Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: hutch@hfglobe.intel.com (Stephen Hutchison) Subject: [KQ] [GMOAB 6.1] Quasimodo for Esmerelda: Sanctuary! Message-ID: References: Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1992 01:02:35 GMT + Chunks of the ceiling were dropping around them, sliding around the + bubble of space. 'Raelf looked up, eyes almost completely black. He was + becoming transparent. He weakly lifted the staff, traced it in a circle + in the air. + <> he gasped, and (with a flare of + unusual good luck) a pinpoint of white blinding light tore open in midair, + then expanded, Spielberg-like, into a passage, a path floating into the + intense glare. There was something like a stampede down the path. + The bubble shrank in on itself, and they were gone. Sanctuary is a place in the high reaches of the Astral plane. Like all places in the high astral, it takes its shape from the viewer; it doesn't exist except as a series of symbolic images and implied references, being more in the nature of an idea than an actual place. But if you know how, you can travel there. Colin staggered through the veil of light, and found himself in an ancient forest, in the middle of an open glen, surrounded by protective redwoods, with a clear, blue sky above, streaked by wisps of cirrus cloud. Birds and small animals made the usual noises in the distance, and a doe and her fawn fed in the meadow, unconcerned. Colin sat on a fallen log, exhausted, and began first aid on his injuries. A splint for the broken leg would be good. Rhoan looked around at a mountain meadow, protected by large boulders, a sort of natural fortress. Colin was sitting on a boulder nearby, bandaging himself. Rhoan sat next to him and began the same process for himself. Kron came through. He was in the Dragon's Inn, with all fifty-eight of its dark corners and comfortable nooks and the fireplace with a nice warm blaze. Unusually quiet, though - Listener's music was playing, but there was no sign of the bard himself. And the usual rabble wasn't there - only the two rangers, so far... ah, here's some others. Marcel was in a churchyard, the walls of the church around it, the open door of the chapel showing the gilded and polished interior lit by festal tapers and glittering with the colors from the stained glass saints at the stations of the cross. Somewhere in the distance, monks chanted the matins prayers. Rook, however, was in the Great Library in Generica, the only place where she'd felt really safe from the gangs, when she was a girl. And there weren't any librarians about, they were in one of the big reading rooms. Scorpion, to his acute confusion, was in a big crack under a rock, and was wondering why this was so comforting to him. OR for that matter, to the rest of these people. He looked over at the still form of the man who had opened the path to this place. The fellow was flickering, faintly. Mostly transparent, Scorpion's altered eyesight saw him in polarized light and across the width of the spectrum, deep ultraviolet to infrared. Every half-second there was something like a color pulse, washing from the outside in, and a flash of something else, a dimly lit fire, dying, a patch of water evaporating in the sun, dry earth blowing away, a sharp blackness of non-matter. He reached out and touched the fellow. "Hey - you still alive?" a groan answered him. Something like a galvanic shock tingled through his hand, and he snatched it back quickly - that had stung, even through his armor. The man's eyes opened. He whispered, "zap me, man." Scorpion leaned back. "What?" "zap me... I need the energy ... it won't hurt." Scorpion tried to look questioningly at Rook, and found that his face was no longer flexible enough to make the expression. Marcel spoke. "He told you, m'sieu, now do as you are asked." The Waster shrugged. He began the process of building up a destructive blast, but before he could loose it, he was interrupted. "no, man, not all at once. do it slower." The mage was trying to sit up. Scorpion sighed, and began letting the power leak - LEAK, mind you - out his fingers and onto the mage. It felt very weird, like trying to sneeze and only exhaling. The usual burst of intense near-orgasmic sensation was absent, only a pleasant tingling. The fellow seemed to be growing more substantial, flickering less. After about ten minutes, Scorpion found that he was running out of juice - the mage had solidified, mostly, though he was still sparking and flickering to the bug-man's compound eye. "Woah. What a bummer. Everyone get out? Anyone see if Thk or ...sage made it? Malieu took Azzar out, did you see if the Captain was with them?" He sat up. Warm scented breezes washed over his skin, carrying the sound of waves on a blinding white beach. "Wow, Tahiti... haven't been here in years... Oh yeah, we're in Sanctuary." 'Raelf stood. He looked at his staff. He sat down abruptly, quite dizzy. <> <> "Not enough to do anything with. I'll have to hang for a few hours, guys? Any probs? It'll be safe here. Anyone got something to eat?"