Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sdcc6.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcc6!ir278 From: ir278@sdcc6.UUCP (Paul Anderson) Newsgroups: net.jokes Subject: "The Wraith", first 20 chapters Message-ID: <1846@sdcc6.UUCP> Date: Sat, 5-Jan-85 02:04:05 EST Article-I.D.: sdcc6.1846 Posted: Sat Jan 5 02:04:05 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 7-Jan-85 01:47:12 EST Organization: U.C. San Diego, Academic Computer Center Lines: 866 I've been receiving numerous requests for the original 20 chapters of "The Wraith". I've also been receiving numerous notices from MAILER_DAEMON that the copies I sent didn't make it. So, I am taking the liberty of posting the original story. Enjoy, all! ----- I don't know how many of you remember the Wraith, but he wrote a story that no one liked and disappeared. Well, he's still around, and has been writing new stories that, as far as I care, stand up to Hitchiker's Guide to the Net. So give the guy a chance, try this story... Send all critiques/flames to me, I'll send them to the Wraith on @gryphon (he doesn't want his account name revealed) ----------------------------- *** T H E W R A I T H *** ----------------------------- Okay, so we were supposed to go rescue this dwarf's father from some sort of creatures. We were in this town, and there were these wizards who were brothers, and they worshipped the norse goddess of death, called "Hel". Mouse steps up to the front door of one of these guys, and (stupidly), he goes inside when he tells the guy that he knows the dwarf called Thoron. The wizard messes up his mind so he tries to prevent his friends from reaching the place they want to go. Nobody else knows about this, of course. In a bar, Mouse pays a half-orc a platinum piece to go up to a party member (Pierre), and hit him over his head with his own banjo, which he was playing at the time. As the half-orc is walking back to his table, Winn, another party member, (who is a gnome) walks up unseen by the half-orc and hits him below the belt with his staff. The half-orc doubles over and there's a brawl. The lights is turned out for Pierre as somebody casts "darkness" on him. Then there is a big ball of shadow in a 30' radius around him. Eventually, we split, and there are no scape-goats. However, one of us turns into a bear, a very bad habit he has. This leads to complications as the citizens of the city run for shelter in a nearby fort, leaving some of us to peek into the jewelry-shops and find nothing. Thoron is found two-timing his wife when she showed up quite suddenly after a long while. She walks out on him. Everyone gets settled and we left for the island. II (The unwelcoming commitee) The island we went to is called Talus, I think. We had to kill a bunch of people and we made a bad impression. The Wraith (a party member) stuck a broach on his clothing that he found on the body of the commanding weird person. When we went to a city he could not speak the language of the citizens and was put under arrest. The questioner asked, "Ok, what are you doing here?" The Wraith answered that he and friends were looking for a dwarf called Fred who had done him a big wrong, although this was a big lie. He said that because theese people hated dwarves. "Listen. If you do just one thing wrong, I'll have you in jail." Wraith assumed it was weird for people to come to this island of their own free will (like Russia) since this place was primitive. He was on probation. He told Mhoram about what he told the questioner, but unfortunately, people have a tendency to forget what the Wraith says, and that he's even saying anything at all. This is too-bad, because Mhoram is questioned by some guy, who says, "Why are you here?" And Mhoram comes up with a different story. Then the questioner says, "Have you ever heard of anyone called "Fred"? To which Mhoron (I mean Mhoram) confesses forgetfully that he "might have", but couldn't remember off-hand. "Well, this person claims that you are looking for a dwarf called Fred." "Well, my companion here is sick, and we are here to cure him by Odin's power." Thoron hid out in the forest until he was discovered by some people. He was put in prison to be burned later, when we tried to rescue him. Again unfortunately, The Wraith was not there mentally at the time, so naturally the sceme failed, and we were all in trouble with the king. He sent us thru a type of magical loop in mid-air after confiscating all our possessions except he gave Winn a staff, as he was a favorite. III Suff'rn on the Steppes On the other side, we ended up in an artic tundra, and wow, was it cold. During summertime, too. As added companions, we had some fellows whom we will call Tim and Matthias. Maybe there were some other people as well, but if so, they were of no consequence. We spent a little time looking for food and the means to light a fire but were dissapointed. Tim vanished into thin air, as it were. The Wraith discovers on his person a jewel which grows warm or hot when met with the sun's rays. His friends tell him he smuggled it. Then there were some neanderthalic people whom we befriended. They were going north, but some of us wanted to go south. Our group split up here. Mhoram, Pierre, The Wraith, and Winn went with the tribe, and Matthias, Thoron, and anybody else I forgot to mention went south. I will first tell what happened to the people who went south. They encountered some dragon-like creatures and told them, "We come in peace," and they got a lift to where Thoron's father and a bunch of dwarves were being held for some purpose which I do not know. I will get back to them later. Mhoram turned into a bear again, and this frightened the tribe people, but we stuck with them anyway. They led us to a tall range of mountains. We see a flock of birds, but Mhoram forgets that his familiar is hovering around him, bored, so we didn't get any. IV Tropical stuff, and Mua-Muas We went thru a pass into a volcanically heated valley with weird, unusual plants and, of course, a volcano. There is a large villiage of these people here. Winn starts dancing and gets rocks thrown at him, so he stops. The volcano is called Yog Sogoth (?) by these guys. A cave-girl strikes up a relationship with Mhoram although he turns her down. We suspect that the volcano is the key out here. If we can get back to the king within a year, he'll give us back our possessions. The locals seem to think the volcano is some god with monsters and such, and they advise against us going there. We do anyway, after we imbibed of some herbal soup during the middle of the night. Taking a trail up the side of the volcano, we find an altar and some strange garbage, like a mace. The floor crumbles around somebody as someone touches it. A trap. Later we also get a bow. It was reached by sending Mhoram's familiar to get it, since it was tied to the ceiling over a pit. The Wraith wades thru a pond of warm water with a rope tied around his waist. As he reaches the middle of it, it opens up and he plummets about 200 feet into a small lake. So does Mhoram and Pierre and Winn eventually. Mhoram gets bitten by some sharks in the lake, but everybody else is fine. Pierre thinks that as he falls, maybe he'll fall head-first with his fists in constant fighting motion, so as to land on a shark and kill it, but thinks better of it and falls normally. We are now in an underground place. There is a waterfall coming from a cave and a tunnel. Mhoram's familiar flaps off down the tunnel to check it out and comes back in hurry. He is being followed by some chanting red humanoid figures saying "Mua Mua Mua Mua Mua Mua Moi (etc.)". We run up a path by the waterfall's edge which the Wraith cleverly discovers ("There's a path here!", he shouts through his sopping wet black velvet mask [actually, it is not known is he was wearing this getup at any time, as it is very impractical.]) Everyone scaled the path, but Mhoram gets in trouble with the creatures called Mua-Muas, which shall be easiest to remember since that is all they say. One grabs hit ankle and he beats it off with the new mace. Everyone beats feet uphill and into a tunnel which the stream flows thru. "Mua", says a big Mua-Mua who thrust its head up to tunnel-level. The stream ran from a crack in the wall, the tunnel itself curved until it opened into an appearantly large room. "You fool! You'll be eaten by the mua mua muas!", Winn cried after someone. Up ahead, a side passage revealed itself, and they all rushed into it. They could still hear the sounds of their pursuers not far behind them. However, they all halted abruptly at a frustrating sight: before them was a two feet broad span of marble crossing to the far side of this new room, whose real floor was concealed in the darkness beyond the marble slopes on both side of the bridge. There were very gusty winds. Pierre started to run across to the door on the opposite side, but was almost instantly buffeted off the marble. The sound of him sliding continued for a few seconds, but very soon the noise of the wind overpowered all other indistinct sounds. A group of mua-muas appeared in the arch behind everyone, and so Winn and Mhoram took the plunge and slid off down the side which Pierre had fallen down. The Wraith thought he might be able to run across the chamber, but the powerful winds knocked him off opposite the side which everyone else had fallen. Although he was un-injured, the top of the ridge was thirty feet up, and there was no way for him to climb up the steep enbankment. However, there was (luckily) an archway in front of him, so he sped off into the darkness and fell into a pit which was about twenty feet in diameter. He fell for a while, but by spreading himself out on a horizontal plane, he enabled himself to fall slower. Actually, though, the only thing which kept him from falling extremely fast was that there was a fantasically strong gale blowing up out of the depths. The exact same thing had happened to the other people, save that they were on the opposite side. When Warth finally reached the bottom, he landed with a soft thud, but in no way was he hurt besides a few bruises. The wind had, impossibly, stopped at the bottom of the giant shaft, and no amount of arguing can change the fact that the gale sprung out of the thin-air (which was pretty thin, or had been, considering the altitude at which Warth had been before he had fallen down a collasping lake and two other pits, the shaft not included). This new room was lit by torches which had little unrecognizable stanzas written into them. The air was filled with a lot of black smoke which made his eyes water. There were some steps leading up at the nether end of this chamber, so he trudged up them, so much the action-packed character he was. He saw the other people before they saw him, so he said in a loud voice, "Boo! I am the wraith of the Wraith!" Everybody was together again, for now. "Maybe we should go look around on the top of the hill," Winn suggested. They had gone down a deep shaft with a very strong gale blowing an had stepped out of a smoke filled room. Afterwords, they had seen an ominous sign reading, "WELCOME TO HADES", and had beat feet, trying to escape from a multitude of mua-muas. Everybody agreed to go up, but they were instantly spotted by a group of twenty or so mua-muas in the sulferous valley below. A battle ensued since nobody could get away fast enough, in which Mhohoram had been badly injured by some acidic substance the blobs secreted. Meanwhile, Winn Dexter, the sickly gnome, had beaten the mua-muas with an ordinary tree branch. Eventually the group found a bronze plaque which they determined was a map, since it had lines (trails), with weird symbols (points of interest) dotted here-and-there. They jogged up one of the rocky trails and saw, against some grey mountains, a tall, thin castle with black turrents and walls. "Do you want to go over there?" asked Winn. "Are you kidding!?", Pierre admonished. "That place must be a mua-mua warehouse, a mua-mua factory! It'll be swarming with mua-muas!" They took another trail and saw a canyon strewn with geysers and vapours. Nobody wanted to go down there, so they tried another trail and saw a lot of hills that were pointy in the extremist degree. Although these hills were only about fifty feet in diameter (they were round) in the largest size at the base, they all narrowed down to a seeming pin-point at their tops. They were all in clusters, and except that it would be impossible for such a formation of giant-sized rocks to exist, you might say they were monolithic stalagmites. These were in a huge cluster, with the smallest ones around the perimeter and the giant-sized ones near the center. They saw some more mua-muas and ducked inside the cluster, but one of the blob-like figures came close to where they were hiding. "Mua? Mua? Mua!", it said excitedly at seeing them. They all had run again, this time pursued by about fifty mua-muas of four feet in hight. As they neared a group of greek-type pillars, the mua-muas halted reluctantly. Some of them stretched forth a drooping arm and growled "muaaa!", which gave Mhohoram an urge to turn around and run back, but he kept on running towards the pillars where everyone observed an old man wearing purple robes. "And what can I do for you?" he asked politely "We want to get out of here!" Pierre blurted. "Yeah, take us out! Can you do that?" asked Winn. "I can take you anywhere in the multiverse," the man said. "But what can you do for me in return?" "We don't have anything to offer...", Mhoram said under his breath. "You can give me knowledge," the man suggested. "Tell me something I don't already know." "Did you know that there are a lot of mua-muas out there?" Pierre asked. "Yes, I already knew that," the man stated. "Well, did you know that there's a black castle in the distance?" asked Winn. "Yes, I already knew that." "Who lives there?" Asked Mhoram. "Why, the lord of the province." the man answered. "Well, did you know that there is a city in which there is an unjust ruler?" "That's nothing," the man said. "Hey," Pierre whispered to his companions. "This guy is going to say, "I already knew that," to everything we say." "Well, let's keep on trying." "Did you know that there are some neanderthals who live in a valley and drink a weird herbal soup?" ask Winn. "No, I did not," the man said, and tapped him with a staff he was carrying. He began to glow and fade. The man explained that he was being sent on his way. { Pierre mentioned that it would be too bad to have to do all this over again, in which case he would tell the old man, "There are some flies on that hill over there." } Actually, I forget what he really said, although he made it. "I battled the clone of a monstrous demon in a mountain," Mhoram stated. "Did you kill it?" the man asked. "Yes." "Was it as tough as that fifteen feet tall red, glowing mua-mua over there?" "I...Don't know." "Why don't you run over there and find out?" "I can't! I'm too weak! I don't have anything to fight it with!" "Very well," the wizened old man sighed. "I don't want you to strain your brain any longer," he said, and tapped him with his staff, causing him to glow bluely. { Before that, though, Mhoram's familiar was able to answer a question, as was the Wraith, o' course. } To conserve energy, since there was already an existing account of what transpired in the mua-mua caves, (most of it, anyway), it was not written over again. You have just read the existing account. A lot of it was updated and most of it is new. V Meanwhile, back to Matthias and Thoron They fought a big battle with some robed and hooded creatures with no visages. A lot of dwarves died, but about four were liberated from slavery, or whatever was going to happen to them. This was on a ship. They then went back to the castle, where everyone else was. VI Lost and Found The king was surprised (I'd suppose) to see us. He then lamely said that all the treasures in his armory were stolen, and this seems to include our stuff. Like our weapons. A note was left to us, which we were to follow the advise of, to find our things again. Pierre asked a guard what happened, and the guard said he saw a "devil (demon?) - dog" stop him from doing anything about the theft. The pile of junk dissapeared, perhaps. We set sail for where-ever the guy is, that made the note. VII hailing part A new character is here with us at this time, and we shall call him Charley, or Charles. He is loud-mouthed and tells people to shut up. A good thing about him is that he can change into different forms of creatures which can do a lot of damage. We encounter a haunted vessal, and it's going to ram us. Winn waves his wound of wounder (wand of wonder?) at the ship, and the sails turn to stone, collapsing. We fight a skeletal crew, and the Wraith has a sword which likes to kill things which are already dead, so great. We loot it and burn it. The incident is really a profitable one except that more than half our sailors died. Later, there's a sea-monster which is greedy and wants some treasure or food, but we give it some stuff and also say, later on we'll come back and give you some more stuff. "ok," he says. There is a small island spotted. We assume this is the right place. In the future, there are so-many plots and sub-plots that everyone will wish he'd just let the looney have their items and go down to the nearest bar to start a fight or something. We row out to the island in a row-boat, telling the people to wait for us in the galley. VIII Monster Isle We go into a small bay and we find a black cylinder that is about 12 feet high and 10 feet in diameter. It is smooth and unclimbable. Thoron jumps into the water and recieves a shocking experience from a type of poisonous electric eel. He recovers eventually. The eel's lair is in the cylinder. Pierre and others give Winn a boost up to the top of the cylinder, whereupon we witness sparks and he falls, having had a frightening experience, in which he says what happens is that he saw a lot of demonaic faces and then he discovers that he is wearing an amulet. When opened, the hexagonally-shaped thing attached to the necklace reveals a pearl. When peered into, everyone sees visions of Winn's early childhood, like him and his pals stealing food from a warehouse. He keeps it. As we go on the beach, we hide the boat and are attacked by an apish monster with teeth. After we kill this one, a bunch more appear, but we manage to kill all of them. In the forest we encounter another one, but it does not see us. Pierre comments that these creatures must be the population of the island, and that if he climbed a tree he would see one, and also if he went into the mountains. He then stated that he may go to the far beach of the island to see thousands of these creatures basking on towels and drinking beverages. He is probably being funny, since we encounter lots of these. Once we obtain a higher altitude with which we hope to observe anything observable, there is a well which one of us falls into. It is Matthias that falls in. He is evidently unhurt, as he cries, "Get me out of here!" from the bottom (?) of the pit. We rescue him and find that in the chambers at the nether-end of the pit there are many illusions of sights and colors that cloud the mind. There are also some things which may have been trolls. We were going to cut down some trees and somehow suffocate the denizens by smoke but decide it would take to long and was unrealistic. We trudge along in the tropical jungle and were attacked by a tentacled thing which we slaughtered. As night falls, we camp in a cave and hear a clicking sound. It is the noise of a giant bug which approaches us in our cul-de-sac. Winn causes the bug's eyes to turn into flashlights, causing it some pain, as it is nocturnal. It falls part way down a cliff and we see the twin beams of light coming from its eyes a long way away in the foggy vapours. Winn and Mhoram had some nightmares in which we were set upon by monkey-like beings whilst in the cave. This proved to be the case. Everyone except Mouse and Winn were bled to unconsciousness, and there were yet two beasts left alive. Winn watches the mouse fight them while he is in a burlap sack. Somehow the mouse prevails and binds the wounds of the injured party. In unnaminous decision, we decide to hurry up and find what we are supposed to before we meet Godzilla. In the morning we go to some ruins where we see a hexagonal building (Winn's amulet-trinket was hexagonal as well, if you remember) and enter. Wraith's sword begins to get hyper-diaper, which is to say it was putting on a show that something was amiss, and we meet a lot of skeletons and a robed lich-thing which we also hite (hit). In an inner-chamber there was tied to the ground a woman who asked to be freed. Naturally we were cautious although not chauvinistic (most of us, anyway), so left her there since somebody sensed she was evil. Happily, she did turn into a skeleton-form which we took care of. We fight with some more skeletons, and a weird-looking skeleton slashes Mhoram, who begins to melt, beginning at his extremities. He is very panicky now. Finally he is only a lump of dough which shrinks out of sight. There is nothing to be done about this. We examine some wooden double doors with engravings on them that cannot be opened. IX The interior of the building and of a new world We examined the big wooden door which had a dragon and a man etched into it. Winn touched the door, but nothing happened, so he started to rub it. Still nothing happened so he rubbed it violently (it was very smooth), accomplishing nothing. mouse touched an ingraved sword and it came out of the door, turning into a three-dimensional weapon. Winn touched the man, who was very confused. He claimed to have been at a wild party and lost consciousness. Warth doesn't believe this, but says nothing. Thoron asked who the dragon-creature was, and the man said he didn't know. A few minutes later, however, he said that it was his companion who had been changed from human into reptilian shape by an evil warlock or somthing. The human-type person wants his sword back so mouse had to oblige. We told this person that we would like to find Mhoram and he agrees to help us look for him. Inside the building we find some floating hoops that reveal unearthly things on the other sides. beyond one of them lay a great white expanse of nothing, and the one who went into it found he could not get anywhere because he was not touching anything. The hoop behind him was getting smaller and smaller, so he ended up spitting. This propelled him backwards thru the door just as it closed. There were many boring things behind a lot of these doors (doubtless this is boring you, of course), so I will not go into detail about those doors, as nothing eventful happened. Beyond one door, however, was an alien landscape that had three moons and glass cities. This lay one hundred feet below the hoop. There was also a river. We thought Mhoram, if still alive, might be in this place, so we tried to think of a way to get down. Winn asked the stranger if his lizard friend objected to his riding on his back. The man said, "Yes, but if you want, he'll carry you in his mouth." It grinned hugely then, showing a bunch of stainless steel ivories. I forget how we got down, but as it turned out finally, the stranger was a devil or demon, as was his friend. We learned this when he attacked Mhoram (who we found). We decided to investigate the city, which was inhabited by geometrical objects. These things had no tentacles, arms, or anything, even eyes. There were a great many of spheres floating around and talking to one another. Pierre called them slobs and made a sketch of them. Pierre, priding himself on being socialistic but most of all anti-society, wanted to vandalize or something just as bad. He went across the river on a bridge, tip-toed carefully to a door, and put his ear to it for about a minute or so. Then, he cried, "What do I do now?" to everyone else. Naturally we get in trouble with the citizens. X The description speeds up a lot here, and is not as boring (in my opinion) as other parts. NARRITIVE The following is a narrative given mostly by Pierre from talking: "Um, mnn. So what happens, you see, is that we slaughter -well, it ends up that we get, get hite pretty bad, and we, we end up slaughtering this guy, okay? And then, we kinda work our way out, um, but what happens is the whole place was under seige from another race of these people, these kind of things. An' anyway, these guys, are-- these guys that were running the show before, that we totally nailed, were totally totaltarialistic, and the new guys that replaced them were for anarchy. So anyway, we, uh, we befriended one of the anarchist cubicles. It's something like this "(shows picture)", but it's cubist. So what we did was, we befriended him, and he says," (changing his voice to nasal) " 'Oh, well, I wanna go home'. So we said, 'Tha's allright, cool. Take us home. Ok. So he takes us to this, this wizard, I suppose, that's way, away. We had to hike for, uh, a day, which is equivilant ah, is equivilant to their time, is equivilant to seven days. " Eric: "Six days. " (everybody: "Six days.") Pierre again: "In the meantime we encountered an earthworm" (giant crustacean and not actually a worm at all) "...And two were swallowed, I think-" Thoron: (smiling) "I jumped in." (laughter) Pierre: "He jumped in--" Thoron: "I did." Xstarrael: "Why?" Eric: "Because it was about to swallow him anyway!" Thoron: "Because it was about to bite me so I just--Geronimo!" Pierre: "And that way he..." (time passes) Pierre: "I, of course, did it at long range and fired bows" [note: as you can see, the proper word should be 'arrows', but this was not changed from what he originally said.] Pierre: "I shot four." Mhoram: "And I jumped in." mouse: "What about me? I didn't jump in! I was all by myself!" (laughter) Winn: "I can't even remember what happened to me." Pierre: "You were, like, conjuring one spell and you missed. " (laughter) Pierre: "You didn't do very much. Then what happened was the cubicle had gone on, and, see, the cubicle had to take a rest, so we went on ahead, and we met these birds, see, and we started flying." (The birds were really some sort of plated creatures. It is illogical to assume that they were giant insects, as there exoskeleton wouldn't support their bulk in mid-air.) "Yeah, now what was this new guy like? I wasn't sure. He look like a wizard or something? " Mhoram: "Sartar, you mean? " Pierre: "Yeah, Sartar. " Mhoram: "He was just...." Pierre: "Another one of those big blobs. " Winn: "Was it a person? " Mhoram: "No, it was just some weird creature, it was like a..a head sticking off and its ears down here and all kinds of tentacles around..." Pierre again: "Well anyway..." Xstarrael: "Are you communistic?"(To Mhoram) Mhoram: "Socialistic." Warth: "You used to be Capitalistic, or for monarchy. Odin is not Socilistic. I'm in trouble. I'm the only one who belives in monarchy!" Winn: "You're not in trouble because"(cupping his hands over his mouth and breathing heavily) "THE FORCE IS STRONG IN THIS ONE!" (there is no explanation to this) Pierre: "So, so after we meet this guy, he cast a kind of hex....hex, on all of us. Like, us, a couple of us were immune...I wasn't, of course. And so anyway, I got hexed, where I had to complete some, we had to complete some sort of quest..So we were geased, and we had to go on this quest. And the quest is what? I mean, what was the quest?" Winn: "We had to kill some leapord thing or something." Mhoram: "Yeah, and it's hiding in the forest. " Pierre: "Yeah, wll, after we kill that, then we have to go back and, " (unable to transcribe) Winn: "So right then we were in the midst of trying to kill this thing, and we were wandering aimlessly thru the woods. " Pierre: "Oh, Randal and some of his friends got abducted by some snake-things. So we had to get rid of some scum that were bothering us...Matthias always brings his stupid friends along when he pops up suddenly. I don't know how he got around. So, when they abducted them, they left you behind. " Winn: "Yeah, they said, 'We don't want you.'" (laughter) XI FOREST We are now in a forest. Unless an important part of plot, will leave matter-of-fact boring sundry stuff out, like what they had for breakfast, etc. A mist arose from the ground, and people began to fear the trees, which seemed more and more menacing. Then a tree steps into front of the path and says, "Who are you?" Mhoram: "I am Mhoram, great worshipper of Odin." The tree laughs, hahahahahaaa. Thoron: "I'm Thoron, goblin-slayer, woman-layer. " (Entire forest laughs) Wraith and Winn express their heartfelt (?) admiration for trees. Winn kisses one as Pierre humorously thinks it may be the tree's wife. "What brings you here?" It said, changing into a lizard type creature. "We are admiring your trees." "---what *really* bring you here?--" it asked telepathically to Wraith. "Two feet." "Ah! Puny!" Mhoram covers his eyes with his hand. Maybe he has mind-reading capabilities. We tell the tree about what we want to do, and he would like to help us. He is leading us now to a villiage. XII In which there are a bunch of lizards. "Batha Yaka, do you want Krith dead?" asked the black robed, hooded, and masked figure. "Yes, very much. She is a great destroyer of trees." replied the black-eyed lizard-thing with membranes & tentacles. "Then why don't you kill her?" "Huh? Well, she's..She's much too powerful for me! I mean, I don't think you could kill her, either. But if you do, good for you. I don't want to go further than the outskirts of my forest, but I will take you up to there. I will also tell you that before you can destroy Krith, you must kill Sith Kith Kith, and you must get from him the diadem of Bethtoki. Then, you must do away with Krith's guardian. Then she will only be impossible to defeat." The Wraith was having his doubts about the whole affair. He was made to hate Krith, and had been filled with the desire to slay her, for he, among others, had been put upon a geas. Upon fulfillment of that geas were they to return, whereupon the creature that cast the geas would return the party to their former place of residence. The Wraith strongly suspected that that being, called Sartar, did it just to get them out of his hair, and that he did not have any such power. "I leave you here." The thing colasced into mist. For several days the group wandered about the land, avoiding lizard- people. I didn't know how we were going to get inside, nor how we were to kill this Sith Kith Kith person, since he was the ruler of the land. A few days later, the group was ambushed by a bunch of lizard-things that were about to beat up on them. Some type of contact must be made, the Wraith thought. "Sith Kith Kith." Mhoram & everyone else except Julie & Thoron agreed that they should surrender. Well, they were tied up and dumped into some cells. "Where are our weapons?" Asked Winn Dexter, who spoke their language. "In dagode room." "Dagode! I *LOVE* dagode!" Winn said, although he didn't know who or what it was. "You love dagode???" The thing grinned. They brought him outside, and after a while Winn was lead back to his cell. "'Dagode' means 'torture'," he said. Winn got bored, & started poking around his cell. He discovered a loose stone in his back wall. Removed, it showed a small passage. The guard noticed this, and started yelling and opening up the door, so Winn said, "Are all your cells so poorly made?" Mhoram, with a special power he had, turned invisible. The guard was shocked. He rushed over to some pals of his, and before they returned Mhoram turned visible again. The guard was hit on the top of his head. "Idiot." Winn Dexter used some of his magic to produce some light on top of the guard's head. "There's a light on my head! There's a light on my head! Get it off!" But by the time he had gotten over to his pals again, the light had faded. This time he was pummeled a little. The guard was changed. Mhoram's wisdom enabled him to put light on this creatures head, as well as others, but they got used to it. "Don't worry about it," said a captain. "It'll go away in a few minutes." Mhoram made a light that would not go away. When he put it on the guard's head, nothing happened. After about 45 minutes, the guard began getting nervous, and eventually ran screaming from the jail. 50 or so guards later (they all had lights on their heads), they group was recognized as something which ought to be dealt with. They were lead before the reptilian Sith Kith Kith. "I've heard that you were doing weird things in my cells, so I thought I'd see what you wanted." "Why did your men lock us up at all?" Asked Mhoram. "You were tresspassing, and an example has to be set." "We want a certain magical item--" "Do you like Krith?" Asked mouse. "Krith? Why do you mention that name? Of course not! She has been a thorn in my side, but that's about all." "Well," continued mouse. "We were told that you had a diadem which would enable us to kill her." "You would not be able to kill her. However, I'll sell you the diadem, which does not look very valuable to me, for...200 rubles." "Wouldn't Krith's death mean more to you than 200 rubles?" asked Mhoram. "Yes, it would, however, you might just take off with my diadem." "I don't think we have 200 rubles. I don't even know what a ruble is," Mhoram said to his companions. "Let me see that stone you have," Sith Kith Kith said to the Wraith. He was talking about a gem which he had earlier, and which got warm when held in the sun. The Wraith had used this in an artic tundra in chapter III. "I'll give you 100 rubles for it." "That's a lot of rubles," Mhoram said to him. "We need it. Why don't you sell it?" He continued. "Okay, I guess, but we still don't have enough rubles." "Perhaps we can convince him that we're powerful, so he'll know that we mean to kill Krith. I will cause his crown to grow hot," said Mhoram, concentrating. Eventually, Sith Kith Kith, without looking at his crown, and keeping his eyes steadily on the party, calmly took it off. "Sissy Kiss Kiss? Or whatever your name is," said Winn, "How about if we give you knowledge? I can teach you how to do some spells." "If I can use it to my advantage, fine." Said Sith Kith Kith. Sith Kith Kith used them to his advantage. He was firing little burts of energy joyfully all around the room, hitting his own servants. "That's fun!" he said. We got the diadem, and left. "Stay off the road, becaues there's dangerous stuff on the road!" XIII dangerous stuff off the road. Several damaging encounters later, Winn Dexter was pretty upset. "I don't see why we have to stay off the road! That guy didn't know what he was talking about!" We stay off the road anyway. We encountered a bunch of goblins. We thought we were going to hack, but they had never seen dwarves or elves before, and didn't want to fight. Some of us wanted to let them come along, because Krith would also have to fight them as well as us. Others were against it. They originally wanted to come along because they had no idea of where they were: "The last thing we were doing was fighting a sorceror, and we ended up here." And they thought they could hitch a ride back with us. Most of the people didn't want them along, however, so they left. Winn: "Because, I mean, if Krith is as powerful as everybody says she is, I'll bet she'd have no trouble with those goblins. It's like, '(raspberry)--you're dead.'," he said, waving his arms forward as if dismissing someone, to show with what little difficulty Krith would wipe them out. XIV Sphinx A little further on, a lone figure is seen in the night, riding a horse. Thoron asks Mhoram how well he can see it, and he replied that light was reflected off several heavenly bodies. Due to a misunderstanding, Thoron thought Mhoram was speaking of glowing females. (isn't that silly?) The thing turns out to be an elf. He asks if we want to buy anything. Thoron asks what he has, and the being replies that he has about anything he could ask for. Some different things are bought, all of which are taken out from the folds of his cloak (!). The Wraith thinks he is a walking dept. store. Thoron, when buying something, thought of a way to trick the elf. "Copper is our highest coin in worth, and platinum our lowest." We took off eventually, meet a desert and a big wall. Also a sphinx, but this one is alive. "Tell me where I can find a (magical item forgotten), and I will let you past." Thoron: "I think there's one about--" Mhoram: "No! Don't tell her 'I think', say you know!" Wraith: "Don't tell her anything at all like that, for when she finds that she has been cheated, she's going to be really mad." Mhoram: "Yeah, I know.." Wraith: "How about riddles? Do you like riddles? If I tell you one you can't guess, will you let us past?" Sphinx: "Yes. One person per unsolvable riddle." Wraith: (dredging his memory) "What is..No, just a second... OK, what is the beginning of eternity, the end of time & space, the beginning of every end, and the end of every race?" Thoron: (although he is not being asked) "Twilight zone." Sphinx: "Twilight zone." Wraith: "Wrong! The letter 'e'." Sphinx: (smiling) "Could you run that by me one more time?" Wraith: "What is the beginning of Eternity, the end of timE & spacE, the beginning of every End, and the end of every racE." Sphinx: "Okay, you get past!" Then, the sphinx asks some riddles to different people, who try to solve them. I forget what a bunch of them were. One of them was: "People greatly need this thing, yet would not cry out greatly if it were taken away from them. What is it?" Thoron guessed it; the answer was 'air'. Some more people had to answer correctly, though. The Wraith asked another one: "What's big, red, and eats rocks?" "A big red rock eater." "Well, you got that one right. How about this one: What has two million teeth, four thousand claws, and sixty eyes?" "I don't know." "I don't know, either, but if you see one, run!" "That doesn't count." "How about this, then? What has two legs, is green, and has a trunk?" "I give up." "A sea-sick tourist!" "No. If I were from California, I'd let another one past, but I'm not." "You have yet to solve a riddle I gave you," the sphinx continued. "If you solve it, I will take you to where you want to go. If you do not solve it by sundown, I'll eat you." I guess she was talking to Pierre. (time passes, and no answers) "I'll give you a hint," the sphinx said, eating a sandwich. "Every one of you can see it." No one was able to correctly guess it. "Cheese is the answer." "That wasn't a good riddle!" Mhoram protested. "Listen, I'll give you one more chance. You have to solve this one quickly. (riddle which I forget)" "You." the Wraith said. "You got it." The sphinx said. "I'll carry you half-way to your destination. "You're supposed to solve the easy ones!" Thoron said to the Wraith. "Actually, I didn't clearly understand the riddle she asked, so I guessed." "Good guess!" Thoron said. XV pyramid I suppose Krith lives in this pyramid which we look at, about 10 miles away from us. There is no cover. We go up to the Pyramid to try to find a way in, and Thoron notices an uneven block. Pushing it, and remarking about the poor quality, the block slides inwards until a passage is revealed, and the block lifts itself up like a garage door. As I transcribe this we have gone inside, and are in a dark passage.