From: rigler@galileo.ifa.hawaii.edu (80 Hours)
Subject: [KQ] Thk [Shunned Center] Suicidal Tendencies
Organization: IFA
 
   "They stuck me in an institution
    Said it was the only solution
    To give me the needed professional help
    To protect me from the enemy myself"
                      -= S.T. =-
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 02:14:30 GMT


Thk stands in the crumbling archway with the other KronQuestors.  He 
is unable to tear his gaze from the seething mass of oily ectoplasm,
at the glaring, obscenly-hued ripples swirling on its surface and the 
sinister coagulates and condensates writhing beneath.  The shapes in 
the depths of the pool defy rational description.  Hideous shadows
have erased his mind as cleanly as it were a board of slate, and are
now drawing a cruel talon across its surface with a painful shreak.  
But he cannot flee.  Instead, his legs move him a step closer and he 
peers down at the shapes, the shapes...

Seemingly locked in a hypnotic dance, the unspeakable forms are in a 
state of constant motion, moving together, reforming and breaking off 
again into newer shapes of greater complexity.  Their geometry is alien
and disturbing at a visceral level, as though Thk's body recognizes a 
threat from out of the deep dark past which his mind, bound as it is 
by false chains of reason, simply cannot grasp or even begin to fathom.  
No sane mind could observe this offensive spectacle for any length of 
time without going stark raving mad, and then continuing to grow in-
creasingly more so until that mind finally snapped like a brittle twig, 
leaving its owner drooling in a permanent sub-moronic state.

For spread out before Thk is the Ultimate Evil:  the SS'taaath K'ree.  One 
of the Elder Gods.  An indescriminant devourer of body, mind and soul.  (So,
it was not my own god Sssuthru who whispered in my ear to lure me and Kron 
here after all.  It was another god.  This unholy god...)

Thk stands enthralled by the sight while the others shove past his bulk 
to engage the more concrete manifestations of horror that are materializing 
on the periphery.  These include several humanoid shapes, and one of an 
elephantine Loxorian warrior.  But Thk barely acknowledges these new threats.  
While they are undoubtedly of deadly intent, the new figures fall loosely 
into the realm of the known, the acceptable.  Their weapons are sharp, yes, 
and they fairly reek of sorcery, but Thk has little or no fear of death.
No, There is much more at stake here than mere death, much much more.  In
what began as a typical day in a warrior's life now springs this unforseen 
horror from beyond the gulfs of space and time, a entity so nightmarishly 
surreal that death itself suddenly appears to be as welcome as a dreamless 
sleep, by way of which the means of death can be thought of as merely a door.  
A door which *must* be taken to escape that unthinkably eternal fate--absorp-
tion and integration--promised by this ameobic thing that is lashing out at 
him from the heart of its pool with glistening pseudopods.  Those tentacles 
seem to beckon at him almost intimately, like a lover...

Thk comes to a swift decision.  Though it already seems like half a lifetime
has passed since he entered the chamber with the others, in reality he has 
only been gazing at the contents of the pool for a few moments.  It is enough!
By a supreme effort of will, he tears his eyes away from the sight and attempts
to draw his daggar, not to fight but to take his own life and thereby save his 
soul.  A lesser being might have failed to pass this test, but he is a Prince
--the greatest leader his reptilian race has ever known--and by SSsuthru he 
*will* reject the terms of this Unholy violation!  No one has learned the 
lesson better than _he_ that sacrifices must be made for the greater good.  
And after a long life of service to his people, he has surely earned the right
for a warrior's death or suicide.  No one could call him a coward.  While he 
muses thus, a pseudopod lurches perilously close to his leg, and he catches 
a whiff of something noxious.  Now he panics:  The daggar!  The daggar!  The 
welcome arms of Death...

But his body betrays him.  Struggle as he might, he cannot reach the dagger 
with his arm.  At his side, his talons spring forth and re-sheath themselves
with a spastic rhythm, but otherwise the prince of reptiles stands paralyzed 
in a state of pure primordial terror.  The pod slides up his armored leg and 
touches a patch of exposed scaly skin, instantly converting the area into 
"Mother stuff."  There is an awful burning sensation, but his ring of regen-
eration saves him:  Rather than consuming and absorbing him, the pseudopod 
finds itself facing powerful resistance on a genetic level.  Patches of bub-
bling grey-green pustules erupt on Thk's leg as the cellular battle rages back 
and forth.  The psuedopod withdraws for a moment in confusion, as though it 
has encountered something undigestable, and that proves to be enough time for 
the powers of the ring to triumph.  Whole and 100% himself again, Thk stumbles 
back out of reach towards the direction of a huge stone pillar.

As he reaches the pillar he catches sight of Kron engaged in conversation with 
someone (or something?).  Kron and the others do not realize their danger!  He
must warn them!

"SSSss--Kron, it is hopelesss!  You must flee!  Sssave yourssselfsss.  Your 
sssisster is lossst!"  he hisses, and in his excitemtn he lapses into Lizard-
speak, "Ss't ilith SS'taaath K'ree!  T'chath p'th lilzirithith!"

But Kron will not listen and the pseudopod is following him.  Thk moves around 
behind the pillar, noting that it is covered with the runes of some nameless 
ancient script and hellish figures cut in bas relief.  He realizes in passing
that he has seen this repulsive style of writing somewhere before, but has 
forgotten it completely (in mental self defense?).  But that hardly matters 
now.  He turns away from the pillar and puts his back to it, bracing himself 
against its damp fungal surface.  Moving swiftly, he unlaces the interlocking 
pieces of his chitinous breasplate, and in one smooth motion draws his daggar 
and plunges it deeply into his breast.  The wound erupts crimson, and he sinks
to the dank, moss-covered flagstones with fading vision--


    \========C\                Rigler...
              \\ 
  <===========C ]==|[///////////////////]|==========|[////////////]D>
              //  
    /========C/                 ...Thk

--
                                        A river of coffee,
                                        An ocean of bile.