From alt.pub.dragons-inn Fri Apr 8 11:12:34 1994 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:7187 Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!sdd.hp.com!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!csn!yuma!lamar!arsmith From: arsmith@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Alan Smith) Subject: [HouseStorming] Division of Labor Message-ID: <1994Apr6.064811.73767@yuma> Date: 6 Apr 94 06:48:11 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: lamar.acns.colostate.edu Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 Lines: 327 ADMIN: The cast, characters, and techie crew of the [HouseStorming] Thread: Alan Smith ...............Palandun Lintesul Spider Boardman ..............Selna Chris Meadows ...................Andrea, Sheryl and Jay. Andrea Evans ...........Kadrys Penny Hutchison .................Leah and Errol Stephen Hutchison ...........Miro Alfvaen ...................Eowyn/Teonyl Wolvie ...................Lance and Blaze Invaluable help: Colin Sebastian Roald Heather Loresch nevyn@camelot.bradley.edu Kelly J. Cooper Liralen Li All characters are property of their respective authors, and this story is a group effort copyrighted (1994) by all of them. Permission is granted for the distribution of this story on the usual alt-net channels and for archival but all other rights, including repost, are reserved to the author(s). Background: Just after the storm Andrea and Sheryl bought a house which proved to be loaded with traps. So they gathered together the rest of the team to help them discover the secret to their new home. The Team has just entered the door. Poster's note: Thanks Bret Rudnick, for the header format. Thanks to everybody in not throwing out this template and for all your help. End mushy stuff. === === === === "Ooops," Errol said, in the middle of splicing a tripwire line. The rest of the group paled and reflexively did the safest thing they could think of: Lance and Blaze retreated several yards, Blaze throwing up a protective ward before them; Miro and Kadrys both vanishing into sudden mist. Eowyn threw herself backwards in a reflexive roll, and Selna was momentarily encased in a strange-looking matte-black suit of armor, with deep red and blue jewels over the eyes, and on the chest and back. It vanished, leaving behind a fading gold haze, and Selna crooked one eyebrow. Meanwhile Palandun just managed not to spill the ink as he hurled himself to the floor. Andrea, however, just watched the master thief curiously. Errol raised an eyebrow as he paused at what he was doing and looked at the adventurers in their various states of alarm or lack thereof. "I just remembered, I forgot to check the mail before we left the lighthouse," he explained. "Don't DO that!" several party members chorused, returning to their normal attitudes. Errol smirked, then giggled slightly as he finished splicing in the extra line in the tripwire. Eowyn and Andrea fastened it to the floor so people were unlikely to trip over it and the party moved on, Palandun marking down the salient aspects of the next trap. === === === === Jay and Sheryl sat there on the path, with Leah standing by, watching. Sheryl peered nervously from Jay to Leah as Jay fiddled with the formidable-looking lock that Kadrys had challenged him to solve before he was allowed to join the party. It was quite a tricky lock, and if Andrea hadn't given him some instruction during the journey back, he might not have had the slightest clue as to how to progress. Fortunately, he had learned several techniques now, and was attempting to put them to good use. He almost had it...but the pins wouldn't quite align for him. Jay licked his lips, set his jaw, and gave his full concentration to the lock. "I've almost got it...damn!" The pick slipped, and the lock remained closed. Leah sighed, and noticed the hot sun starting to turn her pale skin into what would become a painful pink. She pulled her sun cloak around her and as the hood came over her head she faded from sight. And then Sheryl looked up to notice that Leah was no longer there. She must have gone on ahead to join the others, leaving the two of them to their own devices. Sheryl nickered. "Huh? What is it?" Jay asked. In response, Sheryl touched the lock with her horn, which glowed briefly. The lock popped open. Sheryl whinnied and tossed her head, gesturing up the trail. Let's go! she seemed to say. Jay looked from Sheryl down to the lock, and back to Sheryl, and back to the lock. He shook his head. "No, Sheryl, it's not right." Sheryl cocked her head curiously, and Jay searched for the words. "It's...the easy way. But I can't always do things the easy way, and if I do everything like that, I won't know what to do when I have to do something hard." He snapped the lock back together, and clenched his fist around it. "I'll get this thing open if it's the last thing I do!" Nearby, Leah smiled under her sun-cloak and nodded approval. Despite his young age, Jay had the right attitude. She suspected that he might just do after all. === === === === With few incidents, (and, usually without the duck-and-cover bit) they made their way down the hallway, turned right and about ten yards down the hallway, where Palandun told them to turn left again. "Can't," Andrea said. "Well that's what the plans say; you turn right, forward ten yards, and uh-oh." Palandun looked up from his maps and saw that what should have been a door was a smooth expanse of wall. A quick examination proved that it didn't conceal a hidden entry or door or any traps -- the plans had just been changed. "This is one lock I can't pick," Kadrys grinned. "I can," Palandun said, reaching for something looped at his right hip. He withdrew a small metal tube from a belt loop, and with a practiced wrist action snapped it open and flipped out two longish metal flaps on the end. "A pickaxe," Lance observed. "Pickadze, actually." Palandun replied, indicating the blade end, which was horizontal, not vertical. "Came in handy underneath Alamatar most recently." Palandun looked at Andrea. "Should I?" "Go ahead. Just clean up after yourself." After a second search for traps and the odd (mostly unofficial) prayer offered up to Molly McGuire, goddess of Miners, Palandun hacked at the brick wall. === === === === "Aarrrgh!" Jay said as his probe slipped for the eleventy-fifth time. He pulled it out and threw the lock in disgust, which clanked against the pavement and just sat there, defiantly staying locked. He stood up and paced a while, ranting under his breath at Andrea, Kadrys, and the rest of the group in general. Sheryl, having seen her share of thieves get disgusted with locks and nearly quit, nuzzled Jay in encouragement, then whinnied for him to go back to work. Jay looked puzzled for a bit as he figured out what Sheryl meant, and then gave her a look that said 'this is a pain, I give up, I just want to sulk.' Sheryl replied with a nudge and Jay sighed. He reluctantly picked the lock up and inserted the probe, holding the enabler button down and reflecting on how much easier this would be if he had three hands... === === === === "_Nice_ decor, just a _bit_ heavy on the Low City Lace," Kadrys said wryly, surveying the Ballroom. He brushed aside a huge cobweb that was filled with cast-off spider husks, running from the chandelier overhead to a mass of chairs below. The cavernous room was ill lit by the light sources the party was carrying, but showed an interior dusty with disuse and inhabited solely by four enormous statues and some furniture, clustered into messy groups and draped over with sheets. "I think we should make this our base of operations," Palandun said. "Leave most of our stuff here, then split up and hit the library and Master Bedroom. I took the liberty of drawing up some team assignments," he said, drawing a paper from his clipboard. The rest of the group looked at the list, thought it was a good piece of work, and proceeded to explain why it couldn't possibly happen. Palandun explained why he couldn't accommodate their changes, and a somewhat heated debate ensued, which Andrea stopped with a shrill lookout's whistle. "Why don't we just split ourselves up into two groups?" she said, "Just try to balance yourselves out." She nodded as people split themselves into two approximately equal groups and shushed Eowyn's and Palandun's grumbles about 'unprofessionalism' and 'unequal distribution of skills.' They did, however agree that the man with the maps would stay behind in relative safety, although Palandun insisted on calling it 'readiness to assist either team.' He also wanted to know how they were going to communicate. "Leah's Dragonets," Miro drawled, watching a blue-green flying lizard-beast land on Palandun's head. "Sure, and they're what ye'd call short range telepaths." "Yeah, but I'm not telepathic, short long or otherwise," Palandun objected. Palandun was suddenly overwhelmed by a vivid image of himself adoringly feeding a sandwich to a heroic blue-green dragonet. "Maybe it will work," he muttered, and handed the dragonet a strip of jerky. It crooned at him and started chewing. "You serve as the communications center in case we have to split up more," Lance suggested, indicating Palandun. "Why me?" Palandun said. "You're the only one who can't be duplicated," Errol murmured. "You're the one with the maps, dear boy." "Aye, and ye have experience at this before," Miro added, suddenly reminding Palandun that he had asked for help from that particular 'kan in a different problem. Palandun looked significantly more depressed. "Dinna fash yersel', boyo," Miro said quietly, "Ye'll get a chance tae explore later." 'That's not what I was thinking of' Palandun thought. Suddenly he realized he was wearing his heart on his sleeve, and cheered up by sheer will. "Okay, I'll do it. Give me a chance to catch up on my homework anyway," Palandun replied, dusting off a table and spreading his maps out. "Everybody see if you can get a dragonet to adopt you." He rolled his eyes up to the blue-green creature sitting on his head, which looked back down at him, upside-down. He also tried an experiment, picturing the groups forming and leaving the ballroom, following their paths to the bedroom and library. In return he got several images of the two parties shuffling their members to the distributions they would eventually have. Everybody smiled to see the communications system work, and they set off on their separate ways. === === === === "HA!" Jay said, startling both Sheryl and Leah as he triumphantly manipulated the final component of the lock and it disassembled. "Wasn't that hard," he continued, "Just took a little persistence is all." Sheryl nodded in reply. "Now I suppose you want to go in," Leah said gently, drawing the sun-cloak back over her head, and fading into visibility as she did so. Jay and Sheryl jumped in unison, and she quirked one corner of her lips, careful not to laugh. She shook her head. "You still aren't skilled enough, you know." "Yes I am," Jay said, holding up the lock. "You're talented, I'll admit, but there are traps in there you'll never see that will kill you." "We passed the test, we're going in," Jay stubbornly replied. "With or without your leave." Sheryl gave a prison-yard whinny to the effect that Leah could stop them both without much trouble, but Jay refused to heed it. Leah looked at them inscrutably for a second, without saying anything. "Why do you want to go in there?" she asked. Jay thought for a moment. "Because it's not fair to keep me and Sheryl from going in. Sheryl says Andrea wasn't older than me when she started going to worse places than this." The honey-haired sorceress looked steadily at him. "Do you believe you have the same skills Andrea had at your age?" "No, but how am I gonna learn then?" She smiled. "How indeed? You may go in under these conditions. First, never go off anywhere that the others haven't been. They're marking their progress with bright orange chalk. If you don't see the chalk, don't go there. Understood?" Jay nodded emphatically. "Good. Second, you must follow the others' instructions. Don't argue and don't delay. Your life, or Sheryl's life, or Andrea's, or any of the others, could depend on you doing what you're told without question. This has nothing to do with how smart you are and everything to do with learning from the masters of this craft. Understood?" Jay nodded again, swallowing. "Good. Finally, don't tamper with anything or try to disarm anything unless you've been told you may. Show it to one of the more experienced people if they haven't already seen it." Jay sulked a bit, but capitulated. "Now," Leah said cheerfully, "I want you two to take this extra sheaf of paper and this lunch to Palandun and then make yourselves useful to him. That way Andrea will see you have a good reason for being inside. Wait and I'll tell him you're coming." She closed her eyes and spoke to Palandun's blue-green companion. The dragonet fluttered and made a "brrrring! brrrring!" noise until Palandun looked up. "What do you want?" she heard him ask. She projected the image of Jay and Sheryl bringing him unspecified supplies, and he started up in horror. "Oh, no," he said, creating a mental image of the two of them getting to the door and blowing up, then Leah putting the pair in stasis until it all was over. Leah laughed and showed him in a barnyard, clucking like a mother hen and getting agitated whenever a piece of paper blew towards his chicks. She cut off his protest with a picture of an angelic and obedient, cleanly scrubbed and be-haloed Jay and a demure Sheryl helping him with errands, sharpening his quills, etc., and he finally sighed and projected the long-suffering student having to watch the kids. Leah laughed again, causing Sheryl to look at her curiously, and projected Palandun drawing a map from the door to the ballroom. He nodded, and quickly jotted off the map, handing it to a dragonet. He then sent himself swamped with paperwork, eagerly waiting for the two helpers, and smiled. The debate over, Leah held out a hand and a vermilion dragonet jumped into it, carrying a map in its mouth. "Palandun is waiting for you," she said as she handed the map to Jay. "Follow my instructions to the letter if you want Andrea to let you work on any traps. Oh, and follow this route *exactly*."