sure he wanted to think too hard about them. He looked out the window and was surprised to see that it was twilight. "Ook, ook." The orangutan was sitting on the floor staring at him. When he looked at it, it crooked one long finger and went scuttling across the floor to the doorway. He followed it. 'Raf was waiting in the hall, with a gold-skinned elf that Palandun vaguely recalled was named Miro. "What's up? Is it ready?" Palandun asked. "Yeah, but it's got some serious side effects. You want to eat dinner with us first while we discuss it?" Palandun realized that he was hungry, and more important, he needed to use the euphemism as soon as possible. "Sounds good to me. Is there a place I can wash and, ah," he started. "Down the hall across from the kitchen and dining room," 'Raf said blandly. After making his ablutions, Palandun found 'Raf and Miro in the dining room. There was a small supper laid, three places. Something smelled like Etarusian food. "Hey, you didn't have to go to any trouble for me," he said, and Miro smiled and waved vaguely at one of the chairs. Palandun sat down, and the other two joined him. Food was dished out, and tea poured, and they started to eat. "So the side effects," 'Raf said. "You realize this kind of thing always has some hidden costs, right?" "Yeah," Palandun said cautiously. "What kind of hidden costs do you expect it to have?" "That depends on two things," 'Raf said. "First, on how the potion accomodates itself to you. It's not one of those sloppy one-size-fits-all generic potions like you can get at your herbalist conjurer's shop. It's going to protect you from Great Mother, and more generally from mental invasions, magical or otherwise. Just how it does that will depend on you. The second thing is, your hearts' desire was for more than just being able to help your colony out. You've got a destiny, dude. Your timeline is very heavy. So the potion has some stuff in it that just felt right to me at the time, based on my curse. It'll make you able to fight evil and make a difference, but I can't tell you how it will do that." "Oh swell," Palandun muttered. More forebodings about his future, as if that trip to Rameshan the month before hadn't already made him nervous about what lay in store. "One other thing, boyo," Miro said, the first sounds Palandun had heard from him so far. "Tis a guid idea if ye wait an hour after dinner before ye drink the wee potion. T'will mingle with the food, and this kind of food always makes ye hungry an hour later, and y' don't want tae be wanting to drink another potion in an hour." An hour later he was hungry -- that prediction came true. He got up from where he was reading the last of that creepy book, and wandered out into the living room. 'Raf was nowhere to be seen, but Miro was watching the sunset and plunking morosely at a lute. "Uhm, could I try taking that potion now," Palandun said. "Otherwise I'm gonna lose my nerve." "Surely, laddie. Here 'tis." Miro did a sleight-of-hand wave and produced a crystal flask, holding an uncomfortable amount of a glowing red liquid. "Do I need to do anything special?" "Nae. Just drink it in one swig, and sit down. It'll be putting you out for a wee time." Miro handed him the flask and Palandun unstoppered it, and squared his shoulders, blew out a deep breath, and began to down the stuff. The room started to shake. When he came to again, the sunset sky was a deeper red and it looked to be a half hour before darkness. "Wow, I'd better get back down," Palandun said. "The path up here is pretty narrow and I don't want to get hurt going down in the dark." "We'd better test it first," Miro said grimly. Palandun looked at him, puzzled. "The potion, lad. You're going back down to where She can get at ye." "Oh. Can you do that? Test it, I mean?" "Aye, none better." The elf looked him in the eye, a searching gaze, but after a moment Palandun grew impatient and said, "Will this take long?" "You should go for a swim first," Miro said. "What? Why? It's almost dark and they're expecting me." "Good. Laddie, it works." -- ** -- The room swam back into focus. "So, the woman with the flying lizards is barely more than a beastmaster. No wonder she won't risk her dainty white skin indoor near the traps, so much easier it is to send in one's animals, and safer. And the elf who has accompanied Andrea and that foolish pair of lovebirds is a petty thief with minor magic at best. Just as I thought. And the other group, simply two human thieves and one elvish, and that other baggage merely an illusion weaver garbed to appear an elf, with a wand that seeks out traps. So, you thought to block me from your mind with a mere amulet, foolish man. I must go tend to my guests, now. Consider well what form of beast you most despise, for when I return, my spells will change you into it." Raykor said, sighing with satisfaction. The barbarian had thought he could hide the truth from Raykor, ha! He went off to research the spells that *did* turn one into a frost dragon, anyway... Palandun stared after the mage, gaining new appreciation for exactly what the potion could *do*, implanting exactly what the mage apperently wanted to hear and was inclined to believe. Even turning into a frost dragon wasn't *that* bad, one could still talk and get changed back, and meanwhile he could possibly have a magecicle as a snack... Path: orb!not-for-mail From: spider@Orb.Nashua.NH.US (Spider Boardman) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [HouseStorming] Queen of Hearts Date: 13 Sep 1994 19:42:09 -0400 Organization: Duchy of Wabesylvan Obspauk Lines: 274 Message-ID: <355dch$cr7@orb.nashua.nh.us> References: <33bin6$305e@lamar.ColoState.EDU> <33e43o$hau@orb.nashua.nh.us> <1994Apr6.064811.73767@yuma> <33dr1b$os4@orb.nashua.nh.us> <33llua$34mc@lamar.ColoState.EDU> NNTP-Posting-Host: orb.nashua.nh.us Xref: orb alt.pub.dragons-inn:1873 ADMIN: The cast, characters, and techie crew of the [HouseStorming] Thread: Alan Smith ..........Palandun Lintesul Spider Boardman .........Selna Chris Meadows ..............Andrea, Sheryl and Jay. Andrea Evans ......Kadrys Penny Hutchison ............Leah and Errol Stephen Hutchison ......Miro Alfvaen ..............Eowyn/Teonyl Wolvie ..............Lance and Blaze Invaluable help: Colin Sebastian Roald Heather Loresch Kelly J. Cooper Liralen Li All characters are property of their respective authors, and this story is a group effort, copyright 1994 by Spider Boardman, Stephen Hutchison, Penny Hutchison, Andrea Evans, and Aaron V. (Alfvaen) Humphrey. Permission is granted for the distribution of this story on the usual alt-net channels and for archival but all other rights, including repost, are reserved to the authors. Background: Just after the storm Andrea and Sheryl bought a house which proved to be loaded with traps. So they gathered together the rest of the team to help them discover the secret to their new home. They split up into two teams after leaving the ballroom. While the upstairs team was dealing with the master bedroom, the group's mapper (Palandun Lintesul) was kidnapped by Raykor. This picks up after the just after the traps have been deactivated at the end of "Learning Xperience". === === === === As the team turned to their accompanying dragonet, ready to tell Palandun that the traps were now off, they were suddenly flooded with images of moving statues, a mad scramble for maps, a smoke screen, and being waved off by the mapper. As one, they started running for the ballroom. No one bothered to use the ladder, but instead chose various methods of jumping or dropping over the railing. When they approached the ballroom they saw (and smelled) the dissipating remains of smoke. Making a dash through the now much diminished smokescreen they encountered the remains of a small battle. The gear that the team had left behind was strewn about the room, along with the maps, the furniture, and several medium-sized blocks of stone, most often making statuary hands or feet. Across what was the top of the table lay a deeply scored block of granite which arched and flexed at times. There were several granite limbs, each trying to make its own way to the large block. "Still alive after being cut up like that?" Errol noted. "How ... curious." Kadrys shot him a sideways glance and smiled whitely. "No blood has been spilled in here," he noted, after a quick visual inspection of the room, "so Palandun may still be alive, somewhere." "There's probably some kind of amulet or runes on the statue," Selna said, shoving a crawling half-of-a-hand back into the corner with the end of her staff. "Look for anything strange. We'll need to know how to take them out of commission. I'll be trying to search out where Palandun's been taken." The others nodded, and spread out through the room. Teonyl jumped almost straight up as a statue-arm wriggled suddenly from under the table, flopping towards the body. She saw the thing roll itself back against the quartered torso, severed stump matching severed arm. A flash of green light left a strangely patterned after-image on her eyes, and the arm was re-attached as if it had never been cut off. "I saw some kind of runes, just then," Teonyl said, blinking to clear her eyes. "I don't know what kind." Kadrys, meanwhile, had found the head. It rolled blank eyes at him and gnashed its teeth. "What's this?" he said, gleefully. "Errol, could you come here?" Errol had climbed up on top of the hip-abdomen section of the statue. As he looked up to answer, the sculpture twitched and then tried to roll out from under him. He balanced easily against the sudden motion, and blinked in surprise. "Hold still, you nasty excuse for a caryatid," he sneered and stomped, hard and quickly, on the statue's groin. A fracture developed and grew under the small man's foot, and the stone torso twitched and subsided. "Oh, that's interesting," Kadrys said. "When you hurt it, the face reacted." Errol smiled nastily in reply. "What was it you wanted me to look at, my dear?" Kadrys twined his fingers around the carved stone hair and lifted the massive head as if it weighed no more than a small dog. "Look here at the mouth. I think there's something under the tongue." Errol lightly hopped down and peered into the carving. "I can't see anything. Eowyn," he ordered, "Hurt it for me, if you would be so kind." Teonyl nodded and looked around. There was a stone finger crawling towards the hand. She picked up one of the larger chunks of rock and brought it down sharply on the finger, frowning in distaste as the rock tried to wriggle out of her grasp. Errol, meantime, stared intently at the face. It screamed soundlessly, and with a lightning motion, he struck with a long thin dagger that he pulled out of nowhere. There was a flash of green light, and the moving stones stopped. "Ahh," he breathed, "we found it." On the end of his dagger, a glass and wire beetle was impaled, wriggling its legs impotently. Teonyl moved over to where they were standing. "Both kinds, then, runes _and_ amulet." "Hmm." Selna's voice came from the doorway. Her eyes were closed. "He managed to cut apart one statue, but ... ooh!" she winced, "... two distracted him; the third got him from behind. There was a mage already in the house -- I can `see' his magic triggering the statues. "Once they had him, they activated a teleportation spell, that leads -- mmph, how to get past his scry-proofing... Hey!" she yelped, suddenly. Her eyes flew open. "That was personal!" "Selna!" Errol exclaimed, as she started to reach behind her. "What?" She finished the motion, and a greatsword appeared in her left hand. She drew it from its scabbard. Kadrys winced and backed away from her. "What do you make of this beetle?" Errol held the impaled bug out towards her, dagger-point first. As he did so, he moved and stepped between Kadrys and the greatsword. "Disgusting," she said. "There's a human ghost trapped in there." She touched the bug with the sword and it stopped moving, a faint and irrational feeling of liberation washing through the room. "I located the place where Palandun was taken. The mage who has been hiding here is trying to find out more about me than I want him to know, and I'm having to concentrate to keep his probe from telling him anything." She looked at Kadrys and Errol, and frowned. "There is a power in this sword that I can use to free the ghosts from the statues. It normally only works on contact, but I can make it extend to arm's reach. If any of you has died and been brought back, though, it might be bad for you to be in range. Kadrys? Errol?" Both nodded wordlessly. Kadrys gave a close-lipped, mirthless grin, which Errol echoed. "Eowyn?" Teonyl was taken aback. What kind of people _are_ these? she asked herself, not for the first time. "I've--uh--never been actually killed," she said. "Good," Selna said. "I'll need you to be bait, if you please." "Wonderful," Teonyl muttered under her breath. At that, Errol looked up at Kadrys and murmured, "_Not_ a member of the club, my pet." There was a swirling plummet into cold, numbing blackness with faint, whirling stars, as the four of them disappeared from the ballroom. ==== ==== ==== ==== They appeared twenty feet from one end of the room which now held the statues. Selna ran towards one end, where a statue was poised. Kadrys and Errol made for the other. Teonyl looked around, and saw that there were two statues flanking a door in the far end of the room. Which were moving, towards the two intruders. Behind her, Teonyl heard a sort of "snksnk" noise and a CRASH! rollroll. She glanced back. Selna was standing in a swordsman's stance, on the far side of the statue, and on the ground was the statue's head, with a surprised expression on the face. The neck stump and the head were both burning with a faint blue-white fire matching the flickering blaze that ran up Selna's greatsword. A hissing, mocking laughter came from the far end of the room -- Teonyl saw that Kadrys had joined in a kind of martial dance with the statue, dodging aside as it lunged for him. She was surprised to see the black-clad man grip the statue's outstretched arm and blur into a spin, which sent the statue sprawling into the centre of the room. Meanwhile Errol was blowing a wreath of that foul stinking cigarette smoke that he favoured into the face of the other statue. It ignored him and he looked momentarily nonplussed. The statue on the floor began to rise, and Teonyl ran forward, slashing at it with her sword. It swiped at her feet, and with surprising speed got up off the floor and lunged at her. She back-pedalled fast, whirling and running past Selna, who was waiting in a half-crouch at the end of the room. SnkSnk WHUMP crashrollroll. Two down. Again at the neck. Teonyl marvelled at the precision of the cut even as she half-ran up the wall to turn around. The third statue had smashed a granite fist into Errol, but all that was there was his trench coat. He stood, unfazed, in the far corner, with a nasty looking bright-black dagger drawn and ready. Meanwhile Kadrys was continuing his 'catch-me' game with the statue, playing it like a matador plays the bull. As it looked away, Errol dashed out from the corner, and stuck the dagger in its back. It whirled, and Teonyl saw that there were three daggers already in place, rock crumbling around them. "Over here, stupid," she shouted. The statue looked up and something ugly seemed to glare out of its eyes. She made a truly insulting gesture with her left hand, and it snarled without sound and rushed her. She dodged back at full speed, came up hard against the wall, and SnkSNK WHAM thud. The last head was off the last statue. "That was sword practice for now," Selna observed, and Teonyl slid down the wall, gasping for breath. She was getting out of shape; after she got out of this she'd have to see about getting more regular workouts. Selna sheathed her sword. Errol was casually shrugging himself back into his trench coat, and Kadrys was examining the daggers he had stuck in the back of the statues. She recognised the door from her earlier 'trace' -- Palandun was on the other side. She sent a tentative probe questing past the wards on the door. Something strange was happening there. She smiled and helped Teonyl to her feet, checking her for injuries. A moment later the door opened and Miro looked out. "What kept you?" Selna asked brightly, as she finished getting her hair back in place. Then, seeing that the bemused Bismanian was free again, she bent her will to following the traces of the spell that was still trying to lock onto her. She smiled tightly -- she had found the new location of the kidnapping mage. She wasted a moment trying to point him out to Miro before realising that he was trying to point out the villain's location to her. "Flank maneuver?" she said. Miro nodded, grabbed Palandun's hand, on one side, his sword on the other, and yanked the Bismanian Sideways from where they were, through a hole in the Air. "Show-off," someone muttered, and Selna collected the group together. "Be ready for anything," she said, and again they vanished. Path: orb!leggy.zk3.dec.com!jac.zko.dec.com!pa.dec.com!decwrl!parc!barrnet.net!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!not-for-mail From: chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (22,000 telephone poles an hour) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [HouseStorm] [AU] Raykor--The Final Confrontation Date: 25 Sep 1994 22:30:02 -0500 Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway Lines: 326 Sender: nobody@cs.utexas.edu Message-ID: Reply-To: "22,000 telephone poles an hour" NNTP-Posting-Host: news.cs.utexas.edu Xref: orb alt.pub.dragons-inn:1920 ADMIN: The cast, characters, and techie crew of the [HouseStorming] Thread: Alan Smith ...............Palandun Lintesul Spider .......................Selna Chris Meadows ...................Andrea, Sheryl and Jay. Andrea Evans ...........Kadrys Penny Hutchison .................Leah and Errol Stephen Hutchison ...........Miro Alfvaen ...................Eowyn/Teonyl Wolvie ...................Lance and Blaze Invaluable help: Colin Sebastian Roald nevyn@camelot.bradley.edu Kelly J. Cooper Liralen Li All characters are copyright their respective authors, and shouldn't be used, copied, etc. witout said authors permission unless you really like being sued. We will make exceptions for normal archiving. All rights reserved. Background: Just after the storm Andrea and Sheryl bought a house which proved to be loaded with traps. So they gathered together the rest of the team to help them discover the secret to their new home. Andrea, Sheryl, and Jay were separated from the rest of the group by a trapdoor in the library, and have made their way to a room in the dungeon level beneath the house where Raykor, the necromancer responsible for Sheryl's and Andrea's transformations, awaits them. The rest of the party is trying to find its way to where they are. And now...the Final Confrontation. ***** There they were. Andrea and Raykor faced each other from opposite ends of the room. It was, Andrea noticed, about sixty feet long and forty feet wide, and there were the standard magical trappings all about. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of some obsidian-like material, which almost seemed to absorb the scant light cast from the flickering torches on the walls and the small fire in the middle of the room. There were some shelves lined with magical implements at the other end of the room, some of which Andrea recognized, others she didn't. There was also a grey circle, about eight feet in diameter, present in the wall behind Raykor. Raykor was looking at a green globe in his hand, and then he slowly looked up at her. "Ah, so you have arrived!" he called out, his voice reverberating thunderously about the chamber. "I had wondered when I could expect you." "You're finished, Raykor," Andrea said, drawing her sword. Instead of echoing, the sounds almost disappeared, seemingly absorbed by the walls. "I think not. Oh, what is this?" It was Sheryl and Jay, coming in the door behind her. Andrea glanced over her shoulder. "Get out of here, you two, you could get hurt!" The door slammed shut behind them. "It's rather late for that, I think," Raykor gloated. "Now I have you. All...three of you? Who have we here?" Andrea set herself for combat. "My apprentice, Raykor. And we're the last three people you'll ever see." "I rather doubt that." Raykor glanced at the green sphere in his right hand. "Your friends are all rather busy with the traps in this house, and the little magical surprises I've added. They could be busy for a good long time, in fact." He closed his hand, and the sphere vanished. "And now for you, my dear." He laughed evilly, and there was an insane glint in his eyes. "I've been following you for a long time, Andrea. And Sheryl." Sheryl snorted, and set her horn forward. Jay looked scared, but he drew the dagger Andrea had lent him and held it resolutely. "Why?" Andrea asked. "Why us?" She began glancing at the floor ahead of her. Was it trapped? What was the best way around the fire? Raykor shrugged. "Coincidence, at first. You happened to be in the wrong place at the right time, for my experiments." He paused. "You know, even I was surprised at the potency of the curse I cast on your sister. I hadn't expected it to have the power it had. If it hadn't been for my ire, the transformation would probably have only been temporary, until the removal of the curse. But in my anger, and with the aid of the magical ring I had been given by Raoh in exchange for my services, I produced enough power to effect a permanent alteration in form." "You talk too much," Andrea said, moving forward. She feinted left, then moved around the fire to the right. "You will find that my actions speak louder than my words!" Raykor gestured, and a ball of light left his hands, heading straight for Andrea! She went into a tight somersault, and the blast pitted the floor behind her. She kept moving forward, and now Sheryl started in on the left. "After the experiment," Raykor continued, blasting at Andrea again, "I realized that such a powerful curse would provide a good opportunity for study. I could learn from that curse, find ways to make future spells more powerful." Andrea parried the blast with her sword, and the blade promptly melted. "Damn you, that sword was expensive!" Andrea tossed the hilt away, and continued moving in on him. "So, I followed you, studied Sheryl. I learned newer and better ways to harness magic. Including the life-forces of humans and other creatures." Andrea smouldered. "You'll pay with your life for what you've done to ours." "I think not." Raykor smiled, and cast another magical blast at Andrea. He had aimed perfectly this time. There was NO WAY he could miss. And then Andrea did the impossible. She raised her hand, and the blast dissipated. Raykor's jaw dropped. "How--" Andrea's eyes flashed blue. "You might be interested to know that the second curse you cast was not entirely a failure. However, its success will be your downfall." Raykor's eyes sparked. "Ah, of course! That is why you looked different to my scans. But now that I know that, it shall be all the easier to finish you off. Unicorns may be able to counter magic, but I think that you cannot counter this as easily." And, with a flourish, he produced a spiralled rod from beheath his robes. Andrea's body reeled with N'graytha's shock. -That's--that's MY HORN!- she silently screamed. "The fiend," Andrea muttered. "That's it, Raykor. That's the final straw. Nothing can save you now!" She sprang. And was slammed back against the wall by a blast of bilious green energy emanating from the horn. The beam held her there, helpless, unable to move. Sheryl sprang forward, but the horn sent out another blast of green energy that froze her and Jay. They remained stuck in place, a green haze continuing to surround them. Raykor laughed out loud as they tried to move. "On the contrary, my dear, nothing can save _YOU_ now!" CHEEP? Palandun opened his eyes. The dragonet he had nicknamed Metabolism was hovering in the air two inches from his face. The tiny forked tongue licked out and brushed across his nose. "Hey, cut it out," he said, trying not to sneeze. "Get help, why don't you?" The dragonet zipped backwards and circled the room, then came back and landed on Palandun's shoulder. This wasn't completely comfortable, mostly because the dragonet had claws like a kitten, and Palandun hissed in pain. But before he could shoo the creature off, he froze. Something weird was happening. A knife-edge stabbed through the air, slicing a hole the size of ... a medium-tall elf. There was a "phooie" noise and Miro fell into the room. He was covered from head to toe in some kind of sticky green muck. The smell hit Palandun's nose like a pitchfork. Miro staggered to his feet and stuck the sword in his left hand back through the rip, which was seeping the same greenish goo into a puddle on the floor. The rip sealed up behind the sword. "Nasty stuff," Miro muttered. He flickered for an instant, and the green muck was gone off him, leaving his clothing slightly the worse for wear. "Oh, hello, Palandun, me lad. How's it hangin'?" Miro grinned and crossed to where the scholar was dangling against the wall. "That's not funny," Palandun said. "Should I even ask how you got here?" "Aye, tis simple enou. The bloody trapdoor in the library. Two way slide, the first one dumps intae the warded holdin' cell, but the second one goes down tae the underpit. Landed me in a pond full of carnivorous algae. I had tae get out fast so I cut a way with me sword, and here I am." "Now wait a minute. That stuff eats flesh on contact." "So do I, darlin'," Miro said, his grin taking a wolfish aspect. "Uh, Miro?" Palandun squirmed as the elf did something ineffective to the chains on his left hand. "Will you be able to get me down?" "Oh, aye. There's no lock on these manacles. How did they get on, do ye ken?" "No. I was unconscious, the statues came to life and knocked me out. I remember seeing them outside when Raykor left the room." Miro startled. "Raykor? That piece o' filth is still alive? I dinna ken how the ring didnae work, t'was able tae keep the curse from harmin' the wee lass. It should hae turned his magic back on him, like a snake bitin' of it's own tail." Palandun shrugged, and regretted it, as Metabolism pedalled its wings to keep from falling off, and the motion sent cramps through his shoulders. The dragonet flew up and uttered a scolding cheep. "He must needs hae created the rings and shrunk them intae place," Miro said, "And in that case, tis easier tae cut the chains." He drew one of his two swords with his right hand, and slashed down on the chains holding Palandun's feet. There was a clink and the pull on the left foot relaxed. Palandun felt his leg cramp up as the tension was removed. A flurry of slices left him suddenly unsupported, and he fell, the elf catching him before he hit the floor. Pins and needles started spreading through his body, but they faded quickly, driven back by a warm heat that spread from the elf's hands. "Thanks," Palandun said. "Whoa, watch out!" The pool of algae that had dripped through with Miro was flowing slowly towards them. "Tis nothin', just a wee snack for the babe," Miro said, and in fact, Metabolism was already making a crooning noise. The little dragonet strafed the ooze around the edges, blowtorch flames coming from its small mouth, and the stuff curled back on its center, but it didn't last long. The dragonet happily scraped the cooked mass together and devoured it. "Where's your team, then?" Palandun asked, forcing his mind and body to recover their sense of balance and returning to his feet. Miro conjured a blue sphere from midair and set it free -- it sped off through the door. "That way, laddie, but somethin' seems tae be blockin' me seeker," the elf frowned, "oh bother, it's broke itself on a scry-blocker." He and Palandun exchanged glances, and Pal volunteered what he knew, "That's where the statues are, and where Raykor went." "Now for those statues, then," Miro said as Palandun hurredly donned a shirt and some pants, then grabbed his sword. A couple of solid kicks and a perfect combat emerge into the next room later, they found themselves facing Selna, who was fixing her hair. "What kept you?" she said. Andrea struggled against the beam of green force issuing from N'graytha's severed horn in Raykor's hands. It was no use...the beam was just too strong. Just then, the door was blown open violently. Raykor turned fast to find Lance and Blaze in the doorway. Lance's sword was smoking from the fireball that came from it to blast their way in. A smirk appeared on Raykor's lips as he eyed the archmage. "Well, well, lady Blaze," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "At last, we meet again." Blaze took a step toward Raykor and said, "Yes, Raykor. This time it is on THIS plane! You took my soul and tried to take my magic to hurt Andrea!" "Incorrect, m'lady. Your magic was vital in _healing_ my body. You should take more precautions where spirit-walking." "That is enough, Raykor!", screamed Lance, stepping in front of Blaze, sword at the ready. "You are no different than your former benefactor: Raoh the Conqueror!" At that name, Raykor laughed. "Ah, yes. Raoh. He was a fine person to work with. Looting villages. Destroying them when we moved on. And, oh, the experiments I performed on the many people! Pity our paths had to separate once I became interested in these subjects here." Lance snarled and said, "Well, I have news for you, Raykor. I led a team into Kassandra and killed Raoh! And, now, you will join him...in hell!" With those words, he let loose a fireball. Raykor lifted his hand and the fireball suddenly reversed its trajectory. Lance dodged the fire, but not before it knocked the sword from his hand and left him wincing in pain at his singed fighting hand. Raykor then said, in a voice more evil than Raoh's ever was, "Now it ends!" He lifted the unicorn horn, and a second green beam shot from the horn towards the knight and the mage. But Blaze quickly grabbed her amulet, glowing as brightly as ever, and held it up to the beam. The energy was being pushed back, ever so slowly, by a golden ray eminating from the necklace. Raykor said, "So, _you_ have found a way to resist my magic as well, eh?" Blaze answered, "Yes. This amulet focuses the most powerful of all emotions, Raykor: love. And if you are anything like Raoh, then love must be _your_ weakness as well! And, for the love of all present here, I cannot...I _WILL_ NOT allow you to harm them!!" Raykor laughed again and said, "You little fool! You should know by now that _nothing_ can withstand the magic of the unicorn's horn!" He proceeded to intensify the second beam forcing Blaze's ray back. But Blaze refused to surrender. With tears in her eyes and perspiration on her face, she kept focusing her love through the amulet. -He is amplifying his own magic through MY horn!- Andrea felt a surge of indignation from her mental companion. She couldn't move her lips, but she thought back, -Oh? Then it ought to work both ways. Help me!- Andrea and N'graytha concentrated, and the green energy playing over them began to recede. The green beam began to turn bluish-white where it struck Andrea, and the greenness began to recede. Andrea stood on her own two feet once more, and held up her hands. The blue-white glow emanated from her palms and flowed up the beam, back toward Raykor. At first Raykor laughed maliciously, observing the attempt by his victim to turn aside his magic. But then his expression changed to one of surprise and then of horror, as Andrea and N'graytha's magical force came closer and closer despite his best efforts to stop it. "No--no!!! How is this possible?!" He concentrated harder, but was only able to slow the blue-white glow's progress slightly, and that only momentarily. The exertion weakened Raykor, causing the glowing emanations to advance even faster, and his attempt siphoned enough energy from the beam holding back Blaze that her golden glow began to spread as well. The glows reached the horn at about the same time, and there was a blinding flash that threw Raykor back against the wall. The horn clattered to the floor, and the green nimbus surrounding Jay and Sheryl evaporated. The blue glow faded, and Andrea ran toward Raykor. "No..." Raykor rasped. "You'll never have me. Never!" His right arm hanging limp at his side, Raykor gestured with his left hand. Andrea felt herself slowing down, and then everything began to shimmer. It was as if someone had dropped a pebble into a pool, distorting the reflection. Only, in this case, reality WAS the reflection, and the ripples were emanating from the circle behind Raykor. The circle was glowing a pale yellow, and then the glow vanished, as did the grey circle. In its place was blue sky, and green grass, and trees. And tall, strange-looking buildings, and black roads where strange, smoking, metal devices ran back and forth. "What is it?" Andrea gasped. -A dimensional portal,- N'graytha responded. "No way!" Andrea said. "He's not that powerful. He can't be!" -Perhaps the portal was here already,- N'graytha suggested. -He simply found a way to open it.- "You'll not get me, Andrea," Raykor said, stumbling through the portal. "Not now, not ever." The portal closed, and the rippling distortions faded away, leaving only silence behind. The closed door burst open. Palandun and Miro ran into the room. On the far side, Selna appeared, with a slight popping noise, accompanied by a startled Teonyl, and a less startled but slightly rumpled Errol and Kadrys. Miro ran over to the wall where the grey circle had been, swearing in Orcish. He whirled around. "Did the offspring of a dead serpent and a dungheap get away then?" At Lance's wary nod, the elf drew the amber amulet from inside his tunic and let its light fall on the wall. His eyes narrowed. "Tha' canna be right, he couldnae get back from sic a place. Well, sure as his soul has smudges, he'll be wantin' to come back this way, wherever he is. But I dinna think he'll find this door tae be openin' for him again." He closed his eyes and (with a sickening sort of ripple that twitched the senses of every magic-worker present) pulled a fist-sized sphere of glowing dizziness from his cloak. His eyes opened abruptly, and he slammed the sphere into the wall. With the sound of a released balloon, the surface collapsed in on itself, leaving ... the wall, looking just as it had before. "That should do it. We'll have tae be unlockin' it later, but for now, 'tis clamped tight tae the World Gate." "Medical check." Palandun said, deciding that there wasn't any actual fighting to do. "Everyone okay?" The rest of the team started to check up on each other's health. Blaze hurried over to where Andrea was standing, eyes glazing over. "Andrea, are you hurt? Andrea?" Andrea paid no attention to her. Instead, she moved as if in a trance to where the horn had fallen. She picked it up, and it began to glow softly as it resonated with something inside of her. As the glow strengthened, Andrea reached deep within herself, concentrated. Somewhere deep inside, instincts took control. The horn she held in her hands glowed brightly, and the glow began to get brighter and brighter until it entirely obscured Andrea's own form. "Whoa..." Jay gasped, shading his eyes with his hand. "What's happening?" Sheryl nickered, and looked on. SHE knew. The glowing area now doubled in size, and continued to glow brightly for about fifteen more seconds. Then it faded, and Andrea in unicorn form, along with the other unicorn now standing across from her, both fell to the ground, unconscious. -- Chris Meadows/Robotech_Master // chm173s@nic.smsu.edu // GEEK CODE V2.1: GO/CA d H--- s+:- g+(?) p3(?) !au a21>150 w+ v+(*) c++(++++)$ B(S)U+ P? L !3 E---- N++(+++) K W(!W) M-(--) V- -po+ Y+ t++(+++) 5+ !j R+(+++) G+ tv+@ b++(++++) D+ B-- e+$ u+(**) h+(*) f+ !r-- n+(----)@ y? Path: orb!leggy.zk3.dec.com!jac.zko.dec.com!pa.dec.com!decwrl!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!not-for-mail From: chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (22,000 telephone poles an hour) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [HouseStorming] [AU] A 'Corn of a Different Color Date: 26 Sep 1994 21:21:37 -0500 Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway Lines: 155 Sender: nobody@cs.utexas.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: news.cs.utexas.edu Xref: orb alt.pub.dragons-inn:1924 From arsmith@lamar.ColoState.EDU Sun Sep 25 22:25:59 1994 Date: Sun, 25 Sep 1994 21:25:41 -0600 From: Alan Smith To: chm173s@nic.smsu.edu Subject: Re: Copyright notice? Here y'are. ADMIN: The cast, characters, and techie crew of the [HouseStorming] Thread: Alan Smith ...............Palandun Lintesul Spider .......................Selna Chris Meadows ...................Andrea, Sheryl and Jay. Andrea Evans ...........Kadrys Penny Hutchison .................Leah and Errol Stephen Hutchison ...........Miro Alfvaen ...................Eowyn/Teonyl Wolvie ...................Lance and Blaze Invaluable help: Colin Sebastian Roald nevyn@camelot.bradley.edu Kelly J. Cooper Liralen Li All characters are copyright their respective authors, and shouldn't be used, copied, etc. witout said authors permission unless you really like being sued. We will make exceptions for normal archiving. All rights reserved. Background: Just after the storm Andrea and Sheryl bought a house which proved to be loaded with traps. So they gathered together the rest of the team to help them discover the secret to their new home. After defeating Raykor, Andrea retrieved N'graytha's severed horn and, using the magical energies stored within it, apparently fissioned into two unicorns. Then she lost consciousness. ********** "They have been lying still for hours, beloved. I can still feel their magical auras, but they are both somewhat dim." Lance and Blaze stood looking at the two unicorns they had taken from the basement. Blaze was obviously concerned. "I understand, Blaze," Lance said in comfort, "but it will not do us any good to stand here. If they are still alive, they will come to sometime." Blaze looked upon her amulet. With the magic that flowed both into and out of it, it had gone black. No amount of love could make it glow again. Lance asked Blaze to keep it anyway, as a token of love for all things. Lance then said, "All the traps have been de-mobilized. Our work here is finished. Let's go inside. Do not worry; they _are_ still alive." "Yes," answered Blaze, "they are alive. But...the other unicorn...N'graytha?...has a similar aura to Andrea and Sheryl. Not that of a pure unicorn...I wonder why?" Lance took the beautiful sorceress' hand and said, "You will have plenty of time to ask once they regain consciousness. Come." Lance led Blaze away from the unicorns, but Blaze kept them in her sight until they were back inside the house. When Andrea woke, at first she didn't recognize where she was. She was lying on her left side, on something soft yet somewhat scratchy. She smelled something sweet, familiar...it was hay. She opened her eyes to find herself in a stable, heaped high with fresh hay. She got to her feet, all four of them, and looked around. It was the stables beneath the house, she realized. Then recent memories came flooding back. "N'graytha!" she whinnied, remembering. An answering whinny sounded behind her. "I am here." Andrea wheeled around. There, the next stall over, was another unicorn! This, then, was N'graytha. "You're alive!" N'graytha nodded and nickered happily. "I am! It is a wonderful feeling, and I owe it all to you, sister!" Andrea walked over to the wooden wall separating her stall from N'graytha's. "It was my pleasure, and I would do it all over again in an instant." Andrea took a good look at her new friend. She supposed that N'graytha WAS her sister, after a fashion. After being inside of Andrea's mind like that, she was certainly closer than just a friend. N'graytha resembled Andrea's own unicorn form to some extent, yet she was obviously not Andrea's twin. She was somewhat slimmer, more delicately built than Andrea. N'graytha was examining her at the same time. After a while, N'graytha said, "What are you going to do now?" "I don't know," Andrea replied. "Go after Raykor, I suppose, as soon as I can get 'Raelf to show me how to activate the portal." N'graytha closed her eyes, tossed her head. "Andrea, you should put this behind you," she whinnied. "Raykor is no longer the threat to you, to Sheryl, that he was for all those years. You have defeated him. He will not be back for a good long time." "That's not good enough," Andrea said. "I want him dead for what he did to us--to YOU." "I don't," N'graytha replied simply. "You what?!" Andrea asked, surprised. "Andrea, look around you. You have finally dispelled all the evils that Raykor has done you. You have friends now, and a home in Generica, and your life is finally approaching some semblance of normality. And you want to throw all this away to travel to some other world that you know nothing about in order to find this evil man whom you should be trying to forget? Andrea, there is NOTHING for you in revenge, while there is everything for you if you stay here." There was a moment of silence after that, for both Andrea and N'graytha were surprised by N'graytha's outburst. "You--you may be right," Andrea said haltingly. They stood there in awkward silence for a few more moments, then Andrea said, "Well. I suppose I'd better find my way out and tell the others that I'm still alive." She turned toward the gate, and reverted to human form. And then, from behind her, came an inarticulate cry. Andrea turned, and her jaw dropped. Standing where N'graytha had been was a human woman. She was pale-skinned and slender, with light blue eyes and a long mane of blonde hair that reached nearly to the ground. She looked a bit like Andrea, as if she were Andrea's sister. And she had no clothes on. She clutched at the wall to keep from falling, and stared at Andrea. "N'graytha?" Andrea asked haltingly. The woman's lips moved, and she managed to form the words, "Yes, I--" Then she looked down at herself. "It would seem that I gained something from our melding other than just my life." Andrea blinked, then quickly got over her shock. "Well, you can't go around like that," she said pragmatically, shrugging out of the pack on her shoulders. "Let me see, I think I have some spare clothes in here that would fit you...you're about my size, after all." While Andrea rifled through her pack, N'graytha looked around. "I had never expected..." she began, then trailed off. She held up her arms, flexed her fingers, then looked down at the rest of her new human body. "I begin to understand now, Andrea, what you must have been going through during the last few weeks." Andrea set aside some clothes, began putting stuff back in the pack. "I had thought that unicorns were already capable of shapeshifting." N'graytha shook her head slowly, as if she was just getting used to the gesture. "No...some of us learn, but it is a hard skill to master. It isn't something we just...do, like this." "Here are some clothes for you," Andrea said. "You may not find them the most comfortable things to wear, but they'll do for now." She handed the bundle over to N'graytha, and then had to help her get dressed, as it was something she'd never done before. When she was finished, N'graytha was clad in woolen breeches, a light tunic, and a leather vest, with sandals on her feet completing the outfit. She looked somewhat ill at ease. "Are you sure they're supposed to itch like this?" Andrea grinned. "That's just because you've never worn clothes before. Don't worry, we'll get you some more comfortable clothes as soon as we get out of here." N'graytha shrugged hesitantly. "If you say so..." "Shall we go face the others now?" Andrea asked. "I believe I feel up to it if you do," N'graytha replied. Hand in hand, the two new sisters left the stable, heading up to where the rest of the party was waiting. -- Chris Meadows | Author, Team M.E.C.H.A., Crapshoot & Co., CHM173S@NIC.SMSU.EDU | on the Superguy Listserv (bit.listserv.superguy) CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU | Check out the Superguy WorldWideWeb site: CMEADOWS@NOX.CS.DU.EDU | http://www.halcyon.com/superguy/superguy.html Path: orb!leggy.zk3.dec.com!jac.zko.dec.com!pa.dec.com!decwrl!hookup!news.duke.edu!godot.cc.duq.edu!hudson.lm.com!news.pop.psu.edu!news.cac.psu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!not-for-mail From: chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (there really is a thing they call the Rhythm of Youth) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [AU] Lunch at the Inn Date: 14 Nov 1994 11:35:52 -0600 Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway Lines: 145 Sender: nobody@cs.utexas.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: news.cs.utexas.edu Xref: orb alt.pub.dragons-inn:2084 All characters are property of their respective authors, and this story is copyrighted 1994 by Chris Meadows. Permission is granted for the distribution of this story on the usual alt-net channels and for archival but all other rights, including repost, are reserved to the author(s). Two young women walked along the Generican street, followed by a small unicorn and a boy. The dark-haired one, Andrea, was slightly ahead of the other, whose timid expression revealed her unfamiliarity with such places. Andrea glanced back, an expression of mild annoyance flickering briefly across her face. "Gods' sake, N'graytha, you look like you're going to bolt for the hills at any second. Calm down--there's nothing to be scared of!" Sheryl whinnied in agreement. N'graytha smiled wanly. "I'm sorry, sister--old habits die hard, I guess. Why should I be afraid of humans when I _am_ one now?" "Well, there are SOME humans you should be afraid of," Jay remarked. "Tax-collectors, f'rinstance." "Shut up, you," Andrea said good-naturedly. "Don't confuse her even more." "ExCUUUSE me!" The womens' tastes in clothes ran in markedly different directions. Andrea wore her traditional dark leather tunic and breeches outfit, which could be converted into nightstalking garb with just a few minor alterations. N'graytha, however, preferred something more feminine. She hadn't really been sure WHAT at first, though, since the only clothing she'd ever heard much about was the traditional white shift that virgins were always described as wearing in the old tales. But Kardia had been a great help, once she'd gotten over her initial shock. (Andrea grinned, recalling Kardia's surprise. Of course, having a great deal of experience at being speechless, she got over it quite rapidly.) N'graytha now wore a colorful dress and blouse that set off her electric blue eyes and long blonde hair quite nicely. As they walked up the street toward the Dragon's Inn, N'graytha looked around, took in the scenery. She'd seen it before, of course, but then it hadn't really been she who'd been doing the seeing. She'd seen it from behind Andrea's eyes, and it was quite different to see it through her own, especially in a strange new body such as this. All the different people walking by--she'd never been this close to so many at the same time before! Her unicorn-sharp senses could examine them in intimate detail from this close. The patterns of their footsteps, the subdued tones of their clothing, the strong scent of unwashed human and the cloying perfume that often covered it--even their auras were there to tell the tales of virtue interspersed with depravity. It was a strange contradiction, N'graytha thought. But then, humans were full of such contradictions. They stopped at a building that seemed familiar and yet unfamiliar. Andrea paused at the door. "Well, are you coming or not?" N'graytha realized she'd stopped in the middle of the street, and hurried after her through the door. Once inside, she understood where they were--the Dragon's Inn. The foursome took a table not far away from Listener's accustomed perch in the rafters, though Listener wasn't there at the moment. In very little time, Serene was along to serve them. "Why, Andrea, it's good to see you again after so long," Serene remarked. "So long? It's only been a couple of days," Andrea said, confused. Serene chuckled. "You'll find that time can play tricks on you around here." "Ah." Andrea nodded. "I'm still trying to get used to that." She paused for a moment, then grinned mischievously. "So, tell me, Serene...what will we be having today?" Serene returned the grin. "Dark ale?" she asked. Andrea grinned. "Dead on, as usual." She turned to Sheryl. "And you'll be having chocolate milk?" The little unicorn whinnied her affirmation. "I thought so." "I'll have some of that, too," Jay said. Serene pointed at him in mock reproof. "Shame on you. You're supposed to let me guess first." "Oh. Sorry," Jay said. Turning to N'graytha, Serene said, "And you...oh, my." Serene was momentarily startled, but immediately recovered her composure. "One crystal-clear springwater coming up." "Thank you," N'graytha said timidly. "But how did--" Serene smiled, "Just a lucky guess." Andrea chuckled at Serene's modesty. "Lucky guess nothing. You have a genuine talent for reading people." Serene shrugged. "It's good to know your customers... Now if you will excuse me, I'll go get your drinks." With a small curtsey and a bounce of her auburn hair, she moved toward the bar, leaving the four companions alone at their table. Andrea looked around the inn. There was the usual assortment of rough-looking characters, the fighters and rogues and wielders of magic. 'Raelf and ar'Elya didn't seem to be around, and she didn't recognize anyone nearby. Jay was fidgeting in his seat, while Sheryl sat calmly waiting for her milk. N'graytha was looking distinctly nervous and uneasy. Andrea turned to face her. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Something's bothering you, I can feel it." N'graytha looked down at the table. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be this way. I know what you're trying to do for me and appreciate it, but...frankly, the idea of eating meat makes me nauseous. I don't know if I can--" Andrea understood immediately. She placed her hand on N'graytha's on the table. "N'graytha, relax. You don't have to eat meat by any means." N'graytha looked confused. "But I thought humans ate meat, and since I'm now human in form--" "Just because you're partly human doesn't mean you have to do everything humans do. Besides, there are many humans who won't touch meat at all," Andrea said. "I've had plenty of friends who are vegetarians--why, I've known people who wouldn't even drink milk or eat eggs." Then again, I also know some people who eat other people whole, Andrea thought wryly, shielding the thought so N'graytha wouldn't pick it up. "But--why?" N'graytha asked. "I thought humans were all omnivores." "For some people it's against their religion, and others just don't like the way meat tastes. I've never had anything against either kind of person. Trust me, N'graytha, you don't have to do ANYTHING that you don't want to." "Oh." N'graytha took this in. "I'm very relieved." Just then, Serene returned with the drinks. Setting them before each of their recipients in turn, she asked, "Would you like to order dinner now?" "Certainly," N'graytha said. "What would you recommend?" "Well, the fruit salad is very good today..." To make a long story short, N'graytha and Sheryl had the fruit salad, while Andrea and Jay had beef stew. After they were finished and the dishes cleared away, the foursome stood. "Well, so much for lunch. I think we might as well get back to the house. We've got a lot of work to do." Jay groaned. "Oh, not more cleaning. PLEASE, no more cleaning. I just got able to breathe again, and I don't want to go back into all that dust..." "We have to make at least those portions of the house we're going to be staying in livable," Andrea said. "Just be glad Teonyl found the master control to disarm all the traps. We'd STILL be searching." "The sooner our work is finished, the sooner we can go on our wilderness outing," N'graytha reminded Jay. "Yeah, I know, I know," Jay replied. "Doesn't make it any more fun, though." Leaving a nice tip behind them, Andrea, Sheryl, N'graytha, and Jay walked out the door of the Dragon's Inn, and headed back up the street toward the house where they now lived. [Just a note...I'm not really going to get my characters involved in any major threads for the time being. I'm just posting this so that people won't think I've gone away or something. Other demands on my time are pressing too tightly for me to do much writing here, unfortunately.] -- Chris Meadows | Author, Team M.E.C.H.A., Crapshoot & Co., CHM173S@NIC.SMSU.EDU | on the Superguy Listserv (bit.listserv.superguy) CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU | Check out the Superguy WorldWideWeb homepage: CMEADOWS@NOX.CS.DU.EDU | http://www.halcyon.com/superguy/superguy.html [I sent this out approximately 6/16/95; I didn't log it so I don't have the header.] An obsidian wall in a dark room, lit only by flickering torches stuck in sockets attached to the walls. The light, though it should have been adequate or even bright from the number of torches in that size of room, was barely enough to see by, but Andrea didn't mind. She could have seen in near-total darkness, had she so desired. Being part-unicorn did tend to confer that kind of advantage. This particular wall had a grey circle the center, about eight feet in diameter. Even though it was perfectly circular to a fraction of a degree, and thus obviously artificial, there was no seam between it and the wall surrounding it. It was as though the obsidian had simply turned grey there for some reason. Andrea stood before this circle, as she was often wont to do, and looked at it. She didn't stare, really. She just looked, as a casual museumgoer might look at a painting that, after a hundred viewings, still held some subtle fascination for him. For she'd been down here at least that many times in the last few months, only to stand here and look into the featureless grey circle, to run her hand across the cold, smooth obsidian and wonder if it would ever open again. This was the portal by which Raykor had left, that last, brief encounter they'd had. He'd left, but only before nearly destroying Andrea and all her friends. But she had defeated him, with plenty of help, and he had fled through that portal, which Miro, one of 'Raelf's selves as she understood it, had sealed against him afterward. He'd said that "sure as his soul has smudges, he'll be wantin' to come back this way, wherever he is. But I dinna think he'll find this door tae be openin' for him again," in that atrocious accent of his. But that didn't mean it wouldn't open for somebody else. Andrea sighed, reaching out to touch the cold volcanic rock. She'd been studying the workings of this portal between cleaning/carpentering sessions. The master thief who had originally lived in this manse had kept a journal about it. It seemed that he used it to bring in rare (and stolen) objects d'art and relics from half a dozen different worlds, as well as various delicacies he liked to keep the larder well-stocked with. In addition, he used it as transportation to place men wherever he wanted them, to make or break alliances, gather or disseminate information, or perform whatever special little missions he needed done. It was all written down in a neat hand in the journals, and read like something by Niccolo Macchiaveli. It sounded to Andrea like the man had enjoyed living life to the fullest, playing one guild against another, even one section of the SAME guild against another section...and that meant making a lot of enemies. Was that what had killed him in the end? Even so, Andrea didn't feel the old thief had been one to harbor regrets. She'd known many thieves in the Guild, old and young, with that devil-may-care, die-with-the-most-toys attitude. As many regrets as she carried around with her, she couldn't help admire it, really, especially in those who had managed to live as long as the man who'd lain upstairs in the master bedroom for so many years. That man had been a true master of the art. Understanding how the portal worked wasn't easy. In fact, it was excruciating at times. Andrea's meager knowledge of magic was hardly enough at all to fathom how something of this magnitude could function. But her nature as a unicorn changeling assisted somewhat--after all, unicorns could magically understand languages, and what was mathematics but another language? Andrea's studies of this portal led her to believe that she could probably operate it, at least on a basic level. But she didn't ever plan on doing so. Andrea had made a promise to her soul-sister N'graytha that she would no longer seek vengeance against Raykor, and had realized later that N'graytha was right. She'd been on a revenge-quest for more than ten long years of her life. It was time to settle down, to do something with her life that was more satisfying than an endless quest. But what? She'd thought of perhaps starting a Generican thieves' guild in the huge house--there was more than enough space, and no extant thieves' guild in Generica at the moment. Or, at least, if there WAS one, she'd never heard from it, which said a great deal; any guild that wasn't alert to the arrival of a new operative on its turf, one that had even pulled off a heist on a jewelry shop a couple of days after arriving...well, that guild deserved to be displaced. But it was such a big step to take...and she wasn't really sure that she wanted to have such a rowdy bunch in her house that the usual guild crowd turned out to be. She KNEW the former tenant of the house wouldn't like that; he'd written in one journal entry, "Guilds are naught but huge bumbling agglomerations of petty pickpockets and swindlers, the majority of whom have no concept of proper behavior and belong on the other side of a set of bars than the one they currently inhabit. Were it not for the inconvenience of working without guild support, I'd gladly be rid of them entirely." Andrea had to admit, she could see where he was coming from. Ironically, the man had worked himself up to a very high position in the local guild, merely so he could operate without their interference. Of course, this was assuming that the guild had at one time been thriving... Regardless, Andrea didn't think she wanted the inconvenience of having to run a guild out of her own home, so that could probably be tabled for now. She wondered for the nth time what had happened to the guild that the prior owner of this house had belonged to. Perhaps she should ask Lady Ale...she had a feeling that if anybody would know about the seamy underbelly of this town, Ale would. So, what could Andrea do with her Generican life? She always asked that question when she was down here, but the answer always seemed to elude her. Sometimes it seemed like all she WAS doing with her life was cleaning and rebuilding that old house. It was a job for a full-scale janitorial staff, actually, and all she really had was herself, N'graytha, Sheryl, and Jay. Perhaps she should advertise in the Inn for help? Andrea turned to go, and as she walked toward the door, her toe bumped against something round. She reached down to find a small glass sphere on the floor; as she picked it up, it began to glow a kind of a greenish color, with red runic symbols visible on it. Andrea's unicorn senses didn't detect any danger, so she scrutinized it closer. "This must have belonged to Raykor. Maybe I should ask 'Raelf about it next time I see him." She stowed it in a pouch and continued toward the door. Copyright 1995 by Chris Meadows, permission granted for alt.pub.dragons-inn distribution & associated archival; all other rights (including CDROM distribution) reserved.