From: hutch@hutch (Stephen Hutchison)
Subject: [KQ] 'Raelf, Marcel [Sewers] Pipe Dreams
Reply-To: hutch@ibeam.intel.com
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 92 19:25:52 GMT


+         Marcel and the warehouse thug tumble down into the darkness.  The
+ two of them land below on a greased chute, dumping them out and to the
+ side, into the sewers running alongside the (now infamous) Warehouse.
+ The two dropped in the murky water running through the middle.

Oooh, yuck.  Glad paladins are immune to disease...  (Can a cyberpaladin
get a computer virus?)

+         Let's take a break for a minute to look at what's going on with these
+ fellows shall we?  It seems to me that you might get lost without a
+ scorecard.

Good idea.
Marcel Delacroix:  cyberpaladin from Magna Veritas
Keflek:  errand boy hoodlum and Joystix addict
Jakus: drugged-out guard assigned to the Downstairs Back Door
Thk:  lizard-man prince of local ill repute
Thk-Prime: inadvertant clone of Thk, grown by a Ring of Regeneration
'Raelf: timelooped dimension-traveller and surfer-mage
Tunnel Crocs: In New York, they have rumors of alligators living in the
    sewers.  In Generica, they have giant crocodiles and they're not rumors.

'Raelf sped down the hallway, frantically looking for a defensible spot.
He wore the form of the lizardman Thk, especially well adapted for the
swampy disgusting environment he was in, and not too poorly adapted to
combat, as well.  In one hand he carried a half-length staff, crackling
with arcs of electricity.

The grunting roar of the crocodiles, behind, echoed back hollowly from
ahead.  There was probably an open space... Yes! there it was, a room
of sorts, the junction of four sewer lines.  He leaped upwards to the
ledge where the higher level joined in.  Only four feet, but it was
something.  He assumed a relaxed, waiting position, breathing slowly but
deeply, allowing the reptilian body to flood with oxygen for quick action.

A blur, a SNAP, and he whipped the staff down onto the nose of the
lunging T-Croc.  Electricity spasmed through its body, and it fell,
stunned, down below, half-blocking the entrance.  The next T-croc
plowed past it, and the stunning shock took it down as well.

The third collided with the first two, and lunged, then, seeing what
it had been chasing, hissed in apprehension and dove to one side,
skittering away and ... grovelling? ... from the lizardman.

"What givesss?" muttered 'Raelf, confused.  The tunnel below was suddenly
filled with the growling mass of two other T-crocs, which saw him, and
also ... dove to one side, down into the muck-filled drainage space below.
Then the anger-filled face of the lizard-man prince appeared in the
opening, black sword waving, eyes baleful red in the dimly filtering
light of the sewer.

SSS-CHahahhssss!  it snarled, and stopped, and looked at him with a strange
sort of stare.  The expression was what passed, among the lizardmen, for
surprise and curiosity.  It clambered swiftly up the two unconscious T-crocs,
facing the stranger lizard-man.   'Raelf backed away carefully, staff at
ready for a parry or a strike.

"Thk?  Sulashhac? Ssschaksu slls?" 'Raelf asked, carefully.  This seemed
to annoy the sword-wielder, and he slashed forward, expertly, with the
black blade.  'Raelf dodged, barely, finding the massive lizardman body
rather harder to move with his accustomed speed.  There had been no sign
that the lizard-man had understood his speech.

ZAP!  he snapped the staff at his opponent's face, then sideways at the
sword hand which had moved the sword to interpose.  The sword somehow
got in the way.   Electricity coursed down the black blade, causing the
lizard-man's hand to convulsively clutch the weapon, hard! ... but not to
drop it.  'Raelf retreated again, into the mouth of the upper tunnel.
There was a waft of less-stale air coming from this direction.  His eyes,
and the decorative tattoos covering his body, flashed blue light for a moment.
Good, nothing waiting for him as far as he could sense.

"I dub thee Thk-Prime"  said 'Raelf-lizard, with what looked rather more
menacing that a wry grin.  Then he spun so quickly that the blade wielder
could barely see it, and was once again running down the tunnel at high
speed.  The hunting-instinct went off again, and the lizardman poked, lightly,
with the sword, at the two semiconscious T-crocs.  They awoke with a howl
of pain, and cowered at his feet.  The sword waved them at the tunnel down
which 'Raelf had escaped, and they reluctantly entered, gradually building
up speed as the hunt-fever awoke in them.

Up ahead, 'Raelf heard the growls of another pack of T-Crocs.
"Groovy," he said, flat-voiced, and prepared to launch past them fighting.
But they, too, avoided him.  He ran past them, and three of them, curious,
followed him.  (lizardman take us to food again?)

The sewer widened into an area that could have been a loading dock, if anyone
were to use a sewer as a shipping lane.  There was light, from some sort of
weakly-magical coin, set in the ceiling.  And twenty yards past the point where
the sewers narrowed again, there was a portcullis-style grating.

'Raelf decided to go through it, and began to shift his form, when there was
a shout, and a splash, from back down-tunnel where he'd already been.
He turned, and headed back.  A weaselly young human came careening and splashing
along towards him, the panic on its face giving way to panic as it saw the
huge form of the lizardman blocking the way to the back door.

"Oh shit.  HELP!  JAKUS!!  INVADERS BELOW!"  he started bellowing. (Up at
the Downstairs Back Door, Jakus took another deep breath, thrilled at the
tingling sensation that ran through his body - the latest mix was so good,
joystix on top of the sugar-spike that had just appeared on the Lowtown
market.  "JAKUS, HELP MEe*urtf!"  A large green hand closed around his face.

"Chill, dude"  'Raelf said absently, shifting slightly to avoid the poorly
aimed punch at his abdomen.  A simple armlock-neutralization and Keflek went
limp under 'Raelf's left arm.  The staff went into the grip of the tail
(Hey, I like that, very useful!) and a handful of marbles was conjured
up from the Void... Karma was mostly black, and Intention was poisonous
yellow; Magic was dull and lifeless grey, and Truth was a feeble and weak
structure with few branches. 

There were ominous splashing noises coming from back down the tunnel.

"What's happening down that way, weedhopper?" 'Raelf asked, and with the
first word of the improbable lie on Keflek's lips, Truth shattered.
'Raelf returned the spheres to the realm of thought, and began moving towards
the noise.  The youth began to struggle ineffectually.

+         A few seconds later, Marcel jumped up, coughing and sputtering.
+         "I have decided that I do not like this place," he muttered,
+ after throwing up a few quarts of sewer water.
+         [So, where do you think oaf-boy went?]
+         /Upsewer, I think./  He looked up at the chute in the ceiling he
+ fell out of.  /I cannot go back that way, but I do think the knave would
+ know his way in./
+         "So, what's a nice paladin like you doing in a dump like this?"
+ asked a lizardman resembling Thk, from up river.
+         Marcel whirled around.  "Do I know you?  Thk, is that you?"
+ He squinted at the lizardman, bearing an struggling Keflek.

"Oui, mon ami, you know me well enough."  The lizardman shifted the staff
from hiis tail to his hand, and it began to emit a gentle light, showing
the scaly green face and form of Thk, but the red tattoos were instead
glowing faintly in a band of shifting colors.

"Hey, I didn't notice before, Marcel, who's your friend?"  He tapped the side
of his head, significantly.

Marcel shifted uneasily.  The voice, that was the big lizard man, but the
speech patterns were wrong.  Somehow they seemed familiar.
/Rabbi, who is this creature?  He says he knows me./
[So what's to know, boychik, that's our language coach, remember?]

Marcel suppressed a surge of emotion.  He knew, he had been warned, the young
Traveller had said he could take on other shapes.  Still, seeing it, it was
hard to believe it was no brujerie noir, this stealing of the shape of another.

"Marcel?  ssS'Moi.  'Raelf, remember?"  The lizardman tilted his head to one
side in a questioning manner.  It was so totally unlike Thk that Marcel had
to laugh.  Briefly.

"Let us leave this place.  I fear more crocodiles will come," said the
knight, gesturing down the stream.  The boy began thrashing again, aiming
a sharp kick at the lizardman's crotch.  It missed, of course.  'Raelf
shook the struggling Keflek.

"Stop that kicking, dude, you'll hurt yourself."  He gestured, waving upstream
with the staff.  "There's a sort of a landing up there, and we better get up
while we can, before Thk Prime gets here."

"What is a Thk Prime?"  Marcel asked as they sloshed up the channel to the
landing.  'Raelf leaped up out of the water in a fluid motion, and pulled
Marcel up onto the landing (while holding onto Keflek with his tail - the
boy finally gave up, seeing that the lizardman was ignoring his attempts
to get free by hitting and biting).

A howling hiss came from downstream.  A rapid splashing, and the shape of an
un-tattooed lizardman appeared at the edge of the light, waving a black sword
and snapping and moaning, incoherently.

"THAT is a Thk Prime,"  'Raelf replied, raising the short-staff defensively.

===


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