From: aaron@space.ualberta.ca (Aaron Humphrey)
Subject: [KQ] Maleiu[Warehouse]: Tentacles and Ink
Reply-To: aaron@space.ualberta.ca
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 16:38:32 GMT

The KronQuestors meet the attack of the Khymrath Leviathan in their own ways.

Colin, who was yanked first into the air, hacks his way loose with his katana,
only to get flung into the wall.  As he stands back up, he pulls out his
longsword...

Rhoan, throws a hand axe at the body, which is blocked by a tentacle.  He
yells, "Somebody has to get in to the body!"  He hacks his way through a pair
of tentacles with his battleaxe, only to get pulled away just after striking
it.  He tries to cut his way free with his remaining hand axe, but he is being
brought towards the Leviathan's beaked maw...

Azzar, in response to Rhoan's cry, looses a magic arrow which strikes the
creatures in the eye.  In rage and pain, the Leviathan flails its tentacles
around violently.

Captain was backed against a wall, holding his own against a questing tentacle,
neither inflicting great damage nor suffering any.  The orc-dog pup was barking
in confusion.  Finally Captain cut off the sensitive tip of the tentacle, and
it withdrew a little ways.  Kron was similarly keeping a tentacle at bay,
muttering to himself, "I thought I was done with this kind of stuff once I was
off dock patrol."

Maleiu's spear was nearly yanked from his grasp several times, but he managed
to keep two tentacles at bay with it.  In response to Rhoan's cry, he ducked
beneath the tentacles and flung his spear at the creature's other eye...
Where it embedded itself quite deeply.

Now totally blind, the Leviathan writhed in pain.  The tentacle which was
drawing Rhoan towards its maw tightened its grip momentarily, almost crushing
Rhoan, and then loosened it, dropping him gasping to the floor.  The two
tentacles Maleiu faced looped around and started to constrict each other.
The KronQuestors backed against the wall to avoid the flailing limbs.

The Khymrath Leviathan was not very different from a normal seagoing octopus,
being different mainly in size and in increased toughness to survive under
normal pressure in the dehydrating atmosphere.  But it still retained many of
the instincts of its relatives.  And right now it wished to retreat.

The great bladder behind the eyes and the beak, which Maleiu's spear had
punctures, suddenly spewed forth a great noxious cloud.  Vision in the room was
totally obscured, and the KronQuestors careless enough to breathe it in were
left coughing and convulsing on the floor.  Captain and Kron managed to stumble
back out of the room, where the cloud was thinner, and catch their breaths.

"They're gonna suffocate in there," Kron said, and Captain nodded.  As one,
they took deep breaths and went back into the room, relying on their memory of
where their companions were.  Captain found Azzar with little trouble, and
dragged her cough-wracked form into the hall.  Colin and Rhoan followed, and
then Maleiu, two people being necessary to drag the massive black man out of
the cloud of ink.

They all sat and gasped in the hallway, periodically spitting up black gobs
of sputum.  "That was awful," Azzar sputtered.

Maleiu peered back into the room.  "Is it my imagination, or is the cloud
starting to settle?"

Kron nodded.  "Maybe we can go back in, then.  Let's cover our faces with wet
cloths--that should help keep out the remnants."  Scraps of cloth were found,
wetted, and distributed.  They re-entered the room, breathing carefully through
the cloth and squinting into the room.

"It's gone," Azzar said.

Kron nodded.  "These things always have an escape route.  I doubt we'll be able
to use it--it probably goes straight out into the Gaps, underwater.  But where
do we go from here?"

Azzar checked her arrow.  It seemed to be pointing down at an angle.  "In the
floor, perhaps?"  As she walked further into the room, it pointed down at a
greater and greater angle, until at one point, right under the former resting
place of the Leviathan, it pointed straight down.  "Here it is."

They gathered around the spot on the floor, which looked no different from any
other.  Maleiu ran his hand over it.  "There's a notch here, about big enough
for a finger."  He put his finger in, and pried up a ring stuck into the floor.
"This looks like the way down."  The rest of the party backed off, and Maleiu
tugged the door open.  A ladder led down into a basement level.

"So who wants to go first?" Kron asked.

ADMIN:  How alert are the 25 elite guards down there?  Are we going to have
>another< big long fight?  Or can we sneak past them?  Somebody else take it
from here.

--
---Alfvaen(a.k.a. Aaron V. Humphrey)
"So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts
 what's so amazing about really deep thoughts"  -- Tori Amos
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