From alt.pub.dragons-inn Tue Aug 30 16:45:51 1994 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:7599 Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!csn!yuma!lamar.ColoState.EDU!not-for-mail From: arsmith@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Alan Smith) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [NTY][HouseStorming] Nightcap at 'Raelfs... Date: 26 Aug 1994 15:13:46 -0600 Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 Lines: 431 Message-ID: <33llua$34mc@lamar.ColoState.EDU> NNTP-Posting-Host: lamar.acns.colostate.edu ADMIN: The cast, characters, and techie crew of the [HouseStorming] Thread: Alan Smith ...............Palandun Lintesul Spider .......................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 nevyn@camelot.bradley.edu Kelly J. Cooper Liralen Li All stories are copyright their respective authors, and shouldn't be used, copied, etc. witout said authors permission unless you really like being sued. We will make exceptions for normal archiving. All rights reserved. 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. Once inside they split up and Palandun Lintesul (who was acting as a central coordinator) has been captured by the person controlling all the traps. ****** ****** ****** ****** ******* They should have hurt, but he was beyond feeling anything. Blue lightning played across his face, coming from a spiral-twisted wand in the hands of something too dark to be seen. It hovered close, and its breath smelled vaguely of too much rat-aux-ail. Palandun tried to wince and close his eyes but he couldn't move, couldn't twitch. The lightnings hurt, a little, like having someone slap him in the face with a length of raspberry cane. He felt a pressure growing against his brain, a sensation like the worst sinus headache he'd ever had. The pain began to blot out vision and he dimly heard a voice, commanding, "TELL ME NOW." The world swam away, like a salmon going upstream to spawn. He was left with disjointed shreds of reality, bits of feature in the empty darkness. The darkness was too cold, so he stuck two of them together and wrapped them around himself for warmth. -- ** -- Palandun came up to the door to the lighthouse and pounded on it for a while. It was very important that he see 'Raelf, he remembered, because... Why? He had a reason when he walked up the path but he could not, to save his life, remember what it was. If 'Raelf opened the door and he just gawked at the mage, he (the mage) was probably going to feel somewhat put out. A mage that felt annoyed was not a good thing. Palandun had just turned to go back down the path when 'Raf appeared, looking like something the cat threw out. "Could you please not breathe so loud... Oh, hey, Palandun. How goes it?" The satyrlion blinked at the young Bismanian with eyes that looked like they had been sandpapered. "Uh, I, uh, you're 'Raelf's brother, right?" Oh no, not a hung-over annoyed mage... "Right." 'Raf tried to collect his wits about him. Just a few solid hours playing, that was all he needed, but the band was all worn out. He blinked, and Palandun was still there, so it wasn't an hallucination. In that case, he could guess what he (the Bismanian) had come here for. Just in case, he said, "What can I do you for, dude?" "Huh?" Palandun said, taken by surprise. His brain nearly froze, but hit on something to ask. "What is this?" he said, holding up a statue that he couldn't remember taking with him. It was a small wooden piece, with a picture of something an artist in one of the hallucenogenic dens must have dreamed up. It was a squid-lizard-bat thing, with most of its tentacles spread and one covering the beak, which was open. The statue sort of looked like something a truly deranged mind came up with trying to burp politely. Palandun was surprised when he didn't get the expected answer of 'It's a statue. Ugly one, too.' Instead, 'Raf merely got a very serious look on his face and said, "Where'd you get that? You'd better come in." Palandun found himself inside before he realized that his feet were moving. 'Raf had taken the statue, and it was locked in a shimmering blue sphere of something not like light. And they were in a big room that went off quite a ways into the distance, with a white roof some thirty feet up, with bright magelights at regular intervals lighting up the utilitarian workbenches below them. "Sorry, I had to take a shortcut. Welcome to my lab." "Nice place." Palandun said, taking it in and being impressed. He had been in mage labs before, but this was a very well equipped one. "Lotta room. What's the deal with the statue?" "How much do you know about the Shunned Center?" 'Raf asked, puttering around with some alchemicals. Palandun addmitted that he knew very little, beside the fact that nobody wanted him to go there, and the few times he had he hadn't found a single halfway-normal rat. "There's a reason for that." 'Raf said. "A very ugly reason. And I can't really tell you what it is unless... With your permission?" "What?" Palandun felt a strange sort of sensation as the satyrlion stared at him, eyes like pools of molten glass. "May I touch the surface of your mind?" "Uh, ... all right, just don't get too personal." 'Raf laughed quietly, and Palandun had a brief strange sense of being off-balance, and when he grabbed the table to keep from falling, he wondered why his hand was olive brown and with the tracing of black hairs instead of the tan with gold fur he ... no, that wasn't him, that was the other guy. The sensation vanished. "Sorry, dude," 'Raf said, "You got some feedback there. Anyway, you know about her already so I can tell you. The Great Mother." "Who?" Palandun asked, trying to remember why he associated the term 'Mother' with that statue. "Great Mother is a... well, there isn't a classification you know about. In some places she'd be considered a god. She's been worshiped as a god here, but she's not really the same kind of thing. The statue is one of her tools, it's an image of one of her morphs." "Cool!" Palandun said, suddenly heading for the door, "New species!" "No!" 'Raf said, swiftly moving to head off Palandun while turning up the blue not-light around the statue. "You don't understand. She's a chaos being, something that doesn't really belong here on this nice quiet mundane plane. She isn't a part of the life-web here, except by accident. If you get too close to her, she'll _eat_ you like a kid gobbling candy." Palandun felt his mouth opening like a fish, and closed it. "And when she eats someone, it's not that superficial kind of chew-up-and-digest way you're used to thinking about, either. The people she eats live through the experience, and they end up as cells in her group-mind. If they're lucky and she doesn't just put them straight into her own version of hell, then she lets her Overmind play with them, and the Overmind is a council of the twelve most vicious and malevolent assholes that this city has ever known. You do _not_ want to meet them, trust me. Palandun, if you have any sense at all you will not go in there, being eaten by her is probably the worst fate you could find." Needless to say, Palandun was kind of stunned. "You mean to say that there's a thing that rips peoples souls out of their bodies and puts them in some kind of wallet *here*? In Generica?" "No, dude, she eats them, soul, body, and wriggly bits." Sitting on a lab stool, 'Raf continued, "It was one of my main reasons for not wanting you guys to put your colony there in the Low City. See, you're right on the edge of her personal space. And she hunts, dude. She sneaks into the minds of the locals while they're asleep and vulnerable, and she grabs the ones that seem like what she wants at the time, or she sends out one of her Spawn to collect them. Your colony, fresh new meat -- she's gonna want to taste a few Bismanians. She can take about ten people a week from the town in general, and get away with it clean, by making the right people forget. This is a big city. We don't want you to lose people, Pal. Maybe you should have them move." Palandun cogitated on this, then finally spoke. "What about the rest of the city? Can they leave as well?" At 'Rafs shrug, he continued, "Right. Running away isn't going to help, we have to stop this thing." "You can't." 'Raf said, "Not by force of arms, and all the magic power in Generica is about half of what you need, and that's being optimistic. Palandun, get them the hell out. She's got her hooks into your folks already, get them to safety. There is nothing you can do." Palandun sat down and closed his eyes "Ever hear of Sovia? On the western Continent? Danuib, Andria, Bismania and Newmeanor together can't defeat that behemoth, couldn't ever since the first orc war, 150 years ago. We fought three more wars though, you know why?" he opened his eyes and gazed intently at 'Raf, "Because an evil you cannot defeat you may be able to contain, or attenuate. That is what I'm going to try to do, but I'll need some help. Can you help me? At least to remember?" 'Raf sighed. "You really want this, don't you." "To remember? Yeah-" "No, that's not what I meant. You really want to be able to fight against evil and make a difference." "Yes. Of course. With all my heart." "I was afraid you'd say that." 'Raf stood back from the glowing blue sphere holding the statue, drawing one fist back in what looked suspiciously like an Etarusian fighting posture. There was a loud roar, Palandun jumped, and Raf's fist had penetrated the globe, shattering the statue. "Why the hell did you do that?!" Palandun half shouted, watching the pieces of the statue fly around wildly inside the globe of light, grinding themselves ever smaller. 'Raf shook his hand, wincing in pain. Drops of blood flickered redly on his fur and vanished. "I have a curse, my friend. You've invoked it." "What are you talking about?" 'Raf smiled, showing lions' teeth. "You told me your hearts desire. You want to be able to fight evil and make a real difference. I'm cursed to grant heart's desires, Pal, so please don't go telling everybody, ok? Anyway, this is the first part. When those pieces are done flying around in there, they'll be the basis for an alchemic process. I'm going to extract a component that, when I blend it in the right potion, will protect you from the Great Mother." "Hey, that's great!" "Hold on. This is the first step. There will be four more. Go downstairs and tell Kev to show you the library. I'll be down with the elixir in an hour." Palandun saw a glowing yellow line on the floor, starting at his feet. He followed it and found himself on the ramp leading down into the living-room area of the Lighthouse. Kev was there, making a kite. "Hey, kid," Palandun said. "'Raf said for you to show me the library." "No prob, kid," Kev replied, and jumped up. "Follow me," and he sprinted through the door and down the hallway past the kitchen and a number of doors. Palandun ran to keep up. This wasn't the same layout that the place had during the party. All the little cubby-hole rooms were gone from the main living-room, and this hallway had been closed off. Kev stopped suddenly and Palandun had to brake hard to keep from running him over. "Here y' go, da libry. Have fun, an' don't let da books eat ya." Kev giggled and ran backwards, returning to where he had started. "Weird kid," Palandun muttered. The door opened at his touch, and he stepped inside. Inside it was dimly lit, but after a second the light began to rise, revealing a wall covered in books. "Wow," Palandun muttered. "I wonder if they've got a card catalog." "ook!" said something behind him. He whirled. There was a transparent orangutan hunkered on top of a shoulder-height cabinet, filled with small drawers labelled in the Bismanian alphabet. "Thanks," he said to the orangutan, and began flipping through the cards, looking for "Great Mother." There was one card, and it showed, in green, the following headings. "Mother Love, collected religious poetry of Old Generica" "The Life and Slimes of C'Tulhu" "Old Ones, Great Old Ones, and Not-So-Great Old Ones" "Chaos and Spawn" "Ecological Role of Chaos Entities in Magical World Complexes" The last entry caught his attention. He touched it with his finger and looked up at the placid face of the orangutan, which said "ook" once and swung across the bookshelf, disappearing around a corner, then coming back out suddenly from the opposite side of the room carrying a thick black treatise. It crooked a finger at him, and he followed it across the room. Behind a rack of shiny-covered colorful magazines was a small sunken rest area. There was a study carrel like the one he had at the University, and a comfortable chair, and a small window which looked out over the city. He frowned for a moment, remembering that he had gone LEFT into the library, and that the city was off to the RIGHT down that hallway. Oh well, mages, what can you say. At least the whole area had good light. He sat down to read. He half-felt the presence of someone watching him and looked up, blinking hard. Strange images swam in his head and he wasn't sure he wanted to think too hard about them. He looked out the window and was surprised to see that it was twilight. "Ook, ook." The orangutan was sitting on the floor staring at him. When he looked at it, it crooked one long finger and went scuttling across the floor to the doorway. He followed it. 'Raf was waiting in the hall, with a gold-skinned elf that Palandun vaguely recalled was named Miro. "What's up? Is it ready?" Palandun asked. "Yeah, but it's got some serious side effects. You want to eat dinner with us first while we discuss it?" Palandun realized that he was hungry, and more important, he needed to use the euphemism as soon as possible. "Sounds good to me. Is there a place I can wash and, ah," he started. "Down the hall across from the kitchen and dining room," 'Raf said blandly. After making his ablutions, Palandun found 'Raf and Miro in the dining room. There was a small supper laid, three places. Something smelled like Etarusian food. "Hey, you didn't have to go to any trouble for me," he said, and Miro smiled and waved vaguely at one of the chairs. Palandun sat down, and the other two joined him. Food was dished out, and tea poured, and they started to eat. "So the side effects," 'Raf said. "You realize this kind of thing always has some hidden costs, right?" "Yeah," Palandun said cautiously. "What kind of hidden costs do you expect it to have?" "That depends on two things," 'Raf said. "First, on how the potion accomodates itself to you. It's not one of those sloppy one-size-fits-all generic potions like you can get at your herbalist conjurer's shop. It's going to protect you from Great Mother, and more generally from mental invasions, magical or otherwise. Just how it does that will depend on you. The second thing is, your hearts' desire was for more than just being able to help your colony out. You've got a destiny, dude. Your timeline is very heavy. So the potion has some stuff in it that just felt right to me at the time, based on my curse. It'll make you able to fight evil and make a difference, but I can't tell you how it will do that." "Oh swell," Palandun muttered. More forebodings about his future, as if that trip to Rameshan the month before hadn't already made him nervous about what lay in store. "One other thing, boyo," Miro said, the first sounds Palandun had heard from him so far. "Tis a guid idea if ye wait an hour after dinner before ye drink the wee potion. T'will mingle with the food, and this kind of food always makes ye hungry an hour later, and y' don't want tae be wanting to drink another potion in an hour." An hour later he was hungry -- that prediction came true. He got up from where he was reading the last of that creepy book, and wandered out into the living room. 'Raf was nowhere to be seen, but Miro was watching the sunset and plunking morosely at a lute. "Uhm, could I try taking that potion now," Palandun said. "Otherwise I'm gonna lose my nerve." "Surely, laddie. Here 'tis." Miro did a sleight-of-hand wave and produced a crystal flask, holding an uncomfortable amount of a glowing red liquid. "Do I need to do anything special?" "Nae. Just drink it in one swig, and sit down. It'll be putting you out for a wee time." Miro handed him the flask and Palandun unstoppered it, and squared his shoulders, blew out a deep breath, and began to down the stuff. The room started to shake. When he came to again, the sunset sky was a deeper red and it looked to be a half hour before darkness. "Wow, I'd better get back down," Palandun said. "The path up here is pretty narrow and I don't want to get hurt going down in the dark." "We'd better test it first," Miro said grimly. Palandun looked at him, puzzled. "The potion, lad. You're going back down to where She can get at ye." "Oh. Can you do that? Test it, I mean?" "Aye, none better." The elf looked him in the eye, a searching gaze, but after a moment Palandun grew impatient and said, "Will this take long?" "You should go for a swim first," Miro said. "What? Why? It's almost dark and they're expecting me." "Good. Laddie, it works." -- ** -- The room swam back into focus. "So, the woman with the flying lizards is barely more than a beastmaster. No wonder she won't risk her dainty white skin indoor near the traps, so much easier it is to send in one's animals, and safer. And the elf who has accompanied Andrea and that foolish pair of lovebirds is a petty thief with minor magic at best. Just as I thought. And the other group, simply two human thieves and one elvish, and that other baggage merely an illusion weaver garbed to appear an elf, with a wand that seeks out traps. So, you thought to block me from your mind with a mere amulet, foolish man. I must go tend to my guests, now. Consider well what form of beast you most despise, for when I return, my spells will change you into it." Raykor said, sighing with satisfaction. The barbarian had thought he could hide the truth from Raykor, ha! He went off to research the spells that *did* turn one into a frost dragon, anyway... Palandun stared after the mage, gaining new appreciation for exactly what the potion could *do*, implanting exactly what the mage apperently wanted to hear and was inclined to believe. Even turning into a frost dragon wasn't *that* bad, one could still talk and get changed back, and meanwhile he could possibly have a magecicle as a snack...