From: caz@owlnet.rice.edu (HWRNMNBSOL)
Subject: [KQ] Kron [Wasters HQ] ...The People Come And See 'Em....
Organization: Rice University
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 05:01:50 GMT

The back half of the building is missing.

From the front, the ancient and once-elegant edifice that now serves as the
headquarters of the Wasters organization looked almost totally intact. 
However, the finer front masks the fact that the rear has fallen away into
rubble.  Old age, weathering and neglect have taken their toll.

Kron stands close to the crumbling edge of the fourth floor and looks down
the unnatural escarpment to the pile of broken masonry filling the rear lot.
He muses that this building is really a metaphor for Generica itself -- it
is beautiful when seen from the correct side, but one who knows where to look
can see the rot and corruption that pollutes her innards.  

Kron and party have climbed from the ground floor to their current height
in only a few short minutes, and they have seen nobody else.  No fearsome
criminals with strange superpowers have menaced from shadowy corners; no
grimly determined hirelings have mounted resistance to this intrusion.  The
group boasts some of the Known Land's most intuitive and observant persons,
but no sign of observation or monitoring has been witnessed.  For a moment,
Kron entertains the idea that his source of information has been faulty. But
that must be impossible: Quruuminias, Illithid wanderer and chemist, implanted
the memories directly into his brain.  This MUST be the place.  Here, somewhere,
there MUST be the answers Kron seeks.

But not on this floor, obviously.  The group stands on a landing that leads
off into a number of rooms.  Each one is an obvious ruin.  Battered furniture
and shivered glass fragments litter the floors.  Stagnant water pools in
sagging spaces, and gaping, mawlike cracks trace eldritch patters across
floors and ceiling.  Tattered wall hangings and window curtains make stained,
sour walls look leprous.  This level, like all the others, seems no more the
scene of a much-feared criminal organization's home base than would any other
crumbling tenement.  

And yet -- there are definite signs of occupancy, recently discontinued.
Colin and Rhoan, acting separately, spot the definite compression of bootmarks
on waterlogged carpet.  Maleiu, acting more by scent than sight, finds a
Joystix tube tossed carelessly behind a divan.  Kron notes that a basket of
wax fruits is half empty; he looks for the missing pieces and finds them,
in smashed lumps as if thrown, on top of a mantelpiece.  Somebody -- several
somebodies, calls out Colin -- has been here, probably today.  Azzar whistles
from another room.

Kron investigates.  Azzar points grimly up to a point on a wall behind a
curtain.  There is a skillfully-drawn parchment portrait posted some seven
feet off the ground and cut many times, as if stabbed by a person much
taller than any normal man.

The portrait is obviously Kron's.  Somebody big does not like the ex-Watchman.

Big news there.

The group reconvenes in the landing.  Kron looks from face to face, seeking
confirmation of his fears.  They shake their heads -- there is nothing new
to be found here.  


<THUMP>

The party has sprung to fighting positions.  Thk's gillflaps are engorged
with blood as he enters a fighting rage.  His eyes roll up to the ceiling
above to look where everybody is looking.

There is one more floor to be searched.  And something is up there.  They
reassume order and head up the stairs, senses reaching for more information.

They creep upward, one stair at a time.  Maleiu's feet pad noiselessly on
the timeworn carpet as he keeps his eyes peeled on what lies above.  Suddenly
he stops and hushes the others: "Hssst!  A new noise...."

They stop and listen......There!

".....heh heh hee hee......haw.....<snort>....heeheeheeheehee...."

Somebody....is giggling?  

Kron can't stand it anymore.  Refusing the native caution that time has 
taught him, he pushes past his comrades and charges up the stairs.  There is
a new, solid door at the head of the staircase -- the first good construction
in evidence in this whole place -- which does not stand up to a good kick
from Kron's hobnailed boot.  The door splinters and flies inward.  He looks
out upon a ghostly fairyland.

The fifth floor of the building is one large room, surrounded with large
picture windows which open onto a terrace ringing the whole floor.  At one
time, this penthouse might have been the atelier of some successful artist,
or perhaps a studio for dance.  Now it is the lair of an entirely different
craftsman.

The windows have all been carefully broken out, and the thick Generican fog
has rolled in, making visibility fuzzy and lineless.  In the exact center of
the room, a crystal ball sits on a pedestal and emits a soft yellow light.
Staring into the ball is a wizened, cackling figure.  The light from the
ball backlights the person and makes him appear angelic, or demonaic, or some
weird combination of the two.  He stands up; he is completely naked.

"Heehee! Ha! Hahahahaha.....<snicker>....I <Pppfft> I am Seer."

"I am Kron."

"....nnnnnyyyHAWHAWHAWHAWHAW!  Hee......I know.  I framed ya!....Snee!"

"You and the other one."

"Blink. <nyuks> He did the knife work.  hmhmheeheehee....my idea tho."

"Why?"

"Why not? ppbbbbtt...."

Kron walks forward.  "Why not?  I'll tell ya why not."  Out comes the regulation
Generican short sword.  It crashes down square in the center of Seer's orb,
which explodes into a thousand tiny fragments.  "Because you've taken every-
thing from me, you little fuck.  Everything.  Now I want a piece of it back."
Seer's not really listening too well -- he's staring at his ruined orb.  Kron
opts for a little attention-getting activity as his companions discretely 
stand by and watch.

Kron's gauntleted hand closes in a viselike grip around Seer's scrawny neck.
He bunches the muscles in his arm and LIFTS....Seer's feet clear the ground
as Kron lifts him high above his head.  Grunting with the strain of exertion,
Kron carries Seer bodily out onto the terrace.  He extends his arm, holding
the insane mage out over the five-story drop of the building's edge.

"Seer."  Kron speaks calmly despite the strain of his little demonstration.
"I'm going to say a name...."

"....you broke my orb....."

"...I'm going to say a name, and you are going to give me information...."

"....I....I can't go on....."

"....information about where I can find her.  If you don't...."

"....and you broke the link, too....."

"....IF YOU DON'T -- I'll drop you."

Seer finally seems a little cognizant of his surroundings.  "Nah.  You're not
     the type."

" "Cheyenne." "

Seer stares at Kron.  Kron stares at Seer.
Seer stares at Kron.  Kron stares at Seer.
Seer stares at Kron.  Kron stares at Seer.
Seer stares at Kron.  Kron stares at Seer.
Seer stares at Kron.  Kron stares at Seer.
Seer stares at Kron.  Kron stares at Seer.
Seer stares at Kron.  Kron stares at Seer.
Seer stares at Kron.  Kron stares at Seer.

Seer smiles.  "I'll take you."

Kron reels him in.  Seer rubs his sore jaw and fishes a robe out from behind
a straw pallet.  He puts it on, tittering rudely at Azzar, and takes a cane
of dragonbone from a wicker stand.  

Seer smiles a sickly smile at Kron.  "Kron -- I think it's time we go to meet
your mother."

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                                    HWRNMNBSOL
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