Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
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From: jtaylor@seq.uncwil.edu (J.T.)
Subject: New Char: Dane, The Great
Message-ID: <1993Oct26.181604.4503@seq.uncwil.edu>
Organization: Univ. of North Carolina @ Wilmington
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 18:16:04 GMT
Lines: 274


Dane the Great; The Great Dane

During his youth on his first raids with his barbarian Clan Cyotee, 
he warred and took part in the raiding parties staged against their 
neighbors.  
  In his first sucessfull raid, he watched as his clan raped and 
pilliaged the small victimized encampment.  Dane was 19 and had just 
reached his peak potential and battle prowess and as such he was entitled
to the same spoils as the other men, but he always with-held.  
He felt that something was wrong with what was being done to the
families of their vanquished fomen, but his own moral values were still
evolving, catching up to his already mature body.  
It took him 4 years to solidify his morals and decide that formidable 
foes deserved more respect, and that the defiling of their families was 
a disgrace.  On the next raid, he challenged the leader of
the raiding party for leadership of the band, as was his right. 
Dane easily bested the lean and powerful Thar, knocking him out cold
with the first punch that he landed. 
He then led his band in the raid.  But at the conclusion of the raid, 
he ordered the people to be left alone, and only food and weapons taken.
His men rebelled.  
It was then that Dane found the powers of rage.  some of his men 
surrounded him, even as others began preforming atrocities against
the captured women. A heat began to build in Danes heart, and a
rednees flushed his cheeks.  Anger such as he had never felt before
burned and thrashed within him.
His brethren looked on him with wary eyes, for the power in Danes
body was evident. As the muscles in his chest and arms shifted 
to compensate the weight of his rusty two handed sword, his bare
thighs bunched into obscene, rivers of corded muscle.
His back knotted and his abdomen rippled with taught skin and muscle.  
Equally evident was the encroaching madness that was decending
upon him and invading his eyes.  His pupils widened to pools of
blackness while a dull ringing revibrated in his ears. Next, all
was red, and men where screaming......and dying.

As the dull red film cleared from his eyes, He found himself kneeling 
over the fallen ex-leader, Thar, whom he had bested in the duel.  
Thars head had been ripped from his body and hurled across the sand 
to land face up, eyes open, and mouth wide in horror.  
Dane looked around in wonder at the limp and broken bodies of his
band.  All 25 were dead and bloodied.  Dane himself was covered in
gore, his body sporting many bruises and a few scratches.  
His Blue eyes shined from deeply tanned skin turned red
with blood.  
Dane knew he no longer had a place with his barbarian
kindred, his views were too different.  And many families would go
hungry now, their husbands wouldnt be returning to protect and hunt for
them.  He couldnt face their mournful looks.
He cleaned himself with some stolen water from
the raid, and headed off to the Thu-karr.  The home of fallen warriors.

The Thu-karr is a vast sand-pit where the bodies of valiant warriors
are offered up to the sand gods.  And here it was that Dane found
himself, offering himself to the gods in payment for his sins against
his clan.  His deeds of war on that day were legendary, no single
man had ever wiped out 25 strong and proven warriors before...
especially not from their own clan.  His sacrifice should have 
worth in the eyes of the war gods. With chants of cleansing,
Dane hurled himself into the mouth of the pit, and fell, tumbleing over
and over to the center, were the sand closed over him and sucked him
down.  But instead of the slow suffacating death he had expected, he
found himself twisted and turned in all directions.  It felt as if
the gods were purging his sin by ringing him like a wet rag.  When
suddenly the sensation stopped and he found himself lying on a firm
earthen floor.  He was in a circular room that was covered in glowing
ovals that looked to be made of spider webs.  One of which he must have
falled out of.  The gods magic indeed.
It was then that Dane noticed a dark robed figure step out 
of a spider web shaped portal from across the room.

   "So!", said the black robed god, his voice taking on a
malicious glee that Dane found unnerving.

   "Finally one of you littering idiots have fallen through that
     accursed portal!"

Dane did not understand what the god ment, but was sure he was
never meant to understand the ways of gods, so he sat quietly with his
head bowed awaiting his punishment trying desperately to prove his
courage to the being.

   "I am one of the keepers of these portals, when someone wanders 
   through that has not been cleared by a keeper to use these portals,
   like you, one of us is summoned to deal with the problem."  said 
the aged man.
His eyes were a dark hazle, and his face sported a medium length 
snowy white beard that had been braided into two seperate strands.

The old man glared at Dane, "Have you any idea what you and your
idiot people have done?!", He said, with anger bubbling in his voice.
"For the last 65 years", he said, his voice rising to a scream, 
" dead bodies have been pouring through this protal!!"
"What are you people doing up there??  If your attempting to 
genocide yourselves, then by all means go ahead....BUT STAY 
AWAY FROM THAT PORTAL!"

The old man was fairly frothing at the mouth," WE!  some of the 
most powerfull mages from a collection of worlds, representing a 
vastness of knowledge heretofore unheard of! And given the highly
valued position of keepers!  And YOU assault us with bodies!"

"Well??  What do you have to say for yourself!"  The old man said
while vigorously tapping his left foot against the black marble floor.

"What?...no answers??!..speachless are we?"

 "well, I guess it WAS only four or five hundred bodies", the old
  man said in a decptively sweetened voice.

  "I guess it REALLY doesnt inconvenience us TOO much to clean it
   all up.....right?" As the old man spoke to Dane and asked the
   question, he gave Dane a kindly smile and started slowly nodding
   his head in a yes-like fashion.

 Dane soon found himself nodding his head, wanting nothing more than
 to agree with, and please this irate god.

 The old mans face suddenly fell into a cold and angry visage again.
"We have to live in this place you dolt! How would
 you like rotting bodies to come flying down at you while you try to
 hold a meeting or eat your supper!  
 20 years ago one of our number was rendered sensless when
 one of your dead bodies IN ARMOR! no less, fell through and smote him
 where he sat!"

 Dane was trembling in fear, with about as much force as the old man 
was trembling in rage.  Upon hearing these words, Dane was convinced
that the gods were going to destroy his world to the last living child!

  Dane surged to his feet and went screaming across the room and through
one of the portals.  While the aged keeper stood stupified at the 
young man he was scolding.  He managed to spit out an offended,
"Now you wait right their young man! I'm not through with you!" before
Dane was through the portal.

Either the gods had mercy in their hearts and Dane was given a second
chance, or he was now in hell.  For before him was a sinster looking
man, wearing a strange black cloak that seemed to hug his frail figure,
as he pulled a huge black sword out of the body of a young girl.  Her
amber hair shined brightly in the moonlit clearing.  Even the circular 
scarlet stain at her stomach that ran across her pearly white dress 
and encroached upon the alabaster skin of her pert upraised breasts 
could not detract from her beauty.

Dane stood rooted in shock.  It was not the murder of this beautiful
young woman that had so stunned him, he had seen this and worse in
some of the more viscious riads he had been on. but rather the night
black creatures that stood in a ring with him, the sinister murderer, 
and the dead maiden in the very center.  They were dogs.
Huge, black dogs, that stood as tall as some of his clans rare and
precious camels.  Some foul transparent green smoke was pouring
out of each creatures mouth, the smell of which was burning Danes 
throat, skin and watering his eyes as the worst sand strom had 
never done.  

On top of that, there was a powdery white substance all over the woods,
and ground, and where ever his skin came into contact with it, the
stuff would melt into water.  It was COLD here. 

The evil looking man looked up at Dane with a mixture of triumph 
and fear.  "Here dreaded demon of winter", said the man proffering up 
the black sword to Dane.  "I offer you this blade with a virgins blood
sacrificed in you honor, that you might drink and spare my life 
and grant the boon I will ask of you."  

Dane was not sure what was going on, but grabbed the great blade, and
and ripped the warm looking cloak from the mans shoulders before 
running back to the closing protal.  Leaving the evil mage
to confront the thickening cloud now forming behind him.  The last 
Dane saw of the evil man was a look of unholy panick crossing his face.
He looked from the cloud to Danes new sword, and back to the cloud.  
He looked at one of the hounds surronding him, (and Dane's portal also)
and shouted "Kill HIM!! and bring me that sword!!!"

Dane bolted, the sounds of a huge animal running behind him.  Through
the pounding of his heart, Dane heard a voice that sounded like 
a whet-rock scouring a sword. "And where is my blood that thou hast
promised me oh retched mortal?", then there was a mans shattering
scream and Dane was through the protal and back in the portal room.

"There you are!  How dare you run away when I'm talking to..where
  did you get that sword?"

Dane whirled around and stood face to face with the aged looking god.
Dane started sweating.  The old man went over to the portal Dane just
came through and put his ear to it.  
   "What is coming through this portal?" *SNIF* *SNIF*, "It smells 
   sulfuric!" he said casting an accusing look up at Dane, only to find 
   the young mans feet disappearing through yet another portal.
Dane slipped the warm cloak on as he ran through the portal.  

Dane found himself in a small room.  There was a soft,comfortable
looking bed in one corner, and a closet door that had more different
types of locks on it, than Dane knew existed.  There was a dresser
in another corner and a 6' tall mirror to its left.  There was
also a small table right in front of him by the portal.  On the 
table was a half eaten bowl of steaming soup, a chunk of cheese,
and a glass of some bluish wine.  Dane found no other exits from the
room, so he pulled the table as far away from the portal as he could
and sat down to eat.  He found that for a man cursed by the gods, he
still had a hardy appetite.  Even the damned must eat it would seem.

After finishing the food and wine, he poked around in the dresser,
and pulled out an oddly shaped loin cloth.  It was dark blue with
holes for each leg to go through, and had some material that fitted
to your waist.  There were also little stars and moons all over it.
Dane slipped them on and looked himself over in the mirror.  It was
then that the aged god walked in.  The old ones braids had been burnt
halfway off and his singed, blackened beard stood out at angles from
his soot stained face.  His robes had been charred and there were 
little holes all in it where small fires had been put out.  One of
his eyebrows had been compleately singed off his face, but the other
one was bushy and untouched.
If ever Dane had immagined an unhappy god, it must have surely looked
like this one.  
The old mages eyes quickly sought out and found Dane.  His face held
a scoul that would have joined both bushy brows together in a line,
but somehow lost its effect with only one brow.  The old mages eyes
widened and wandered from Dane and focused on his now empty table, 
and his open dresser drawers.  He looked down at Danes waste and
started to flush a nasty color of red.  

"YOU!!...MY!!...ANGH!!..AAARR!!", the old man studdered while pointing
at Dane and stabing his hands at the air for emphasis. "Oooh, 
the NERVE!! Sick an ungodly little beast on me and then run in and 
pillage my room while I'm forced to contain the thing!"

"I'll have your hide beaten for this you worthless barbar..", the old
mans voice trailed off as he watched Danes eyes grow wide, and he
saw huge clawed fingers encircleing him in his side vision.  The 
huge hand suddenly snapped closed and captured the indignant old man
in a firm grip.  The old man crossed his arms over the index finger
of the huge hand and glared at Dane as the hand slowly retreated 
back through the portal.  

  "We are going to have a long talk about this, boy!",he said
slamming his hands down and wriggling his feet that stuck out
past the edge of the giants pinky finger.

Dane waited in the room for a few minutes after the hand and the 
god had disappeared through the protal, then he stuck his head through
and peeked a look at what was going on.  There was a HUGE dull red
creature in the center of the room.  It had the legs of a goat, but 
they were hinged like a birds so that they bent backwards.  And it
had two huge horns protruding from its Bull shaped head.  Its body
was that of a powerful mans, but on a godlike scale.  Dane was pretty
sure this was the creature that was conjured up by the mage from whom
he'd taked the cloak and sword.
The god was still in its claw, but he was glowing an intense blue.  And
there were rope-like coils of blue snaking up the Demons arm.  
Dane made a sprint for another portal and heard the god bellow 
after him.  
  "Come back here with my boxers!  Unhand me!...that theif is
taking my boxers!!" This last was said to the grimacing Demon trying
his utmost to crush the noisome old human.

As Dane exited the portal he found himself in an old cemetary.
The temperature was chilly here too, but not near as bad as
that land beyond the second portal.  There was a small path
that winded around and passed various tombstones.  It emptied out
between two large pillars of stone, supporting a large, open
iron gate.  The cemetary was situated on top of a hill and surrounded
by woods.  To the north lies a city, and so it is we find Dane
stareing off to the north, and thanking the merciful aged god
for this second chance.
................................................................


although Dane doesnt know it, he is now at the Cemetary outside of
(Generica I think?)