Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: aaron@space.ualberta.ca (Aaron Humphrey) Subject: [MI] Alfvaen[MI HQ]: Not Quite Alive, Not Quite Dead Message-ID: <1992Oct25.045016.25311@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca> Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1992 04:50:16 GMT Alfvaen wearily trod the last few steps down Cor Caroli Lane, and then up the little alley to 15A-Gamma. After only a few days, this place was already as much home as the House of Silken Whips had been in Delta City, and moreso than his parents' house in Belsina, or Milteanas' in the forest, had even been. As he opened the outer door and ascended the steps, he heard conversation from above. Queriche, Delmara, and Moriarty at least. He hoped Little Rat was there, too, or at least had escaped safely. He shuddered to think of the kind of fate the girl could have met at the hands of an enraged and frustrated Noctu. He walked into the office. No Little Rat, but the rest accounted for--no, no imp, either. Maybe Batobo was off helping Rat. "Hello--" he said, and then Delmara had him in a fierce hug. "Thank Aditi you're safe," she whispered. Alfvaen. < No need, beloved. I know how things are, and how they will be. I never was the jealous type, now, was I?> Elstree. Alfvaen returned Delmara's hug, and then gently pushed her away. He could sort that out later. Right now... "Where's Elstree?" Delmara asked. The question he had been dreading. He sighed. "I think the time has come for me to explain something to you all. You see, I'm not quite alive any more. I died a few weeks back, in a place called the City of the Dead." Silence reigned. "Go on," Moriarty said, his flesh crawling with the idea that he might be talking to one of the undead...a vampire, perhaps? No, he'd been out in the daylight more than once... "I was wearing this amulet," he said, showing it to them. "And somehow my soul was preserved there, not in death, but not fully alive either. My place was taken by another soul who had been imprisoned in the amulet before, and he came here to Nexus. When he died, he reverted back to the amulet and I had my chance. "The other one is named Lassiviren, and I don't think I'll be letting him out to run around anytime soon, because I don't yet fully trust him." Lassiviren. "But the amulet has the property of trapping the soul of anyone who dies while wearing it. If I take off the amulet, I only have a short time before I'm sucked back into it. "You remember what Elstree looked like, back in the Shrine," he said to Delmara. "She was pretty much on the verge of death right then, and there was no way that we could have freed her without her taking at least one fatal bite from one of those spiders. So I got Little Rat to take the amulet over to her and put it around her neck before she died." He waited for the implications of that to sink in. "So--she's--" Delmara said haltingly. "In the amulet," Alfvaen finished for her. "With me and Lassiviren." He saw that Moriarty, for one, was still skeptical. "Want proof?" Alfvaen. The sensation of voluntarily relinquishing control was different from that of dying while wearing the amulet, or slowly being sucked in after removing it. It still wasn't totally pleasant, but it felt less wrong. The others all gasped when Alfvaen disappeared, and Elstree appeared, wearing the amulet. "What he says is true--at least, from what I've experienced. I don't see what his problem with Lassiviren is, but then he's know him longer than I have." She turned to Delmara. "Don't be sad for me. I'm with my beloved, after so long, and this is certainly better than being dead, or burning in a hell of the Demon Queen's designing. And--don't hold yourself back on my account. I'm a priestess of Aditi too. Can I be jealous?" Elstree. Alfvaen. She hugged Delmara. "You know where I am, if you want to talk to me. I guess I'm not really your ward anymore, but we can still be friends..." Then she faded out and Alfvaen faded back in, still embracing Delmara. He drew back again, slightly self-conscious. Nobody had anything much to say for a while after that. Then Moriarty broke the silence, saying, "Well, I'm glad that's cleared up. As I've already told these two, we have a new contract from a rich merchant named Verden, and a new employee by the name of Choir of Vidmar, who you can meet in the morning. Now, I, for one, am ready to go to sleep. It's been a long day, and an even longer evening." He turned a switch on the desk, and the outside doors locked. "Oh-- sorry, Miss Delmara. Did you want to go back to your temple?" Delmara looked questioningly at Alfvaen, and then turned back to Moriarty with a smile. "No, I don't think that will be necessary." ADMIN: Next post--A NEW DAY! Finally! ;-} -- ---Alfvaen(Canadian SF Quasi-Activist) "Does it ever seem like the brain disorders you have just aren't enough to keep you amused anymore?" --Dr. Strychnine Current Album--New Order:Substance Current Read--Tom Clancy:The Sum of All Fears