From: caz@owlnet.rice.edu (HWRNMNBSOL)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [KQ] Kron: [Shunned Center] Dead Places
Date: 8 Oct 92 17:07:42 GMT
Organization: Rice University

Seer has led the questors and worked strange, powerful magic to dull and
confuse their minds.  He guides them ever deeper into the darkest reaches of
the hidden heart of Generica, and ever closer to his mysterious patroness:
Great Mother.  Fortuitously, 'Raelf, alien mage and wanderer, answers Marcel's
summons at this point; he weaves an all-encompassing ward to shield our heroes'
minds and break their miasma of despair.  Seer retaliates, but too late; Kron's
allies are already shrugging off the madness that had seized their minds. With
a snarl and an insane giggle, he flees to his Mistress by ancient and secret
ways.  The crew is left with no guide, but no matter: Seer has led them to
the very doors of Great Mother's lair.....

*****************************************************************************

As if for the first time, Kron blinks and looks around him.  How did they
get to this place?  Where did Seer go?  And when did 'Raelf show up?

The fog seems to lift a bit, and though the night is inky black, the stars and
moon shed enough light to see.  Only a few feet away is a blocky granite
pedestal, crumbling and dusty with age.  Kron scrambles to the top and surveys
his surroundings.  Scenic they aren't.

The demolished relic of an old plaza surrounds the group.  As far as Kron's
sharp eyesight can see, half-standing shells of wrecked buildings fringe the
hazy horizon.  Stubs of broken marble collonades rise toothily from the debris-
swept cobbles of the square.  Glass lamps once hung from stores and poles, 
bringing cheery day to gloomy night; now they crunch underfoot.  Kron has never
seen atomic Armageddon, but if he had, he would feel a sense of deja vu.  This
could be any other part of Generica, crushed under the heel of some spiteful,
awesome God.

Or could it?  Here and there are scattered signs that this was a city of another
time, perhaps another place.  There are the dim, shallow remnants of huge, 
alien glyphs carved into the stone of a nearby street.  A bas-relief carved
in the marble of a fragmentary collumn clearly depicts humans, but such garb
they wear; and what are they feeding?!  Kron shifts his footing to get a better
view and turns over the head of the statue that once occupied this pedestal.
The look of pure horror on its face makes his skin crawl.  He hops down.

A warm, sullen breeze crawls over the party like a swarm of ants.  Kron feels
like he's drowning in treacle.  With the hot wind comes a bewildering barrage
of strange and outlandish smells, fading as swiftly as the gust came up.  No
animals cry out; no weeds insolently creep from cracks; no moss textures
smooth walls.  This is a dead place.

Next to the party is an imposingly large shell, adorned with towers of twisted
stone.  It might have been a temple, or a wizard's tower, or something else;
now it is a corpse, and the fog packs it in wool.  Thk has found a hole in a 
wall. They go in.

There is no ceiling here.  Instead, jumbled piles of twisted and melted masonry
lie in perilous heaps.  The questors cautiously climb around obstacles, seeking
their elusive captive.  The moon leers down at them.

Marcel starts.  "Motion!  In the back -- through there...."  The Cyberknight
points through a dark archway.  Kron, crouching low, jogs toward the exit and
peers through.

It is the inside of a cathedral.  Opulent stained glass, still mostly intact,
lets dim light filter through onto the still floor.   By some trick of fortune,
the moon shines straight through a magnificent florette, sending a beam of
colored light cascading down onto the altar.  Kron picks his way gingerly into
the room, followed by the others.  

The pews are mostly overturned, but the wood has not rotted.  Old prayer beads
still rattle when Kron kicks them.  A book of some kind, yellow with age, does
not quite fall to pieces when handled.  There are no bodies, and no signs of
any struggle.  The only peculiarity seems to be a sticky paste or sap that 
lies in patches around the room.  Kron sniffs it, but leaves it alone when
he sees that it is starting to eat its way through his glove.

Anyway, Marcel's "Danger Assesment" imp or whatever he calls it must not be
working again.  There is nothing in this room.  The Gothic nature of the 
architecture is a little creepy, but nothing moves, and nothing breathes.  
There are simply no hiding places.  Kron looks at Marcel quizzically.  Marcel
shrugs.

They investigate the altar.  Azzar and Captain amuse themselves briefly with
the light's beam -- Azzar stands in the colored light and pretends she is
an angel; Captain clownishly worships her with much kow-towing.  However,
the stirrups mounted on the altar dampen any nascent hilarity on the party's
part.  That and the carved stone gutters, still somewhat soiled.....

There is motion.

Overhead, one of the ornate carvings -- a twisting, fibrous flourish of spikes
and arches -- impossibly comes to life.  Glaring insectoid eyes pop open,
toothy maw cracks, grasping limbs writhe into life and scuttle the beast
across the ceiling. 

Toward the door.

It is equally at home on vertical and horizontal surfaces.  Such is its speed
that, before any bolts or missiles can be loosed, the creature has raced down
a wall, through the archway, and into the darkness beyond.  However, its great
multifaceted eyes, gleaming wetly, can still be seen.  It squats there, hiding
in partial lightlessness, and waits.

"Look," says Colin.  He points behind the altar.  A narrow flight of stairs
lead down into reeking, unknown depths.  They are the only escape for the 
wingless from the room.  Maleiu looks at the others.  

"I think it wants us to go down." 

*******************************************************************************

HWRNMNBSOL
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn