Way cool. Now Tan-Ru, run from tepesh, program BigHappyJoy. << Complying. Interface adaptor loaded, playback loop loaded, Running >> Great. Hey, keep the music running, dude. And give me a lyric line, we can do some karaoke here! << Complying. >> +< She's My Little Deuce Coupe, You Dunno What I Got ...>+ Noira was startled from her meal of dried flesh by the sound of voices blending in something not resembling harmony, coming from her chapel-workroom. Her cries of outrage went unheard by her pain-slaves - fortunately, so did the music. Their ears had not yet grown back. ---- "Dark Master, I must abase myself. There have been difficulties." Lord Raven stared disapprovingly at the face-down grovelling form of the priestess of Loviatar. Her pleading would normally have been grounds for greater suffering, but she would only use the pain to her advantage, and he still had use for her alive. No, this would require a different approach. "Rise, Noira. Make your full report. I will consider then whether you will remain among the living." "Master, the spirit which was entrapped by the Soul Jar has proven to be immune to the despair which will be required for it to submit in the ritual of transference." "Immune? Impossible. You used the spells I gave you, pain and solitude?" "Yes, Dark Master. It ignored the summoning strictures, as we had expected. I cast the spell of pain, and it fed on it, in a perversion of the sacred rites of Loviatar. I cast the spell of solitude, but it was familiar with the emptiness, and recreated mental images of such pleasurable bizarreness that I was unable to maintain contact." An expression of disgust crossed her face. "Indeed? Unable? How interesting. Do go on." "I commanded the dragon to send a torment configurator from the Traveller artifact. I directed it to use the standard approach, to twist the mind of the mage through its past until it broke. But somehow, the spirit was able to direct the artifact to play music instead." Lord Raven scowled in anger. If he did not still need her she would be dead for that mistake. As soon as he no longer needed her he would do something especially fitting in retaliation. "You should have asked me first. The artifact has a name, which can be used to catch its attention, so it can accept new instructions. The Traveller certainly knows what that name is. Come, we will insert the Jar into the cardinal control point in the Great Pentacle. The artifact has been ordered not to obey the commands of anyone inside that Pentacle except for myself." Obediently, steeling herself for the blast of destruction which she expected any second, Noira crossed the throne room to the small table where she had left the Soul Jar. When she found herself still alive, she carefully lifted the jar into her hands, blocking any sense of the occupant from her mind. Lord Raven led her to a locked room. This was one of the places she had not been permitted to enter, only Vornick and the dragon had been brought here. The huge double door swung open, and a blinding white light struck her eyes with welcome pain, keeping her from seeing the thing in the pit as it spun in its impossible directions. The hum pierced her bones, and she almost dropped the jar. Something was suffering in the pit, inside the artifact, and it was exquisite. "I have not given you permission to feed. Get over here," the Dark Master pulled her to a short dias, raised from the surrounding floor by a few inches. He gestured towards a place closest to the thing in the pit. There, carved into the dias, was a huge pentacle, intricately inlaid with runes and figures of power, tiled with carven glyphs of power. She recognized many of them as ones she had prepared for Vornick or the Dark Master as they discussed the ritual. But then Dark Master had set her to making cages for the questers, and she had been left out of the last few meetings. She placed the Soul Jar in the spot at the point of the pentacle. She stepped back, carefully, and moved to the side of Lord Raven, bowing. Lord Raven turned to face the thing in the pit, and spoke. "This is your master speaking. Identify me." << YOU ARE LORD RAVEN, DARK MASTER OF THIS PLANE OF DARKNESS >> "Identify the object on the cardinal point of the pentagram." << OBJECT IS A SOUL JAR >> "I order you to lock onto the spirit of the Traveller who is prisoned in that jar and prepare it for ritual assimilation." << PARAMETER ERROR, NO SUCH OBJECT >> "What? Explain yourself." (Noira silently began to move back and away.) << THERE IS A TYPE MISMATCH BETWEEN INSTRUCTIONS AND SUBJECT >> "Describe the mismatch." (Noira found herself up against a hard surface.) << THE JAR CONTAINS THE SPIRIT OF A HUMAN WHO IS NOT A TRAVELLER >> "WHAT?!! I saw it myself!" (Noira looked up. Blacksilver looked down at her. She had moved the wrong direction. She froze in place.) "Replay the incident where the spirit was taken!" << REPLAY COMMENCING, INCIDENT TIME MARK T MINUS 14, DISPLAY >> The quarrel struck. The Traveller-Mage's head was reduced to a red spray. The form of Death appeared, and vanished. (Lord Raven shuddered and his mind refused to keep the memory.) The Mage's body fragmented in six different directions, each a separate elemental structure, except that one was the spirit of a human. THAT was drawn into the jar. The elemental structures each went off in a different direction, vanishing from view. << INCIDENT REPLAY COMPLETED >> "What WAS that? It split apart!?" << REPHRASE QUERY. CONTEXT UNCLEAR >> "Explain that business where it split into different pieces." << 'KAN DEATH MODE BY DISPERSAL OF ELEMENTAL ESSENCE. DEATH OF HUMAN BASE SHAPE COMBINED WITH TRANSFORMATION SUPPRESSION FIELD PREVENTED 'KAN FROM RETURNING TO TRUESHAPE. ELEMENTAL FRAGMENTS DISPERSED ACROSS THE RELEVANT ELEMENTAL PLANES >> "Is this normal?" << SPECIFY "NORMAL" >> "Oh, never mind. Identify the spirit in the jar." << SPIRIT OF HUMAN IDENTIFIED AS DAVID BERENSON >> "How did he get into the Traveller?" << HUMAN WAS CONSUMED BY 'KAN AND INTEGRATED INTO BASE STRUCTURE >> "Does it have any magical powers? Planeshifting? Time Control?" << SUBJECT IS A SPIRIT AND HAS ALL MAGICAL POWERS COMMON TO SPIRITS >> "Useless. Noira. Come here." She slunk forward. "I give you the spirit in the jar - do with it as you wish. I particularly liked your idea of using ghosts to animate magical artifacts. This might be a proper subject for your experiment." "Yes, my Dark Master." "Oh, and Noira?" "Master?" "Before you do that, there's the matter of punishment for your failure." His blazing red eyes sought out her thoughts, and she was frozen in place. She felt the power drain from her and the dragon's claw closed around her body, lifting her from the ground. --- Alita sat petulantly in her cell. This place was dead boring. She had tried all her tricks to get out, and the prison cell was just warded shut too thoroughly. A sudden heaviness came over her, and she heard noises from outside. The cell door flew open, and a massive black talon threw a red-clad form inside. The door flew shut, and Alita felt the paralyzing heaviness depart. There, on the floor, was Noira, the bitch priestess who had killed her blonde toy-boy. "Well, what have we here," Alita smiled. The woman looked at her, horror rising in her eyes. Alita let the heat rise inside her. The woman found herself responding. Pleasure washed over her - not that! Loviatar forbid? But she could not reach her goddess from here. Outside, Lord Raven laughed as Noira began screaming ...