From: hutch@hutch (Stephen Hutchison)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [KQ] 'Raelf [Factory]: Rocky, Part 27, Deliriuuminias
Date: 4 Sep 92 19:44:20 GMT
Reply-To: hutch@ibeam.intel.com
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon

JOYSTIX FACTORY LEVEL 2:

"I'll trade you a squid sandwich for your lizard in aspic..."

----------

Thk, immersed in the boiling pot of drug-soup, has been able to use the
Sword of the Elvish Sea-King to move freely...

+* ploit *  His head breaks water!  "Hissssssss--"  * ploop *  Back under-
+water.  He exhales and leaps again * ploit * "Hisssss---"  * ploop * And
+the sense of panic drains from his system.

+After a few more leaps, he gets his breath back enough to yell:

+*ploit*  "Squid --   "  *ploop*
+*ploit*  "-- Face !! "  *ploop*
+*ploit*  "I will --  "  *ploop*
+*ploit*  "ssuck your "  *ploop*
+*ploit*  "brainss -- "  *ploop*
+*ploit*  "--out for  "  *ploop*
+*ploit*  " thisss!!!!"  *ploop*

+Quruuminias hears the clipped voice booming out the mouth of the cauldron
+and winces.  Threatening death by cerebral extraction is the WORST insult 
+you can make to a mind flayer...

Under the wreckage of the catwalk, triphammer blows can be heard.

"Get" *CRUNCH* "OFF" *CRUNCH WHAM THUD* "me" *WHAM THUD WHAM*

Quruuminias notices, with some distaste, that the guards have managed to
turn their hands into bleeding sacks of broken bone.  The drug is effective,
but some changes will be required if he intends to keep his slaves in good
working order.  He moves to his lab bench, fortunately still intact, and
quickly begins putting things into a bag of holding.  The situation was
beginning to deteriorate, and he was unwilling to lose so much work.
He opens a locked box and draws forth a wand.  A cessation of the noise
causes him to turn towards the ongoing battle.

The Illithid sees the two guards suddenly rise up off the ground,
each held in a stony grip.  The Traveller mage has managed to stand,
and is applying some sort of nerve grip to the back of their heads.
He seems to be larger than before, overtopping the guards, and his
skin has gone a shiny grey.

The Traveller mage shakes the two fighters, and a snapping sound is heard.
Marcel is fighting, over to one side, with a fellow who wields a magical
sword of some kind.  He seems to be doing well enough - no need to help.
'Raelf turns his gaze towards the mind-flayer.  He drops the two guards.

"You," he says, in a level, deadly voice, "are a mental case."
He starts to move, slowly, toward the mind-flayer, scanning the room
carefully.  (The staff has to be here somewhere...)

The illithid quickly prepares a psychic bolt, then realizes that he is
so exhausted that it would not penetrate the mage's wards.  He'll have
to use something more indirect, then.  He aims the wand, pupil-less white
eyes swivelling.  "Carbuncle!" he intones, and a pulse of grey light shoots
forth from the tip.  'Raelf, however, has moved aside with uncanny speed,
and it misses him, shooting past him into the darkness under the collapsed
catwalk.  A muffled curse comes out, and Quruuminias thrashes his mouth
tentacles in mild frustration.  The mage is too close.  "Cathraz!" he
says, and a black beam pulses out, once again missing - HOW can he do
that, thinks the illithid, how can he not think about where he's going
before he goes there...   The portion of catwalk struck by the beam
shivers into dust and collapses.

(Inside the cauldron, a KaTHUD sounds as the Lizard-Man does something
drastic.)

'Raelf whirls forward, in a tuck-roll.  <<Here, fido>> he calls,
and from the floor nearby, his staff leaps into his hand, trailing
an arc of electricity.  <<Zot!>> he says, and an electric jolt flies
from the end of the staff, grounding out on the illithid's wand.
The mind-flayer quickly drops the hot stick into a pocket.

"The best offense is a hasty retreat," muses Quruuminias, and he begins
to shift his view of reality - the Plane of Fire was no fun at all, try
the Plane of Air?  But, why am I still here?  "Traveller!  Stop that!"

'Raelf grins, white marble teeth in a granite smile.

"Don't leave now, the party's only just started!"

He holds the staff out sideways, spins it - a menacing hum arises.
"Y'all is magical resisting, right, zwilnik?  Le's Rock an' Roll!"

Quruuminias redoubles his efforts to escape this reality, and the very
air begins to spark and writhe.  The world grows increasingly more vivid
and real around him.

"Hey, squiddie, I said stay put," says 'Raelf, through clenched teeth.
The staff, spun between his hands, is a buzzsaw disk in front of him.
A swirl of images forms on the surface of the disk, then leaps out, making
a sphere around the illithid.

"I go... Where...  I... PLEASE!" gasps the mind-flayer, pushing past the
resistance.  The border of realities looms closer, then around him, the
sphere collapses, trap sprung - he is assailed by a raucous cacaphony of
sounds and sights.  A nightmarish little mammalian foodbeast with chromatic
hair rides by on a miniature pegasus with iridescent rainbow wings, spreading
an arc of spectra behind her.  At his feet, mushrooms begin to uproot
themselves and dance grotesquely in a parody of the stately court dances
of the Shadow Islanders, wriggling their disgusting stalk-feet in time with
the shrill harmonic piping of human flutes.  The air is suddenly filled
with a noxious imbecilic singing, just slightly too banal to summon the
shuggoths, and little blue humanoids wearing white hats and loinclothes
begin falling out of the air, catching onto his clothes, even tweaking
his feeding tentacles, every once in a while ceasing their "la-la-la"
to blather on in an incomprehensible baby-talk - the worst part, they
totally lack any semblance of a mind to control.

'Raelf steps back, holding the staff in a ready position, as the illithid
is surrounded by the mind-weakening images of American children's television,
and fails to notice the movement behind him.  Elstrek tosses one of his
special little bottles, aiming at the floor beneath the mage's feet.

WHAK!  the potion bottle breaks on the ground at his feet, and the mist of
the hallucinogenic drug erupts around him, before he can move or shift or
even hold his breath - wow - neeto - I haven't seen the Jetsons in ages!

Things get a little stranger, as 'Raelf's experience ties into the set
of hallucinations that Quruuminias has pulled down upon himself in his
attempts to escape.  Neither of them resists.  Elstrek, however, flees.
Reality, bent, starts to break...

Inside the cauldron, Thk is shielded from the effects, and he wonders why
things are so quiet outside.  Outside the cauldron, the entire room is
filled with toons, and the mauve, squid-faced form of Quruuminias and 
the stony figure of 'Raelf have been tied up, back to back, by (trust me)
cartoon indians, who are starting to set a bonfire around them.

---------

"Ni! Ni! Ni!"
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn