Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: cyoung@ccmailpc.ctron.com Subject: [Fate]Power of the Press Message-ID: Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1993 19:53:48 GMT [ADMIN] This is posted for Chris Young (who still has read-only access). ---- Blown glass bottles rest upon a shelf of an oaken display. Inside their fragile shells amber and brown liquids sit placidly undisturbed. The penned labels on the side of the containers shine dully from the candle light above and also from a more pale steady light directly upon them. The light illuminates dust motes carelessly wandering the air, dancing across the slightest thermal disturbance. The source of the light, a dull black lantern hangs, swinging slightly two and fro, from a hook attached to the top most iron band of a shod staff. A dark elf, sitting upon a wooden stool has his back to the bottles and his elbows on the bar behind him. He casts a glance at the light playing off the dusty bottles, but chooses to ignore their hypnotic sheen. To him all the bottles appear half empty. In his hands he holds the latest printing of the local newsrag, "The Examiner". His frown unmoving as his eyes dart back and forth over the lettering. Finally he leans away from the bar and folds the newspaper in half. Taking up his staff that was acting as his only companion he drops the paper onto the bar and heads out of the inn. The paper on the bar is opened to an article about the Mage's Guild. The Elf's dark leather boots stopped on the cobblestones. He raised his eyes skyward and shifted his grip on his staff. Above was a torment to the mind. A building that demanded to fall upon itself. Archways too spidery thin to support the people that traversed them from one mysterious tower to another. Extensions protruding far out into the air that showed no support for their enormous bulk. The whole edifice, constucted from many different kinds of strange stone still had yet a regimented and scholarly appearance to it. It seemed to laugh at those looking upon it as it stated its exclusive superiority to the mundane buildings surrounding it. The Elf removed his lantern from the hook on his staff and angled one of its lenses at the foreboding structure, though it was full daylight. The light caught on the buildings strange portal, constructed from glass and metal and resting in a cylindrical opening. A man behind a pushcart did not stop his march but looked inquisitively at the strange elf's back. The Elf lowered his lantern and slowly walked off in the direction the cart had come. The man shrugged and kept moving.