Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!chnews!ornews.intel.com!ibeam!hutch From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Subject: [GATM] [ELR] Get Ready, Get Steady... Message-ID: Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon References: <93223.093850ASG102@psuvm.psu.edu> Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 21:24:47 GMT Lines: 558 [ADMIN] This follows immediately after "Exposition Blues." Krupp is property of Rick Jones. Erik is property of The Dreamer. Ilya, A'Ree, El'n, and Lady Ale are property Penny Hutchison. Random new NPC's, and Lex, are my own. I've gotten some questions about where this fits into continuity. Since, as usual, continuity has been screwed up, consider it to be part of the temporal readjustments that are part of daily life in Generica (though seldom this drastic). Strictly speaking, this is happening on or around the day after folks return from the Unicorn Hunting Trip, and it's just a story, you should really just relax. 00==--0 Hunting time. Erik glanced over at Lex, who had put on a jet-black suit made out of something that felt almost like leather, only more stretchy. It covered his whole body, including his face, and it outlined him nicely, in a strange way, since it was absolutely light-absorbing, like Luthor's BLACK cloak. Like going around with a shadow. Lex had his black staff out too. Then they had gated into Low Town, near the Shunned Center. (Ready?) Lex said, with a peculiar hollowness -- Erik realized after a moment that he was sending his voice directly, not letting it vibrate the air between them. (Yes,) he replied, in the same manner. Interesting trick. (OK) A wisp of faerie fire, faintly purple and green, wafted off to the east, avoiding the Shun. Apparently the Br'Nai thing couldn't affect the Buff' dwellers, unsurprising really. They'd been fighting off a far nastier and more persistent entity for generations. Too bad the rest of Low Town didn't have their resistance... They moved like wind, in pursuit of the will-o-wisp as it sought its prey. Like wind in fact -- Erik pulled his GREY cloak around him, and melted into the fog, and Lex faded into a gust of sea breeze. The wisp paused, at one intersection, then vibrated indecisively. After a moment, it zipped into a building that appeared to be mostly dwellings, and it wandered down through a floor grating to the basement. A faint stirring of the dirt in the halls showed the breeze as it moved down as well. The purple and green glow vanished like a candle blown out, just inside the grating. The room was smallish, only big enough for a man of average height to stretch out in one direction. Whoever was renting this to the three children here, was barely doing them a favor. There wasn't a stair, just the grating and a ladder going up and down, and a small window with bars and no glass (of course no glass) that opened onto the alleyway. A candleholder, and a dirty wooden plate that they must have shared between them, and a few woven straw mats on the floor. No blankets. They huddled together for warmth. Except that today, big brother Jemmy wasn't here. Irdeth was huddled into the corner, crying, with bruises on her face. And Keena was playing with her doll, a pretty little purple and green harlequin. It was telling her fun things to do to Irdeth. Pinch her, it said, on the insides of her toes, hard, but not enough to bleed. When she gets mad, be nice to her for a few minutes until she doesn't suspect anything, then braid her hair REAL TIGHT... Irdeth had her fingers jammed into her ears and she was humming and crying. She had stopped asking for help from the gods that Jemmy used to say would help them because the harlequin doll made faces at her and laughed. So this morning she had woken up and said to herself, refusing to give up, "HELP COULD COME.." and it had sounded strange and echoey in the room, but nothing happened and then Keena started picking on her again. And now Irdeth couldn't talk because she had sharp things in her tongue from when Keena had made her a thistle salad for lunch and made her eat it all. Her eyes went wide when she saw the big black shadow appear in the room, and even wider when she saw the fog turn into a blond man in a GREY cloak. The shadow reached out _really fast_ with a big black stick it carried, and touched the doll with the end of it, and there was a bright black flash, and there was a shiny thing around the doll. And then Keena started screaming and thrashing around on the floor like Rikky Jevers did in the big storm when he got hit on the head by a ceiling tile. Rikky was really stupid now, but the priests had fixed his head so he didn't jump around and scream so much. Irdeth flinched back farther into her corner as the man in GREY whispered something really loud, "SHE COULD BE FREE OF ITS POWER" and then Keena started really acting weird, howling an' stuff. The GREY man looked really strict and his words still echoed around in the room, and Irdeth felt them grab hold in her and she said "SHE COULD" when they echoed around her again. Even though it hurt her tongue with the sticky things in it. And then Keena fell asleep just like that. The big black shadow pulled its head back, and it was just like a piece of cloth covering a real man's head. He smiled at Irdeth, and then looked at the GREY man. "Looks like you could have a pupil here." The GREY man nodded once. "Seems so. How's the other one?" "Shocky, but she should come out of it. We'll take her to the Hostel, the Sisters can help her and _it_ can't reach her there." "So did it work?" "Yeah. The doll's in perfect stasis. The power tendrils snapped back into someplace real close to the Shun." "Let's get going before it sends out a scout," the GREY man said. Meanwhile the big black shadow guy came over to where Irdeth was sitting and hunkered down in front of her. "Oh major dommage. Erik, look at this." He lifted Irdeth gently and showed the GREY man the little cuts and jabs that Keena had been making on Irdeth's back. Erik flinched. They spelled out in blood, "I love you, you love me, we're a happy family..." -- 00 -- Remember I said this place was strange? Well, it's worse than that. After last night, when Lex/'Raelf and Erik got back from their scouting run, they dragged me off to that Lighthouse that 'Raelf lives in -- looks like he's taking in strays, too. The satyr band from the Ale House, I guess it's fun having one of those around, but he has a little girl living there too, and a couple unicorns I met once at the Dragons' Inn, and a centaur kid and a paladin-in-training and a couple other odd folks .. I asked him if he was starting up a hotel or something and he just laughed. Anyway they dragged me upstairs to a big warehouse. I clammed up about it -- the lighthouse is a little two-story beehive, and this warehouse place was bigger than the fishmarket down at the docks. The place was full of wizard stuff -- Erik didn't seem to notice it but for some reason 'Raelf was putting some nasty-looking magic into a bunch of tabletops, surfboards he calls 'em. He says they fly like the those magic carpets from Calimshan, but his are much more "radical." All surrounded by this really queasy-making stuff, elemental matrix, he called it. He led us over to a workbench in the middle of this factory of his, and had me sit on a highchair. Then he and Erik got into this long discussion full of words like probable outcome spike and conditional transfer and catastrophe wave and strange attractor. They knew about strange attractions, I guess. Anyway he did some stuff with a yellow ray that tickled all over, inside and out, and went away for a few minutes leaving me and Erik to make small talk. I was nervous. Sure, who wouldn't be with a couple of wizards (who in my mind were too busy drooling over each other to be making serious magic) about to cast a hodaddy of a spell on you. They said it wouldn't hurt a bit. Yeah. Tell me another one. "H'okay, Krupp. It's ready," said Lex. "Step over here so we can fit it for you." He gestured towards a spot in the center of the workspace with a little raised platfrom. I stood up on it. "So, what's it going to do?" I asked. No I wasn't nervous. Nope. Not me. "Well, without getting too technical," said Lex. Riiiight. "It's going to ward away godcallers' ability to drain away your power. Ghosts are kind of like lighting, and clerics are lightning rods. A ground fault intervener will keep the lightning rod from grounding you. Now, you're going to be facing down a godling, which is going to put lots of strain on it. But don't worry, it probably won't break down under all that stress." "Probably?" I asked. 'Probably' was not a word I wanted to hear. "Don't worry," added Erik. "I deal in 'Probably' all the time. It could hold. (IT COULD HOLD)" Why did this fail to inspire my confidence in this whole affair? "Now stay still," cautioned 'Raelf. "Here, you can watch." <> A three-way mirror, like the kind in Uptown clothiers appeared before me. <> Our images flickered and resolved into spiderwebs of energy. 'Raelf's was a mess, a sort of human-shaped blob that outlined his body but inside, it was just scribbling, like if a kid went at a wall with a piece of black chalk. Only this was sea-green chalk. It reminded me of this crazy street artist named Shawn Kovitsh that used to hang around the travelling market -- guy made the ugliest scribbles, used to call them "caricatures." Eventually got killed by one of his fans. Anyway I couldn't make sense out of it. The outside of Erik's web matched his real outline perfectly, but the inner strands seemed to be in constant motion. They moved in random directions, elongating, shortening, disappearing, forming, connecting, and detaching without an apparent pattern. Yet there was a subtle grace and balance to the motion. It was like watching the dance of a million couples, each moving differently, but to the same tune. But what was confusing to me was "me." I was a "me-shaped" network of pale energy, with several loose tendrils of floating freely. "Like what you see, dude?" "Um, what is it?" "It's you. That's what you look like on the <> etherbands. Those loose tendrils need to get tied off. And that's what this," he pulled out a spiderweb about my size, "is for. Now hold still while I fit it to you." While I tried not to fidget, Lex and Erik started the ticklish job of attaching the spiderweb to my loose ends. When they got done, I felt kind of like when I was a kid going to Holy Day services with my wrinkly old aunts and uncles. Sort of like my underwear was too tight. But then Lex did something real strange -- he pulled some kind of a cross out of a pocket of his shorts, and touched it to me. Nothing happened, just a sort of a low-pitched hum. "Works," he said, "beautifully. Now, we got some more stuff to do that's all ritual. And we can do it here." Well, the first thing he wanted me to do was take off all my clothes. "I'm a ghost, Lex. Even I figured that part out. I don't _wear_ clothes, it says so in that book you got for me. I just look like I'm wearing clothes because I'm used to it." "The idea's the thing, Krupp," Lex said seriously, "ritual magic relies on ideas to make it take shape." I shrugged. Bein' naked in a wizard's workshop is not my idea of a reassuring time. I took off my hat and set it on the chair, and it stayed there. So I shrugged again, and took off my trenchcoat, that I didn't even take off with the Bildurbom sisters, and eventually got down to naked. I felt stupid, which was fine, and cold, which was stupid. I'm dead, I can't _get_ cold. Lex pulled out this copper pot and two paintbrushes and he and Erik started painting me with the stuff, then Lex started singing. " What's the use of wearing braces, Hats or spats or shoes with laces, Vests and pants you buy in places Down on Brompton Road? What's the use of shirts of cotton, Studs that always get forgotten? These affairs are simply rotten - Better far is woad. Woad's the stuff to show men, Woad to scare your foemen. Boil it to a brilliant blue And rub it on your legs and your abdomen. Ancient Britons never hit on Anything as good as woad to fit on Neck or knees or where you sit on - Tailors, you be blowed! Romans came across the channel All dressed up in tin and flannel; Half a pint of woad per man'll Clothe us more than these. Saxons, you may save your stitches, Building beds for bugs in britches; We have woad to clothe us which is Not a nest for fleas. Romans, keep your armors, Saxons, your pajamas; Hairy coats were made for goats, Gorillas, yaks, retriever dogs and llamas. March on Snowdon with your woad on Never mind if you get rained or snowed on, Never need a button sewed on, Woad for us today! " That's it. I knew they'd cracked, and I still felt stupid. And blue. They painted me blue. Erik was laughing like a hyena. "Let's paint you next," he kept saying to Lex, and they almost did, but fortunately there wasn't time for that. I was dry, so I went back over to the chair and got my clothes. They were starting to melt already -- ectoplasm does that when you leave it lying around. They shaped up though, after a few seconds, and I got dressed again. I would have been red as a beet from this if I wasn't painted blue. Lex got out one of his toys, the one that made pictures in the air, and they did some other boring stuff with candles and Lex feeding me a cookie made with dragons' blood (and how a ghost can eat a cookie you do NOT want to know about) and Erik did lots of that hollow-voice stuff that he and Luthor do. I didn't feel any different though. When we were all done, I got a glimpse in the mirror that Lex set up earlier. Looked like I had this transparent armor all over me, but it faded out when Lex told the mirror to just show normal stuff. Weird, but I wasn't even blue, in the mirror, and Lex and Erik had blue stains all over their hands from doing my paint job earlier. Lex was all for going after this "Br'Nai" thing right then, but Erik said we better wait and make plans, which was Jake by me. So we went off to find Lex's mirror-chick. === "So we need a plan," Lex said, dumping the hot water out of the pot into a bucket. "A real plan, none of this ad-hoc garbage." He tossed a handful of dried ground black leaves into the pot and immediately poured scalding-hot water in after it. "What are we facing?" Erik walked up behind Lex and wrapped his arms around his companion's waist. The steam from the brewing tea flowed toward him; it's pleasant bitter-sweet smell caused him to arch an eyebrow in interest. "As far as we can tell, it's the last of the fake gods that the ReaverChild made up. I know my explanation to Krupp wasn't too clear." The third man at the table was a youngish fellow with white-blonde hair and a short beard. He looked sideways at the ghost sitting next to him. "He does that. He can make the simplest subject obscure." "I thought it was just because he's a wizard," Krupp said. "Oh, not all of us are that bad. 'Raelf just likes to hear himself yowl." Krupp snickered to himself. Lex raised an eyebrow at the bearded man. "Sure, Ilya, and you don't." He produced a strainer with a flourish and poured from the pot into three cups, and a little onto a flat dish. The leaves filtered, he lifted the flat dish, let the tea swing around it once, and set it before Krupp. "Old Ardelian custom, always offer a saucer of whatever you're drinking to the ghosts before you drink. Cheers, Krupp." He wrapped a hand around his cup and lifted it, unconcerned by the heat. Erik cooled his mug by willing a slight breeze into existence, and Ilya simply levitated his cup. After a sip they pronounced the tea worthy, and Ilya began to draw a picture in the air before them, his hands leaving glowing lines. "The doll that you two retrieved is a kind of religious fetish, like the holy symbol of a priest, or the usual household shrine. It's major difference is that the god has more than just a ready ear to the doll, it also sends some of its power into it, giving it a stronger attraction to its prey. And that prey is young children. It feeds on their need for love, and encourages them to become dependant on itself." "Have you figured out why it only feeds on children?" Erik asked. "I think so," Lex said. "It was built as a sort of anti-sexual thing, having qualities of male and female while it isn't really either. It uses those qualities to lure the children to it." "And so once someone hits puberty," Erik said, "They're pretty much immune to it? That doesn't seem likely." "Oh no," Ilya hastened. "Not at all. But most younglings, once they get of an age for sex, are eager to try it out, and the lure loses its potency in the face of something more real. It's only the ones who are afraid of it, or who have been injured in body or spirit, that the lure can still attract. The ones who have innocence, or a good substitute." Krupp sort of growled to himself. "You say it makes them go bad?" "It tells them that it's their friend, and then it gets them to do things. First, simple stuff, just bad behavior. Then it gets into the nastier stuff, lying, stealing, hurting things that are weaker. Once it's got its hooks into their spirits, it seems to have more than one path it can take. Either it will summon them to its temple, on the edge of the Shunned Center, or it will have them recruit other children. It doesn't just feed on their love and worship, it also eats the torment of the things they hurt." Ilya blinked and sipped his tea. Krupp looked faintly nauseated, but thoughtful. "So we have to hit it where it lives." "Right, Kruppmeister. So, I'm telling brother-mine 'Raelf to go off and let the Guild know what we're planning. I don't think they'll do a lot to help, but they might be there to pick up the pieces if we don't pull this off." "What about the priests? Don't they have somethin' to say about this kind of thing?" Krupp fretted at his plate of tea, making tiny concentric rings appear in the surface of the liquid. "El'n is preparing for that right now," Ilya replied calmly. "She will begin a ritual at moonrise which will prevent any more of the dolls from bespeaking new children. At that time, we need to distract the B' thing, to lure it to a place where it will face the judgement of the other gods and powers. Father Howard is even now collecting those priests whose faith was most powerful in warding the innocents from the great Storm." "I don't even wanna know how you're doin' all that," Krupp said resentfully. "Well," Ilya smiled, "I _did_ have a small glass of the Porter this morning, and you've seen how that affects me." Krupp winced. "Oh, yeah." Ilya continued. "We must lead the entity to the Avenue of Unforgotten Heroes, halfway between Dragon Way and the South Gate. The priests will be waiting there, to destroy it at sunrise." "We'll need you to approach the B' thing's base, probably from the sewers or something," Lex said. "We'll know a bit better once Ilya finishes his map. With the protections we've given you, it seems like you'll be able to at least annoy the thing until it comes out into the open, and we can drain away its power." "But won't it be getting power from all the kids it's been giving those dolls to? It killed them, to get power." Krupp frowned at the memory of his abortive attack on that "Korok" kid, the one that was acting like a priest. Lex turned to Erik, who interrupted before he could even speak. "I _will_ be going along," he said. "We need to cut the lines of power off, and I'm convinced that we'll both be needed." "I know," Lex said sadly, "but I don't like putting you in danger, Erik. I'm getting inordinately fond of you." "Let's not rush things too fast," Erik replied, "remember? And I'm the one putting me in danger." Lex blushed. "Sorry. You're right. So we better get ready for this business tonight. Your regular protections are good, but we should double up, get some spellwards on you and some Shadows on me." "Right. So do you want me to paint you blue first, or vice versa?" Erik wiggled his eyebrows playfully. "That's probably a good idea," Lex said, "I was thinking of something more amulet-style, but we know the woad works well with your Shadow working, and it'll take less time. And it's fun. Meanwhile, Big Bro 'Raelf is working on a ghostbuster zapgun for the dolls." He noticed Krupp's confused expression and sighed, "No, it's not what you think it is. I hope." Ilya finished his sketch-in-the-air. It was a map of Generica, with faint red lines streaming around it, and it looked very familiar. "That's my probability map," Erik said, wonderingly. "It almost _is_ that," Ilya replied. "It's an illusionary simulacrum of your device, I've crafted it using a tiny bit of red-spider silk off the lining of your shirt, and the magical principle of similarity. It's simply showing us an image of what your device shows right now." The ripples showed a strange flatness, surrounding an area in Low Town near the Shunned Center. Beyond that, there were small areas where the normal curves flattened out, scattered through town. "Each of those spots seems to correspond to a place where the godling has been feeding on the children. Note that it forms the lines of a chaon star?" "What's that," Krupp asked. Lex and Erik both started to answer at once: "A sort of... No, you go ahead ... That's ok..." Finally Erik grinned and traced the invisible lines for Krupp. "It's a shape, strongly representative of the forces of chaos. It can be used to summon entities from the realms of power, once it's been completed. This one isn't finished yet." "Naturally," said Krupp, smirking. "What _else_ could it be?" "And you take them apart," Lex said, "By starting HERE," and he pointed to a flat spot on the map, "and going outward in a spiral. That will keep any power from flowing back to the focus of the chaon." "Then you'd best get ready," Ilya said. "The moon rises in two hours." They left the room, and Ilya turned to Krupp. "Now your best bet is to go in through here or here..." ==== The very early morning quiet was disturbed by the clopping of a warsteed's hooves, and the jingling of a warrior's armor. If anyone had been brave enough to draw near, they might have heard the following. -- No. I don't want to! <> -- Great. I have no problem with that, as long as there's no spurs involved. <> -- I am NOT going to be a shetland pony. Nu-uh, no way Jose! <> -- Absolutely not. Ponies are ugly and smelly and shaggy and stupid. <> -- Why, I oughta... <> They drew to a stop in front of Ale House. Without dismounting, the warrior shook a bit, and a black-haired, exotically dressed woman suddenly stood besides the horse. She took out a long black cigarette holder with an already-lit cigarette from her beaded hand-bag. She drew in its smoke with a sigh and it curled out of her nostrils delicately. "This mode of transport does my image little good." "Ask me if I care, Ale," the warrior dryly replied. "You know what needs to be done." "I have my own affairs to attend to. I will do what is necessary, no more." -- Oh, is the great Lady Ale about to bestow her largesse upon us lowly ...Hack! Huruf-hack hack! -- the warsteed muttered, then coughed as Ale, her lips curving, blew smoke into the horse's face. With a wave, Ale turned and glided towards one of her secret entrances into the House. The warrior shook her head as she turned the steed's head towards the inner Low City. "You know better than to bait her like that," she admonished her mount. Lips lifted in an equine grin, -- Call it a weakness! They only had to travel a few city blocks towards their final destination, but it was as different from the neighborhood of Ale House as if it had been separated by miles. The West Side Hostel catered to a different clientele, and met entirely different needs. A'ree dismounted and looked about carefully. Seeing no-one around (at least, no one threatening), she and her mount shivered and became an austere woman of holy orders and her acolyte. A touch on the locked door, and it sprang open. "Good morning, Janis", the priestess greeted the door guardian, gently touching her cheek with her hand. Janis straightened, blinked and smiled. "Be at peace, may your meditations serve you as rest," El'n said, and Janis curtesied thanks, the fatigue falling off of her. "Good morning, Sister El'n. All's well." "I know I can always count on you. Are the sisters gathered?" "Yes, ma'm. They await in the main chapel as instructed." El'n nodded in acknowledgement and continued through the building. She stepped over the toys and odd stuffed dragon scattered across the floor and had a greeting for all who came into her sight. It was only a few hours before sunrise, and a handful of residents were awake, preparing the breakfasts and beginning the baking for the day. " 'Morning, Lynn, how are Joel and Tari? Be careful, Tad, you'll hurt yourself if you don't look where you're running. Kizzi, are you using the ointment I gave you? Let me check your bandages later." She finally reached the archway that opened onto the main chapel. The room was austere, a row of six benches with padded kneelers in front of them, facing a raised floor on which a bare stone altar was placed, a single flame burning in a lamp on the altar. To the side, down from the dias, was a podium holding a book of prayers. Seated on the benches, the seven sisters of her newly-developed Order awaited her. El'n looked fondly on them for a moment. From 83-year old Dezra to the youngest, little Taryn with only fourteen summers in her dish, they were dedicated to their Order and to the Founder of the same, and all had unique gifts that she looked forward to developing. Her acolyte took her place among them, and El'n moved behind the podium. She opened the book and read. "May the Powers who protect and guide strive on our behalf, and may our actions here help bring the Light into the darkness which we face." She closed the book and stepped down to the floor, and gathered them all with her eyes and spoke. "My daughters, we have a problem. A large purple and green problem!"