From: scott@athena.mit.edu (Scott D Bradburn)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [RATS!] The adventure continues...
Date: 1 Mar 1993 01:51:41 GMT
Message-ID: <1mrq7dINNb38@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>

  As they grudgingly continued their drudging trudge through the sludge, they
chatted happily amongst themselves.
  Higar was feeling in an especially merry mood. "You mean EVERYONE brought
coleslaw? Not exactly iron rations is it? I mean, if the gods had wanted
us to eat coleslaw they would have at least made us like it, surely." 
  "Come on, Higar. Even you brought some. And at least SOME of us had the
presence of mind to bring some other things. Like potato salad."
  "Who in their right mind would bring potato salad on a quest into the sewers?
We need something to fortify us. And anyway, I don't like potato salad."
  "I don't know. I went into the store, fully intending to buy some decent iron
rations, and came out with a tub each of coleslaw and potato salad. There
could well be an evil influence at work here. What do you think, Git? Git?
Now where did he go off to?"
  "Oh brilliant. Here we are, deep into the second wildest place in the city
and our fighter has just decided to wander off by himself. What else could go
wrong?"
  Higar earned some very barbed looks as the ceiling rumbled, and droplets of
water started to fall on them. "Hey! I thought we were safe in the sewers!
I thought not even the gods could make it rain in here!"
  Bakr brought the conversation back to the matter in hand. "When did we last
see him? Git, that is."
  The others thought awhile. The latest they could work out, he had just been
rounding a corner ahead of them. They could not remember seeing him since
then.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~//~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Meanwhile, Git was waking up. He groaned. Obviously he had had far too
much to drink the night before. He thought back. The last thing he could
remember was falling down a hole in the floor of the sewers. He tried to
remember which combination of muscles were needed to open the eyes.
  "So, my hirsuit friend, you are awake. Good. My god dislikes having
sacrifices that aren't conscious to...enjoy the experience."
  Git decided that, on balance, opening his eyes at this moment would
perhaps not be a good idea. He might see what he thought he would see.
  "I see. Not the communicative type. Perhaps a little stimulus might awaken
you. Your right arm is connected to a large metal sphere. Your left is
connected to a rod, buried deep in the ground. If I cast a lightning bolt
at the sphere, a current will pass through your body, to the earthing rod. Now
isn't that cunning of me?"
  The voice muttered some arcane words, and Git was suddenly far more
awake, his eyes wide open and staring, and his voice communicating his
displeasure in a sound of quite impressive volume.
  "Thats better," said the voice. "communication is the key to everything
you know."
  Git turned his head to look at the source of the voice. The speaker
appeared to be the stereotypical Evil Wizard mk1 (c) with the long black
robes, gaunt looks, a balding head and mad look in the eyes.
  He turned his attention to the room. It was quite large, and at the far
end was a flight of steps, leading to the door. He must be in a cellar
then. It appeared to double as a laboratory and sacrificial temple. Indeed,
the sacrificial altar (to which Git was held by metal bands) appeared to have
various chemical burns and stains, indicating that it also served as the
wizards workbench.
  "Cheap minor wizard with dreamth of becoming great by following an evil
god," thought Git. No problems. He'd dealt with quite a few of this particular
stereotype in his eventful career. Of course, being manacled to the
altar with his axe just out of reach did put him at a slight disadvantage this
time. But, having been brought up in a society where the word fear meant
nothing (the very mention of the word was enough to get you kicked out of
the village, so most people grew old and grey without ever hearing it), he
was incapable of believing that he could possibly come out of this contest
without being the victor.
  If you don't have a plan, blind faith is the next best thing...
  "You look powerful. I will let you live-on the one condition that you
bow down and offer your lifelong worship to the my god."
  "Which god?"
  "The Sexegiesmal Sasslashisyx."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~//~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  "He was around here somewhere."
  "What was that?"
  "What?"
  "That agonized scream that sounded like it was coming from the throat of
a hairy fighter as he is agonisingly electrocuted by foul magic."
  "Dunno."
  "Oh. Probably nothing then. Hey, look theres a duck. Hi there duck. Haven't I
seen you somewhere before?"
  "Quaaack," replied the duck mournfully.
  "Oh, well. You all look the same to me."

Bakr, Firgun, and Higar were slogging through the sewers, hoping to find
some sign of where Git had gotten to.  I'll tell you now, that trudging
through a sewer in a rainstorm is one of the twenty worst things
imaginable.  The muck sloshes all over your body, on your hair, and
in your mouth.  It's nearly as bad as cleaning toilets with your tongue
and much worse then eating Brussels sprouts.  It's not nearly as bad
as krimbling pelps with a stilk, but we can't imagine how awful that
is, so it doesn't count as part of the list.

Suddenly, Firgun stopped and cried, "RATS!"

Bakr and Higar pulled out weapons and looked around for something to
take out their frustrations on, seing nothing else, they eyed Firgun.

"Er... I mean, darn, I forgot my bloodroot."

Grumbling, they decide not to take their frustrations out on Firgun
and put up their weapons.  It was miserable trudging through the sewer
without having anything to kill.  It seemed even the rats were hiding from
the bad weather.

"It's important for my fear spell...  bloodroot, I mean."  Seeing that
no one was talking to him, he wisely shut up.

Higar stopped suddenly.  "Take a look at this.  What do you suppose it
does?"

Bakr and Firgun joined Higar, who was studying a thin wire that spanned
a narrow side passage, running about 6 inches above the floor.

"Looks like a trip wire," commented Firgun.

"Oh, gee, thanks for the insight, oh exalted wizard.  What do you think
it springs?"

"It's not a spring, it's a trip wire.  When you trip over it, it alerts
someone or something of your presence.  Though who would care where we go
in the sewers is beyond me."

"Well, if someone cares so much about what's in there, that's where I'm
going," said Higar, stepping into the passage, and subsequently falling
on his face.  "Hey, I stepped over it!"

"It's a trip wire, it tripped you," Firgun pointed out as he too stepped
into the passage and fell.  Firgun, expecting the trip, was able to roll
back to his feet, without missing a step.

Bakr was intrigued, and stepped up to the wire.  Slowly, he raised one
foot and moved it over the wire.  The other foot followed.  Then Bakr
was across, without a problem.

"Why didn't I trip?"

"Because it's a narrow passage."

"So?"

"Since the passage is narrow, it's a SHORT trip wire."

Wisely, Bakr stopped asking questions.

"Unfortuntely, now someone knows we're here.  Well, when I find 'em
I'll be expectin' 'em," stated Higar.

After a short trip, the group came upon a moderately sized room with a
passage leading left at the opposite end.  At about that time, a man
dressed in a black robe stepped through that passage into the room and
glared at the trio.

"What are you doing here?"

"We're looking for a large, hairy warrior.  Have you seen him?"

"No, but it really doesn't matter, I'm going to..."

"Hey, are you a wizard?  I'm out of bloodroot, do you have any?"

"Don't worry about it, I'm about to..."

"I can trade you a magical potion for some."

"What?  Oh, in that case, I'm a wizard, and I have some bloodroot.  What
kind of potion do you have?"

"Well," said Firgun, fishing in his hat, "I have this earthquake potion."
Meanwhile he pulled a small vial out of his hat, and held it up.

"Ah, yes, wonderful.  It's a deal.  Now, give it to me."

Firgun gave the wizard the potion, and said, "Okay, where's my bloodroot?"

"Ha!  I'm an evil wizard, and have imprisoned your warrior, now I'm
imprisoning you!  Start moving down that hall, or I'm drinking this
potion.  I think I'll have you krimble pelps.  With a stilt, even."

Not one member of the trio could imagin how awful that would be, but
they all figured they didn't want to do it.  They also noticed an
error that the wizard was making.  Strangely, each member of the
party had noticed a different error.

"But..." started Firgun.

"No way," interrupted Higar.  "I ain't being taken prisoner by no wizard.
You better drink that potion and bring this room down on all our heads."
Higar started to load a bolt into his crossbow.

"Stilk," said Bakr.  "That should be krimbling pelps with a stilk.
That's supposed to be quite awful, it's more horrible then anything I
can imagine."

"But..." started Firgun again.

"Silence, fools!  Stilts or stilks, it doesn't matter now.  I'm going
to kill you all.  And I'll not bring the roof down on me, dwarf, I'll
just collapse the floor under you."  With that, he quaffed the potion,
and gestured wildly at the floor under Higar.

Higar stopped to brac himself, not knowing if it would help when the
floor collapsed or not.

Nothing happened.

"What?!?  You cheat!  You thief!" shouted the mage.

Higar glanced at Firgun, thinking the gnome was brighter then he thought.

"You never paid me, and I'm not a thief.  The potion works.  As I was
trying to tell you, the potion has a little delay, because you're supposed
to pour it on the ground!"

Higar changed his opinion again, but was relieved just the same, and
then he understood the full implications of Firgun's statement and
started laughing.  Just totally rolling on the floor in laughter, like
only a dwarf who's just been saved from death by idiocy can laugh.

Meanwhile, the mage had started an uncontrollable trembling, but retained
his balance well enough to dash out the passage.  Bakr, remembering that
the mage had Git prisoner and followed, but came back a second later.
"The passage opens up about 10 feet in, and there are several exits.
I have no idea where he went."

Moments later, Higar had stopped laughing, and Firgun had stopped
mourning the loss of his potion and his continuing lack of bloodroot, the
trio headed off down the passage, in search of Git and an evil wizard.

-----

          Text by:   D.Morgan@bradford.ac.uk and
	             scott@athena.mit.edu

Input and edits by:  c164-ez@po.berkeley.edu and
		     kring@physik.uni-kl.de