From alt.pub.dragons-inn Thu Jan 27 09:26:19 1994 Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!decwrl!envoy.wl.com!caen!cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu!344lwkc Organization: Central Michigan University Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 13:25:08 EST From: Mike Sander <344LWKC@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Message-ID: <94026.132508344LWKC@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [BBD] Once Upon Returning Home Lines: 226 [ADMIN: It's been a while, but it looks like things will become active again, thread wise. Thanks goes out to Dan Peters, for writing a good share of this...] SAQ: "I watched the ruins as the smoke cleared Once upon returning home A touch of sadness but no fear Once upon returning home I don't know what I cried about But reality removed all doubt I was warm but all alone Once upon returning home... Returning home" - _Returning Home_, Sammy Hagar When Bekdatusi Bennison Dranzotten arrived at his headquarters deep in Low City, it was still well before dawn. The place had changed since he was last there in body, but this was no surprise. He had observed much while wandering around in incorporeal form, and he was thus well aware of the condition of his former organization. Most of his servants had left, and both his headquarters and his outposts had been rather neglected. But at least -- probably thanks to his magical defenses -- the buildings had been untouched by the recent meteorite. And getting his servants back was also little problem -- they still wore their bracelets, and he could call them all back, and quickly return matters to their former state. It was the obvious thing to do. Too obvious, perhaps. Velric clearly wanted him to do exactly that. Bek smiled to himself. Velric was getting overconfident if he thought that Bek would have any real difficulty in freeing himself from the necromancer's control. Velric himself had demonstrated the fact that the bracelets had limitations. And, having created them, BBD knew exactly where those faults were, and how to manipulate them. Of course, Velric would know immediately if the bracelet were removed, unless precautions were taken. The best move would be, he thought, to trick Velric somehow into thinking the control was maintained, just as Velric had done when the control went in the other direction. At the same time, BBD wanted to get back to Velric's headquarters, for another shot at the DarkSeed. But if the necromancer had learned anything from his time as servant, he would demand a good reason for such an intrusion. And only a high measure of success, or of failure, would provide such a reason. Since either goal would take time, BBD felt he might as well rebuild his empire. Getting a healthy supply of money, and maybe adding some property to his holdings would ease some of his pains, not to mention allowing him further control over things in Generica. After all, even during his "absence", BBD had seen a few would-be overtakers try to rely on power, and fail. Bek laughed at this: if magical power was the only factor, why was a merchant like Melwiss in charge? The reason, BBD felt, was that Melwiss had not only the intelligence and ability for the job, but a large amount of loyalty and popularity behind him. Bek felt he easily qualified as far as the first two items, and the bracelets insured him the latter two, albeit in a way some found objectionable. Turning his attention back to the present, Bek did a quick mental survey of his servants. Most had tried to return to whatever lives they had led before being trapped by him, with varying degrees of success. A quick series of commands, and they were all irrestibly on their way back. he thought to himself. *Wake up, Myrnien.* *Lovely to be missed so, my dear. I have a job for you -- collecting rent, and reestablishing my contacts. I'm sure you'll do fine, although I'll be keeping an eye on you now and again. And, have fun!* he added the last with a mocking tone. * * * * As soon as BBD had finished speaking, Myrnien's body was already involuntarily responding to the command. For far from the first time she cursed BBD, and vowed revenge. * * * * "Would you cut that out?" Trevu demanded. "You're making me nervous." "Sorry." Yaxan replied rather sheepishly. They began to walk again. Nothing happened for a few minutes. Yaxan looked up again, and Trevu reflexively followed his glance. There was nothing unusual in the sky above them. "Why do you keep doing that?" Trevu asked, exasperated. The two were supposed to be heading to a meeting, and he was growing increasingly tired of Yaxan's fixation with the job of finding this "Myrnien". "I was thinking of climbing that building, to look around." Yaxan answered. "You know you can't do that! We've got work to do." "I know, but you can probably handle the messengers yourself, and if there's any trouble, I won't be far away." "You'll never find her that way anyway." "But you don't _know_ that. There's always a chance, and it's so little trouble...." "It's a lot of trouble if Mozi gets angry at us." Trevu interrupted. "Why would she?" Yaxan asked. "Two guys are coming to meet us, so there's two of us. It's that simple. If there's only me, they'll think that we think that we're twice as important as they are. That'll mess up the negotiations." "As far as I'm concerned, we _are_ twice as important. They're lucky we're meeting them at all. I say they only deserve one messenger." "And I say we just follow orders. We're not paid to improvise." "I'd be dead by now if I didn't improvise at Renezio's place." "So quit while you're ahead. Mozi said you did well to get half in advance, but she also said that looking for the bracelet people is a lower priority than this. Especially considering the lack of success we've had so far." Yaxan paid no heed to the discouraging words. "I'll just go up for a few minutes. I'll be able to see if the messengers are coming, and I'll be down before they can reach you." "This is just plain _stupid_. You don't find people by just climbing a building and looking around. You have to talk to innkeepers, shopkeepers, and so on. You have to give them money to improve their memory. Anyway, if you insist on trying the stupid way, you should go where things are really busy. There's a lot fewer people around here." "There's always a chance." Yaxan repeated. "Besides, I did a luck spell this morning." "And since when did you become the least bit talented in magic?" Trevu mocked sarcastically. "Luck spell indeed. Don't you know that you make your own luck?" However, what Trevu didn't know about was the power of magic. Particularly in a town like Generica, where strange things happened everyday. And especially when this spell had support, from being outside Generica, ones who wished to see such a meeting as much as Yaxan, and who lent their own power towards it. "Why are you staring like that?" Trevu demanded, suddenly noticing that Yaxan was fixated on something again. "I think I see her." he replied, and took off after the figure he'd seen. "Mozi's gonna kill us, you idiot." Trevu hissed, but Yaxan was already gone. He cursed, then continued onto the meeting place -- he might as well try to make the best of that situation, rather than have them both go after what was probably a hopeless chase. As Yaxan neared the point he thought he'd seen Myrnien, part of his mind tried to convince him that he'd been mistaken. But he didn't listen to that, determined to continue after the girl. But as he came closer, he realized why the warning had come: the woman he was following had similar facial features to Myrnien's, but her skin wasn't quite the same color, and the clothing didn't match at all. Disheartened, Yaxan was tempted for a moment to return to the meeting place. But first, he decided to scale the nearest building, while there was no one to argue against it. Reaching the top, he quickly scanned the area. The front of the building jutted out conveniently into the street which it faced, such that Yaxan could see a fair distance along the street in two directions. To the north, he could see a small marketplace; the morning's first wave of customers was just arriving. None of the people there were wearing blue bracelets. Beyond that there was nothing. He looked to the south, just in time to see Trevu turn into the street that would lead toward the meeting place. The street was still nearly empty in that direction. In all other directions, buildings obscured most of his view of the ground. He might as well watch the people at the marketplace for awhile, he thought. Maybe something would turn up. He started to do so, but then he found that his gaze had been diverted eastward, to a house less than half a mile away. Which was strange, considering he could find nothing remarkable about the house. The door was well above ground level; Yaxan could see the top few steps of the external staircase which led to it. He turned back to the market, only to find himself again staring at the door to the east. He nearly turned away reflexively, then blinked, wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him. He could clearly see the back of a woman with nearly black, curly hair, dressed in mail, standing at the door. Her hand was resting on a sword at her side, and there was definitely something blue on her wrist. He climbed down the side of the building dangerously quickly. * * * * Myrnien felt the presence of strange eyes on her, which was almost expected. After all, anyone walking through Low City with money on them was an obvious target. Usually though, the combination of the sword at her side and her quick stride kept would-be thieves away. And, even though Myrnien no longer wore her usual weapon -- that had been left behind the last time she had seen her beloved brother Kaalzic -- such was the case today. She breathed a small sigh of relief at that. This brought a peal of laughter from BBD, along the line of communication the bracelet afforded. He communicated something to her about how she needn't fear these "peasants", which she ignored as equally as anything other than a command. All she cared about was that the job was almost finished, and soon she could have another attempt to free herself. Coming to the next place BBD owned, she gave a firm knock on the door. * * * * 'I was _right_ -- that's her.' Yaxan thought to himself, comparing the picture Kaalzic had given him to the person before him. She looked older than in the picture, but there could be no doubt. 'Finally I found her! This'll teach Trevu to mock my magic, or my instincts! Now all I have to do is find out where she lives, and report that back to Kaalzic. The money I get there should more than offset any losses in negotation. If I'm lucky, I might even get a little advancement because of this!!!'. Seeing Myrnien take off again, Yaxan followed, sticking to the shadows. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Sander 344lwkc@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu Feedback (comments, questions, etc.) always appreciated.