Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [DQ] Week 3: Dances with Gargoyles ===================================================== THE DRAGON QUEST: Week 3 * The DragonQuesters: SunStorm, Lancos, 'Raelf, Kadrys. * The Situation: Gargoyle Attack ======================================================= [a few minutes earlier] + Everybody is outside in the night, between the stainless steel part of the + plaza, where the PyraCubic Diamond is, and the Dragons-Inn. SunStorm has been + completely enthralled by the cursed thing. Kadrys seems somewhat immune to + charming, him being a vampire... Lancos is putting all his willpower into + trying to disbelieve something he knows can't be possible, ShowckWave + doesn't know what's going on, and Valgar seems to have a hard time himself. + 'Raelf is the only one who has seen such things before, and he has activated + some protection runes on his Board, and is circling, trying to analyze the + thing, then destroy it. [And back at the inn, 'Raelf watched his past. The sense of being observed was back - Dark was watching again. Good, let it snoop. The more the merrier. <<>> he demanded, flickering into Void. And Void replied with uncertainty, crashing waves of it, all over the Plaza.] + ShockWave: "He's too far gone. That thing sucked him in!" + + Kadrys: "You mean, his soul?" + + 'Raelf thought he had grasped the workings of this magical trap, and so + proceded to try to make a crack in the improbable crystal. He didn't hear + what ShockWave said to Kadrys, too concentrated was he on dispelling the + thing. "There! Now I got it! Was easy, that!" [ and back at the Inn, 'Raelf watching, smiled. None of this was going quite the way he remembered it. Good. ] + Kadrys: 'Raelf, stop! + + Too late, the thing was cracked, and starting to fall apart. + << DeActivate.EmergencySecurityOverRide Code #@$%%* >> <> + + 'Raelf: "Wha? Traveller magic?" + + Only broken glass now lay on the Stainless + Steel Plaza ground. And some bizarre improbable components, too. + + ShockWave: NO! You... + + But suddenly there was an even greater cry of anguish. + + "NOOOOOOOOO! You can't have broken it!? How could you?" + + 'Raelf, Kadrys, and any other who was not enthralled then saw the one who + just shouted. A man in dark plate armor, atop a near building. Lancos was + too busy trying to recover his mind from the wracking experience he's just + been through to say that this was the one he fought earlier that day, but + 'Raelf and Kadrys still recognised him for the foe he was. And he seemed to + be fully recovered from his fight with Lancos. + + "You've just broken the portal! ..." + + 'Raelf: "Portal?!? It can't be a portal, I know a portal when I see one. + That had to be a spell-remote. And the kar'khat thing was Traveller magic!" + + "...Now I'll have to wait until the new moon! I'll kill you for that! NOW! + Spawns, attack! KILL KILL KILL! Especially the flying mage!" + + 'Raelf: "Ooops". + + Then from behind him, there was movement. Winged shadowy figures were taking + off and darted right toward the plaza. Most of them seemed to go toward + 'Raelf. The others simply charged into the (previously) charmed people, who + weren't a match for these monsters, and panic quickly came about. 'Raelf rose to meet the oncoming menace. The winged figures swarmed towards the board-rider. Most of them seemed to want HIS blood, although there were plenty left for the others. He spun his board around to face the main mass of them. Hmm. Feet anchored in these boots, ghu' but I wish my big board still worked. Have to adapt, can't do kicks. May have to cheat a little. Huh. May have to cheat a LOT. They came closer. Gargoyles. Brute force, but effective. Behind him, chipbone arced around, hoping to get a good vantage point for a power dive. The soft edible thing was ignoring him, didn't even see him. Biteface and gnawflesh and gnashtongue were coming straight at it, the fools. Well, they'd find out when the soft thing shot fire at them. Mages always shot fire first, they were so predictable. Sharpwing was coming in from below, and she was almost as clever as him. Breaknose and eyestab were coming from either side, fast. Chipbone tried to climb faster, knowing he needed to start at least fifty feet above to land the neck-snapping strike. Up! Up! (From below: crunch- SHREEEKA Tang splat as the first three fools discovered that a straight-in attack wouldn't work.) He looked down, having reached the desired height. Breaknose and eyestab were tangled together on the ground in a heap of broken wings, clawing and biting each other in their pain. Sharpwing was hovering back, her hands holding her copiously bleeding face, which had a line across it as though she had been hit across the face with a crowbar. Most of the rude language was coming from her. Biteface and gnawflesh and gnashtongue were all scattered behind the slowly spinning board, apparently having missed completely. Bluegrey ichor dripped from the board's trailing edge where Sharpwing had smashed her face. But they five were just the first wave anyway. Rudenoise and bentface and eggbreaker and biteneck all whirled around the filthy softthing, yelling encouragement to each other, all trying to get the others to attack first. Damn them to rot, they were getting in his way! He couldn't powerdive in without hitting one of them fools first! "Chipbone! Get your worthless ass down here!" yelled tonguerot, the oldest. "Eat my offal! I wanna skystrike the bastard!" he answered politely, not wanting to have social problems at the feasting afterwards. The four circling the mage were joined, in a moment, by biteface and gnawflesh, but gnashtongue spotted the giant below. With only ripskin and bloodspit attacking, and breakthumb and wingslash harrassing the puny soft food things, it looked like it might be more fun to sneak up behind the giant. Meanwhile, sharpwing was coughing on blood. "Stupid slut, why did you fly into his board like that?" he taunted on his way down to attack the giant. Tonguerot climbed up to the same height as chipbone. "Faster!" he yelled down to the gargoyles spinning around the mage. "Go faster! Confuse the magicker bastich!" "You go first, pissant" he snarled, shoving chipbone towards the melee of gargoyles. Chipbone growled, but didn't dare to disobey. Tonguerot had too many ways to punish disobedience. He began to dive, flapping his great stony wings for all he was worth, aiming for the strike at the place where the neck meets the skull. Even if he mis-timed it, he'd crush the mage's tender throat. The others whirled their circle around, making an opening. Somehow, though, when his fists were only inches from their target, the mage grabbed him, kneeling down towards the board, spinning forward. Chipbone lost control of his flight, smashing into rudenoise and eggbreaker. He felt the hide on his gut shatter on rudenoise's sharp stubby horns, and felt his fists strike eggbreaker's face. It made a satisfying crunch, but the pain from his abdomen was great. They fell the twenty feet to the ground below. Rudenoise wasn't moving, and his head was twisted in a funny direction. Eggbreaker was cursing him loudly, and kicked him in his gut, spilling the rest of his innards out. He stopped caring. Tonguerot hissed in fury, having missed completely in his follow-up strike - he had followed chipbone in, expecting to use the chance to overbear the mage and pin him down. Instead, he slid sideways off the bottom of the board and nearly collided with biteneck. "Weapons! Get hooknets! Get spears! Get deathballs!" Tonguerot snarled, and gnawflesh spun away from the attack, going back to the rooftop where they had been lurking. The infuriating mage bared teeth at them, made come-here gestures with his hands! Filthy foodbeast. Sharpwing wheeled up next to him. "Can't breathe" she whined, pleadingly. Her face had indeed been crunched in along a line. "FAH! Idiot!" he snarled. He grabbed some clay from his belt-pouches and spat on it, then chanted the prayers. 'BRA Khash da na Kra Haxu TA' he said, holding one hand on either side of her face. A spatter of chipped stone and tasty ichor hit him on the mouth as the healing spell snapped the damaged parts back where they belonged. "Now go keep him busy! I have work below!" and Tonguerot spun down to where breaknose and eyestab had fallen. Some of the braver soft foodthings had dared to approach the fallen gargoyles, armed with swords and spears. "Fa du KRAT!" he snarled, "FEAR ME!" and they fled, dropping their weapons and soiling their clothing in their haste to run away. Except for one, red-eyed and clad in darkness, who stood quietly watching. Meanwhile, above, the whirling mass continued to taunt the man on the board, trying to keep him too busy to cast a spell and too dizzy to strike out at any of them. Gnawflesh returned to the whirling mess, bringing extra spears to distribute. Crushbone and burnguts followed, their hooked nets hanging to ready, sharp triple barbs glinting venomous green in the eerie glow from the sword below. Toothcrack and sharpspine followed, holding their own spears as though they knew what they were for. >From below, the combatants heard 'Raelf's voice. "heinous..." ----- [ADMIN: Since everyone seems to want to do it, I'll acquiesce and let 'Raelf's people be known as the Travellers. They're my own personal invention, though, so please don't use them without checking with me first. I guarantee there are very few of them this far from their home place.] Hutch Let's DANCE (put on your red shoes and dance the blues)