From alt.pub.dragons-inn Mon Aug 15 16:29:55 1994 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:7510 Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!news.hal.COM!olivea!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!nic-nac.CSU.net!usc!cs.utexas.edu!not-for-mail From: robotech@worf.infonet.net (here she comes again) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [HouseStorm] A Trap is Sprung Date: 13 Aug 1994 14:15:39 -0500 Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway Lines: 291 Sender: nobody@cs.utexas.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: news.cs.utexas.edu The authors of this piece are: Chris Meadows Christopher Motherway Steve Hutchison This segment is copyright 1994 to them. Andrea walked between two dusty, cobweb-strewn shelves, her fingers idly tracing a trail along the spines of one of the rows of books. The break she'd called was almost over, and it would soon be time to continue on their way. She turned to the shelf, picked a book at random and brushed some of the dust off. She looked at the title engraved upon the cover of the tome, not really noticing what it said. She used it as more of an excuse not to think, to do something other than give in to worries and fears. Why on earth had no one the good sense not to allow Jay and Sheryl to come? It was all very well for them to say that with all these skilled people around they couldn't possibly come to any harm, but how on earth could they tell? None of them were prescient--er, wait a minute. For all Andrea knew, 'Raelf, ar'Elya, and various facets thereof might quite well be prescient. She knew they had senses that she couldn't possibly even hope to understand. "Argh." Andrea put the book back. It hadn't helped her any. "Does it really bother you that much?" a voice piped up from behind her. It was Jay, of course--she didn't need to turn, didn't need to face him. "Of course it does, Jay...I'm worried about you. I don't want to see you get hurt." Any more than you already have been, she didn't add, thinking of the scars she'd seen on the boy's back. There was a unicorn nicker of something between amusement and exasperation, also from somewhere behind her. Sheryl. And then a voice insider her mind said, -Your feelings do you credit, but there is such a thing as excess. Life is life. If it happens, it happens.- "That's a nice circular argument you have there, N'graytha." Sheryl tossed her head and snorted, quite used to and bored with Andrea talking to "herself" by now. Andrea chuckled. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I should stop worrying. But yet, could I forgive myself if something DID happen?" She walked on down the aisle, toward the shelf at the end of the row. Jay and Sheryl followed closely. "You can't protect me forever," Jay said, bending over to look at some of the books on the lower shelf. "I know, I know...but I'd like to think that I can at least protect you for a little while lon--AIEEEEE!!!" The scream that cut Andrea off in midsentence was the result of an interesting chain of events. Jay, perhaps in emulation of Andrea's earlier action, or perhaps simply because he wanted to see what it said, had grabbed a book from one of the lower shelves. The book only slid partway out, but in doing so tripped some kind of mechanism. Gears turned, stones shifted, and the floor upon which the threesome were standing suddenly developed a sharp incline. Andrea, Sheryl, and Jay dropped suddenly and rapidly out of sight. A second later, the book popped back into place, the floor replaced itself, and all was as it had been, save for some footsteps in the dust that led into a kind of strange kind of scraping trail that ended at the junction with the bookcase. ----- Everyone heard the scream and turned. Lance immediately ran to where the scream eminated from, and found nothing but the trails of dust where Andrea had dragged her fingers, and the peculiar trail of footprints into the bookcase. Miro muttered an oath in an arcane language and pulled a handful of glowing marble-sized spheres from inside his cloak. He loosed them, and they floated over the floor for a moment before they faded like soap bubbles. "Sure, and they're not dead yet, nor injured," he said aloud. He dropped flat to the floor, looking down the row of books. Meanwhile Blaze closed her eyes and lengthened her trap detecting spell. After a minute, her eyes opened. "Beloved," she said to Lance, "a trap door has been activated here." "That would explain the skid marks," the knight replied. Miro smiled grimly to himself. He observed the smudges of dust on the book that Jay had touched, and rolled a glowing sphere through the air towards the book. It shattered when it touched the cover. A second and third had the same effect. "And so, me darlin's, the wee question is, what to do now?" Blaze looked in surprise at the elf where he was sprawled along the floor, and Lance spoke solemnly, "I swore to myself that Andrea would come to no harm. So I wish to follow and lend her what service I can." Blaze nodded in agreement to her mate. She then added, "Give me a moment and I might be able to learn how this trap operates." She closed her eyes again and started chanting silently. ----- They half fell down a stone chute in the dark, screaming. Andrea, using the additional senses that her bonding to a unicorn had given her, was able to see the directions the chute was heading and align herself accordingly. Sheryl, her equine form being not especially built for slides, went down it lying on her side. Jay tumbled a bit, but managed to point himself in the right direction. After about ten seconds, all three of them shot off the end of the slide and landed in a pile of what felt like straw. Andrea was on her feet in a second, sword drawn. "What the hell?" Jay stood up. "Where are we?" "Somewhere in the catacombs under the house, I think. Hold on." Andrea made a gesture and said a word, and a blue flame danced in her left hand. By its light, she looked around. "Sheryl, Jay, are you all right?" The little unicorn clambered to her feet and whinnied an affirmative. Jay nodded. "Nothing hurt but my pride." Andrea examined their surroundings. The room they were in was round, roughly thirty feet across, and had stone walls. There was only one exit, to what Andrea felt instinctively was the east. The slide's egress was in the opposite wall. "We'd better get going if we want to get back in touch with the others." "Can't we go back up the slide?" Andrea shook her head. "Too smooth. We'd never be able to climb it, and even if we could, Sheryl probably couldn't. And even if teleportation were an option, we don't know the layout of this place well enough for that. There could be traps." "Well, then." Jay pulled out the dagger that Andrea had given him. It fit comfortably into his hand. "I guess there's only one way we can go." Andrea started to move toward the exit, then stopped. -I sense something,- N'graytha thought to her. -Something...dark.- Andrea stood very still, closed her eyes, and reached out with her other senses. There...not too far away. It was more than dark. It was evil, malevolent, and very strong. And also, it was familiar. "Raykor..." Andrea breathed. "He's near, very near." She gripped her sword firmly enough to cause her knuckles to whiten. "And he's probably blocking the exits to the upper levels. If he's near enough for us to sense, I very seriously doubt he's unaware of our presence. He probably orchestrated the whole damn thing." Andrea sighed. "Looks like we're going to have a chance at our revenge, whether we want it or not. Follow me, but be careful." Moving more like a cat than a unicorn, Andrea slid out into the dark passage. Jay and Sheryl had no choice but to follow. ----- Blaze opened her eyes and pointed toward a book on the case. "There." she replied. "Pull that book and the door will open. But we will have to stand directly on the door in order for it to open." "Very well. Get ready to pull that book." said Lance. "Wait," Blaze said, "there was something else...I saw that face again, Lance...the face of the spirit of the man who enslaved me. And, this time, a name was spoken...I think Andrea spoke it...'Raykor.' Raykor IS here!" "It matters not! We shall do to him what we did to his boss, Raoh! Pull that book!" Miro shook his head. "This is nae a guid idea. Sic' a trap will most surely send the ones tae follow, down a false alley." He pulled four more spheres out of his cloak and threw them at the floor. They sank through as if it were air, and four heartbeats later, they returned. The elf looked carefully at them and nodded. "Aye, it has just the two guides. Let me go first, and it'll switch back an' send ye tae the same place Andrea went." They waited, impatiently, for Miro to trigger the trap, and he disappeared down the slide. It reset itself, and the dragonet that had been riding on his shoulder chirped impatiently at Blaze. Lance reached down and pulled the book. A minute later the couple was in the same dark room that Andrea, Jay and Sheryl were just in. I took them a minute to get their bearings. Blaze was shivering. "Beloved," she gasped, "the evil of this house...Raykor...is very close by." "I know." replied Lance. "The evil stench is stronger than ever down here. Do you think you can find Andrea?" Clutching her amulet, the archmage replied, "If she has love in her heart, this will find her." The amulet started glowing dimly. "It should grow brighter as we get nearer," she added. Drawing his sword, Lance said, "All right, then. Let's go." ----- They crept in silence through dark and gloomy tunnels, lit only by the occasional flickering torch. Andrea could see easily, and moved through the shadows like a professional, sometimes disappearing from Jay's sight. Jay's eyes soon adjusted to the dark, and he moved through the shadows like a talented amateur. Sheryl brought up the rear, hopefully safe from any dangers that the others might run into ahead. At one point, the rough stone tunnel intersected one of Generica's city sewer branches. The edges of the intersection were rough, like someone had cut them. Andrea paid it no mind, stepping over the trickle of offal in the middle and continuing onward. Jay stopped for just a moment and looked off down the dark, sloping, round corridor. What lurked down there? And could it come out here? Jay shivered and ran after Andrea. Andrea worked her way down the corridor, sword unsheathed, gazing cautiously ahead at each crack and loose stone on the floor. She had not only herself but her younger sister and an innocent kid to worry about, and if anything happened to either of them, she'd never get over it. She smiled grimly. It was just like old times. As she rounded a bend in the tunnel, her unicorn-sensitive ears picked up something. She signalled a halt and drew her crossbow. Jay knew better than to say anything, and he didn't know the appropriate hand-signal to ask "What is it?" so he contented himself with drawing his dagger and waiting silently. Sheryl had been through all this before. She braced herself and canted her head forward, horn pointing straight ahead. It wasn't long before they slunk into sight. They looked kind of like dogs--mean, mangy dogs, the kind that have been on their own on the streets for a year or two--except that they walked upright, wore crude leather armor, and carried spears. Kobolds, and there were five of them. Andrea felt a wave of hatred and revulsion that surprised her momentarily, until she realized that it wasn't her own but N'graytha's. -Whoa, take it easy,- Andrea said. -They're just kobolds.- -Horrible, evil, dark creatures,- N'graytha thought (hatred, fear). -Relax. They can't hurt anybody down here.- Aloud, Andrea spoke. "We aren't looking for a fight. Let us pass and no harm will come to you." She heard them talking among themselves in half-snarled whispers. After a few minutes of this, Andrea slung the crossbow. "Will you let us pass?" she asked. The kobolds looked up from their impromptu huddle with murder in their eyes. They brandished their spears. "Guess that means no," Andrea said, gesturing. There was a blinding flash and several tortured screams, followed by a frantic commotion as the kobolds fell all over themselves to get away from the light. "Wow!" Jay gasped. "You're absolutely amazing!" "Be that as it may, I've just exhausted my limited repertoire of spells," Andrea said drily. "Anything we meet from here on in, we'll have to handle without magic." ----- Raykor tracked Andrea's progress through the corridors on a screen projected from the green, glowing orb he held in his hand. This was better than he could have hoped. He had been intentionally keeping a low profile, shielding himself against detection by the magic-users who had entered the structure with Andrea and Sheryl. He'd been honestly amazed at the power wielded by some members of the party. Generica seemed to have the highest per-capita number of archmagi of any place he'd ever visited. He'd restricted himself to passive magic, just so he could watch without fear of being seen. This meant, of course, that he couldn't magically influence the searchers to do certain things or head in certain directions...which meant that he had to let Andrea find her own way through the house, and thus a confrontation might not come for a long, long time. But Andrea had fallen down into the catacombs, and there was only one way out of those that he hadn't sealed off--through the central control complex. Right where Raykor was waiting. He smiled, seeing the elf trigger the slide that had taken Andrea. That one led to a bottomless pit, a hole so deep he believed it might end up in the Underdark itself. One problem out of the way permanently. If Raykor hadn't turned his attention back to Andrea and Sheryl with an intensity they could almost feel, he would surely have noticed the other intruders in his domain, who had somehow wound up where Andrea had emerged instead of falling forever. ----- The door at the end of the passage was big and heavy, made of oak. Andrea could sense Raykor's dark presence behind it. She knew he was making no effort to shield himself from her--it was as though he wanted her to find him. And he probably did. Andrea slid her sword into its sheath so as to pull the heavy door open with both hands. As it opened a crack, and Raykor's mocking laughter emanated, Andrea's blood boiled. "You two stay out here," she ordered. "I'm going in to confront Raykor, and I don't want you two in danger." Then she slipped inside. Jay and Sheryl looked at each other. "We can't let her face him alone," Jay said, echoing what Sheryl was at that very moment thinking. "I don't care how powerful he is, she's going to need our help!" Steeling himself, drawing on all the courage he possessed, Jay went through the door after Andrea, and Sheryl followed. -- Chris Meadows/Robotech_Master | "The only lucky round that'll kill an cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu | A-10 is one that goes through the cmeadows@ozarks.sgcl.lib.mo.us | forehead of the pilot." robotech@ins.infonet.net | --Col. Christopher Russo robotech@worf.infonet.net | "A-10 Tank Killer" instruction manual