From: hutch@hutch (Stephen Hutchison)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [DQ] After the Dance (Gargoyles get their dance cards punched)
Message-ID: <1992Aug9.060526.13857@intelhf.hf.intel.com>
Date: 9 Aug 92 06:05:26 GMT

DRAGON Quest week 3 Part 2 (almost Week 4)

Characters: the Dragon Questing party - SunStorm (actually, at this point,
    ShockWave), Kadrys, Lancos, 'Raelf, and Valgar.
Situation:  Having had his soul sucked forth from his body, SunStorm
    is now being wielded by his Zweihander Sword.  'Raelf is being
    swarmed by a number of gargoyles, but like any good martial artist,
    has been using them to get in each others' way, and has gone untouched
    so far.  Lancos and Valgar, spellbound temporarily, are recovering
    but Lancos has been attacked by a man in dark armor, and Valgar and
    any humans in the area have been attacked by the remaining gargoyles.
    Kadrys has made three of the gargoyles terminally unhappy and has
    outraged a few others by turning the tables on what they consider
    to be the proper prey-predator relationship.  And that's just the
    first half.

----
Definition:

Gargoyle (noun) A grotesque statue carved in the shape of a humanlike
winged monster with exaggerated and fantastic features, used as decorative
rain gutters in gothic architecture; a legendary monster resembling
the aforementioned statues.

Gargoyle (monster) a batwinged humanoid with immense strength and stone
hard skin, hostile to human life, often requires a magic weapon to hit.

A "couple dozen" have been unleashed on our heroes, most of them ordered
to go after 'Raelf.  There are three down and many more to go...

----

+ Meanwhile, above, the whirling mass continued to taunt the man on the
+ board, trying to keep him too busy to cast a spell and too dizzy to
+ strike out at any of them.  Gnawflesh returned to the whirling mess,
+ bringing extra spears to distribute.  Crushbone and burnguts followed,
+ their hooked nets hanging to ready, triple barbs glinting venomous green
+ in the eerie light from the Sword below.  Toothcrack and sharpspine
+ followed, holding their own spears as though they knew what they were for.

+ And down below, the combatants heard 'Raelf's voice.  "heinous..."

Gnawflesh had a spear, oh happy.  Tonguerot had never let him play with a
spear before.  He joined the swirling mass and handed the extra spears to
two of the others, then lunged inward, stabbing.  'Raelf grinned, grabbing
the spear and whirling around, upside down.  It was pulled abruptly from the
gargoyle's surprised claws.

<CRunge> biteface collided with him - the idiot - so gnawflesh punched him
back, hard, in the face.  Retaliation ensued and escalated.

(skullcrush readied his special projectiles - acid-venom soaked sponges,
propelled by a strange little gun.  He would have to surprise the mage,
for this to work.  Best to do it from behind.)

"YaHOO!" The whirling board-rider was spinning around in all directions,
spearpoint out.  The board began to rise almost imperceptibly, dragging
the mass of gargoyles higher up.  After a moment, they left biteface
and gnawflesh below, fighting in midair.  Beside them, skullcrush let
out a shriek of rage.  "Idiots! Fight him, not us!"

There was a sudden lashing-out, as eggbreaker lunged in close.  'Raelf's
spear shattered on his body, spinning him around to face the wrong way.

"Damned cheaters!" 'Raelf yelled, snagging eggbreaker's unbroken spear,
whirling it into a defensive position.  The dizzying mass of gargoyles
dispersed, suddenly, as crushbone spun and dropped his net down over
the board-rider.  "NO WAY!" 'Raelf said, <<<rego aeram:WIND>>> and a strong
gust caught the falling net, pushing it aside and dropping it down past them.

"NO STUPID NO NO NO! YOUR (KARK!) MOTHERS WERE BROTHERS..." came the string
of 'goyle curses from below, as skullcrush saw the net spinning down to
entangle biteface and gnawflesh.  The two began to shriek in pain rather
than rage, as their convulsive thrashing punched  the magically hardened
barbs into their relatively unarmored, almost tender wing structures.
Small puffs of flame began erupting around the wounds and they plummeted
to the ground - or rather, the steel of the Plaza below - with the sound
of rocks on a tin roof.  In moments, neither was moving.

Meanwhile, the opening above let 'Raelf pull a fast move, kicking to
the front then back out of the group.  He sped upwards towards the
hopefully disarmed crushbone...  Who lashed out with a clawed hand, grazing
the skin on his face before the claws snapped on the armorlike surface
of the voidsuit.  'Raelf took advantage of the gargoyle's claw-strike
to grab and pin its arm.  Crushbone tried to grab, to buffet with his
wings, to bite the man on the face.  Blood was leaking out of the soft
food thing, but something was wrong.  The blood was evaporating, the
skin suddenly unmarked again.  And the creature was talking to him,
in some foreign tongue, making him feel strange and clumsy and bloated.

<<<rego terram, rego aeram, ergo rego corporum tuum, muto terram et aeram,
   magnamo terram, minimo aeram, POLYPHASIC SHIFT NOW>>>  and the
hapless gargoyle grew rigid, sprawling out its limbs, which grew larger
and longer, twisting and mutating, and then it was spinning down into the
clump of its clutchmates, smashing into them like a boulder with spikes.
Toothcrack was able to dodge, and eggbreaker.  Biteneck was struck, and
sharpspine the spearfighter, and bentface.  And more horrible, as the
falling crushbone struck them, they adhered to the flailing limbs, dragged,
helpless to the ground below, and when they hit ground, the strange
limbs curled up on them, crushing like a serpent.

Down below, moments earlier, tonguerot had finished healing breaknose's
damaged wing.  The injured eyestab was next for tonguerot's gentle (HAH!)
ministrations, having his dislocated shoulder shoved back into place and
then getting a sharp kick in the tail for getting his wing broken.
"No more healing.  Go fight the stupid giant.  Don't die or I'll kill you."
The gargoyle cleric looked around, then saw, with horror, the plummeting,
mutated, twisting shape of crushbone, each limb wrapped around one of his
clutchmates like a strange kind of sea creature, crushing and piercing
their corpses with the sharp spikes that grew out of its stony skin.
It gibbered and drooled at him, thrashing one of its unoccupied limbs in
his direction.  He dodged, snarling and howling.

"Fool" he cursed, and drew the ritual knife from his belt.  It glimmered
with magic as he plunged it into the forehead of what had been crushbone.

'Raelf gasped in shock, his spell suddenly snapped by the death of his
weapon.  While he had been reshaping the gargoyle to his will, the other
net-wielder, burnguts, had signalled the spearfighter toothcrack, and
they had taken positions for a distraction attack.  The poison-fighter
skullcrush had moved into the air, looking as well for a way to join in
the attack.  It came:  toothcrack moved in, lunging with the spear at
the face of the airborne mage.  A reflexive movement caught the spear,
just behind the point, and a twist of the hips, a flip of the board, and
toothcrack found the edge of the board snapping painfully into its knees.
It flapped harder, trying to hold onto the spear, and found it twisting
in its hands - this trick was familiar, and toothcrack applied a counter
move, trying to keep the mage busy.

The spinning forms of the two combatants, as they fought over the spear,
were in no position to defend, and burnguts opened his net into the
sack-shape.  He flapped upwards, then dove towards the two fighters, with
the net-mouth wide open.  It was five feet across, and (with the spinning
and bending they were doing) it fit nicely around the two fighters.
Toothcrack screamed in fear and outrage  at the betrayal - he was NOT
supposed to end up inside the net - and tried to escape.  This only
drove the hooks into his body - where was the mage? - and he felt the
sharp blinding pain as the venom drove him into unconsciousness.

"Pfagn! He got away!" howled burnguts.  He considered, briefly, dropping
the net, but decided instead to fly down to the ground.

The wind blew gently around skullcrush as he flapped his way up to
that idiot burnguts.  "How did you miss him?" he demanded.

"I didn't!  He was in here, I saw it!"  The net-wielder continued down,
leaving skullcrush spitting and fuming above.  Thus, he missed seeing
the look of surprise on skullcrush's face, as he suddenly clutched at
his throat, trying to inhale, and finding no air.  He would have enjoyed
the sight, seeing the bullying poisoner suffocating, his eyes bulging in
his face as his wings flapped ineffectually in the grip of the vacuum
at the center of the whirlwind that surrounded him.

Eyeblister the magicker saw sharpwing hiding on the building next to him.
"Get your ugly butt into the sky, eggless one." he ordered, and she
hissed spite at him, but obeyed.  Then burnguts settled to the steel
plaza below, dumping the unconscious toothcrack out next to the net
that crushbone had stupidly wrapped around biteface and gnawflesh.

He pulled the dead crushbone's net off those two and fastened it into
his own - a larger net might work better.  Too bad, the venom on these
nets never wore off - the victims just sleep until they get the antidote,
and Krastin is too sodding cheap to pay for the stuff just for them.

Tonguerot was standing behind him.  "You dead tailed egg licking
piece of weasel dung.  You get your sorry self back up there and
attack that ..." He looked into the sky.  No sign of the mage.
"... Where did he go?  If you let him escape, I will feed you to
the Dark Master myself, bit by bit."

"But he just disappeared.  He was in my net, he just vanished."

The gargoyle shaman peered harder into the sky.  The only thing
visible up there was skullcrush, and his wings were not moving right.
A swirling cloud was circling around his loosely flapping form.

"The mudskinned human has called an elemental.  Find him.  Kill him.
Get eyeblister up there to fight that elemental.  Needs magic,"
he snarled.  Burnguts leapt into the sky, hauling his net.  He howled
to eyeblister as he passed the building on which he perched, and
flapped up to join sharpwing.

Eyeblister slid into the air, gliding down to the plaza below, where
the three unconscious gargoyles were lying.  He looked across at
tonguerot, and nodded.  "nekawA:peelS desreveR" he chanted, scraping
sand across their eyelids.  They moaned, twitching as though a thousand
alarm bells were ringing inside their skulls.  Biteface and gnawflesh
had too many rips in their wings to fly well, and toothcrack was an
unhealthy pink shade, still dizzy from the venom.

"Go, worthless baggage, and kill those human scum," eyeblister snarled,
pointing at Kadrys and Valgar.  "And leave the green one to Krastin,
or he'll have your heads for soup bowls."  Then eyeblister and tonguerot
exploded into the air, climbing hard, straining for altitude.

The two closed on burnguts and sharpwing as they flapped up
the hundred feet to where the elemental spun.  Eggbreaker rose
from the building nearby, where he'd been resting with breaknose.
They all approached the tumbling form of skullcrush, circling warily.

"SSsst! wait! tonguerot! I saw something, have to <pant> tell
you.  wait!"  the creature whined.  Breaknose gasped agreement.

"What IS IT" both tonguerot and eyeblister demanded, whirling on
the two slackards.

"Saw mage thing turn white and cloudy, slip through net, is him
fighting with skullcrush."

Tonguerot gestured to eyeblister, and they all flapped up to attack
the spinning cloud.  The cloud whirled around, bug-eyed and swollen-
tongued skullcrush trapped in the middle.  His little gun hung loosely
on the wrist-thong.  Tonguerot nodded to eyeblister, who pulled a bit
of pitch from a pouch around his neck.

"sdnaH gninruB" he incanted, and flames shot from his outstretched
claws to lash through the whirling cloud.  There was a moment where
the flames washed all the way around, then they whipped back out to
encircle breaknose, searing into his eyes and throat.  Gagging, lungs
seared, he fell from the sky to crash, a crumpled heap, on the steel
of the Plaza below.  Eyeblister goggled.  "That's impossible!" he hissed.

"Nothing is impossible," a whispery voice came, from the cloud.

>>>SOLIDIFY<<< shouted tonguerot, using his last spell.  The command
slipped past 'Raelf's defensive spells and ...

FLICK - the startled mage returned, convulsively, to his human form,
and behind him, skullcrush dropped toward the street, almost a hundred
feet below.  Tonguerot power-dove to follow - he NEEDED that gun the
assassin had carried.

"Rot you!" hissed eyeblister, flipping the tiny arrowhead from his
pouch at the surf-rider mage.  BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM - four bolts of
pure energy shot into 'Raelf's chest, and he grunted in pain.  Four
holes in his suit, leaking blood from behind them.

FLICK - the holes vanished, blood vanished.  Eggbreaker lunged, grabbing
for the spear held by the enemy mage.  The spear spun around behind the
man, and a fist lashed out.  And eggbreaker spun away, howling, in
excruciating pain, it was impossible.  The filthy human food-thing had
broken his collar bone.  He wanted to lock his wings and just glide down,
but tonguerot was down there, and Krastin.  He arced back, hoping to catch
the human scum while it was busy elsewhere.  Each wingbeat was excruciating.

Burnguts had his net ready again.  Sharpwing was harrassing the human,
flipping the razor-sharp tips of her wings at his face, making him keep
the defensive spin he had used with effect earlier.  Below, tonguerot
was climbing again, with the dead skullcrusher's nasty little gun.

Eyeblister had one useful spell left.  He pulled the hollow grass dart
from his pouch, and snapped it with the throwing-stick at the spinning
mage, aiming down at the board between his feet.  "worrA dicA" he chanted,
and it became an arrow shooting with great speed and less accuracy.  It hit,
by sheer luck, embedding itself in 'Raelf's left leg just above the knee.
The mage shouted in pain, and whipped the spear around in a lunge.

Eyeblister was astonished, then panicked, to see the point heading
right into his face.  It got much too close for comfort, but he had no
care at that point - he plummeted down, careening off a building and
sliding with a crunch to the ground.  The broken spear protruded from
his eyesocket.  (When the foe is armored, aim for the weaknesses in
that armor.)

FLICK FLICK FLICK FLICK - 'Raelf was momentarily something else, changing
color and appearance to rock, to fire, to water, to air, to a transparent
nothing, and suddenly was back.  The damage to his knee was gone.  He did
not look happy and carefree any more.  He looked angry.

"That was not friendly, flying rock dudes," he said in sarcastic tones.
Tonguerot pulled up behind, trying to get within range without being noticed.

Burnguts and eggbreaker took either side of the net, and tried again
to whip it over the top of the hated human.  <<<creo ignem: FIREBALL>>>
'Raelf said scornfully, and a burst of flame exploded around the two,
singing them and destroying the net.  Tonguerot pulled back, and then
pulled the stunned form of burnguts from the  air as he was beginning
to plummet downwards.

{I give you a life - give me power!} he cried out to his Dark Master,
and sliced the ritual knife across burnguts' throat, then sucked the
ichor from the wound.  He felt his head ring as the energy matrix for
a spell crammed into his inadequate brain.  The priest-sight stayed
with him, and he saw with unusual clarity, exactly where and how he
needed to aim, to shoot...  he tossed the carcase aside (it fell).

Eggbreaker had managed not to be too badly burned, but the pain from
his broken collarbone was unbearable.  He slid down from the sky, heading
down towards the easier meat below.  "Can't fly" he croaked at the
entranced tonguerot, as he passed him on the way down.  He took sight
of a human, below, and stooped, hoping the snapped bone would not
hurt too much when he crushed the thing's skull.  At least he would
feed before the others killed him for his injury.

Sharpwing took advantage of the mage's distraction, grabbing at his board
in an attempt to immobilize him.  Strangely, it worked, and while he was
recovering his balance, she whipped her wings forward in a deadly throat
strike.  The points embedded themselves in his hands as they came up to
block, and he cursed in pain, and then tonguerot fired the little gun,
and a sponge, soaked in the deadliest of the venoms brewed by the dead
skullcrusher, shot out, struck him (despite his attempt to dodge) in the
center of his face, bounced off and landed on sharpwing's back.

The gargoyle shrieked in agony, as the corrosive venom burned its way
through the skin over her wingmuscle, and sending fire into her brain
as the deadly nerve venom crept upwards along her spine.  Her hands
locked into a death rictus, holding her tightly to the board.

'Raelf didn't even get the chance to shriek.  The pain blooming on
his face was too much to bear, and he flashed into his true form.
Elemental chaos raged within a bubble of space, all the aspects
of fire, water, air, earth, and nothingness, whirling together and
apart.  Sharpwing dissolved into it, like a sugar cube into water.
(Tonguerot goggled, head throbbing in pain, as before his eyes the
waning priest-sight showed him the image of a fierce cat-eyed humanoid
shredding his clutchmate, devouring her heart, her liver, her brain.)

'Raelf dined on the elemental fragments that had been sharpwing, taking
the true fire and vital water, the air breathed from the heights, and
the strength of living stone, feeding them into his own injured self,
restoring what had been lost to damage and to poison and to magic,
and then (like dessert) tasted the sour, bitter flavor of the Void,
her true spiritual self, poisonous with hate (spit it out) and envy,
warped lust, and greed (ptah! vile!) but ingesting the dry essence of
the few facts she knew of their Dark Master before discarding the chewed
bones of her spirit.  (Which shuddered its way to its personal hell.)

Tonguerot howled in agony as his mind cramped in the grasp of the
spell he had prayed for, and been given.  He must speak it now!

'Raelf carefully dispelled the remnants of his meal, sending it off
to the proper elemental planes.  Four seconds had passed.

He whirled around, FLICK,  himself again, to face the remaining gargoyle.

Who hissed in pain, and with the remnants of his mind, spoke the
WORD he had been given, and detonated the skies around them.

----

(Don't you hate it when the bad guys always get the last word?)