From: HADCRJAM@admin.uh.edu (MILLER, JIMMY A.)
Subject: [KQ] Mother of all Battles 1.6 [Colin] Death be not Proud
Organization: University of Houston Administrative Computing
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 12:47:09 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20

THE SHUNNED CENTER:
-------------------

  As the Kronquestors enter the vast room, and begin to quail at the horror
represented by the vast bulk of Great Mother (GM), shadowy figures make begin to
enter from the various other entrances.  With a ragged, maddening cry of pain
and rage, they surge forward to attack.

  Colin's more conscious mind, reeling under sensory overload and not-quite 
completely stopped mental pressure from GM, welcomes the opportunity to briefly
surrender itself to the more robust subconscious mind, and the battle reflexes
contained within.  Faced by a purely physical threat, the Ranger loses his
trembling, indecision, and fear, drawing both his blades and moving forward to
the meet the attack.

  The balance of these beasts fought with no fear, or care, or even strategy
for that matter.  All they had was madness and numbers.  That was currently
insufficient.  'Raelf was involved in a magical duel with some other mage.
Captain and Marcel were dueling a strange, winged beast-thing.  Maleiu had 
engaged a Loxorian giant.  Rhoan was firing arrows at a tremendous rate, and 
Thk....stood goggle-eyed in horror, staring into the pool Colin was trying 
desperately to ignore.

  With both his blades flashing, hurling blood, gore, and other...things in
all direction, Colin strode through the mass of beasts and near-beasts, parry-
ing blows and dealing out death with a mechanical precision very unlike the
normal fluid grace of his movements.  He passed near a troop of skeletal
warriors.  The holy symbol on his breast, serving as a cloak clasp, glowed
suddenly and the troop crumbled to dust.  The half-elf did not seem to notice...

  Slash.  New target.  Twist.  Thrust and dodge.  T-croc dead or dying.  Kick.
Spin, smash, chop.  Move on.  Thrust *just so*, then followup with the other 
blade to remove a head from a still semi-human thing carrying a mace.  Keep 
moving.

  A pulsing from the pit.  Dont'tlookdon'tlook.  Wait.  Something coming out.
A blade, a shape.  Ignore the tendril behind.

  Arganthruil, long-absorbed paladin, rose to his re-constituted feet and look-
ed around him.  The swirling battle was twisted by his Mother-dominated mind
into something quite different that what it was.  The band of Kron's friends
appeared as an army of Demons, the mob of slaves as brave but outmanned soldiers
out of Generica's past.  One Demon, with two glowing blades, was heading in his
direction.

  Colin was sweating profusely from the heat and exertion, covered in grime and
gore.  He barely noticed the passing of the robotic battle-madness.  For the
moment approaching his normal state of mind, he considered the nature of this
new opponent, moving carefully forward.

  That tendril would restrict the creatures movements.  But what strange ad-
vantages might it also confer?

  "Die, spawn of the netherworlds!  I am Arganthruil, warrior of the great 
Guianran.  You shall fall below my holy blade!"  Without bothering to await
an answer to his challenge, he strode forward and swung two-handed at the 
Ranger, who caught the blow between his crossed swords.

  Straining against the surprising (or perhaps not so surprising) strength of
the construct, Colin grated out "If you truly be a holy warrior, or what is
left of one, you would not seek to slay me."

  Leap apart.

  "Silence scum!  Your dark master shall not tempt me!"

  Slash.  Parry-riposte, riposte.

  "Tis the first time I have ever heard the Mistress of the Forests referred to
as a 'Dark Master', oh warrior."  *Parry carte~*, left hand, probe with the 
right blade in *quarte*.

  Somehow the long-dead paladin managed a sneer.  "Mistress?  MISTRESS?  You
almost disappoint me demon.  These are poor lies."  

  Thrust-parry.

  Colin's holy symbol pulses irregularly with the movements of Arganthruil.
Taking note of this, it percolates into the Ranger's mind that anyone kept
in that...*mass* since the time of a long-dead god was not likely to be resc-
uable.  Time to take off the gloves.  "Have it your way, warrior."

  The two moved forward again.  The ancient paladin could not step around as
freely as the untethered half-elf, but he swung his two-handed blade with in-
human swiftness, almost smashing through Colin's guard twice.  After that,
though, the Ranger stood firm.

  The two stood toe to toe, sparks flying from their swords.  They were almost
equally matched, the strength of the paladin vs. the unorthodox twin-bladed
skills of the guardian of the forests.

  But Colin's was the greater skill, and the superior dweomer of his swords
began to take their toll.  He slashed through Arganthruil's defense once,
twice, a third time, each drawing forth a brittle cry of pain from the con-
struct.  The cries tore at Colin's heart.  This brave once-a-man had been
tricked and betrayed in some forgotten time, and doomed to serve this horrid
*thing* for lo these many years.  He *had* to end this vile enslavement.

  Dive and roll.  Come up behind the warrior.  Thrust into his back before he
can react.  Slash into the side.  Again. Again.  Mangle the arm.  Thrust.
Colin's blades became as a blur, moving at a speed that the eye could not 
really follow.  Arganthruil suddenly collapsed into a horrid, gelatinous ooze,
ready for reabsorption.

  "Not this time, hell-spawn.  Not anymore will you use this one," swore the
ranger.  He sheathed his katana, and raised his bright longsword overhead,
gem blazing white.  He began to chant.

  "EL-HANROTH BEL RANHEL DEL BARAN!
   PHIRINIA ESTARI DEL CERE!
   GERANI HILETH SENTOTH BERACKEN!
   HARANDACKAR!"

  Ancient Elvish words of Power, passed down through his family's line for
millennia, they resound in the hall, and with a light greater than a thousand
suns, yet not damaging for all that, the great gem set in the hilts of Colin's
longsword pours forth a beam of surpassing whiteness, striking at the point 
where the tendril joined the body of Great Mother, severing it and burning.

  Have you ever stubbed you little toe?  Bashed it against some obtrusion?  Do
you recall how you felt?  Pain and anger all out of proportion to the true
amount of damage you have sustained?  So it was with Colin's magical blow to
Great Mother.  For all its sound and fury, which would have laid many a lesser
being low, it was but a tiny wound to Great Mother.  But the pain!

  Not physical pain, mind you.  Even so great a blast as Colin had called forth
was a mere pittance to the strange alien bulk that was Great Mother.  Her 
"pain", if it could be called such, was *emotional*.  For the ranger's strike 
had done something no other had done -- it had freed the soul of one of her 
"children"!  The paladin was gone, released from his barely-understood torment,
lost forever to Great Mother.

  It had been long since GM had felt such a hurt, long since a fleshy being had
actually done so much to hurt her.  With a blind rage, she struck out with a 
pseudopod at her tormentor, seeking to smash the foolish creature with the gall 
to strike HER.

  The pod came on like an avalanche.  There was no way to dodge it, or parry.
It stuck Colin dead-on, hurling him back up against the far wall, smashing into
it with such force the ancient stone cracked.  The Ranger slid to the floor,
the light in his blade-gem fading out.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------


semper fi,

Jammer Jim Miller 
Texas A&M University '89 and '91
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