Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: aaron@gsb003.cs.ualberta.ca (Humphrey Aaron V) Subject: [MI] The return of Alfvaen Message-ID: Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1993 05:36:03 GMT Alfvaen woke up feeling like he'd been sleeping for weeks. He wasn't far wrong. He tried to remember what had been happening. Luthor had been giving him a tour of ShadeHaven. He was a bit fuzzy after that... something about feeling tired, and having to lie down... He looked around the room. The walls were made of living wood, as he remembered, but apart from that it was sparsely furnished. There was a large metal music-stand in one corner, though, which stood out from its surroundings. "Well, it's about time," the music stand said. Alfvaen blinked. He hadn't gotten drunk, had he? Or maybe drugged? The music stand seemed now to look like a miniature three-headed dog. "No, nothing like that. But you have been rather ill," the three-headed dog said. Shape-shifting. This struck a chord somewhere in Alfvaen's mind. Somewhere he'd been, talking to something which never stayed in one shape for more than a few seconds... The dog had turned into a large pole with a semicircle of peacock feathers at one end, like a huge fan. "Don't think too hard. It'll come to you. But when it does, don't say it out loud, whatever you do." The voice was familiar, too. It was slightly different, but had common elements in each form. (How did it even make noise as a fan, or as a music stand?) And then he had his answer. "Bloody gods," he said under his breath. "Alright, what the hell happened to me?" "Not too far off," Azpiazu said. (For indeed it was he. At this point he looked relatively human, a green-skinned man with a toga and a very, very long nose.) "Remember, it's only by virtue of my amulet that you're not riding around in the Happy Hunting Grounds or wherever you were bound at this very moment. And someone--a certain Demon Queen whose name we shouldn't mention anymore than mine--has managed to figure out a way to block my power on this dimension. "I'm not sure how, yet," the Trickster-God continued, in the form of a pup tent. "But, among other things, it severely damped the power supply to your amulet. You're lucky you only slipped into a coma, and didn't have your souls freed from the amulet entirely." Alfvaen suddenly realized he couldn't sense the other two souls at all. Elstree! he thought in panic. Then, with a little more effort, he could feel them. They were dormant, just as he had been. The grey-feathered wingless bird said, "I'm afraid at the moment I only have enough power to keep you awake, and that's only by this extreme proximity. Your companions will have to sleep for the nonce, I'm afraid, until this blockage is removed." "Alright, let's see if I get this straight. Lo--the Spider Bitch is blocking your power, which threw me into a coma until you came and waked me up. If I want to stay awake, I have to stay close to you. And you're going to try to figure out what the Eight-Legged Slut is doing to your power. Looks like I don't have much of a choice, do I?" "I'm afraid not," the god said from the center of a wheel marked with numbers in cold blue and green fire. "I mean, you can go back to sleeping if you want. But, to be frank, I need your help." "That just bloody figured, don't it," Alfvaen said. "Okay. Well, let's see what we can get for reinforcements, then. Do you have money? I mean, could you potentially generate some money?" "Hmmm..." The long string of sausages seemed lost in thought. "Moriarty and Co., you mean? That's a thought. It can look like a normal investigation." "With one drawback, of course," Alfvaen said as the god changed form yet again, into a lion with one head and three bodies. "What is that? Oh--you mean this. Well, I _can_ stop that. It may cut down on my energy, though, staying in one form. But I suppose otherwise we'd be too conspicuous." Azpiazu sighed. "The sacrifices I make." "A female form, perhaps," Alfvaen suggested. "The Demon Queen would be even less likely to suspect you then." "Good idea. Hmmm..." Azpiazu shifted into a small cardboard box. "I know! She's one of my worshipers on another plane, but our foe wouldn't have heard of her. I don't think she'd mind me using her form here." The god suddenly started shifting at an enormously rapid rate. Alfvaen looked away, shaken by some of the forms he'd seen. When he looked back, he saw a beautiful, 4' tall grey elf. "Call me Leaathal," she said. "Ummm...sure thing." "Shall we be off? I'm...eager to meet this Moriarty and what was that other fellow's name? Queriche? Yes." She licked her lips and left the room. Disconcerted, Alfvaen followed the god Azpiazu out of ShadeHaven. -- --Alfvaen(Editor of Communique) Current Album--Brian Eno:Taking Tiger Mountain(By Strategy) Current Read--Gary Zukav:The Dancing Wu Li Masters I regret that I cannot accompany you to the mating pits, as I lack an ovipositor