From: albert@bcm.tmc.edu (Rick Jones) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [KQ] 'Raelf [The Great Mother of All Battles 1.9] Meeting the Children Date: 19 Oct 1992 22:26:03 GMT Message-ID: <1bvclrINNp67@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> [ADMIN: Posted for Hutch, whose news server is wonky.] [ADMIN Mark 2: Reposted with correct headers] [Time T-5:00 - Birth Canal] The place Seer had led them was very disturbing to look at, the corners, the general structure of the place, seemingly built in one and a third more directions than the traditional three. For 'Raelf, the disturbance wasn't the weird construction. That he could handle - it was, if anything, familiar. What disturbed him was the things carved into the walls. He'd seen that sort of carving before, in the museums back home. They'd found them in the nearby planes, the Old ones. This was going to be ugly. A weird ululation started up - Kron broke into a trot, then a run. The others as well. 'Raelf considered screening the sound, then decided against it. He had to remain unnoticed, or the others were dead inside milliseconds. [Time 0 entering the Bath Room] Seer chortled gleefully, prancing and capering around the immense chamber (well out of reach) as the party entered, cautiously. The room was lit by a sickly glow, reminiscent of yellow, or maybe green, but not really any earthly color. In the livid light, 'Raelf was able to make out a cathedral-like room, walled with immense pillars, reaching to a dome (why would anyone shape a dome like THAT?) almost beyond sight overhead. They were on a beach, made of sands that sparkled with an oleaginous sheen, and it led down to an incredibly enormous pool, rimmed by delicate marble trim, in patterns that were not distinguishable from this distance. The pillars were deeply carven in shapes that made no sense, clearly representations of living things, but nothing that lived should have to look like that. And the pool was pretending to be a garden. He looked with the 'kani sight, Traveller trained, and somehow managed not to panic at what he saw, the impossible collation of archetypes and images, incompatible on all levels with his own. Gradually, his childhood training took over, and he adjusted his perceptions to deal with the conflict. The blurred confusion snapped into a recognizable order. 'Raelf whispered an imprecation, and looked away. He quickly shunted extra power into his personal wards. In the pool, flesh surged and shaped itself. This was HER. The true ruler of Generica, from before recorded time - the Great Mother. [Time 0:50 - FirstBorn] Kron had become locked in a mental dialogue with a figure from the pool. Elsewhere, it had promised them a protracted, agonizing death, and for the especially unfortunate, the honor of being consumed. The fleshy mass in the pool bulged out, obscenely pregnant with some writhing, enormous offspring. It split open, liquid gushing out, and then with a surge, gave birth to what was inside. Tentacles wrapped around the opening, then heaved, and a wet formless mass crawled up from the pool. It oozed up onto the marble-trimmed edge of the pool, a gelatinous quivering clotted globulation. Arising on its tentacles, it stepped out, still joined by an obscene-looking umbilical. Once away from the mass of the Great Mother, it was possible to scale the size of the thing - about thirty feet in diameter, and roughly hemispherical. It seemed to consist mostly of sucker-studded, serrated tentacles, with the occasional eyestalk,, and was covered with sharp pointy spines. The whole mass was transparent, and seemed to be surrounded by transparent bubbles that looked like they should be spheres but weren't, somehow. The tentacles lashed about aimlessly, then several of its mouths opened and began chanting in beautifully harmonious voices, painfully loud, "Ia! Ia! ShubGorath NyarlaGorath Wgn!Fhtal-gnu!" The melody of the song was compelling, making all who heard it want to join in. Behind it, more things were "born" from the mass. It moved towards the group. 'Raelf choked. "Shoggoth!" As the others moved to face their particular enemies, freshly emerged from the shadows or from their birth traumas, he touched the fifth pocket on his bandolier. <> he muttered in 'kani, and the pocket released. He carefully pulled out an ivory wand, and several small figures, the size of chess pieces. He chose one, then returned the others, and the wand, back into the pocket. Sealing the pocket, he threw the ivory figure, an improbably long distance, and shouted a 'kani command: <> As it struck the ground, the figure exploded. It was replaced by an eye blistering aching blur the size of a human, a flicker of impossible concepts and absurd images, false icons and structural nosequiturs. It touched one of the tentacles, and the tentacle wrapped reflexively around it: "Ia! Uuurluuura - pblengagn fewmitsn AAA!" the swirl grew larger, as the tentacle dissolved into its archetypic components and was consumed by the sth'kan predator. The shoggoth turned its complete attention on the creature which was giving it the unpleasant turnabout sensation. Its beautiful voices blended in painfully sweet harmonies as it screamed in agony and surprise - "Iaaa IIaaa fw AAA eiAAA" "What the hell is that?" someone asked. 'Raelf showed his teeth - there was too much of a miasma coming off the Great Mother to actually grin. "That's a devourer. A predatory creature from my homeland. It'll eat anything it can, won't stop until it runs out of living material. It just might be able to buy us some time." "DDddnGAAH ia ia ia Fpthabng=PENG!" the shoggoth (almost a third of its borrowed mass beginning to mutate into disintegration) began waving its tentacles in a complex pattern - and arcane lightnings struck at the devourer, causing it to flinch back and shrink a little. But devourers are simple-minded things, and it returned to the attack. The shoggoth retaliated, and a continual din arose as they battled. [Time 1:20 - Incipient Magical Combat] Another shape was excreted from the Great Mother's substance, a humanoid figure connected at the navel to a pulsating, writhing umbilicus, stretching out from the mass of flesh to give it the freedom to stand on the marble paving at the pool's edge. It spoke. "Mage! WhoAREyou?" "Who wants to know?" 'Raelf brought his staff up into defensive position. <> he whispered, and it began to crackle ominously. He spun it once, and a glowing hemisphere of clear, blue light formed around him, reaching out about 15 feet from him, sparking protectively. "SandarTol. RulerOfMinds, ArchMage, ImmortalMemberOfTheGreatCouncilOfMinds." "I should be impressed, right? OK, I'm impressed. Make your Mama Jama there lay off with the mental attacks." "NotPossible, SheIsDisturbedByYourPresence, SheDefendsHerselfWithoutOur- InterventionOrAssistance, YouMustLeaveUsAlone, DisasterWillFollowIfYou- ContinueToIntrudeUponOurPresence. LeaveTerenceKronToUsAndGO!!" "Nothing doing, dude. I've seen what happens if you get to eat Kron. No way am I gonna let this whole town turn into monster chow." "Fool, TheEnemiesOfTheGreatMotherWillAttackUsWhenSheIsAtHerWeakest, TheyAreEnemiesOfAllWhoLive, DoNotTrifleWithTheDelicateBalanceOfPower!" "Hey, who am I gonna believe, me, or someone whose afterbirth is still attached to them?" "ThenDieInYourIgnorance." Sandar Tol's hands began to weave in improbable patterns, pulling smoke and light and darkness out of the air. 'Raelf stood in ready position and watched. As he watched, the devourer split in two, and the larger half spun in his direction. <<>> a crystalline, spiked figure materialized in his hand, drawing blood. The devourer closed, and touched the image of Truth; both shattered. Sandar Tol, however, was already on his second spell. [Time 2:15 - An End to Magic] A curious ray, invisible except to conceptual sight, sprang from just before Sandar Tol's hand, and began to play across 'Raelf's shields, evaporating a hole in the protective hemisphere. The ray washed across 'Raelf's staff, and the electricity which had charged it discharged, taking the path of least resistance to the ground, through his body. His hair stood on end. He shouted in pain, and began dodging out of the path of the ray. [Time 3:00 - The Magic Returns] The ray stopped, with Sandar Tol slightly fatigued - it took a lot of power, generating that particular effect. And Mother was busy, her great immense mind focussed on too many fronts. Not just this battle, but there was something, outside, grasping at her hold over Generica's masses. 'Raelf shook his head, static from the electric discharge flashing as he shed sparks. "That was heinous, dude. You messed up my 'do." He spun the staff again, <> and the electric field rebuilt his protective barrier. [Time 4:30 - A Change of Hobbit] Inside his restored shield, 'Raelf directed the staff to construct a sphere of chaos and instability - the disjunction effect used to deactivate items and dissemble complex spells. Maybe he could stun this fellow, or at least wreck his next attack. Outside, Sandar Tol smiled grimly to himself, and began the slow magical manipulations that would cause spells cast by others to misfire in strange and painful ways. Seeing him begin his ritual gestures, 'Raelf threw his ball of chaos, aiming for Sandar Tol's face. Bogo the currently seven-foot size-changing halfling chose that moment to run between them, accidentally shoving Rook back out of the way. The two spells met, inside him. He froze in place - shuddering, his power suddenly going completely out of his control. His bones began to grow, he loomed twenty feet tall, while his muscles shrank, ripping loose from the bones, then his internal organs began swelling to four times their size, his skin becoming incredibly taut and stretched. A sickening ripping noise began to fill the air - his trachea had shrunk so tiny that he couldn't scream, and there was no way to read the expression on his face as he began to burst out of his skin - suddenly, the changes reversed, and his bones and organs shrank while his muscles and skin began to grow incredibly - he collapsed, a writhing mass of subsiding, pulsating flesh. The last part of him left alive was his blood, which chose that moment to begin growing, turning into a spring of red liquid that bubbled and ran down the slight slope leading to the immense pool of flesh that was the Great Mother. Little mouths formed along the edge, and began to sip the savory liquid, pink tongues lashing. 'Raelf and Sandar Tol looked across at each other and shrugged. -- Rick Jones Systems Support Center albert@bcm.tmc.edu Baylor College of Medicine Voice: 713-798-7352 standard disclaimers apply "Reality is not the world, but the perception of the world." - Sneakers -- Rick Jones Systems Support Center albert@bcm.tmc.edu Baylor College of Medicine Voice: 713-798-7352 standard disclaimers apply "Reality is not the world, but the perception of the world." - Sneakers