Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!xlink.net!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!stepsun.uni-kl.de!sun.rhrk.uni-kl.de!physik.uni-kl.de!kring From: kring@physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring) Subject: [Welcome] BT: Nobody Leave The Cave! Message-ID: <1993Oct19.040224.27740@rhrk.uni-kl.de> Sender: news@rhrk.uni-kl.de Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 04:02:24 GMT Lines: 244 ADMIN: This won't take much longer. I hope to finish it this week or next week. Sorry for the long pause, but I only have ideas when nobody is around, and this computer room is crowded by at least one person (beside me) most of the time... If you want earlier parts of the story, here are the titles: Dungeon Crawling For Beginners (3 parts) The Case Of The Perigeic Carpenter (2 parts) Lots Of Things Get Pinched (3 parts) Miscellaneous New Aspects (2 parts) A Few Fights The Smithy Gullbong The Serpentines A Hectic Evening In A Boring Village Getting To Know The Generality (2 parts) Making A Plan The Battle Quarrels Nobody Leave The Cave! The Dragon Of Eraton The Chain Of Change The Good, The Bad, And The Pig-Faced (not yet written) and a few more to come... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bakr's Tales: Nobody Leave The Cave! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADMIN: Bakr is out hunting a dragon, together with eight other adventurers, seven locals, and a few local brigands. Unfortunately the most competent member of the party, the Xan priest Jelay Yelay, was murdered in the night before the confrontation, when everybody except an unknown person was sleeping. This follows "Quarrels". After a while of standing around dumbfounded, suspicions started flying. Ormgwen got a lot of heat for sleeping on guard, and his heat protection pendant didn't protect him this time. Sir Arni remembered that Ziemi the dwarf had had secret business with the old priest before we went to sleep. Ziemi got angry and refused to tell anybody what they had talked about. He pointed out that he, as opposed to the knight himself, hadn't had a grudge against the deceased. Now Sir Arni got angry and pointed out that the priest had been stupid - casting noisy spells like fireballs and lightning in a forest infested by a dragon - but killing the priest would have been even more stupid for anybody who wanted to survive the encounter with the dragon, for he had been the only competent magic user in the party. He had a point there. Almes, the local priest, suggested that the murderer must then be somebody who wouldn't meet the dragon. One of the brigands, for example. Elpenor the conjurer protested on behalf of his cronies, emphasizing that the dragon was not good for business and that any brigand who hindered the killing of the beast had to be possessed by a demon or something. This argument turned out to be a boomerang. Now he was suspected of letting dangerous demons run loose. "To prove that this accusation is baseless I will now conjure a few Kaligins for your help. You'll see that demons are too much work to waste them by 'letting them run loose'!" he exclaimed and started putting on all sorts of special clothing, amulets and other gimmicks. Sir Arni said something. "He's right," translated Rhald. "We should first destroy the dragon, it's more important. We can investigate Jelay's death afterwards. Go on, conjurer." Elpenor didn't need to be encouraged. He was already drawing a hexagram on the ground of the cave. ----- Compass tipped me on the shoulder. "Can you help me for a moment?" He led me to Jelay's body in the back of the cave, where Caramon sat wagging his tail. "He doesn't understand me. I want him to sniff at the dagger and find the killer." "Good idea!" "Can you, uh, borrow him and sniff in his place?" "Borrow?" "Take him over. What you did with that robin. And the giant rat that fell into the pit." "Borrowing. That's a good word for it, and it's a good idea too. I'll try." So I kneeled and touched the dog - I think it's easier that way although such a connection is not mentioned by any books or mages I know of, and maybe I'm fooling myself - and borrowed him. Through Caramon's eyes I saw Bakr hugging myself and staring soullessly into the distance, for his soul was in my body now. Sometimes one realizes, especially if one is a magician, that there are things that defy grammatics... I wriggled out of his arms and sniffed at the dagger protruding from the old priest's lifeless body. I knew the smell, or rather, Caramon knew it, but I couldn't place it. No - there were two human smells, one of them more intensive and fresher. Again language fails me, for those who invented speech didn't think of the case of people using the nose of a dog. But there were two persons involved in this dagger. Besides that it smelt of steel and wood and leather, as should be expected. So I trotted to the others who were watching Elpenor chanting and dancing around the hexagram in which he had deposited a morningstar. I smelt at Sir Arni - nothing. Rhald - no. Preg, Fulfur - nothing. Astron - no. Jockel! That was it. I was sure that Jockel Rytold had been the last person who had touched the weapon. He looked down at me and smiled weakly, as if something plagued him. I wagged my tail and hackled. He tickled my neck. It was quite a pleasant feeling, though I'd rather be Bakr and tickle myself. But now I had a few things to do. I licked the healer's hand - yes, that was the very hand that had held the dagger. It tasted of dagger and of the second person, and of Jelay. I gave Jockel a melting look and went on, looking for the second man. No, smelling for him. Mnogiatzes - no. Kalamatas - no. Tarik? No. Ormgwen - no. "Hello dog." I snarled. One has to keep in character... "Stupid tyke!" The hermit - no. Oops, the hermit hadn't been there before. He must have come after I left the front of the cave. Ziemi - no. Baros. Aha. That was the owner of the dagger. The smith was white in the face and stared into the distance. He looked entirely like a smith who just woke up and found his dagger sticking in a priest he knew only casually. From below I could see that the sheath at his belt was empty. I gave it a sniff. Yes, it was his. Caramon's job was done, and I returned his body. Compass stood at my side and gazed at the dog. I stood up, tickling my neck, and he turned around. "Him? The smith?" I shook my head. "Jockel. But it's Baros's dagger." "The healer? He did act oddly... but he never showed any inclination to - violence!" I shrugged. "He is definitely the culprit." "What shall we do?" "We will need Jockel after the fight, especially since the old priest is dead. Almes and me won't be enough for healing the whole party." "So we probably should... watch him?" "That's what I'd say." Pause. "I have no idea why he did it." "Neither do I." We joined the others. Baros scratched Caramon's neck absent-mindedly. ----- After what seemed a really long time the conjurer stopped dancing. He straddled and gestured and looked tense. In a cloud of dust a large creature appeared in the hexagram. It was abominable. Three metres high and shaped like a sack. The lower two thirds didn't have any features except two very short and thick legs. They were just long enough to enable them to be bent, and they were bent. Flat feet it had, like beavers' tails. The top part was conical, and this Kaligin, other than the three others we had seen the day before, didn't use its chest for bearing the face but had a real head. But it obviously didn't see much sense in having a neck. "Face" is defined loosely here. Everything you need for a face was there, and it was also in the right place, but it lacked symmetry. The right eye, as big as a human hand, glowing yellow, without pupil and surrounded by a bulge reminiscent of a gnarly root. The left eye, the size of a human eye, glowing yellow, without pupil and surrounded by a black rim. The nostrils had different sizes too. Even the right tooth was bigger than the three left ones. The right side of the upper lip, which was in shreds, tried its best to cover it, but the best was not good enough. The only facial features that were the same size on both sides, about that of a child's hands, were the antlers standing from the sides of the head. Or maybe they were ears. It had short thick arms close to the head, with two thick fingers at the end of each and claws at the ends of those. The hide was dark grey with a touch of pink, and a few long hairs grew on it in safe distance from each other. In short - the beast was fascinating. It tried to leave the hexagram but bounced as from an invisible wall. It tried again and trampled on the morningstar. With difficulties it retracted its belly and looked down to its feet. After finding the weapon it shrank, at the same time getting thicker until its bulk took the form of a hexagonal prism. No, that didn't work. It grew tall and thin again, well, not exactly thin but thinner than before, then bent over, grabbed the morningstar, and erected its head. Then the top part turned abruptly to the conjurer, leaving the lower part in an odd distortion. Conjurer and demon stared at each other. Duel. Tension. Sweat. Mind. Power? Aggression. Magic? Aggression. Control? Aggression. Control? Aggression. Control? Obedience. Conjurer and demon relaxed. The Kaligin stepped out of the hexagram and waddled to the back of the cave, shrinking and extending, for the ceiling got lower. There it stood at the wall. Everybody followed it with the eyes, and we saw that Fulfur was there too, stooped over Jelay's body. He turned and, after letting the demon pass, which avoided him with a disgusted look, said, "He has lots of things on him. Probably many of them magic. We should divide them among us. I think he would have wanted it that way." I doubted that he would have wanted to part with his sandals. They looked quite ordinary. But who knows? Elpenor was chanting again. ----- Fulfur had dice with him (I had never seen dice like that, they had ten or even twenty sides) and they decided who should chose first from the priest's possessions. There were twelve potions three of which Almes identified as holy water. Jockel found that there were only three healing potions, though strong ones, and five against exhaustion. One was unknown. Tarik got the unknown potion, Ormgwen got an amulet. The brigand chief got the cloak (which looked magic), Baros got the rucksack, I got an exhaustion potion, Fulfur got the club, and Compass got the sandals. The rest I forgot. Of course Ormgwen tried his amulet on at once - I could tell him it was a Great Protection Amulet, which could protect for instance against undead, or werebeings, or Kaobarges, or Dunebarges, the last two being the two sorts of demons - and of course he instantly stepped in front of The Sack standing at the wall, which showed signs of slight illness and disgust again and waddled away from him as he had from Fulfur before. So it was a Great Protection Amulet Against Kaobarges. That was why the old priest had been able to frighten the two big Kaligins the day before. Kaligins, Fighter Demons, come from the Nearer Planes of Chaos (therfore Kaobarges), and one uses hexagrams for summoning them. Heptagrams are used for Dark Demons, Dunebarges, from the Dark Planes, but only truly evil conjurers use them. And truly stupid ones. ADMIN: The word "borrowing" comes from Terry Pratchett's "Equal Rites". The players of Compass, Tarik, and Ormgwen always borrow my Diskworld books after I read them... -- Bakr ibn Ja'far ibn Musa al Mekneshi, apprentice mage aka Lifilis Kloote, conjurer and artist aka Thomas Kettenring