Subject: RPG to the breach
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 20:10:02 PST
From: "Stana Hierspiel" <happydoodl@hotmail.com>

  "You're toughening up." Sullam told her a few days later.
  Normally such a statement would have sent her stammering and blushing
with pleasure. She mustered a sickly grin and thanked him softly as she
moved away from the fire and into the shadows.
  Sullam looked after her with a frown tickling his forehead. The closer
they got to their destination-the more withdrawn she was becoming. Clip
too had noticed this and had gone out of his way not to be near her.
   He smiled with no humor in it. Leave it to the Unicorn to abandon the
sinking raft. Yet for all his faults Clip was honorable enough within
his own world. And more than anything he was determined to find the
princess.
   Sullam had the feeling that there was not much time left.
   "There is death in the very air healer." Clip commented softly,
coming to rest beside him."What is this place to which we go?"
   Sullam shrugged. "We're following the route Rashka set Clip. I know
as much about it as you do. But please don't say things like "death in
the air"  where Stacey can hear-she doesn't need that encouragement."
   "She becomes more shadowed every morning." Clip observed. "I like
this not."
    The Healer held back the statement that he was sure she liked it
less. It appeared the Unicrn was in the mood to chat. He wouldn't
alienate the beast.
   "The closer to the wizard we get-the greater influence he's pulling
us undr with. Her especially."
    "And you-" Clip swung his head in an eerily fluid movement toward
teh healer "you are a wizard as well? One that penetrated to the girl's
true name?"
     "No wizard." he answered "although that path was open to me once.
I can't describe what I am, the things I've seen. When we face this
wizard it will be on a plane not of his own making, there lies our
advantage."
     "You are not clear."
     It is hard to explain." he replied "however I will try, as I need
you and the princess herself to assist. Stacey however, must be told
nothing."
      "Nothing? The-" he stopped, understanding "the wizards ilk??"
      He shrugged "Who knows? We don't know exactly what influence he
can carry. The exorcism was successful-as far as such things can be
said-and yet she is still not herself. Any way this is what we need to
do..."

       The morning rang sharply on the desolation around them. The
stark, naked trees, bent with rot and an unnatural age only darkened
Stana's cranky mood. The whole of the earth seemed to groan underneatht
the weight of the cursed Alicorn.
        She said nothing of the nightmares that were waiting to spring
on her when asleep. She didn't tell them that she fought to stay awake
rather than face the dreams.
        There was alot that she wouldn't reveal. That she doubted they
would succeed, that this quest mattered at all-how could she voice these
terrible things? She wasn't even able to label what her feelings were.
Melancholia seemed most appropriate but failed to describe the aching
depths of her feelings; the enormous emptiness...
         "Stace?" Sullam probed gently, watching the shadow reaching her
face. ::stay with us.:: he thought.
         "Hm?" she replied absently, eyes squinched shut against the
light. The splintering glare stabbed at her gaze, she much preferred the
night. Then at least the ground didn't cry out so, but sobbed itself
quietly to sleep.
         Sullam turned his gaze away from her and looked at the muddy,
slimy forest floor. He heard the trees quaking in pain, twigs twitching
with an itch from the fungus racing through them. The wind didn't
whistle, it screeched with a hollow. witch-like quality.
         Clip would have laid his ears back in distress, could he have.
The desolation around him curdles his soul. More it outraged his
sensabilities. His Alicorn is what was doing this-in a way he was the
cause of the rape this land suffered. The pain he felt was not all his
own.
          The three moved carefully forward, aware that these wood were
not friendly.
           "We're getting close." Sullam commented, as they pulled over
a ridge. He was teh first to clamber to the top, and once there he just
stopped. Without a word he helped Stana up and watched her blanch.
           Like a squat. ugly spider the fortress sprawled across the
countryside.
           "How are we going to get in _there_?" she asked in
frustration.
           "There's a way." the Healer replied calmly "we'll find it."
           "We're wasting time." Clip announced, "let's move."
           The other two looked at one another, shrugged and folowed the
Unicorn down. Halfway down, the ground opened up underneath and
swallowed them whole..00