Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Subject: [MG] Night On the Town, part 1 Message-ID: References: <93207.102811ASG102@psuvm.psu.edu> Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 19:06:17 GMT [ADMIN] this is another one of the continuing Erik-Lex romance. We're still looking for a title for the thread. ELR? Also this crosses over into GATM. Thanks to Dreamer for his part in all this. === There was a butterfly on his dresser. It had huge wings, at least a half-hand across, in iridescent gold and silver. It was spinning a cocoon, which butterflies seldom do. The wings detached and drifted to the floor, chiming softly, and the cocoon grew up over the top of the butterfly's head. It elongated, visibly, stretching and pulsing as the creature within it metamorphosed. After a few moments, it split, and what came out was a cylinder of thin parchment paper, which unrolled and fell into Erik's hand, revealing a note written with a very black ink. please meet me tonight at the Dragon's Inn, at the first bell of evening, for dinner and music, followed by a visit to Ale House for an evening of light entertainment, and a concert by Rhythm Song. Lex Erik couldn't help but smile. All that effort to deliver a simple message. There were easier ways, but this one had style. The invitation sounded wonderful; a chance to get away from his research and spend a night on the town. He picked up the discarded wings of the butterfly and placed them gently between the cover and the first page of his current diary (volume 32). Then, Erik grabbed a quill from his writing desk and wrote on the back of the parchment: Lex, I'd be delighted to go. See you tonight. All Here Bound In Truth, -Erik- He crumpled the parchment into a small ball and walked over to a window. He gathered the forces of probability and released the ball. "THIS COULD FIND LEX" he said shaping the forces to his will. It was wisked away by a sudden ocean breeze. A few minutes later, Lex's sparring at the lighthouse was interrupted by the sight of a ball of parchment. It rolled up to Lex's foot and rested. He ignored it, for the moment, concentrating on repelling Karl's attempts to bash his head in with the quarterstaff. Little Rat looked up from her kneeling position on the lighthouse lawn, and saw the paper arrive. Then, when the exercise ended and Lex made no move to pick it up, she spoke, "Ain't you gonna look at da paper Mr. Lex? Mebbe it gots some secrets or sumfin'. Mebbe it's wanna dem pirate maps dat gots da buried jangles." Lex smiled and reached down and put the parchment in a pocket. "I already know what's in it, Rat. It tells me about a treasure but not the kind you can spend." --OO--OO-- The Dragon's Inn was more quiet than usual, the adventurers seemed to be somewhere else tonight. Lex gave a nod to Jolly Roger, and smiled to himself at the man's skull-and-crossbone eyes. A thought occurred to him -- the cyberware that made those eyes was the same that made Kardia's eyes, they might be from the same world. He put together a note for Kardia to warn her of the possible presence of another person from her home, and made a close study of Roger for a few minutes, noting the structures of his cyberware, how it blended with his body. The details could be a clue to whether they were from ... The "Gift" kicked in. He knew, and he was completely disgusted to know, what Roger's strengths were, his weaknesses, what way to best attack him to subdue, enslave, kill. He closed his eyes and looked away, trying to focus his elemental perception away from the man as well. Too late. He forced the Gift to examine further: the best way to heal him, what would make him stronger and more flexible. It twisted around, showed him the man's weapons, his skills. Again, Lex turned the focus to the positive: he knew what Roger was doing, that he had been fighting against apparently soulless monstrosities, that he had joined with an enclave of sylvan elves, to defend the borders of their faerie shadowland, that he had friends, lovers... NO! give the man his privacy! Fortunately Erik walked in. Lex sighed happily. Erik's field of twisty probabilities made the Gift fade after a few minutes. He stood and hugged the GREY-clad man and they sat again at the table. Dinner was something special. Mary had made them a spiced fish and baked starch-roots and a fresh pie. The pie got lots of looks, and many requests from other tables. "Did you sleep well?" Erik asked, "You looked really tired when you left ShadeHaven last night." "Don't sleep," Lex replied. "Not a good thing to do where I'm from." "Oh. How do you dream, then?" An image of clouds rushing across an azure sky came to Erik's mind. He dismissed it as another side- effect of messing with chaos all his life. "Ah. We play. I'll show you later tonight, if you want." "Sure, I guess. I just can't imagine missing out on dreams. I have some bizarre ones." "Yeah. Like, last night. I promise, Erik, I'll not eat you alive. Besides, it's not losing your _self_ as much as becoming part of a new self." Lex stared at Erik for a minute, his eyes going the color of clouds in early morning. Erik's dream from the previous night came to him in a flood. With Lex sitting right across from him, it didn't seem nearly as terrifying. Slightly embarassed, he looked for a way to change the subject. He cut a piece of pie for himself and one for Lex. Lex took a bite and said, "Oh man, this stuff would be great with ice cream." Erik smiled, "Do you want some? THEY MIGHT HAVE ICE CREAM." He winked at his companion while the ressonance of ShadowMagic still hung in the air. A few minutes later, a confused Mary placed a scoop on each piece of pie. "I don't know how it got there...you were right Erik. It was stuck in the back behind the emergency ice cubes." Lex dug in, "Excellent, french vanilla!" He narrowed his eyes for a moment, and waved a quick gesture over their plates. The pie warmed suddenly, the ice cream chilling to compensate. "That's better. Y'know, when I was living on Earth before I met 'Raelf, I couldn't eat like this," he grinned. "I had to be really careful or I'd lose my definition." Erik was shocked. "You'd fall apart? That's terrible!" Lex spent the next hour trying to explain weight lifting. --OO--OO-- After dinner, Lex led Erik to Ale House, almost dragging him along the road in his eagerness to get there, bouncing up and down and jumping off of stairs and frightening the horses. Erik was reminded of a child on a sugar-high. Ale House was a strange bit of architecture. A broad, green lawn, with yellow-burning citronella torches to drive away the insects, lots of outdoor chairs and tables. A pair of strolling minstrels, doing some business among the groups seated outside. The house itself, an old building in a severe style, narrow, but with a wide front door, and high-peaked roof. It butted up against the sheer rock face of the hill behind it, where a long-ago catastrophe had removed a third of the hill. It almost perfectly defined the border between the more elegant Merchant's Hill district and the industry and commerce of the Port district. It was noisy inside the place. Lex waved at the doorman and the cuddlegirl behind the reception desk, and led Erik through the maze of tables to where the back wall would be, if the place really had one. The room opened up into a cavern, a stage on the far end, and game tables lined the walls. The noise mostly came from them, the sound of tiny bells and strange machinery, buzz, rattle, and hum from tiny illusions as they replayed their spiels. About twenty people were playing the machines, most of them from the Merchant classes. The tables had merchants as well, but more of them were outlanders, here for a little excitement and a visit to the cuddlecribs. And a number of sailors and dockworkers, but they were more at the card tables and the dice, than the machines or the big wheel. Erik noticed one woman in particular. She held a small pouch of silver coins that she fed into one of the buzzing and flashing machines as if she was in a trance. Her clothes were tattered and torn. She looked as if she hadn't been eating well. Erik guessed that the money in the pouch was all she had. He just couldn't shake the impression that she was someone's mother. "Those games are _not_ random," Erik muttered as an aside to Lex. "I know," he replied, eyes gleaming, "but they're fair." As Erik passed her, he purposely brushed the machine. His field of twisted probability affected it. Behind him, he could hear the woman's excitement and her shouts about "hitting the jackpot". As he turned back to see her, his heart sank. She collected all the silver, then fell back into her trance and fed the machine again. He looked away. At least she had been happy for a moment. "She's getting better," Lex whispered. "Used to sell herself, or her kids, in the streets to pay for the habit. Ale says she's been keeping the kids fed and off the street, and she's down to an hour a night." Erik looked askance at the woman. The bell sounded, and she sighed, and collected the remnant of her jackpot, then headed towards the door, sagging like a punctured balloon. The tables around the stage and catwalk weren't especially full, and Lex took Erik to one that was right next to the catwalk. "This is the best seat for when the band comes out." Almost as soon as they were seated, a good-looking young man in waiters' attire delivered drinks to their table -- an especially old and hoary mead that had a hint of fruit in it. "Wow, Lady Ale's going all out for you," Lex grinned. Erik frowned. "I don't understand." "She's got the cuddleboys waiting table for us." "This isn't usual?" "No, she usually has the cuddlegirls who are being trained work the tables. Most of the customers here are sailors, any male bonding they want to do happens on ship. They come here for girls, for a good time gambling and for the floor shows." "So where do the boys come in?" Erik smiled at the waiter who had come back with a bowl of crisped grain pancakes, cut into triangles, and a salsa similar to what they'd had the night before. The waiter was definitely trying to flirt with him. "There's a private club over by the river on the north side, where the ladies of quality go to get away from their husbands and lovers. It caters completely to their fantasies. Quite a change from the usual way things happen here -- women give up a lot of their rights when they marry." "Even the wealthy ones?" "Yeah, in some ways its worse for them." A pleasant silence settled over the table as the house lights dimmed briefly, signalling the coming performance. Erik was looking forward to the band. He had heard them play briefly on the Founder's Day and found their style of music to be refreshing, especially after hearing nothing but elven ballads for the past few hundred years. Erik turned to see that Lex was distracted. "What's the matter Lex? Something bothering you?" "No. Well, sort of. It's just that I'm not much of a romantic and I'm afraid that I'm going to screw something up...with us I mean." "I'm having a great time so far. Just relax. I'll tell you what. For now, we'll just do things that we both enjoy. No pressure. Okay?" Lex's mood brightened. "Deal. So, what do you want to do tomorrow?" "Let's get through tonight first ... I think the band's about to begin." The lights went down and the curtain went up. In the semi-darkness, Erik reached under the table and held Lex's hand. Lex smiled and moved their hands to the top of the table. The band started with a pure percussion set. They followed with an acapella rendition of an outland song, loosely translated, with Anna singing a breathy soul beat: "You can't hurry love, no you just have to wait ..." Before the song finished, the waiter delivered a note to the table. Lex read the note, and leaned over to whisper in Erik's ear. "Something's up ... wanna come see?" Erik nodded. They moved through the now-crowded room towards the hostess' desk. The hostess was still shaking a little from shock. "He came right up through here, I hit the bouncer button." She pointed to the center of the desk. "Who came up, Aralee?" Lex' voice was quiet and calming. "That halfling fellow, I saw him here last week talking to Lady Ale." "Krupp Faraway?" "Yes, that's him. Why doesn't Lady Ale come?" "She's probably busy right now," Lex replied, soothingly. "I'll handle the ghost, you take your break and calm down a bit. We'll get Lise to cover for you, ok?" "Thanks, Mister 'Raelf." The hostess followed the waiter to the back room while one of the girls from the floor came to her post at Lex's gesture. Lex led Erik through a back doorway, and down a long stone passage. The passage ended at a tee-intersection, and a room with iron bars at one end. Inside the room, in a glowing sphere, floated the transparent form of Krupp Faraway, Private Detective.