From alt.pub.dragons-inn Mon May 8 15:07:34 1995 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:8408 Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!noc.netcom.net!news.sprintlink.net!europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!caen!reeve.research.aa.wl.com!WS008013F18C2D!simonj From: simonj@rh.wl.com (Jeff Simon) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: Jake Shade: Prologue Date: Sat, 6 May 1995 04:02:25 EDT Organization: Parke-Davis Rochester Lines: 43 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.205.215.16 Summary: An ill wind . . . . X-Newsreader: Trumpet for Windows [Version 1.0 Rev B final beta #4] Prologue: An ill wind . . . . There is a windswept plain to the south of Generica, a desolate place where nothing grows, and where no living creature ever ventures. In the middle of that plain there stands an ancient ruin; a temple built of giant stones. Whichever god the temple was raised to has long forsaken this place - so long ago that in another decade, time's caress will have erased any sign that this place was formed by man at all. Tonight - like every night for the past thousand years - a mournful wind howls through the temple's empty halls. It gives voice to the ghosts who walk between the crumbling pillars. It casts the dusty bones of nameless martyrs across cracked floors like the toys of some unholy child. Yet on this night - unlike countless nights past - something is different. There is the promise of something in the air tonight. The promise of ... a happening. Something is coming. Something that makes even these long dead and uncaring phantoms look up from their mindless wander- ings and take note. Over the altar, there is a glow. A glow that is so faint and so small that it may have been there all along . . . but now it is growing brighter. It grows brighter and larger until it has taken on the aspect of a open door. Through that door pours a white radiance before which no dark- ness can stand. A radiance so bright that the ghosts cry out in fear of a thing they cannot name. They cringe behind the shelter of the ancient pillars as the entire wasteland is lit brighter than day. Then the doorway is gone. Vanished perhaps, or perhaps just faded back into imperceptibility. Yet where it once shone so brightly, there now stands a man. A man with scars on his hands and eyes that are a thousand years old. For a long moment he stands there, while around him the wind keens like an army of the damned. Then he begins walking. He walks toward the north, leaving the temple to the wind and its ghosts. -- The opinions expressed in this message are mine alone. This message does not necessarily reflect the positions or opinions of my company or organization.