Organization: Central Michigan University
Date: Friday, 9 Oct 1992 12:40:27 EDT
From: Mike Sander <344LWKC@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [DQ][L] Week 10: ShockWaves slices, dices, chops, even makes puree!

[ADMIN: All right, here's part 3 of Week 10, written by Patrick <YEAH! HE'S
 BACK!!>. I've got 2 or 3 other things to put on today, so here goes:]

===========================================================================
THE DRAGON QUEST, WEEK 10

CHARACTERS: ShockWave, 'Raelf, Lancos, Valgar, William
OPPONENTS: Vornik, and a lot of nasties...
OTHERS: Alita.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
<Sometime in the "past"...>
The party has taken some rest at the Inn after a big fight with Krastin a
many gargoyles. Now, after Alita gave them a rendez-vous at the crazyman's
cave, the party gets ready to go.

Luthor suddenly come towards the DragonQuesters, saying to the shrunken
giant, whom he thinks is SunStorm, that he's ready to lift up the reducing
spell, the month delay having long since elapsed...

...

"Over a month? It's been less than a week!"

"It seems The Thing is still disrupting the timestream. No matter,
SunStorm, do you want me to break the spell?"

"Well, if SunStorm was here he'd say yes, that is for sure! However..."

"... Pardon me? You said 'If *SunStorm* *was* here? But..."

"Oh, of course, you can't know about that. Let me explain..."

ShockWave then proceeded to explain to the Shadow Mage what happened to
him, how SunStorm's soul has been stolen by the PCD and how 'Raelf saved
his spirit essence by linking him intimately with it's wielder's body.

"... A magic sword's spirit inhabiting a human., er, giant's body. Hmmm,
that's very particular. And this may also pose some problems, too..."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the spell I put unto your body is linked to SunStorm's life essence.
It affects your body, but it is located both on your body and on SunStorm's
life essence, so..."

"You mean that you can't break it."

"Well, I could... but it would be very risky, and I don't think you want to
risk your friend's death."

"Not at all."

"So, what I can say is this: *if* and *when* you do save SunStorm, come
back to see me if I'm in town."

"No problem. I suppose you come and read the Bulletin Board once in a
while?"

"When it's updated, yes. But I feel I should tell you something very
important."

"What?"

"You see, *if* you fail to save SunStorm..."

"Yes..."

"... And his life-essence dies..."

"Yes...?"

"Well, the spell will be automatically broken and..."

"And...?"

"And there is also a chance that this body dies instantly at the same time,
too. Even though planes of existence seperate SunStorm's soul and his body,
they are still linked. What I mean is that..."

"Either we find him, or I'm as good as shattered!"

"Yes."

"Thanks, you've just made my day very enjoyable... Well, thanks for the
info anyway. Bye."

Luthor went back toward his own friends, regretting a little bit to have
casted such a spell on a stranger...

ShockWave turned toward the others.

"Hey, guys, great news!"

"What?"

"Well, I've just found a way to know at all times if SunStorm is still
alive!"

...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ADMIN: The other post's events in the cave happen here, up to the fight
against the undeads... For more details, see Mike and Hutch's previous
posts... If you didn't read them, know that Alita came back, ShockWave,
sensing she's some kind of demoness, charged her. She got out, Valgar and
Lancos restrained ShockWave whil 'Raelf went talking with Alita, promised
to calm ShockWave down.  ShockWave finally accepted to give her a shot
(after all, Kadrys is a vampire.  Though god knows why ShockWave didn't
try to hack HIM to bits the first time...).  Then Kloote offered to summon
TrueSilver, but the party didn't have a portrait of him precise enough
(it seems a micrometer precision was needed). Finally Alita sent a message
to the party telling she will meet them at the famous cave this night.
Then the party rested some more and before the sun went down they went to
the cave. There they discovered a cave with Alita strangled -hung- in it.
Very dead. In the next cave the evil mage Vornik, waiting for them...]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
...
SunStorm knew it before he saw it. Undeads. A complete horde of them. His
biggest enemies, second only to demons. The cave was big, large, and
poorly lit. Vornik the mage was cackling over his success at killing Alita
-not that ShockWave cared much about the girl, but still such a mage was
not a sympathic guy.

And then the undeads started to move, rapidly approaching the dragon
questers. There were many of them. Maybe even a hundred. Bony Skeletons,
rotting zombies, and even a few ghouls in the lot of them. The essence of
death filled ShockWave's magical perceptions, and his cristalline-self
started to glow even brighter, illuminating the whole cavern, throwing
huge shadows of the adventurers and their opponents on the walls and
ceiling, making the whole scene appear fantomatic and eerie.

'Raelf flickered, then became yellow and hot. He charged the foul things,
and where they touched him their bones smoldered, their skin melted, and
their claws burned.

Valgar and Lancos didn't stay inactive, and they too engaged the mindless
ones. William suddenly disappeared, putting a magic ring on his fingers,
but although ShockWave's eyes couldn't see him, the DiamondSword could
still detect him magically. But the mage's actions and whereabouts were
soon forgotten, as ShockWave dwarven-sized form held it's sword-self high,
and charged.

"By the Life of Titania, begone to the SunLess lands wence you came!"

ShockWave ran right into the biggest mass of undeads, swinging wildly of all
it's 3 foot long reduced diamond blade length, flashing strongly with a
blue-white aura. The first blow was given, and it was then that everybody
could see the power of a Holy Sword: the undeads it touched, whether it was
a skeleton, a zombie or one of the fewer ghouls, nearly instantly turned to
dust, pulverised by divine power that were ancient long before the first
Giant came to be, because Titania is one of Gaia's sisters, a
goddess-planet, a life-mother, billions of years old.

The mindless things knew no fear, but even they sensed that what they were
facing was the antithesis of their very being. The sword was filled with
the powers of Life, and their own un-life paled in comparison. Around
ShockWave, the horde was falling back, as if in fear, and in the middle of
the cave a vacuum was formed, with a shrunken giant in the middle, whose
smile clearly showed that it was enjoying itself.

Vornik saw this, and he started to panic.

"Attack, attack!" he ordered his undead servants. Suddenly a bolt of fire
from William's invisible position came right through the fiery 'Raelf,
and then on to a surprised Vornik. Vornik got seriously scorched, but 'Raelf
was mainly surprised. He turned around, looking shocked & impressed and
said "AAAGAIN!" to the mage, proud of having succeeded for once. But Vornik
wasn't so pleased.. With a burned robe and a prospect of defeat awaiting
him, the mage quickly decided to make good his getaway, and disappeared in
a back tunnel. As he began to run, William DID try again, although this time
only succeeded in getting a lump of dirt onto 'Raelf.

Somewhere behind him a black crow watched over the fight a few more
minutes, and then followed him.

The undeads' numbers were dwindling very fast. With 2 strong fighters, a
magic user, and the powers of a 'Kan Traveller and a Holy Sword at their
disposal, the dragon questors literally tore through the opposition like a
knife through butter. Soon, the last skeleton was dispatched, and our
heroes suddenly found themselves alone in the cave, with for sole company a
few dozens of now really dead bodies, bones, and around ShockWave over one
inch of dust. All in all, the undeads were definitely numbering under 100.
It had looked like there was many more because of the shadows on the walls.
But still, a few scores of opponents had made the heroes ample time to work
up some adrenalin.

Vornik had more than enough time to escape, though.

"Shouldn't we get after him before he, . . well gets _more_ of them?" said
William, visible again, saying aloud what everyone was thinking to himself.

"Let's go, dudes!" said 'Raelf, scraping the few remnants of the handful
of dirt that were the components for the missed spell that William threw
at him.

Unscathed, the group ran toward the back tunnel where Vornik was last to be
seen.

"No, wait! Don't run... what if there's a trap or something?" said Lancos.

Valgar was quick to answer. "If we lose any more time, then that mage will
be gone for sure! We can't afford to move that slowly... But you're right
about the danger of traps, though."

"Maybe if I tried a spell..." William gestured and pronounced a few magical
syllables. "It should detect traps, but I'm not sure if it will work for
long. It could fizzle any time..."

"So we'd better hurry before our friend the mage invites us to another
Halloween party!"

"Hall who win?" said William, definitely having trouble with 'Raelf's
speech patterns.

ShockWave, tired of being in the back, moved forward.

"I don't care if he throws a thousand zombies at us! Let's go get some
answers... Unless you want to start a bone collection?"

One behind the other, they entered the tunnel, with ShockWave illuminating
the way. It was a dark and damp tunnel, the floor covered with a thick
greyish sand. The roof was low and it nearly touched the head of the
tallest adventurer. It wasn't very wide, either. ShockWave wouldn't be able
to swing at all in such cramped quarters. The tunnel seemed to turn
noticably to the left.

"We're turning back toward the coast, I think..." said Lancos.

Then William sighed. "Well, at least there wasn't any trap in the small
section of tunnel we just went through!". Everybody understood what that
meant: his speell had just ended working. Afterwards, they continued in
silence. Something was ahead...

A soft white glow impregnated the wall in front of them. Something was
illuminating a room at the end of the tunnel.

ShockWave moved forward.

"Don't move!" said 'Raelf, nearly shouting.

"What?"

"Don't move." he repeated softly. "Listen."

They all stopped breathing, and listened...

...

Paradak
==========================================================================

Michael Sander 344lwkc@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu