From alt.pub.dragons-inn Tue Dec 7 21:48:22 1993 Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!sdd.hp.com!col.hp.com!csn!yuma!lamar!arsmith From: arsmith@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Alan Smith) Subject: [VampQ] The Perils of Ja'nis Sender: news@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU (News Account) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1993 00:40:22 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: lamar.acns.colostate.edu Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 Lines: 108 [VampQ] The Perils of Ja'nis ADMIN: This post was written by: arsmith@lamar.colostate.edu (Ja'nis) Synopsis: The party, after checking in at the castle of Pericles the Vampire, has decided to split up and poke around a bit, hoping to find the vampire orchid, which is why they are in the undead plane in the first place. This is the story of one of the member's explorations. ************************************************************************ 'Okay, corpral,' Ja'nis thought to herself, hunting through her pack for stuff she might use: knife, ball of string, hmmm, would a skeleton need string? Despite the fact that Ja'nis was not, and never had been a skeleton, the question was not totally without relevance. Ja'nis' current outward appearance was that of a particularly disgusting animated collection of bones, complete with hollow eyes, leer, and bits of flesh hanging here and there. This was Moria's doing, an illusion to help them assimilate with the undead plane while they searched for the Vampire Orchid. Speaking of which, any plants would be likely to be growing in the garden, right? She collected her string and some other odd stuff (never knew when it would come in handy) and strode out into the light of the garden. Anyone from a live plane would, on finding Pericles' garden make a little kick for joy and nuzzle up to one of the plants. Unlike the rest of the plane, it was full of living things, most of them in the flower of health. Another party member had theorized that that was why the undead shunned this place. Ja'nis started with the side near the outer wall and started searching the plants for one that looked like an orchid. She found some fairly close calls, and was getting pretty absorbed in her work when she heard a voice suddenly speak from behind her. "Are you looking for something in particular?" It was the voice of Pericles, the vampire host. "Gaa!" Ja'nis replied, standing up, twirling around, and half-drawing her sword before she realized who it was. "Don't *DO* that! You scared the sh- er.. l- I mean, death outta me!" "My apologies." Pericles bowed. "I trust you find everything satisfactory." "Great, except for the part where I get snuck up on. So tell me, you were looking for ways of creating death from life? That's kinda my business, so I'd love to swap theories with you." Ja'nis replied, groping for a cover story. Some months ago she had traveled around Generica with Palandun Lintesul, an islander who came to the city to work on his biologist's degree. She had picked up a lot of how scientists talk at each other from him, and hoped it would serve her in good stead now. "Ah! Another questor after the secrets of Death! It is so rare that we meet each other. I should be happy to discuss my thoughts with you. You are aware of the fact that if a dead thing suffers damage, or catches an illness, or sometimes merely gets too old, it keels over and becomes alive, right? And that once something lives, there is currently no known way to bring it back to the grave?" "I had gathered something like that." "Good. Are you aware of the theories of alternate planes? Where some places have fundemental rules so warped that it goes the other way around, from life to death?" At this point Ja'nis put her smallish acting skills to play, feigning some small knowledge and rather a lot of intrest. "Well," Pericles continued, "the dead on those alternate planes are actually fairly useless. They just lay around and rot." "Sounds like an ex-boyfriend of mine." Ja'nis quipped, thinking back to a couple years ago. Pericles laughed politely. "Quite. Well, these planes also have animate dead, which they call 'un-dead' and the one who creates an un-dead is considered a very good person for bringing one's loved ones back to aliveness, or whatever they call it." "Life." Ja'nis supplied. "Quite. Anyway, I had this idea that if those planes can make 'un-dead', I should be able to make the 'un-alive'." "Hmmm. Intersting thought. What have you tried?" "Well, first I tried to do to these live things what the live-planers do to make them dead. Deprivation of water and sunlight, lopping off parts, things like that. All I succeeded in doing was living the nearby dead plants. Then I tried some incantations from the live-planes, but all I got was a singing rhododendron I had to live so I could have quiet again. Now I'm thinking of capturing some live-planers and seeing how they work." Ja'nis would have gulped, but wasn't sure how her skeleton image would render that. "So, how do you intend to capture them?" She asked. "By closing my front door." Ja'nis gasped and stared at the vampire. "Come now, Ja'nis, you didn't expect to drop all those clues and have me not pick a few of them up, did you? You sniffing a flower we both knew was giving off the disgustingly sweet odor of life? A skeleton carrying around a sword when they don't even work on skeletons? Just now when you almost said 'you scared the _life_ out of me'? You are a spy from the live-planes, Ja'nis." This time she did gulp. Hard. Not that it helped much, because Pericles took that opportunity to cast a teleport spell, sending her to the dungeon, where zombies jumped her, stripped her of everything but the string, and threw her in a cell. "Hmmm." She said, as the guards retreated to their posts, "looks like I'm going to miss dinner. Probably just as well." She regretted her flippancy almost immediately when she heard a bloodcurdling scream. Dashing to the front of her cell, she managed to press herself into the bars enough to see... "MATTHEW!!" Who was struggling and sqirming on a table down the hall, large green things had grabbed him all over his body and were sucking the life out of him as she watched. Guards and servants were standing around, alternately chuckling and looking scientific. Ja'nis did all that she could do, and beaned one with the ball of string. The beaned guard rubbed his head, grabbed his cudgel, and walked over to Ja'nis. <>