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Organization: Central Michigan University
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:12:53 EDT
From: Michael Sander <344LWKC@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
Message-ID: <93242.141253344LWKC@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: Re: [MG] The Great Outside
Lines: 215

[ADMIN: It's been a bit since I've posted, due to a "vacation".  However,
before I left, I let slip a post that wasn't finished, or even logically
error-free.  This is a group effort by The Dreamer, Penny&Steve Hutchison,
and I, to try to salvage things.  Please note that as far as the sake of
timelines, this happens during the early to mid stages of the OFFER thread.]

>Soon after, night began to fall, and Lancos showed Little Rat how to put
>up a tent, and explained to her its benefits.  He set up a campfire nearby,
>tied up the horse for the night, and set up blanket and pillows inside the
>small structure.  He tucked in Little Rat with care, and watched as she and
>Bast began to drift asleep.

The fire turned green.  It blinked huge gold eyes at him.

"Lancos, wake up!"  it said, somewhat rudely.

Lancos blinked his eyes at the sound.  The scene shifted before him, making
him feel a bit dizzy, and causing him to close his eyes again.

<<WAKE UP!>>

That refocused his attention, and he reopened his eyes.  He found himself
sitting up in the forest, with Bast curled up at his feet.  Little Rat was
nowhere to be seen.

'Raf was standing where the fire was supposed to be.

Lancos came completely awake, realizing from the position of the sun
that it was late afternoon.

"Are you planning to sleep around the clock?"  'Raf grinned and scratched
Bast under the chin, as she came over and started investigating him politely.

"Uh, no.  I ..." He paused, the surroundings a bit suprising to him, "Oh,
yeah.  This is the room you loaned me."

"Right.  And it's mid-afternoon.  Didn't you want to talk to the Rat?"

"I thought I already did that."

"I'll let you in on a secret, Lancos.  You did."

"What are you talking about?  If that's true, how'd we get here?"

"Buddy, you were a walking space case.  You've been four days without
much sleep at all, and you really thought it was OK for you to take a
little girl who's never been outside the city walls for a four-day overnight
trip without consulting her guardians... You didn't even remember your
manners enough to say hi to ar'Elya, and she'd been looking forward to
talking to you."

Lancos shook his head.  "Would have?  Didn't?  That was all a dream, right?"

"It was now."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, remember that nice long horse ride you took the Rat on?"

"Clearer than most things."

"How long was your first horseback ride?"

"Oh, about ... a half hour, why?"

"You had her on horseback the first day for at least ten hours."

"Ten hours?  But,"  The warrior couldn't believe his ears.  He remembered
in his youth, trying to learn to ride.  He had spent three days without
riding, because of the sheer pain in his thighs, from learning how to
support himself, how to use the spring of his legs to even out the uneven
rolling motion of the horse.  He remembered his first saddlesores.
He winced.

"Yeah.  Saddlesores.  The whole inside of both legs was rubbed raw.
Bleeding, seeping wounds.  Then there were the bruises from the staff
practice the next day.  I know, in your dream it was the same day."

"But, I don't remember her expressing any pain."

"She wouldn't.  Lancos, listen to me.  The Little Rat has been raised
here in the Low City.  She has no family.  The only touch she's used
to is the slap of a hand across her face or the crunch of a fist into
her stomach.  Pain and injury are weaknesses to her, and she _knows_
that if she admits to them, she might as well be dead right then.  There
was no way she'd tell you about the saddlesores, or about how afraid she
was -- she didn't sleep that first night, she lay there pretending so
that you wouldn't know she was hurting.  She trusts you, I have no idea
why, but she does.  She sees you as some kind of a shining knight, and I
intend to make sure you live up to that ideal."

Lancos sighed.  "I don't know what to say.  It's like what happened after
I regained control of myself from the medallion.  Everything seems more
like a dream than reality, even when you bring it up."

"Some of that's because it didn't really happen.  We tracked you down.
Remember, you talked to Lex -- he knew you were in pretty ragged
shape and that you were not stupid enough to take the Rat out of
town with insufficient sleep.  He figured you were going to rest
and talk to someone else first.  The man's been working very hard
not to pry into people's brains, and he honestly didn't know that
you were really planning to leave this morning."

"Yeah, I remember that, but I _still_ don't quite recall what happened."

"You were in the woods, you fell asleep, Rat was awake.  That leopard
you'd seen earlier was following you.  It didn't care what it got,
either Rat or you, or Bast.  It got Bast, though -- Rat was able to keep
it from getting too close to her.  It did claw her arm pretty bad."

Lancos could barely contain his shock.  "But I'm usually a fairly light
sleeper.  Didn't I wake up before that?"

"Not even.  When Raye and I managed to track you to where you were, the
Rat was guarding you.  By the way, you're damned hard to find.  Is that
on purpose?  We finally made a spell locator for the Rat, instead, but
that took more time, and with the differential it was a whole extra
day out there.  Anyway, when I woke you up and you saw what had
happened, you told me that you wished it hadn't ever happened.  That
was your Heart's Desire.  So I granted it.  I came back here, to this
morning, and kept you from waking up -- the timeline where you and the
Rat went on that trip didn't really happen.  I've left you the memories
though, as a dream.

"I think I remember bits of that.  But _why_ would all this happen?; it
doesn't sound like me.  I wouldn't do anything that might risk Little
Rat getting hurt.  And I've never let lack of sleep affect me _that_
badly before."

"Well, you told me everything that happened, including your whole fight
with that BBD fellow.  What is that for, anyway, 'Big Bad Dude'?"  He
grinned at Lancos' expression.  "So, you remember your companions told
you about how this BBD wanker cast spells at them to help his side?
Well, we figured he did the same to you; some kind of a compulsion thing
that distorted your judgement."

"But wouldn't I have a good chance of blocking it?  And didn't you inspect
me for changes?"

"Well, you did block it, until you went to sleep, dude.  And we got rid of
all the traces before I woke you up.  As for checking you for changes,
well," 'Raf paused, looking almost embarrassed, "Well, I was mainly looking
for my own work.  I made the same mistake with Kadrys, not looking deep
enough.  Anyway, I had to look through my travel archives for the scans
from when we were going into the Plane of Dread.  I haven't done a full
scan of you since then."

Lancos was speechless.  He didn't like the idea that BBD had tampered with
his mind.  To him, this meant BBD might have returned, no doubt trying to
take over Generica again, and he didn't relish the thought.  Finally, he
softly choked out, "I... I'm sorry.  I guess I owe you again, for another
huge mistake."

"You said something like that then, too.  ar'Elya and I forgave you then,
because it wasn't your fault, and it _didn't happen_ now.  So there's
no debt, except maybe for fixing the spell, which you will repay us by
being our guest at dinner and making charming conversation."

'Raf shook his mane out, pulling a twig loose from where it had snagged.
"I hope we don't have to do this again.  The amount of power it took to
keep it from turning into a timefork where both things happened -- I'm
just lucky the local timefield is as loose as it is."

Lancos sighed again.  "One last question, then.  The parts about Little
Rat caring for me, and my debt with Kadrys being settled... those were
true, right?"

"Of course.  You can have the same conversation with the Rat later on,
if you want.  Like I said, she admires you and sees you as a shining
knight.  We don't want that image to be tarnished."

'Raf yawned, elaborately, showing sharp teeth.  "Of course, we'd like
to discuss the trip with you first, since the Rat does view us kind of
as elders.  You'll want to know what conditions we've placed on your
taking our charge outside city walls.  Nothing onerous, just some
safety precautions.  The kid's amazingly tough but she's also pretty
fragile.  And I have no idea where Kadrys is, but trust me, he considers
the debt settled, he's kind of peeved that you keep bringing it up."

'Raf grinned again at Lancos' slightly sour expression.  "One more thing."

"Yeah?"  Lancos wasn't sure whether he wanted to hear this.

"I've been teaching the Rat unarmed combat, but she doesn't know it as
such.  She isn't really ready for unsupervised staff sparring.  Where I
was taught combat, it was considered extremely poor manners for one
teacher to interfere with another's students.  I know you plan to try
teaching the Rat some combat tricks.  The best way to do that is to let
her learn at her own rate.  I've been teaching her techniques that will
make it possible for her to use just about any kind of weapon, as needed,
or to improvise from what's at hand, but if she learns a specific weapon
outside my training she's likely to become dependent on that, and I'd
have to take a lot of time untraining it.  However, if you want to spar,
I'm more than happy to have another partner.  My current batch are kind
of boring -- I know them as well as I know myself."

He smiled.  "Except for Kardia.  She's not boring."

"I didn't know you were teaching Little Rat, either." The warrior replied.
"It's true I planned to do so myself, but I won't intrude on what you're
doing.  I _would_ enjoy some sparring, though, with you and whomever else
you wish.  I probably need it to keep in form, and I'd like to see a bit
of what you're doing with the Little Rat."

'Raf smiled.  "We always have practice before dinner.  How about you grab
a bit of fruit, hit the shower, and go have your talk.  Dinner's gonna
happen pretty soon, and we can discuss the details of the trip then."
He picked up Lancos' clothing and armor from its neatly folded pile on
a nearby log.  It looked new, no scuffs or dings, freshly cleaned.

Lancos nodded, grabbing his things, and went of to follow 'Raf's advice.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Love and Peace and Retcons,
Michael Sander 344lwkc@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu