From: hutch@hfglobe.intel.com (Stephen Hutchison)
Subject: [DQ] Week 14 - Agony Auntie
Reply-To: hutch@ibeam.intel.com
Organization: Intel Corporation
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 00:26:36 GMT

The Dark Master had fed her with the spells he deemed appropriate.

Noira was ready.  Loviatar be feared, things were following plan for once.

She left her pain-slaves in their stys, and carefully removed the long silver
spikes from her scalp, gently anointing each piercing with a tiny drop of a
perfect healing herb, painful but not quite crippling.  The holes healed shut
without scars - a scar would be less sensitive in future - and she placed the
implements into their special box.

A handful of the crystalline essence of evil from the Great Black, wiped across
her eyes - the pain dissolved the hatred into her, and she fed on the misery
released thereby.  Eventually, she would contact her goddess, and this upstart
vampire lord would be her toy, but until then she would serve him abjectly, in
fear of his temper, suffering, as was her proper role in life.  The abrasions
vanished as she drew strength from them.

She stepped into the seclusion of her chapel-workroom.  Around her, the
frames of various torture devices were covered with dark and light stains.
She crossed to one of the altars set in the room's many alcoves.  There
was a box, next to a tripod, and in the box, a ceramic jar in very ugly
colors.  She lifted it out, placed it on the tripod without letting go.
She composed herself, choosing the correct frame of mind and the right spell.

The Soul Jar was between her hands.  She cast the first stricture of the spell
of coercion, and sent her will into the Jar.  She touched the mind inside.
It was sleeping, no, it was doing some kind of a meditation.  Wake it.

"Traveller.  You will obey me.  To obey is pain.  To refuse is agony beyond
pain.  Answer my command.  Call me mistress.  Fear me.  Fear me."

The image from inside - a dolphin on the waters, standing on its fluke,
laughing perpetually.  Improbably, a voice spoke, the Jar echoing the
speech that should have been denied to her victim.

+Hey, dudette, like, Fear is the mind-killer, y'know?  Pain is like, all
 in the way you look at it, right?+

Rage ignited in the priestess.  The creature was quoting the secret mysteries
of Loviatar, so badly mangled that their deep significance was twisted into
trivial banality.  She tried to ignore the affront and failed.

She found her eyes forced open by the backlash.  This was NOT what she had
expected to find.  Undaunted, she cast the second stricture of the spell of
coercion.  "By my will you have the senses of your body.  Let them wrack
with the pain of your disobedience."

+Hey, mama-jama, no pain, no gain.  Reach fer the burn, right babe?+

"What ARE you talking about?"  She touched his mind again - he was on a
sweltering hot beach, with a group of sweaty overmuscled men, all of them
taking turns at pushing around a huge iron bar with weights hung on either
end.  He was sore to the point of active nausea, and yet he still pushed,
taking strength from the pain almost like an acolyte of Loviatar.

This would never do.  Clearly he could handle pain.  Time for the more subtle
methods of attack.  Frustrated, she cast the third stricture of coercion.
"I take from thee all awareness of thy surroundings.
   I give thee to the empty nothingness."

+Far out, a sense-dep tank!  Gnarly - I used to pay money to sit in one of
these, y'know?  Back when Doctor Timmy O. was runnin' things?+

"STOP THAT!!"

+Stop what?  Hey, you got any good weed?  Or maybe some blotter?  Oh kewl,
it comes when you call it!  Wanna share, dudette?+

Noira's head suddenly swam as the link fed back a hallucinatory pattern of
euphoric lights and colors, sensory scrambling...  She came to consciousness
sprawled in the center of the room, the Soul Jar still on its tripod, giving
off strange emotional patterns and mind-bending colors.

"He will NOT evade me this way."  She searched her memory for the words
that would activate the communication spell.  AH! there they are.

_Let The Astral Voice Speak_ ...  "BLACKSILVER!  I want a capture crystal
here in my workroom, scaled to fit on my work tripod.  Put it in alcove four."

The dragon pulled his attention away from his torment of the spirit of
SunStorm long enough to hiss his displeasure, then struck the mirrored
surface of the ancient device with a long white rod, four times, at four
carefully chosen angles.  A facet of the crystal seemed to detach, and
spun off in an impossible direction, and the Soul Jar was suddenly inside
the faceted form of a pyracubicdiamond in miniature.

"Feed him his past until he chokes on it."

<<Parameters Unclear, Please Re_Enter Stop_Conditions>>

"Make him relive his past until he no longer feels any emotion other than
subservience to my will."  Noira stalked out of the room, confident in the
power of the Traveller probe to twist the minds of its victims to any end.

<< MemoryLoad InitiateSequence >>

Hey, it's the crystal thingy!  What's up, doc?

<< Processing MnemonicSequence Sort=(obedience) >>

Hey, PCD.  Tan-Ru!  Hey you!

<< Select_Set Identified  Load_MnemonicSequence >>

Tan-Ru!  This is worker! Open for maintenance!

<< Illegal input.  Maintenance mode operating.  Who are you? >>

Far out.  Identify "Dave" unit Ventura environment.

<< Dave? **# ##  Loading Ventura Boulevard.  Complete.  Run.
   Hello Dave.  I know a song.  Shall I sing it for you? >>

Sure, dude.  Engage!

<< Let's Go Surfin' Now, Everybody's Learnin' How, .... >

Awrite!  Hey, Tan-Ru, access priv memory codekey tepesh.

<< Access complete, ready >>  << Help me Rhonda YEAH get 'er out of my heart >>

OK, Tan-Ru, run from tepesh, program Miro von Munchausen.

<< Complying >>

----
In a clearing on a hillside in the forests west of Ak Ir'Neg, a crystalline
form appeared, an eye-hurting configuration of diamonds and pyramids and
cubes.  Around it, the mists rose, concealing it from sight.  From across
five planes, the construct pulled, and finally a gold-skinned elf stepped
forward, staggering slightly.  "Where am I?  What am I doing here?"

From a marginally safe place in a tree, a female voice answered him.
----

Way cool.  Now Tan-Ru, run from tepesh, program BigHappyJoy.

<< Complying.  Interface adaptor loaded, playback loop loaded, Running >>

Great.  Hey, keep the music running, dude.  And give me a lyric line,
we can do some karaoke here!

<< Complying. >> 

+< She's My Little Deuce Coupe, You Dunno What I Got ...>+

Noira was startled from her meal of dried flesh by the sound of voices
blending in something not resembling harmony, coming from her chapel-workroom.
Her cries of outrage went unheard by her pain-slaves - fortunately, so did the
music.  Their ears had not yet grown back.

----

"Dark Master, I must abase myself.  There have been difficulties."

Lord Raven stared disapprovingly at the face-down grovelling form of the
priestess of Loviatar.  Her pleading would normally have been grounds for
greater suffering, but she would only use the pain to her advantage, and he
still had use for her alive.  No, this would require a different approach.

"Rise, Noira.  Make your full report.  I will consider then whether you
will remain among the living."

"Master, the spirit which was entrapped by the Soul Jar has proven to be
immune to the despair which will be required for it to submit in the ritual
of transference."

"Immune?  Impossible.  You used the spells I gave you, pain and solitude?"

"Yes, Dark Master.  It ignored the summoning strictures, as we had expected.
I cast the spell of pain, and it fed on it, in a perversion of the sacred
rites of Loviatar.  I cast the spell of solitude, but it was familiar with the
emptiness, and recreated mental images of such pleasurable bizarreness that I
was unable to maintain contact."  An expression of disgust crossed her face.

"Indeed?  Unable?  How interesting.  Do go on."

"I commanded the dragon to send a torment configurator from the Traveller
artifact.  I directed it to use the standard approach, to twist the mind
of the mage through its past until it broke.  But somehow, the spirit was
able to direct the artifact to play music instead."

Lord Raven scowled in anger.  If he did not still need her she would be
dead for that mistake.  As soon as he no longer needed her he would do
something especially fitting in retaliation.

"You should have asked me first.  The artifact has a name, which can be used
to catch its attention, so it can accept new instructions.  The Traveller
certainly knows what that name is.  Come, we will insert the Jar into the
cardinal control point in the Great Pentacle.  The artifact has been ordered
not to obey the commands of anyone inside that Pentacle except for myself."

Obediently, steeling herself for the blast of destruction which she expected
any second, Noira crossed the throne room to the small table where she had
left the Soul Jar.  When she found herself still alive, she carefully lifted
the jar into her hands, blocking any sense of the occupant from her mind.

Lord Raven led her to a locked room.  This was one of the places she had
not been permitted to enter, only Vornick and the dragon had been brought
here.  The huge double door swung open, and a blinding white light struck
her eyes with welcome pain, keeping her from seeing the thing in the pit
as it spun in its impossible directions.  The hum pierced her bones, and
she almost dropped the jar.  Something was suffering in the pit, inside
the artifact, and it was exquisite.

"I have not given you permission to feed.  Get over here," the Dark Master
pulled her to a short dias, raised from the surrounding floor by a few inches.
He gestured towards a place closest to the thing in the pit.  There, carved
into the dias, was a huge pentacle, intricately inlaid with runes and figures
of power, tiled with carven glyphs of power.  She recognized  many of them
as ones she had prepared for Vornick or the Dark Master as they discussed the
ritual.  But then Dark Master had set her to making cages for the questers,
and she had been left out of the last few meetings.

She placed the Soul Jar in the spot at the point of the pentacle.  She
stepped back, carefully, and moved to the side of Lord Raven, bowing.

Lord Raven turned to face the thing in the pit, and spoke.

"This is your master speaking.  Identify me."

<< YOU ARE LORD RAVEN, DARK MASTER OF THIS PLANE OF DARKNESS >>

"Identify the object on the cardinal point of the pentagram."

<< OBJECT IS A SOUL JAR >>

"I order you to lock onto the spirit of the Traveller who is prisoned
 in that jar and prepare it for ritual assimilation."

<< PARAMETER ERROR, NO SUCH OBJECT >>

"What?  Explain yourself."  (Noira silently began to move back and away.)

<< THERE IS A TYPE MISMATCH BETWEEN INSTRUCTIONS AND SUBJECT >>

"Describe the mismatch."  (Noira found herself up against a hard surface.)

<< THE JAR CONTAINS THE SPIRIT OF A HUMAN WHO IS NOT A TRAVELLER >>

"WHAT?!! I saw it myself!"

(Noira looked up.  Blacksilver looked down at her.  She had moved the wrong
direction.  She froze in place.)

"Replay the incident where the spirit was taken!"

<< REPLAY COMMENCING, INCIDENT TIME MARK T MINUS 14, DISPLAY >>

The quarrel struck.  The Traveller-Mage's head was reduced to a red spray.
The form of Death appeared, and vanished.  (Lord Raven shuddered and his
mind refused to keep the memory.)  The Mage's body fragmented in six different
directions, each a separate elemental structure, except that one was the
spirit of a human.  THAT was drawn into the jar.  The elemental structures
each went off in a different direction, vanishing from view.

<< INCIDENT REPLAY COMPLETED >>

"What WAS that?  It split apart!?"

<< REPHRASE QUERY.  CONTEXT UNCLEAR >>

"Explain that business where it split into different pieces."

<< 'KAN DEATH MODE BY DISPERSAL OF ELEMENTAL ESSENCE.  DEATH OF HUMAN
   BASE SHAPE COMBINED WITH TRANSFORMATION SUPPRESSION FIELD PREVENTED
   'KAN FROM RETURNING TO TRUESHAPE.  ELEMENTAL FRAGMENTS DISPERSED
   ACROSS THE RELEVANT ELEMENTAL PLANES >>

"Is this normal?"

<< SPECIFY "NORMAL" >>

"Oh, never mind.  Identify the spirit in the jar."

<< SPIRIT OF HUMAN IDENTIFIED AS DAVID BERENSON >>

"How did he get into the Traveller?"

<< HUMAN WAS CONSUMED BY 'KAN AND INTEGRATED INTO BASE STRUCTURE >>

"Does it have any magical powers?  Planeshifting?  Time Control?"

<< SUBJECT IS A SPIRIT AND HAS ALL MAGICAL POWERS COMMON TO SPIRITS >>

"Useless.  Noira.  Come here."

She slunk forward.  

"I give you the spirit in the jar - do with it as you wish.  I particularly
liked your idea of using ghosts to animate magical artifacts.  This might
be a proper subject for your experiment."

"Yes, my Dark Master."

"Oh, and Noira?"

"Master?"

"Before you do that, there's the matter of punishment for your failure."

His blazing red eyes sought out her thoughts, and she was frozen in place.
She felt the power drain from her and the dragon's claw closed around her
body, lifting her from the ground.

---

Alita sat petulantly in her cell.  This place was dead boring.  She had tried
all her tricks to get out, and the prison cell was just warded shut too
thoroughly.  A sudden heaviness came over her, and she heard noises from
outside.  The cell door flew open, and a massive black talon threw a red-clad
form inside.  The door flew shut, and Alita felt the paralyzing heaviness
depart.  There, on the floor, was Noira, the bitch priestess who had killed
her blonde toy-boy.

"Well, what have we here," Alita smiled.  The woman looked at her, horror
rising in her eyes.  Alita let the heat rise inside her.  The woman found
herself responding.  Pleasure washed over her - not that!  Loviatar forbid?
But she could not reach her goddess from here.

Outside, Lord Raven laughed as Noira began screaming ...

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