Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
From: arsmith@nyx.cs.du.edu (Alan Smith)
Subject: Re: [NTY] Palandun: The Hunt.
Message-ID: <1993Jun16.051905.22636@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
References: <1993Jun14.070532.20509@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 05:19:05 GMT

  "Are you ready, sir?" Wilks asked, for the thirtieth blimp farking time.
  "Yes, already!" Palandun replied.  "Jeez, you're just like my muth."
(The th in "muth" is a hard th, like bathe, rather than bath.  It is It-Attian
slang for mother.)  "See?  I got my little bow and little arrows, I got my
sword-"
  "Perhaps it wouls be advisable to leave the sword here." Wilks opined.  "I
can take care of it."
  "I don't think you can." Palandun pulled the scabbard and sword off his 
belt, then pitched it to Wilks.  The valet caught it, but couldn't hold it
up, the sword fell to the floor with a loud thump.  "A Bismanian sword knows
it's owner, and is rather...reluctant to serve anyone else.  Even if you could
pick it up you couldn't carve a stick of butter with it.  Besides, Bismanian
swordmen tend to be...Edgy withought their swords.  You never can tell, you
know."
  "A magic blade..." Wilks mused.
  "An unstealable blade."  Palandun noted.  (Noting to himself that that
was not exactly true)  "Listen, are you gonna lecture me on my cleaning habits,
or can I go now?"  Wilks smiled and bade Palandun go.

  "Are you ready?" Gunther asked, then, noting Palandun's look of exasperation:
"Hey! I was just checking!  C'mon, lets go."

A rich generican hunt, at least in the Toodian style, goes like this: Servants
are despatched to scare up some game and drive it back to camp.  Meanwhile,
the hunting party, arrows at the ready, stalks through the forest scaring the
snark outta themselves to the point where they'll shoot any movement in the
forest and ask questions later.  After the first 500 yards Palandun resolved to 
stay in the middle of the group and move verrryyy slooowly.  When the quarry
(This time a giant boar) finally appeared, he was fully as jumpy as the rest
of the party, only he was scared of his huntmates.
  "Here he comes!" Gunther shouted, hearing the boar crash through the          
underbursh.
  "Yack!" Palandun yelled, hitting the deck while his imagination turned
him into a human pincushion.
  "Snorrrt!" The boar snorted.
  "Aaaaaa!" The four of them screamed, the three erect members loosed their
arrows and then ran amok through the woods.  There was a pause as the boar 
continued to work up it's ire and Palandun took in the sight of his quarry.
  The giant boar was as tall as a small pony.  Shaped like it's smaller
namesake, including a set of six-inch tusks that, palandun had no doubt, had
no qualms about removing the internal organs of anybody who even looked like
the people who had just put an arrow in it's ear and another in it's nose.
  "Hiya!" Palandun said, then, realizing that this was possibly the
wrong sort of greeting for an irate boar: "Uh-oh.  Aaaaaa!"  Palandun
got up and ran through the woods, the boar took a momemt to decide and set
off in pursuit.
  Training took over, and Palandun realized that his was an unwise tactic.
He should either turn and fight, or think of some way to evade the boar while 
holding still.  A quick look over his shoulder told Palandun that turning
and fighting was not an option.  While returning his head to a forward and
upright position, he almost smacked into a tree.  This gave Palandun an idea.
  He grabbed the next passing tree, swinging around behind it.  The boar, which
must have been really irate, forgot to go around the tree while pursuing        
Palandun.  There was another one of those pauses while each tried to decide
what to do next.
  "Now!" A voice said, and three arrows imbedded themselves in the boar's
side.  The boar tuned towards it's new scource of pain, the other three
hunters, and charged them.  The three kept pumping arrows at the boar, and soon
palandun was doing the same.
  The boar was looking pretty bad, with about twelve arrows in it, when it 
finally got to the other three.  Amshran found himself in a very unfortunate
spot, flew high into the air and landed with a crunch.  Gunther managed to
draw a shortsword and stick it in the boar's ribs.  The boar ran another
50 yards, suddenly got very tired, and flopped over.  Palandun was on top
of Amshran before that, field-dressing his wounds.  The Ramashani was pulled
on a travois back to the boat, right in front of the boar.