From: wolf@cheshire.oxy.edu (Clinton Richard Wolf)
Subject: Lucas discloses some important information...
Summary: Oh, and a treatise on the Creation of the Multiverse... 
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 20:50:29 GMT

       Legends speak of the Creators, who before the dawn of time laid out
their plans and sketches of the multiverse in which all beings dwell. Unfor-
tunately, they had only put forth the barest outlines before One claimed it
had to go out and get a real job, One complained of having too much to do &
not enough time, Others moved on to other projects they had, and the Rest
just plain got bored and fed up with the whole thing. So for one reason or
another, they all packed up and moved on, and left their multiverse locked
away, frozen and incomplete, spinning in the infinitely infinite infinities
of Infinity...
   
       Until the day two of the kids got bored...

       Being a rainy day in the land of the Creators, they lolled about list-
lessly in the house of their Parents... the computer was broken, the books were
either all read or didn't interest them, their friends seemed to all be on vac-
ation. The siblings had resigned themselves to their fate, until the Brother, 
who was Older, got the bright idea to root through the House, and maybe find
something to do in the process. The Sister, who was Younger, heartily agreed,
and so they gleefully dug into the Closets and the Attic, the Basement and the
Chests of Drawers and the Shelves.

       And Lo, in one dusty corner of the farthest, most forgotten of Closets,
they found the Multiverse. It didn't look like much, but its shape was intrig-
uing, and after the Brother blew the dust off, and polished it on his shirt,
he declared that He thought it Good. The Sister, however, didn't really like
it. "It's ugly," said She. "It's probably got cooties, too!" She wanted noth-
ing to do with It, though He Begged and Cajoled and Implored. "C'mon, it'll be
fun!" said he. "We can play let's pretend! Or war! Or even (blech) House...
maybe all three at once, and more besides!" But still She sniffed her disdain.
It was Uncool, she said. Moresoever, it was Goobered and Funkenated. And they
might have stopped then and there, had not the Brother came up with his bril-
liant Idea... 

       "Well, then..." said He, and his face echoed the slyness of His Mind.
"Since you hate it so much, I've got an idea..." and here did His Idea, his
Trick, come to fruition. "I'll try to build up the Thing and protect it..."
He said, idly tracing It with a finger. "And You... you try to destroy it!"
and He laughed, pleased with his wit, and She laughed also, in spite of her-
self, and agreed that this would be great fun.

       And so the Game began...

       And each created Tokens to use in the game, and thus came into being
the Gods, and the Immortals, and they in turn created their own pawns, and so
on and so forth down even, yea, unto the Ones which cannot be Seen, but yet
could kill or save by their actions, and determined the fates of Beings even
as did the Gods themselves... and the Tokens each took a piece of the Multi-
verse as their own, and brought it once again to swirling Life or stagnant
Death, but even these are better than Nothingness, and eventually the Sister
became caught up in the game in spite of herself, and even though she still
tried to destroy it, she would not destroy it all, because that would end the
game, and the Brother knew this, too, and he moderated his creation, because
He knew if He overdid it his Sister might grow frustrated and leave, which 
would also end the Game. But still they would become frustrated with one an-
other at times, especially when a particularly artful block or deception was
affected by One or the Other, and in these times the multiverse trembled with
their wrath, and whole universes died in the blink of an eye. Fortunately, they
would calm down before They, in Their frustration, might dash the Multiverse
to pieces and end the Game... but, as a safeguard, they created a handful of
Tokens which would serve always as a reminder of the infinite boredome of the
Time Before, which awaited them should the Game ever end, and they called these
tokens The Melancholae, and seeded them throughout the Multiverse that their
patheticness might dull the Siblings' anger. And it was these Tokens only that
the Siblings left completely alone, although the other Tokens manipulated them
often, but the Melancholae by their very Nature did not Care, and would never
Care, and their Apathy served in direct balance to the Emotions and Irrational-
ity of the Siblings and all their Tokens, and by continually espousing Ruin
made all aware of the Danger and thus able to avoid it, and by their lackad-
aiscal submission often brought down those Tokens which had grown too import-
ant for the Game's good, and yea, even sometimes blocked the Siblings Them-
selves, when in Frustration or Joy they forgot Themselves and endangered the
Board. Out of all the Pawns, even the most powerful Gods themselves, only the
Melancholae truly understood the Nature of things, and their Responsibility,
and this weighed heavily on them, and set them apart from all other Tokens in
the Multiverse, because None understood the way they did, and although they did
not Care about this, being by nature the Humblest of all Beings, they Knew.
They Knew All. But no one, of course, ever asked. After all, you wouldn't know
it to look at them...

---------------------

     Lucas had been waiting patiently for an answer from the Blue female for
a long while now. He wasn't sure how long, because he didn't really care, but
it did seem quite interminably long. But then, so did everything else Lucas
had ever experienced. So he waited.

     And waited...

     But the others at his table all seemed deep into their own thoughts, if
they were deep at all. And the Lady was not paying the slightest attention to
him, so he finally decided he had failed, which made him very gloomy, so gloomy
he barely even noticed the fight that raged around him for some minutes, ex-
cept to tuck his staff out of the way of the tumbling bodies. Then that was
over, and two Others entered. Lucas recognized the blond man, who he had seen
before battling Great Mother, and just recently expounding metaphysics over a
bottle of Catamount at a nearby table. Dimly he realized what a complete para-
dox that was, and decided that perhaps he could get some small measure of en-
joyment by studying the man for awhile. The blond man looked over at him once,
the infinitely familiar expression of abject pity embossed on his face, like 
the faces of most of all the others Lucas had ever seen looking at him. But
there was a strangeness about the man's eyes, Lucas noticed. And then the re-
alization of just what he was looking at dawned on him, and his depression
reached new depths...

      'kani.

      And if there were any Beings in the multiverse who thought they knew more
about it, and delighted more in explaining that knowledge to anyone who would
listen to them, it was the 'kani. Not to mention that most of them were hope-
lessly entangled in cross-time paradoxes, multiple personality facets, and just
plain running into themselves all the time. Lucas had met his share of 'kani
during his existence, and made concerted attempts to avoid associating with any
unless he had to. He wondered why it had taken him so long to recognize the man
as one, but then he realized he had probably known all along but just hadn't
really cared... and didn't really care now. Then the Drow walked in, speaking
Earth-884950 English to some man in a burnt white coat. He supposed he should
thank the drow for rescuing him from that obscene mess he had been languishing
in these several days past, but why bother? It had all been manipulated anyway,
fated to happen. Even his Goddess had known, and she was by no means a shin-
ing paragon of omniscience. And then the small halfling entered, swaggering up
to a table beside the fire, actually quite near where Lucas had been sitting.

      And something was VERY wrong with him. Lucas knew what it was, but he
didn't feel it was all that important, until the tray, not surprisingly, had
crashed through his fingers, and he had begun pleading if anyone knew what was
wrong. Which was highly annoying, and might go on for some time unless Lucas
told him. So, he sighed, squared his drooping shoulders, and scraped his chair
around to face the small demihuman.

      "Excuse me, sir," Lucas asked matter-of-factly. "But are you aware of the
fact that you are dead...?"