From alt.pub.dragons-inn Mon May 9 15:15:33 1994 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:7258 Path: netcom.com!csus.edu!csulb.edu!library.ucla.edu!psgrain!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!alberta!cab010.cs.ualberta.ca!aaron From: aaron@amisk.cs.ualberta.ca (Aaron V. Humphrey) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [MI] The Power of Video Date: 8 May 1994 17:12:50 GMT Organization: The Anna Amabiaca Fan Club Lines: 279 Message-ID: <2qj6ii$erh@scapa.cs.ualberta.ca> Reply-To: aaron@amisk.cs.ualberta.ca NNTP-Posting-Host: cab010.cs.ualberta.ca Originator: aaron@cab010.cs.ualberta.ca ADMIN: Alfvaen, Tuek and Azpiazu are my characters; the Wasters are, more or less, common property. Copyright 1994 by Aaron V. Humphrey; permission granted to distribute through the altnet and the usual channels, as long as the text is not altered and this notice is incuded. No posting on the WWW without my permission, though. Oh, and thanks to Stephen Hutchison for his helpful comments. "Every scene defies All the laws of gravity Don't you ever doubt(oh no) The power of video... Your fortune lies Inside the glass bead" ---Marc Jordan, "Inside The Glass Bead" "You mean this blocker thing is on the side of a huge PIT?" "More of a shaft," Rook said mildly in response to Alfvaen's outburst. "Yes, that looks like it. Makes you wonder if whoever-it-was knew we'd be involved in it. I mean, this specifically nullifies the advantage of having Blink on our side." "Well, it certainly doesn't make things easier for anyone else," Scorpion pointed out. "Pretty canny. Did Noctu think that one up himself, or did the Bug Queen come up with it?" "What's a shaft like that doing there in the first place?" Alfvaen grumbled. "It doesn't look like a sewage drain or anything like that. Who'd need something like that when they have the river? Besides, none of the drainage tunnels connect to it directly." Rook shrugged. "There's more than one layer of city under this one. Especially under Low City. And then there's the Shunned Center--" She broke off, shivering slightly. "Alright, then. Worst-case scenario. They know we're coming--which they may very well do; Azpiazu's presence and activities probably tipped somebody off. So all the direct tunnels are going to be guarded. Hell, some of them might even be closed off--Noctu doesn't have enough resources that he can spread them thin, and he might not have had time to reinforce them." Scorpion cracked his knuckles. "Grunts I can take care of. The problem comes if we're discovered and have to hold them all off." Alfvaen nodded. "Right. It might be better to dispose of them quietly, since sound probably carries quite a ways in those tunnels. Maybe they won't be able to find its source right away, with the echoes, but they'll be on the alert." He looked at Blink. "Can we just teleport in, perhaps, to someplace on the map? That'd sure save us a lot of hassle." Scorpion shook his head. "Uh-uh. Blink can't teleport to places he hasn't seen, unless someone, or something, that he knows well, is there. If I, or Rook, could sneak in..." Blink tapped Rook on the shoulder, and gestured excitedly, almost too fast for her to understand his signing. "Hold on," Rook said. "See, he _used_ to be able to teleport to places he hadn't seen, even if he didn't know they existed. But he lost control of it for a while. Start to blink in his dreams, and that kind of thing. "But 'Raelf fixed that up. Rook's mostly right, but there's a way around it, if you use one of those crystal-ball scrying things. And I think Seer--he used to be in charge, but he's a bit...unavailable at the moment--had one of those. Did we ever get rid of that?" Blink shook his head and disappeared. A couple of minutes later, he returned with a multifaceted crystal, which he handed to Alfvaen "So can any of you use this?" Alfvaen asked, inspecting it. Rook laughed. "Nope. Seer was the closest to a mage--I think he might have been one, before the change. But the rest of us just have these weird chaos-driven powers." Alfvaen sighed. "I was afraid of that. Well, I know a _little_ magic, and have taken some vaguely appropriate classes at the Mage Guild, so I may be able to handle that, but I'm not promising anything. Can we leave that for the moment? "Right. So now the hard part. How do we get to this thrice-cursed blocker? And I don't even know what the thing looks like, or how to deactivate it..." --Leave that to me-- Azpiazu said. "Right. Okay. Um...Az says he can handle that. So we just have to get there." He had a hopeful thought. "What's your range? Can you do this from across the chasm?" --I could,-- the god said dubiously, --but this object has a lot of stored power in it. If I defuse it from too far away, a lot of raw chaos will escape before I can gather it in. Not only will I be weakened, but things won't be all that great for the immediate vicinity. Eddy and his sofa in the space-time continuum.-- "This is Generica," Alfvaen muttered. "Nobody would notice." The others looked at him quizzically. "So you're saying--no?" --Only at contact range will I be able to get enough control over the energy to regather most of it. So, indeed, I am saying no, except in an extreme situation. Raw chaos is not my preferred mode of work. Too boring, really. I prefer my chaos lightly sauteed, with a dash of paprika and some Bearnaise sauce, garnished with beak.-- "So he's saying no," Alfvaen confirmed. "We couldn't just blink over there, touch it for a split second, and then blink out again?" --No, on two counts. First of all, even the wisps of chaos that escape will probably wreak havoc on all the Wasters' powers at close range. Besides, it will take more than a split second for me to defuse the blockage. The Demon Queen of Eight-Legged Bug-Juice-Suckers, while not my equal in sheerly malicious design, will still likely have a few surprises in store. It will not be a straightforward procedure. At best, it will take me a few seconds. At worst, perhaps minutes.-- "So I'm going to have to cling to the side of this shaft--likely in pitch darkness--for a few _minutes_ while you clear this up?" --Just give me control,-- Azpiazu said patiently, --and I'll assume an appropriate clinging form while I work. With or without radioactive blood.-- "And after you're done? Are you going to stay merged with me long enough to get me back to terra firma before you go...wherever you go?" --Who knows? With my full power restored, I can pull some quite nifty robots out of my head.-- Alfvaen sighed. "Okay. So, if I have this straight, I have to get to this shaft, climb over to where this thing is, and get into contact with it before you can start working wonders. And then, when you're done, you can snap your fingers and we're home free." --Pretty much. Although I'm thinking of introducing a "home fee".-- "Sounds like a plan," Alfvaen said, valiantly ignoring Azpiazu's attempts at witticism. He turned to the others, who seemed visibly relieved that their guest was no longer talking to someone they couldn't hear. "Okay. Now to try this crystal thingmajig. You guys got any candles, incense, stuff like that? Oh, and I might want a fairly undisturbed private room to try this out. Not even Blink there until I think I can hold an image." **** Alfvaen sat and tried to discipline his thoughts. He _was_ getting better at that, but only slowly. He'd sat in on that workshop a few times when Urcohea had first hired him to check things out. Mostly because one of the journeymen helping teach the course has been Tuek Esmar, one of the few Rameshander students at the Mage Guild and a possible connection to the mage Amaan. His goal had been to get individual attention from Tuek, and ferret out any useful information. It hadn't been hard--the other students kept pleading for _somebody_ to keep that half-elf's noisy thoughts from mucking up their work. Tuek had gotten stuck with the job, and Alfvaen had made sure he was well-occupied, acting as deliberately obtuse as possible. In fact, the Rameshander had seemed on the verge of losing his temper a few times, but he could calm himself down in seconds. Alfvaen spent enough time in that class to satisfy himself that there was no connection between Tuek and Amaan, and ended up learning a few things at the same time. He concentrated on those things now. The crystal was on a small stand before him, and he'd chosen an incense that reminded him both of his old master, Milteanas, and his mother's herbs. Comfort and stability. Moriarty had told him that one of the reasons why summoners had to burn such weird things when summoning powerful creatures was because of the smoke, which had to be kept deliberately irritating so that they were kept on their guard against treachery by the summoned creatures. But for scrying, one was seeking harmony with oneself and the crystal, so the sweet smoke of incense was more useful. Okay. Now he was centered. He could sense the crystal. It was pointing in some way, but in no particular direction. Wherever Seer had last scried, unless the crystal drifted on its own accord. Enough thought. Centered. Now the center and the crystal would have to move towards each other. Which one moved? It didn't matter. The question was invalid. Mu. The motion was slow, painfully so, but it was more than a random drift. And then they were joined. The crystal pointed in the direction of something unspeakable... The something noticed the pinprick of his attention and pushed him away... Alfvaen surfaced, breathing heavily. He didn't care much for what Seer had last been looking at. He breathed deeply at the incense, lighting another stick to be sure it didn't run out. Centering. Again. Don't think about the images. They are not here, at the center. Center. Again, the slow painful drift. This time, the center anchored itself briefly just short of the crystal--or it anchored the crystal. Irrelevant distinction. Then it nudged the crystal's orientation--pulling it back, back. This was also painfully slow, but after a long timeless interval, it pointed only a few inches away from itself. Now the center and the crystal moved together once more. Now the images that came were more familiar, less disturbing. This room. He rotated the orientation, slowly, taking in the different images. He saw a figure seated in lotus--brown hair, eyes closed, familiar features more at peace than he ever remembered. Its elvish heritage, while plain from the pointed ears, was clearer on the face than it usually was, overshadowed by the human inheritance. As he looked closer, he saw the cords attached to the amulet. Figures drifted at the ends of those cords, one of them much larger/brighter/stronger than the others. That would be Azpiazu; of the other two, the brighter one would be Elstree, and the darker Lassiviren. He wondered for a moment if this was what 'Raelf saw him as. Satisfied, he moved over the map spread on the floor before the figure. A point had been marked on the two-dimensional representation. But where was it? He focused closer to the map... ...and suddenly his viewpoint was in a dim cul-de-sac. He had no sense of vision adjusting, but in the darkness he could see as well as he had in the candlelit room. It was deserted--no living creatures he could see, although the light no doubt came from a better-used corridor nearby. This was the place. Satisfied, the center and crystal moved apart. The motion was swifter, as if the force which had resisted their joining aided their separation. Alfvaen surfaced with a gnawing hunger. He'd forgotten how much magic took out of him. But before he got up, he looked more closely at the map. Nothing particularly special about it on this level, but obviously 'Raelf had imbued it with _some_ helpful property. Good thing, too--if he'd had to reorient that crystal the hard way, he'd have been dead from hunger by the time he got it done. He stood up, somewhat unsteadily, his leg muscles cramped, and went to rejoin the Wasters. **** After a brief but filling meal, they made ready. The Wasters had prepared climbing gear in the interim, and seemed impatient to get on with things. They'd selected an inconspicuous arrival point in a dead-end side-tunnel unlikely to be guarded. Unfortunately, that also meant that they would have to pass through some tunnels more likely to be guarded before they could reach the shaft. And the shaft entrances themselves would, of course, be guarded. Alfvaen sat down to guide Blink through. It was much harder to get centered this time; Blink's presence, and that of the net he wore, kept drawing his attention. His companion's silence was a boon, though. What was harder to deal with was the gnawing tension that came with the anticipation of the adventure ahead. He wasn't especially eager to face Noctu, or his cronies, again. But he had a duty to perform, a debt to the one who had saved him from death, which he was by no means yet eager to rejoin. Tuek had shown him a technique of shutting out one thing at a time. 'External things first, and by then you will know how to deal with the internal ones the same way.' So. Blink's net. His breathing. His presence. Faint voices from the corridor outside. The tension. The fear. Soon there was only the center. The center and the crystal moved together, more easily this time. They were more familiar, more attuned to each other. And then they were joined once more. There was the corridor, as it had been. Now the harder part. The center withdrew slightly, only slightly. But it drew the image with it. The crystal obligingly displayed the image. The other presence in the room moved closer. The center gently nudged the crystal to refine the displayed image for the other presence. The other presence studied the image. Then, suddenly, it cast a link to the image, and pulled itself through with a flash. Alfvaen surfaced more suddenly this time. Blink was gone, and his passage seemed to have disturbed the delicate attunement to the crystal. No matter. He was there now, and once he had familiarized himself with it sufficiently, he would return for the rest of them. "I'll never call a mage lazy again," he said, wiping sweat from his forehead. "He's through," he called to those waiting outside. Then he stood up to get something else to eat before he fainted. -- --Alfvaen(Editor of Communique) Current Album--Indigo Girls:Strange Fire Current Read--Dave Duncan:The Stricken Field "Thanks to brain, the wonderful new head-filler!" --Bluebottle