Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: jcarl@jabba.ess.harris.com (Darvos Metnar) Subject: [BBD] To build a Chalice of agelessness Message-ID: Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 23:20:36 GMT Velric stood over the altar in an uncomfortable position. But the ritual demanded strict somatic gestures, and the linguistic component wasn't any easier. Fortunately Velric had well over 100 years of study of the mystical language of magic, so he concentrated on the somatic gestures more. The chalice he was enchanting with Lissa's blood was almost complete. With this chalice he could drink the distilled essence of youth and arrest the progression of aging for himself for a small time. He would be dependent upon the chalice until he could divine a better solution, but if this worked he would have the time. Velric looked to be in his mid 20's and if not for a total absence of hair on his entire body, might have been considered attractive. His craft of necromancy left little concern for what the living thought of him though. And when he had lost all of his hair in a freak magic accident when he was first apprenticed he hadn't bothered to have the curse removed. At first the curse was a reminder to be careful. Then Velric realized the dangers of having hair when you were around dead rotting corpses most of your life. The parasites and other vermin were much easier to take care of when you didn't have hair. So when he finally had the power to release himself from the curse he just left it the way it was. In fact in another year his backwards aging problem would soon reverse the curse and start his hair growing again. Velric had attained enough power for him to consider becoming a lich, but because of inferior material components the ritual almost backfired, a lesser mage would not still be alive. Velric had suppressed the backlash of magical energys and molded them as best he could. What he had finally gotten was a strange curse. He was aging backwards. For each year he aged normally his physical and mental processes lost a corresponding year since the inception of the curse. The first year of the curse wasn't as bad as it was frustrating. Every time he tried to figure out what had gone wrong with his experiment, he kept forgetting all about it. He had to keep referring to his latest notes on the subject. As the years went by he soon forgot about his most powerful magics, and and it was almost too late before he realized what was happening. He then began to rememorize everything needed for all the years he had gained. It turned out that he had to re-teach himself what he had forgotten and then he could remember it fresh again. Unfortunately he was now nearing his fledgling years. The basics were much harder to reconstruct. Without the basic axioms of magic understood then everything else unraveled from there. If he forgot the basics of magic he would then loose capability of controlling his spell casting. And have no means of recreating it. It's like if you forget how to read some words you can always look them up in some sort of reference material or figure out their meaning from the context] they are used. But once you forget how to compose letters into words, then you forget how to teach yourself how to read. Then the context doesn't even make sense let alone construct new meanings. As good a wizard as Velric was, he knew he could probably memorize series of magical phrases. But that would be dangerous if he memorized the wrong series of phrases. The art of magic _was_ constructing new phrases depending on the conditions involved. And soon he would forget all about the individual characters that composed the words themselves. He was in danger of losing his magic altogether. Justifiably Velric was desperate for a solution. His search through the Generican Great Library had shed some light on the problem. His research indicated that an elixur of agelessness could be concocted from the essence of the youth mingled with the essence of the ancient. Velric had no idea what that meant but his searches had led him to a child named Lissa, here in Generica. The Gutt Man had captured her and brought the child to a suitable location for some preliminary experiments. Lissa's ward Darvos, and his friend Lancos had burst in near the end of gathering the required material for the next stage of his experimentation. The temerity with which the two tracked Lissa down during the raging storm was a surprise to him. But fortunately for him, the Gutt Man occupied the the Warrior Lancos so he could deal with the lesser mage Darvos. He hadn't counted on Little Rat intervening. He had to make a quick exit before he could finish off the fool mage and his friend. Velric's thoughts came back to the ritual as he was putting on the final touches to seal the enchantment to the chalice. ********** Velric smiled broadly as he showed the chalice to BBD. "It worked!" "Of course it worked, you didn't think I would let you continue with your studies if it wouldn't have worked. Did you?" BBD said with a sneer. As strong as Velric was, BBD was not worried about Velric as long as he still wore the Bracelet. His actions were fully under his control as long as the bracelet was still bonded to him, and most of his thought could easily be read. Velric noticed BBD's eyes glance at the bracelet on his arm. Velric of course was aware of the bracelet properties and could shield himself to a small degree from the effects. "That's right" he thought "you know that after I have Lissa secreted away in a safe place, that this bracelet will soon come off. My need for your assistance is comming to an end" "Now that that task is complete." BBD paused to insure that Velric was paying close attention. "I have another task for you." -- Joe Carl Jr. "It ain't what a man don't know that makes him a jcarl@jabba.ess.harris.com fool, but what he does know that ain't so." -- Josh Billings