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From: mca@christa.unh.edu (Marc C Allain)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [LC]  L'ai Ch'i intro, part four
Date: 28 Jun 1994 17:38:49 GMT
Organization: University of New Hampshire  -  Durham, NH
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Message-ID: <2upn79$8il@mozz.unh.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: christa.unh.edu

Story:  Part Four

  L'ai Ch'i spent the next several days wandering around the
city of Generica.  The marketplace proved to be the best place
to learn the language as there was always conversation and
tangible things being discussed to increase his vocabulary.
  When the language sessions got to him, he would wander the
rest of the town, learning his way around.  Then evening
would come and he would return to the inn for a meal and a
bit of gambling to supplement his funds.  It wasn't as sure
or as lucrative as dueling would have been, but it was a bit
less dangerous.
  And every night, L'ai Ch'i would dream.  His dreams always
had the same theme of trying to put together something very
complex.  Puzzles, clockworks, tapestries and other such
things filled his sleeping hours.  And every morning he would
awaken with a few new pieces of memory, although they rarely
related to anything else he could recall.
  There were numerous scenes of cities not unlike Generica,
but with many different races and languages.  And there were
people but the thousands, some seemed almost familiar, others
no more than chance remembered faces of strangers.
  Within little more than a week, L'ai Ch'i had absorbed a
pidgin-level knowledge of the local language (and curses in
others as well.)  His dreams had started getting more and
more ominous the past couple of nights.  Strange, shadowy
figures and seemingly endless versions of running for his life.
  The picture that L'ai Ch'i was beginning slowly to build was
that he was some sort of agent for some power or other.  His
work seemed secretive, his own remembered activities so obscure
as to be meaningless as yet.
  It was reflecting on these matters that brought L'ai Ch'i
back to the docks where his current awareness had begun.  There,
he saw Longo sitting around with some other dockworkers, taking
a brief rest from their labors.  Longo hailed L'ai Ch'i and
walked over to talk to him.
  "How ya doing today Lai?"
  L'ai Ch'i shrugged.  "Good.  Lost in place.  Lost in mind.
All other is good.  Learning."
  Longo laughed.  "Ya sure are, buddy.  But, hey!  Wanted to
talk to ya.  Y'see, there was this big ol guy lookin' for ya
here this mornin'.  About yay high,"  Longo stretched his hand
up to around the seven foot level, "And not skinny, and dark
as any Dark Continent prince.  Sound familiar?"
  L'ai Ch'i closed his eyes and tried to do something useful
with what he understood of the description.  He failed.
  "Sorry.  Ask what want if he come again."
  "Sure, just thought ya should know.  Gotta go now."

  L'ai Ch'i waved and walked back toward the market, trying to
fit this new piece into the puzzle of his past.

-- 
Marc C. Allain          MCA@CHRISTA.UNH.EDU

Prophet Marcus of the First Church of Mad Scientist