From: andrea@cm.deakin.OZ.AU (Andrea)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: Kadrys tells Helen about Luthor, and has a brief existential crisis
Date: 24 Jul 92 01:57:37 GMT

Kadrys' reverie is interrupted by the entry to the Inn of a green-eyed woman
calling herself Helen the Grey. Nothing unusual in the fact of a new arrival
at the Inn, but her words dragged his attention outwards.
"I am looking for a man called Luthor. I must find him as soon as possible
because if I don't, I'll die," she said looking suddenly pale and full of
sorrow. "I have only a few weeks.  It is of great importance that I find him
as soon as possible.  For sake of speed, I would need only one or two
people.  Do you know anyone who is available?" she says wiping a tear from
her eye with a small white handkerchief. "The problem is this, I stole some
jewelery from his villa a few months ago. He went to a mighty priest and had
him cast a curse upon the person who took the items. If I don't return them to
him soon, I will perish for sure...you *must* help me, please." She finished
with a small smile of hope upon her lips.

Kadrys turns in his chair and eyes Helen, thinking 'She stole from a mage
without even having a curse-deflect cast on her beforehand? Not even carrying a
charmed mirror? What are they teaching them in the Guild these days? ... Nono,
I don't believe it. She has to be an amateur, no what do they always call
themselves? Freelances, that's it. Incompetents always hide behind grand
titles. And now she wants _help_. Kadrys, you are a romantic fool, it's already
been the death of you once, when will you ever learn?'
Kadrys sighs aloud, then addresses Helen. "I'm afraid that unless what you
stole from Luthor was a pair of seven-league boots, you have very little hope
of catching up to him. He left with a party of adventurers some time ago now.
They were going to the gateway between the worlds. Going to return to the
Realms to fight Queen Shana, I heard them say." He looks apologetically at her
"And before you ask, I have no way of getting you to him. I am sorry," he
murmurs gently, "but you will have to ask a mage for that sort of assistance."

Kadrys wonders to himself just how far away Luthor is now. He guesses at the
distance between them, and wonders just what he could have owned that he
valued enough to place a curse on. Strange behaviour, from what he'd seen of
Luthor...

And at that moment, at the gateway between worlds, an elemental rages:

"EVERYONE COULD DIE EXCEPT MYSELF AND LUTHOR" he chanted...  at that moment,
Murell, Salamander, Brycur, Bakr, Lathan, Thk, Nightstalker, ...sage, 'Raelf,
Seer, Trawn, Littlefair, Rowan the Bard, Kadrys, and everyone else died.

And death claimed everyone at that instant. Perhaps alone of all those there,
to Kadrys death was familiar, well-remembered. It was what lay beyond that
he had never known...

And at that moment, at the gateway between lives, all is returned as it was.

Life resumes instantly, as if it had never ceased. All around, the living
continue, their mortal memories innocent of the shock of a moment earlier.
Kadrys alone is as pale as a ghost. He shudders convulsively. A profoundly
uncomfortable experience, this ShadowMagic. Especially to a creature of the
night.

DREAMER'S: I apologise to anyone who thinks that all of this is stupid, but
ADMIN    : I'm in a weird mood today and felt like expressing my weirdness.

MY ADMIN : Let's hear it for weirdness! hip-hip Eek! hip-hip Ooo! hip-hip Wow!