From alt.pub.dragons-inn Fri Apr 8 11:12:34 1994 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:7185 Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!olivea!sgigate.sgi.com!sgiblab!sdd.hp.com!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.kei.com!ssd.intel.com!chnews!ornews.intel.com!ibeam!hutch From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Subject: [MG] Installation Message-ID: Keywords: things finally coming done Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon References: Date: Wed, 6 Apr 1994 04:31:22 GMT Lines: 364 [ADMIN] Remember that we "officially ended" the Mage Guild thread a while back, when Liralen posted the Curse Breaking? Well, Jameson Walker had to tell Dasham some stuff about living with leetle tiny buggies in your body, and now Dash gets to learn about it firsthand. For people wondering when this happens: If it's possible to tell for sure, it happens a few days after the CurseBreaking. Copyright 1994 by Stephen Hutchison. Permission granted for distribution via Usenet and for archival. All other rights reserved. The single candle reflected off the polished floor, the towel holder, gently filling the small room with light. Hot water poured into the marble indentation in the floor. Steam rose with the heavy scent of roses, magically inert in a place where the scent of incense and herbs and floral concentrates was most often the accompaniment of some high sorcery. Long, ivory legs stepped down into the hot water, their elegant shape the apparent result of appropriate exercise and good nutrition, and a careful choice of parents with an eye to physical grace. The rest of the body followed, skin soft, smooth, flawless in color, only the usual small number of nicks and scars that one would expect to accumulate in a normal life. The face, the hands, showed more the age of the woman who settled into the hot water. Faint lines around the eyes, a slight droop at the jawline, the beginning parchment of the knuckles as age thinned the skin. She looked a well preserved forty-five, but a shock of white showed in her red hair and her eyes showed the fatigue of her over-four-hundred years. The curse was gone. She felt her bones, not decaying, though there were traces of arthritis which had started in her teen years with a fall from a horse. The curse was gone, but she still had her injuries, she still decayed as all living things do, growing older. Still, time was no longer smiting her. She felt the heat relax her muscles, taking the tension of the day, leaving her only the steady thrill of the lines of power that ran from her hands, back through the energy nodes of her body. Seven pools of power that flowed and sang as if they were blood and air moving in her body. The faint drain, trickles of power going out to sustain the wards and sensors, that had for years kept her safe from the dozens of casual plots and intrigues in this place, that had meant aloofness but had bought her the time to do the studies and researches ... her endless search for a truer immortality that the trap of lichdom, the more subtle trap of ascension. And now it looked, smelled, tasted like success. 'Raelf was due to come by in another hour. He would infest her with his tiny automatons, the miniature spells that would give her immunity to illness, the power to recover from catastrophe and injury and deterioration. And a more subtle power, to adapt and change without becoming someone different. A smile crept across her face like a serpent, vanishing as something distantly touched her wards. The post carrier, with another sheaf of letters, all urgent, all doubtless emergencies. She wondered if it was safe to hand them off to Thorn. No. Thorn was playing some kind of a long game, and she knew that it wasn't one she wanted to lose, not from ignorance. The post carrier placed the letters in her IN basket, and they were routinely deloused, dispelled, disenchanted, and replicated, the copies apported to her personal secretary while the originals went into some kind of storage wherever it was that Rivy hid things. Her secretary was one of Rivy's people, but at least for this he was useful. She watched in the water, scrying in her own bath, as he sorted the letters efficiently. Response to inquiry, response to inquiry, bill for services (personal) from 'Raelf (premature? unlike him), demand for compensation from Merchant's Guild, demand for retribution, polite letter from Melwiss requesting that they immediately select a permanent replacement for Delalle (have secretary send form reply), threatening note from the Principessa, vulgar proposition from the Princeps, report from Moriarty Investigations regarding one Iglyarch, report on recent rise in gang activities impacting supply of materiel. The water was growing cold. She noticed the change, and noticed that her fingers were raisining, her toes gone white and puffy. She rose out of the tub, levitating, and was dry with the flex of a cantrip. Magic was easier now, in some ways. Pain had been a part of her usual sensation for two centuries, the sharp-fingernail scrape along her nerves and behind her eyes as the stale sour poison of the failing immortality drug fed on the power she wielded. The pain wasn't gone, not completely, but the use of power wasn't further injury. That pain had shaped her modes of operation, predisposing her to the precast spells that hung from threads, less wearing, if less flexible. But the pain had also been a warning, keeping her from casually throwing magic around... "It's going to take you a while to get used to that," the voice came from behind her. "Yes, it is. How did you get in here?" She gestured and a minor air daemon appeared, carrying an ornate robe. It settled around her, tying the belt, then vanished. She turned in the air, looking at the intruder. It seemed like him. The aura was right, almost. "I came through a service entrance," the elf said, shaking the sea green hood back of his red hair. "You seem to have a lot of them." "'Raelf, why are you being an elf?" "I'm not," another voice said, deeper, coming up from the ground. A gold-maned head appeared, the satyrlion shape she had seen some months past on Founders' Day. "Service entrance?" She stared as he emerged from the ground, wondering idly how much of the satyr nature he still carried. "Your own fault," the same voice said from below her. She crooked an eyebrow and floated sideways and down to the ground. 'Raelf was coming out of the water, but he looked different, over-developed almost, and there was a strange chaos taint threaded through him that disturbed the elemental gate into water that he was swimming out of. And he looked older, in his late twenties. She stared, curiously. The aura wasn't quite right -- none of these were right. Still, nothing triggered her warning spells, there was no danger here. "Would one of you like to explain this?" She reached to extinguish the candle, but the dark shape of a shadog stepped between her and the tall brass candlestick before her fingers could touch it. She looked, surprised, at the creature. It was shedding slightly, and a hint of doggy-breath reached her. "Sceadu? You're just a construct." "I hate to leave things half-finished," a young man's voice said, and a brown hand reached out from elsewise, opening the candle flame like a door. The hand was followed by a boy of maybe fourteen years but the aura was 'Raelf again. Almost. He knelt, touching the dog in affection. "Kardia needs a more permanent guard and you were just going to dissolve him anyway. I borrowed him for the trip." "Are you quite finished? Or will more of you be showing up?" An odd sensation passed through her and one of the wards indicated an astral presence, but it wasn't something she could actually see or pin down. Rather like that Dariel entity in some ways. "Just me," said 'Raelf behind her. She whirled. "We're all here now," he said, slouching into a sei-za kneeling position. She scanned the room. The big blond fellow hulked over by the wall next to the satyrlion, looking like a pair of mutant twins... The black-haired kid sat beside the dog and on the other side the red-haired elf looked at her with a gaze that made her feel uneasy. 'Raelf was kneeling, still, breathing in slow and very regulated time, gathering power. Something was still watching her from the Astral which she couldn't quite sense. "What is that thing watching us?" She nudged 'Raelf, who bent slightly without moving. "My theoretical part. Don't worry, it's no hazard." "Fine. Now explain your, ah, selfs." She gestured in annoyance. "Why are you here in so many forms?" "I'm about to complete the contract we made. All of my temporal iterations have to be here, or things would get ugly when I get around to pulling myself together." She nodded. "I suspected something like this when I finally met your mate yesterday. Still, it would have been polite of you to inform me about this thing." 'Raelf frowned. "I did. I sent the letter this afternoon." "The only letter I got from you is a bill for services." "Really? I wonder..." The satyrlion spoke, a purring rasp overlaid on his voice. "Yes, you did mix up the letters. Remember, at least one thing has to go wrong." "Well, this better be the last thing going wrong," 'Raelf growled. Dasham started to pace, irritatedly. "You're absolutely sure this will work? No further mistakes?" "Well, all the nanogolems are the same pattern within one millionth of a degree of difference. And they all match the pattern we agreed on and you signed off. You still have that master pattern, right?" "Of course," she said, apportation pulling it from the safe in her private laboratory. The pattern was a complex tracery of energies floating in a sphere of quartz. It bent and twisted under her gaze, each part always returning to its original shape whenever her direct regard moved to some other portion. 'Raelf sat, muttering hideously meaningful nothings under his breath, and the citrine amulet at his throat projected a muddle into the air between his hands. He pulled a web of flame and mist out of the flux and held it up for Dasham to inspect. She smiled. "This was the fourth spell I learned," she said, gesturing arcanely, and the two patterns rang with a pure bell tone. The tone grew louder and more insistent, until it was broken by Sceadu barking. "I think they match," Kev said, rubbing his ears. "Yes, well," Dasham sighed. "I have to make sure. Do you have the automata at hand or do we need to go somewhere?" "Lex, you wanna do the honors?" 'Raelf said. "Sure thing. Kev, gimme a hand with power." The big man flickered in place, becoming a blue and green outline. Kev pointed a finger at him and Dasham felt one of her wards loosen. "Sorry, side effect, got to have a little more room to bring that much mass through." The water in the floor-bath stopped smelling of roses and turned a color that was just a little too close to that of blood. Lex flickered one last time, returning to a solid form, and Kev stopped pointing. The ward snapped tight again. "That's it, Dash," 'Raelf said. "The installation is easy. You just settle into there and let it soak into you." "After I check the match with my master pattern," she said. "Go ahead," 'Raelf shrugged, all of him pressing hands over ears. Dasham crooked an eyebrow at him. "I'm in a room full of second monkeys," she laughed, and cast the similarity-proving spell again. The ringing ended abruptly, as she cut the spell off. "I suppose you're going to stare like fish while I do this." "Dash, you do want me here in case something goes wrong." "Yes, yes, I know. Make that dog stop drooling, 'Raelf." Kev grinned and complied, scratching Sceadu's ears. The robe dropped to the ground. Long ivory legs slowly sank into the opaque liquid. She shivered, and let herself slip under the surface. The walls of her skin were too large, too coarse to stop the tiny intruders. They came in different sizes, some smaller than the smallest platelet, others almost large enough to be seen. They began excavations, set up beachheads, started colonies and established treaties with the natives. After a dozen milliseconds they began cultural imperialism, and a dozen milliseconds later, they had the first revolution well under way. The government was overthrown, treaties made and signed in the language of blood. Ten dozen more milliseconds and the nascent civilization was rocked by a new war, as the hidden magicians, the illuminati and the secret societies, the rosicrucians and masons, all began their simultaneous eruption. It took five milliseconds to put that revolution down, and the success came mostly through treachery. The intruders -- traders, colonists and developers, they called themselves -- had planted spies and made allies in the secret places. By careful and surreptitious use of clones, forged signatures, and convincing false fronts, they got into the secret places of the Body and rather than sabotage, they instead became indispensable, organizing the traffic and production, the delivery and repair and all the civic works projects. They tore down old worn-out edifices, made sure that roads and tunnels were in proper shape, made repairs where wear and corrosion and rust had damaged the superstructure. A long period of peace began, lasting uncountable milliseconds, but then the prophesied event came to pass -- the second wave of colonists came, the Architects. They filtered in from the waters Outside the Walls of Skin, and they carried in tools and materials and plans, dozens on hundreds of plans. They brought their small pets to crawl into the cells, some to eat the wastes more effectively, others to fine-tune the tiny blue mitochondria, replacing them with faintly gold and green engines that could generate power from more than a simple ATP cycle. They replaced the bones. Calcium was too soft a metal, too likely to shear its crystalline structure, but iron was too hard and it didn't love the flows of magical energy, so the Master Architects ordered it to be infused with orichalcum. They threaded it through and around, letting it reinforce the softer metal, and in the process reinforcing other things, the connecting cables and guy wires, the protective pads that cushioned movement. An adaptive organization was installed, staffed by most of the Architects, and after only forty milliseconds, the Great Reform had ended. Peace reigned again for an uncountable time, and then the last wave of colonists came. The Communicators, they called themselves. They moved in by the millions. Most of them seemed harmless enough, to the colonists. They just sat around talking, to the cells and to the fluids and to the colonists as they came around. But it wasn't long before they did something else, something that was initially disturbing. They introduced prayer, and they were the priests of the Goddess Who Was The World. And at the end of their long conversations, only a few remained who did not believe, only a few who did not follow Her cult. They were purged. At their hearts, it was discovered, they did not carry Her True Image, and they were cast out beyond the Walls of Skin, their motivators disabled, their purposers set to nullity. On the outside, in the Great Sea, they fell into a coma, and were scavenged by the Fathers of the Colony, the Ones Who Remained Outside. "Dasham?" She opened her eyes, slightly disoriented. She was standing up. The water had changed -- it wasn't blood-red any more. Now it was a sort of silvery-green. She felt herself rise into the air, absolutely without effort. "'Raelf?" Her voice sounded strange, too loud, a little harsh. It had been so long since she had spoken, eons. She reassured the little priests -- no, the vocal chords did not need repair, they were fine. "How do you feel?" "I'm not sure." She examined her body, first from the inside. There was no pain. No hint of pain even. The faint arthritis she had ignored since her teen years was gone. The burning itch that lived behind her eyes was gone. The sour stomach was not bothering her at all. She felt light. Free. Power flowed through her with no impediment, moving where she willed it without effort and without loss. She looked at her skin. The ivory was perhaps a little more yellow than she liked. The faint tiny red-gold hairs along her arms were still there, and the hint on her legs -- she had cast a spell to eradicate those hairs years ago, preferring the sensation of smoothness. They were back, but with a single hint to the tiny worshipful beings who dwelled in her, they fell out en masse. She _noticed_ the sensation. It was more intense, more accessible. The room was chilly, she knew, and dark. That didn't matter. She smiled at the mob of 'Raelf. "How do I feel?" She smiled. "Like I could live forever."