From: albert@chain.ssctr.bcm.tmc.edu (Rick Jones)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [KQ] 'Raelf [The Great Mother of All Battles 1.7] Meeting the Children
Date: 14 Oct 1992 23:07:00 GMT
Organization: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx
NNTP-Posting-Host: chain.ssctr.bcm.tmc.edu


[ADMIN: Posted for Hutch, whose news server is wonky.]

[Time T-5:00 - Birth Canal]

The place Seer had led them was very disturbing to look at, the corners,
the general structure of the place, seemingly built in one and a third
more directions than the traditional three.

For 'Raelf, the disturbance wasn't the weird construction.  That he could
handle - it was, if anything, familiar.  What disturbed him was the things
carved into the walls.  He'd seen that sort of carving before, in the museums
back home.  They'd found them in the nearby planes, the Old ones.  This was
going to be ugly.

A weird ululation started up - Kron broke into a trot, then a run.  The
others as well.  'Raelf considered screening the sound, then decided
against it.  He had to remain unnoticed, or the others were dead inside
milliseconds.

[Time 0  entering the Bath Room]
Seer chortled gleefully, prancing and capering around the immense chamber
(well out of reach) as the party entered, cautiously.

The room was lit by a sickly glow, reminiscent of yellow, or maybe green,
but not really any earthly color.  In the livid light, 'Raelf was able
to make out a cathedral-like room, walled with immense pillars, reaching
to a dome (why would anyone shape a dome like THAT?) almost beyond sight
overhead.  They were on a beach, made of sands that sparkled with an
oleaginous sheen, and it led down to an incredibly enormous pool, rimmed
by delicate marble trim, in patterns that were not distinguishable from
this distance.  The pillars were deeply carven in shapes that made no sense,
clearly representations of living things, but nothing that lived should
have to look like that.

And the pool was pretending to be a garden.  He looked with the 'kani
sight, Traveller trained, and somehow managed not to panic at what he
saw, the impossible collation of archetypes and images, incompatible on
all levels with his own.  Gradually, his childhood training took over,
and he adjusted his perceptions to deal with the conflict.  The blurred
confusion snapped into a recognizable order.

'Raelf whispered an imprecation, and looked away.  He quickly shunted
extra power into his personal wards.  In the pool, flesh surged and
shaped itself.

This was HER.

The true ruler of Generica, from before recorded time - the Great Mother.

[Time 0:50 - FirstBorn]

Kron had become locked in a mental dialogue with a figure from the pool.
Elsewhere, it had promised them a protracted, agonizing death, and for
the especially unfortunate, the honor of being consumed.

The fleshy mass in the pool bulged out, obscenely pregnant with some
writhing, enormous offspring.  It split open, liquid gushing out, and
then with a surge, gave birth to what was inside.  Tentacles wrapped
around the opening, then heaved, and a wet formless mass crawled up
from the pool.  It oozed up onto the marble-trimmed edge of the pool,
a gelatinous quivering clotted globulation.  Arising on its tentacles,
it stepped out, still joined by an obscene-looking umbilical.  Once away
from the mass of the Great Mother, it was possible to scale the size of
the thing - about thirty feet in diameter, and roughly hemispherical.
It seemed to consist mostly of sucker-studded, serrated tentacles, with
the occasional eyestalk,, and was covered with sharp pointy spines.
The whole mass was transparent, and seemed to be surrounded by transparent
bubbles that looked like they should be spheres but weren't, somehow.

The tentacles lashed about aimlessly, then several of its mouths opened
and began chanting in beautifully harmonious voices, painfully loud,
"Ia! Ia! ShubGorath NyarlaGorath Wgn!Fhtal-gnu!"  The melody of the song
was compelling, making all who heard it want to join in.  Behind it, more
things were "born" from the mass.  It moved towards the group.  

'Raelf choked.  "Shoggoth!"  As the others moved to face their particular
enemies, freshly emerged from the shadows or from their birth traumas,
he touched the fifth pocket on his bandolier.  <<OpenKey1ActivateNow>>
he muttered in 'kani, and the pocket released.  He carefully pulled out an
ivory wand, and several small figures, the size of chess pieces.  He chose
one, then returned the others, and the wand, back into the pocket.  Sealing
the pocket, he threw the ivory figure, an improbably long distance, and
shouted a 'kani command: <<BindingBreak_OneService_KillThatShoggoth!>>

As it struck the ground, the figure exploded.  It was replaced by an eye
blistering aching blur the size of a human, a flicker of impossible concepts
and absurd images, false icons and structural nosequiturs.  It touched one
of the tentacles, and the tentacle wrapped reflexively around it:
"Ia! Uuurluuura - pblengagn fewmitsn AAA!"  the swirl grew larger, as the
tentacle dissolved into its archetypic components and was consumed by
the sth'kan predator.  The shoggoth turned its complete attention on the 
creature which was giving it the unpleasant turnabout sensation.  Its
beautiful voices blended in painfully sweet harmonies as it screamed in
agony and surprise - "Iaaa IIaaa fw AAA eiAAA"

"What the hell is that?" someone asked.  'Raelf showed his teeth - there
was too much of a miasma coming off the Great Mother to actually grin.

"That's a devourer.  A predatory creature from my homeland.  It'll eat
anything it can, won't stop until it runs out of living material.  It just
might be able to buy us some time."

"DDddnGAAH ia ia ia Fpthabng=PENG!"  the shoggoth (almost a third of its
borrowed mass beginning to mutate into disintegration) began waving its
tentacles in a complex pattern - and arcane lightnings struck at the
devourer, causing it to flinch back and shrink a little.  But devourers
are simple-minded things, and it returned to the attack.  The shoggoth
retaliated, and a continual din arose as they battled.

[Time 1:20 - Incipient Magical Combat]

Another shape was excreted from the Great Mother's substance, a humanoid
figure connected at the navel to a pulsating, writhing umbilicus, stretching
out from the mass of flesh to give it the freedom to stand on the marble
paving at the pool's edge.  It spoke.

"Mage!  WhoAREyou?"

"Who wants to know?"  'Raelf brought his staff up into defensive position.
<<thunder_road>> he whispered, and it began to crackle ominously.  He spun
it once, and a glowing hemisphere of clear, blue light formed around him,
reaching out about 15 feet from him, sparking protectively.

"SandarTol.  RulerOfMinds, ArchMage, ImmortalMemberOfTheGreatCouncilOfMinds."

"I should be impressed, right?  OK, I'm impressed.  Make your Mama Jama
there lay off with the mental attacks."

"NotPossible, SheIsDisturbedByYourPresence, SheDefendsHerselfWithoutOur-
InterventionOrAssistance, YouMustLeaveUsAlone, DisasterWillFollowIfYou-
ContinueToIntrudeUponOurPresence.  LeaveTerenceKronToUsAndGO!!"

"Nothing doing, dude.  I've seen what happens if you get to eat Kron.
No way am I gonna let this whole town turn into monster chow."

"Fool, TheEnemiesOfTheGreatMotherWillAttackUsWhenSheIsAtHerWeakest,
TheyAreEnemiesOfAllWhoLive, DoNotTrifleWithTheDelicateBalanceOfPower!"

"Hey, who am I gonna believe, me, or someone whose afterbirth is
still attached to them?"

"ThenDieInYourIgnorance."  Sandar Tol's hands began to weave in improbable
patterns, pulling smoke and light and darkness out of the air.  'Raelf
stood in ready position and watched.  As he watched, the devourer split
in two, and the larger half spun in his direction.

<<<Void, select Truth>>> a crystalline, spiked figure materialized in
his hand, drawing blood.  The devourer closed, and touched the image of
Truth; both shattered.  Sandar Tol, however, was already on his second
spell.

[Time 2:15 - An End to Magic]

A curious ray, invisible except to conceptual sight, sprang from just
before Sandar Tol's hand, and began to play across 'Raelf's shields,
evaporating a hole in the protective hemisphere.

The ray washed across 'Raelf's staff, and the electricity which had
charged it discharged, taking the path of least resistance to the ground,
through his body.  His hair stood on end.  He shouted in pain, and began
dodging out of the path of the ray.

[Time 3:00 - The Magic Returns]

The ray stopped, with Sandar Tol slightly fatigued - it took a lot of
power, generating that particular effect.  And Mother was busy, her great
immense mind focussed on too many fronts.  Not just this battle, but there
was something, outside, grasping at her hold over Generica's masses.

'Raelf shook his head, static from the electric discharge flashing as
he shed sparks.  

"That was heinous, dude.  You messed up my 'do."  He spun the staff again,
<<ThunderRoad>> and the electric field rebuilt his protective barrier.

[Time 4:30 - A Change of Hobbit]

Inside his restored shield, 'Raelf directed the staff to construct a sphere
of chaos and instability - the disjunction effect used to deactivate items
and dissemble complex spells.  Maybe he could stun this fellow, or at least
wreck his next attack.  Outside, Sandar Tol smiled grimly to himself, and
began the slow magical manipulations that would cause spells cast by others
to misfire in strange and painful ways.  Seeing him begin his ritual gestures,
'Raelf threw his ball of chaos, aiming for Sandar Tol's face.

Bogo the currently seven-foot size-changing halfling chose that moment to run
between them, accidentally shoving Rook back out of the way.  The two
spells met, inside him.  He froze in place - shuddering, his power suddenly
going completely out of his control.  His bones began to grow, he loomed twenty
feet tall, while his muscles shrank, ripping loose from the bones, then his
internal organs began swelling to four times their size, his skin becoming
incredibly taut and stretched.  A sickening ripping noise began to fill the
air - his trachea had shrunk so tiny that he couldn't scream, and there was
no way to read the expression on his face as he began to burst out of his
skin - suddenly, the changes reversed, and his bones and organs shrank while
his muscles and skin began to grow incredibly - he collapsed, a writhing mass
of subsiding, pulsating flesh.  The last part of him left alive was his blood,
which chose that moment to begin growing, turning into a spring of red liquid
that bubbled and ran down the slight slope leading to the immense pool of flesh
that was the Great Mother.  Little mouths formed along the edge, and began to
sip the savory liquid, pink tongues lashing.

'Raelf and Sandar Tol looked across at each other and shrugged.
-- 
Rick Jones				Systems Support Center
albert@bcm.tmc.edu			Baylor College of Medicine
Voice: 713-798-7352			standard disclaimers apply
"Reality is not the world, but the perception of the world." - Sneakers