Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
From: spider@zk3.dec.com (Spider Boardman USG/bossec)
Subject: [Jac] Finding a gate
Message-ID: <SPIDER.93Jul15041552@leggy.zk3.dec.com>
References: <SPIDER.93Jul12214053@leggy.peano.zk3.dec.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 09:15:52 GMT

[ADMIN:  We skip a night and a half of uneventful travel, and rejoin
 the characters as they near their current goal.]


The hair on Jac's neck rose, alerting him that his seeker spell had
finally found the type of magic associated with a dimensional portal.  He
snapped to alertness, and picked up the control thread for that spell.
Information came flooding into his mind.

	Direction--left 24 degrees--up 100 feet.
	Distance--intensity, compare to background--check time-delay--
	--about 11 miles straight-line.
	Uncertainty--too much, send a tracer to pin it down--It's
	anchored there--it's just that big!  That thing's big enough for
	a dragon in full flight!

After a deep breath to calm himself, he placed his hand on Windrunner's
neck.  <<Hey, we're closer than I thought.  It's over there.>>

[Mental image.  Current view ahead, pan down while zooming out, showing a
dot in the landscape, a dashed line growing from there, proceeding around
hills and rocks, converging with a shrinking circle coming from around the
edges to make a blinking dot where the gate should be.]

<<We'll get there well before dawn, even if we don't hurry.>>

Windrunner turned slightly to his left.

{{Is there reason to hurry?  How long will you need to get us through once
we reach the gate?}}

<<Good question.  Probably somewhere from two hours to twenty.  It depends
on how good the gate is.  It's hard to tell from here.>>

{{I'm tired of this desert.  We'll hurry a bit.}}

Windrunner broke into a gallop for a while, then settled down to a canter.
After a while, he started alternating a walk-run gait with the canter.
Around an hour and a half later, they finally spotted a huge iron gate
hanging in the gloom before them.

"Talk!" demanded Windrunner.  Jac placed his hand on the horse's neck again.

{{Are you sure you didn't build this one?}}

<<Aw, come on.  This is too tacky even for me.  I'd have put up an archway
instead.>>

The horse snorted.  {{Out of polished white marble, no doubt.}}

Jac grinned.  <<Not a bad idea.  Anyway, let's stop and get comfortable
while I figure out how to get us through safely.>>

They stopped at a flat area about fifty feet from the gate.  Jac spent some
time grooming Windrunner, and got out some grain.

"How soon?" the horse asked.

"Seems to be a pretty good portal.  It's not quite fully adaptive, though.
I'll still have to set up a parallel path for us.  Looks like an hour."

Jac cast some runes.  He sat down, crosslegged, and meditated on the gate
for a while.  He got up, unlimbered his staff, and started chanting words
of power.  The surface of the sand by the iron gate started to move, and a
white marble archway started growing up out of the sand, forming leftward.

Windrunner snorted.

When his chanting was done, and the arch was complete, Jac replied.
"Remember, it was your idea."

"Hmph."

Jac took out a brush and a pot of paint, and painted some symbols on the
sides of the arch.  He then packed everything away again.

"Finished."  He switched to a higher, nasally voice.  "Is everybody ready?"

Windrunner nodded.

"Yeah!" said the sword on Jac's belt.  "There'd better be something worth
hunting in the this next place."

Jac laughed.  "You heard what they told me in the keep, M'arrella.  If
half of it was true, there should be plenty of game."  He checked the
girth on his saddle and mounted up.  "Charge!" he yelled.

Windrunner took off, and the group disappeared in a bright flash as the
archway was consumed by the magic that sent them on their way.
--
Spider Boardman					spider@zk3.dec.com
DEC OSF/1 development				...!decvax!spider
I don't speak for DEC, and vice versa.