Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Subject: [MG] Middle of the End Message-ID: References: <93190.095253ASG102@psuvm.psu.edu> Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 18:07:23 GMT [ADMIN] Some more of what happens with the Trawma Team... >What Has Gone Before: >A "pocket reality" has been discovered by Luthor and Erik due to its >interference with the normal probability field in Generica. The pocket >is anchored to a spot in the kitchen of the Spitting Cobra, a Low City >tavern of violent reputation. Erik shuffled the deck of cards again, noting with bored anxiety that the cards were sorting themselves into suits and ranks again. He cut at a truly random instant and the card came up Queen of Hearts. Which changed before his eyes to Queen of Cups, then Queen of Wands. Across the room, that oversized barbarian fellow punched a hole in one of the kegs of Catamount Porter that Serene had found, and pulled out a hummingbird made out of light and fire. The bird changed, becoming a somewhat drunk-looking blond mage who shed a tremendous burst of magical energy into an ? unoccupied ? corner. No, there was a person there, but it was hard to want to see him. "I COULD SEE WHO THAT IS" Erik murmured, and suddenly his eyes stopped sliding off the person in the corner. He was floating, inside a small storm of broken probabilities, over a mechanism that resembled a flower, a rose, not a lotus. For a moment, Erik was looking straight into the Element of Air, then a second later, into Fire. The person floating was a half-cat humanoid, seated in the kneeling position that Erik had seen Serene assume when she practiced her fighting style. Power was running into the catman, from three different places, and then from the catman, a channel of what had to be pure thought, approaching the sphere formed by the hole in space, but not going in through that entry, it went a different way. He stood, and went a little closer. A warm hand touched him on the shoulder. "Hey, dude. Don't get too close, the environment inside of that corner isn't elementally stable and you could get hurt bad." "'Raelf? What's happening?" "Like H'ro said to Luthor. We're fighting one of those stupid Great Battles. You know, the kind where if you lose, everyone loses?" Erik winced. "What can we do to help?" "In about three minutes, you can use your Shadowmagic to help tip the odds in our direction. My otherself has managed to convert the part of the enemy that he was fighting, but it hasn't taken a name yet, so it could still be stolen back. And Dariel and the Silver Warrior are holding off the other two-thirds of the enemy, but that place is so small, and it wasn't built to permit anything other than our defeat." "The possibility has to be there for Shadowmagic to make it happen," Erik said, frowning. "If it's not possible we can't help." "That's the point - between Silver Warrior, Dariel, and the Flame that my otherself took in there, the place has been lit up with Hope, and Hope is one of the great sources of possibility." "We're running out of time then. Luthor! Quickly, we need you," Erik moved like wind towards the man in the BLACK cloak. 'Raelf followed close behind. Luthor had the Gem of Chaos in his hand, the glowing red stone tangling among the timelines. "What's up?" Luthor looked up from the model of the city, Errol behind him visibly resisting the temptation to try and fondle the Gem -- such a large, beautiful stone. "'Raelf says we can do something. There's a focal point coming in a few seconds, what's the nature of this battle, 'Raelf?" Erik sat and touched the Gem of Chaos with his fingertips. "The battle between Hope and the Reaver. Push on anything that could improve our chances of winning. I'll open the conduit for you." 'Raelf pulled out a short staff, holding it just above the sphere of bent space, and chanted in a voice like wind <>. The sphere grew larger before them, inside they saw a diorama view of six - no, seven, or maybe eight, figures... four were humans, clearly, but two of the humans were interthreaded with a blackness that reeked, the black of impossibility. Three more figures had the outward image of humans but their fires were more intense and their light was greater than a human could contain. The last two humans, one was a woman, a mage by her aura of power, the other was threaded through with light and crystal and a swirling glow. Luthor and Erik began their Shadow Working, drawing on the Gem... "HOPE ..." time froze in the sphere, the human threaded through with light and crystal was slowly loosed from the bonds of the crystalline entity, and it moved away, leaving him human again, falling into the woman's arms. "... COULD ..." a body coalesced around the crystal and the swirling glow, a golden man with the form of an angel lit within by a blinding-bright Flame. "... WIN ..." in the commons room of the Spitting Cobra, a tonsured hermit with the attitude of a prophet had caught the attention of the massed priests, and was leading them in prayer. "... THIS ..." time within the sphere resumed its movement, the goddess fell, the newformed angel took a Name, and two of the humans, the mages, fell out of the Gateway into the room, Errol and H'ro helping them to a bench where they could collapse together; the goddess was Healed. "... BATTLE!" possibility coalesced from never, and the man with the wings of Power stepped _through_ the first of the humans who were threaded with the blackness of impossibility, and wherever he touched, darkness was consumed by his Light, but Light was lost to darkness. In the end, two who had been human remained, and shards of light, and the Silver being touched the walls of the sphere. It burst. The room was suddenly filled - three figures bright with power, two crumpled human wrecks, and scattered around were feathers. The silver figure nodded thanks, and took the goddess and the healer by the hand, and they vanished.