From rhea@ikkoku.maison-otaku.net Tue Sep 5 02:21:55 2000 Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 00:40:09 -0700 (PDT) From: Rhea Seraph To: John Walter Anthony "Ranma" Biles Subject: cockatrice log (oh, it isn't like a parrot?) (fwd) John Biles Emperor of all He Surveys http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html "I can't die now! I have to give my daughter a stuffed fish." --Shinesman Sepia, _Shinesman_ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 02:47:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Rod M To: Rhea Seraph Subject: cockatrice log (oh, it isn't like a parrot?) Corrine mounts up with you and rides down into Arden with you. Wakaba gave you a magic bag to carry the Cockatrice in which will block it's tendency to turn things to stone. The Cockatrice itself is about the size of an overgrown turkey; she said it resembles a cross between a rooster, a bat, and a weasel. The hardest part will be actually finding one; even in Arden they're rare. However, Corrine knows where one lives. You ride into the forest, then start down a trail that follows one of the large streams which flows into the Barimen river. "So how did you get roped into this, Shaft?" Corrine asks as you ride along. Shaft says, "i owed'er a favor. Dental work." Shaft says, "it was either this, or do some crazy thing for aunt Nanami" Shaft says, "sm" Shaft says, "OOC typo" Corrine laughs. Shaft says, "OOC but what a bad typo it was...." Corrine says, "You shoudl take better care of your teeth, then." Corrine pauses several times to stare at patches of ground, or to peel a bit of moss of a tree, or to examine various herbs, but whatever she is looking for, she doesn't seem to find it. Shaft looks over his Whale Killer, making sure it's good to go Corrine says, "If you see a circle with a dot in the middle anywhere, etched into a tree, or carved in the dirt, let me know." Shaft says, "the, uh, cockatrice leaves that kinda mark?" Corrine says, "We try to keep track of where the most dangerous creatures roam and mark the boundaries along the trails with that sign." Shaft looks slightly embarrased. "Oh." Corrine says, "When I see it, I'll know we're into the cockatrice's territory. Although we'll likely start seeing statues once we pass into its territory anyway." Shaft says, "statues... huh." Corrine continues searching for the sign. "Half-eaten statues, anyway." Shaft mumbles, "Maybe I shoulda brought th'human shield too. His head's made'a stone anyway...." Corrine smiles. "He's already been turned to stone once, I think." Corrine says, "Ramon is a fairly good hunter, though." Shaft says, "him? a good hunter?" Shaft says, "gedouttahere." Corrine looks down, then stops and dismounts, picking up a statue of a pigeon. "Here we go." Corrine says, "He is. He has quite a knack for it." Shaft raises up Whalekiller warily, looking about. Corrine puts the pigeon in a saddlebag. "Well, it seems the danger sign must have gotten accidentally erased, or possibly the cockatrice has expanded its territory. They tend to crow like roosters, so keep your ears open." Shaft nods silently, pulling out his sword with his other hand. Corrine remounts and gets her crossbow off the side of her saddle. She reloads it carefully, then starts forward again. You pass a stone deer, which has had its head and left foreleg chewed off. You now realize the forest is strangely silent here, with not even insect noises. Only the gentle breeze and the rustling of trees breaks the silence. And then the bushes rustle off to the left of you. Shaft glances very carefully to the left Shaft says quietly, "Hey, I think we got company." Corrine turns her horse. "Best we dismount; if it gets the horse while we're on it, we might get caught in the stone saddle." Corrine hops down, crossbow levelled. Shaft follows suit, hopping down. A perky white bunny sprints at high speed out of the bushes, heading towards the gap between your horses. Shaft says, "..." Corrine says, "Don't be fooled; something must be chasing it." That something emerges from the bushes, knocking them aside; it looks like a rooster with the wings of a bat, an elongated neck, and the legs of a weasel, complete with fur. Shaft opens fire with Whalekiller, aiming for its center. "This is the STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER HUNTED!" The bolt goes right through the creature's torso, knocking it off its feet and hurling it back to be nailed to a tree. It continues to crow, but begins to slowly pull itself along the shaft, despite the massive amounts of blood it's spurting. Corrine now fires, putting a hole through its left wing and briefly nailing that to the tree as well, before it starts to relentlessly pull itself forward. Corrine now fires, putting a hole through its left wing and briefly nailing that to the tree as well, before it starts to relentlessly pull itself forward. Shaft looks for a heavy object to throw at its head.... The heaviest thing handy is your saddle. Shaft. o O (damn.) Or the stone pigeon in Corrine's saddlebags Shaft says, "..." Corrine reloads her crossbow. Shaft says, "what the hell, why not?" He reaches into corrine's saddlebag, grabs the stone pigeon, and flings it at the creatrue's skull. The stone pigeon strikes the creature in the head, knocking it for a loop. It goes limp, stunned. Shaft stares at the cockatrice, weighing his options. He decides to trump Wakaba, keeping a wary eye on the beast and a hand on the trigger. Wakaba answers, "Hi, Ota-chan! What's up?" Shaft says, "hey, wakaba, just checkin', you said you wanted it dead or alive?" Wakaba says, "Either way is fine. Live would be better, but it's pretty hard to catch them alive." Corrine keeps an eye on the cockatrice, her crossbow levelled at it. Shaft says, "right. hope y'don't mind a hole in its head. Later." Wakaba says, "See you later!" Shaft raises up Whalekiller and fires a shot off at the creature's head. The bolt goes through its head, leaving a large hole. With a final 'Wark!' it perishes, slumping over and going utterly limp. Corrine goes to her horse and removes two pairs of heavy gloves. She tosses one pair to Shaft. "These will let us touch it long enough to get it into the bag. Don't worry; I've used them before for this." Shaft says, "oh, right. I was about t'ask you about this sorta thing...." Corrine says, "They swarm every so often, and then we have to massively wipe them out and burn the bodies." Shaft puts on the gloves, then approaches the beast warily. Corrine says, "Sooner or later, they'll heal and come back if you don't burn them. But it should take this one a few days to recover." Shaft says, "puttin' the giant stone-makin' rooster-lookin' freaky monster in a magic bag. riiiight." The cockatrice is either dead or a damn good faker. Shaft blinks, then looks around. "Uh... swarm, didja say?" Shaft blinks, then looks around. "Uh... swarm, didja say?" You see a dozen or so half-sized cockatrices in the process of turning your horses to stone. Shaft says, "shit." Looks like you must have killed their momma. Corrine says, "Eh, wha...shit." Shaft looks at Corine. "Alright, what now?" Corrine says, "No wonder it expanded its territory; it must have needed to feed them." Corrine says, "We grab this one while they eat the horses." Shaft says, "right, let's get the hell outta here." Corrine says, "And then we trump back to Amber and I'll call some of my rangers to come deal with the babies." Shaft VERY CAREFULLY but as quickly as possible bags the cockatrice, keeping a nervous eye on the.... er.. swarm. As you finish shoving the cockatrice into the bag, while Corrine gets a trump ready, the babies knock down the stone ponies and eat them. Shaft says, "okay, cock in bag, let's gogogo..." Then they glower balefully at you. And you hear movement coming from other directions, as more babies pour out from under the bushes. Corrine says, "We haven't had an infestation this bad since about eleven years ago." Corrine says, "Come put a hand on my shoulder." Shaft says, "ah shit." He grabs her shoulder. "All this for dental work," he mutters. A crossbow bolt goes through the trump card. Shaft says, "shit." Shaft quickly pulls out his own trump, this one of the Beach. "Must be leaving _now_...." You begin to activate the trump, and Corrine latches onto your shoulder as the cockatrices charge. You're not even sure who fired at you, but you hear them fire again and again; sounds like they have a repeating crossbow too. Fortunately, you're a good dodger and they don't have surprise this time. Corrine whips out another trump as the two of you dodge in the handful of seconds it takes for your trump to activate. Whoever is shooting is female, with long chestnut colored somewhat wavy hair. In fact, it looks rather like Corrine. Shaft says, "well, ain't this a familiar feelin'." And then the world goes rainbow colored, and you find yourself standing on sparkling sands, amongst thousands of sunbathers in nice bathing suits. They all go silent and stare at the two of you. Corrine says, "..." A few people laugh. A lot look revulsed. A small kid says, "Didn't it hurt?" Shaft laughs along with the crowd and strides off, muttering to Corrine, "Alright, let's get the hell outta here." Corrine pulls out a trump of the Castle Amber service elevator. "And off we go." A few rainbow colored seconds later, you find yourself down in the bowels of Kolvir, in the room where the magically powered elevator used for hauling bulk goods up into the castle is located. Corrine takes a look at the crossbow bolt which is stuck through the first trump she intended to use, then shudders. Corrine says, "Yes. Normally, weapons can't hurt trumps." Corrine says, "But this..." Corrine extracts the bolt from the trump and shows you the bolt's head. You can see a tiny picture of a roaring bonfire has been etched into the metal. Corrine says, "This bolt is a trump itself." Shaft stares at the bolt. "Hey, yeah? How's it work?" Corrine says, "You shoot someone with it, and when it hits them, it goes off and forcibly trumps them to wherever it links to." Shaft says, "and can you make more for me? If it's as nasty as that, I want some." Corrine says, "I'm guessing this one goes to some sort of raging fire." Shaft smiles. "Oh, you've got to make me some'a that." Corrine says, "I'm not good enough to make etched trumps, I'm afraid. I know Miki and Fuyutsuki can, though." Shaft grins. "Hey, yeah? Right." Shaft says, "guess we'd better tell the others 'bout this, huh?" Corrine looks disturbed as the elevator opens and you get in. "I suppose you could get some which could send people right into their jail cells." Corrine says, "Yes, we should." Shaft says, "had a wakaba-lookalike zappin' me a few days ago, now we got another you with... these badass arrows... shootin' at us." Corrine says, "I'm going to take this to Miki while you deliver Wakaba her cockatrice." Corrine says, "It seems that a parallel Amber has declared war on us." Corrine says, "Called Embra." Shaft frowns. "Great. Just when it was quiet 'round here." Corrine says, "I'd also best call my rangers to deal with the cockatrice, and see if we can figure out where the other Corrine is going next." Corrine says, "Nephew, I'm afraid I can speak from experience when I say it rarely stays peaceful for long." Corrine says, "And if we're up against another Amber...they may be nearly as powerful as we are." Corrine says, "But at least this time, we should all be standing together." Corrine smiles a little. Shaft smirks cockily. "Well, if they got another me, then I'll really worry." Corrine shudders. "That would be bad, yes." The elevator rumbles a bit; it's never a fun ride. Shaft frowns. Corrine says, "Sounds like they need to oil this thing again." Shaft . o O (It would be just too damn predictable for the elevator to... no way...) Shaft decides to peek up through the roof to see what's going on atop the elevator. Corrine says, "Oh, drop off Whalekiller once we get upstairs, and I'll work on it tonight." Shaft nods. "Yeah, if we get upstairs. S'cuse me for bein' paranoid, but it's that kinda day." The mechanisms seem to be functioning okay. Nothing looks cut. A few minutes later, you rumble up to the courtyard level. Shaft says, "I got a bad feelin' about this...." You get out of the elevator without a disaster. Corrine says, "There's no way anyone could have known which trump I would pull." Corrine says, "The elevator isn't even a standard trump; it's one of my specials" Shaft says, "best to be careful, yeah?" Corrine says, "See, we're here and alive. True; it is good to be careful." Corrine sighs. "Not being careful is how Catherine died." Shaft looks around warily The courtyard bustles with activity, as usual. Several children are playing ring-around-the-rosie by the well. "Ashes, Ashes, all fall down!" They laugh and fall to the ground. Corrine says, "Well, I'm going to go to talk to Miki. Bring Whalekiller by later, and I'll start work on it, okay?" Shaft looks about, then walks off to Wakaba's. One hell of a job for dental work. She waves and heads off. Shaft says, "ciao, auntie" Wakaba's lab is down in the basement. You find her there, with a well-stained smock on over her nicer clothing, wearing gloves and goggles, grinding blue stone into powder. She waves cheerfully at you, then pushes up her goggles. "How did it go?" she asks, coming over to you. "Would you like some coffee or some cookies?" Shaft says casually, "Oh, no problem. Found one, shot it. Ran into its 20 kids. Nearly got killed by Aunt Corrine's evil twin. You got white chocolate chip?" Wakaba takes the bag, and puts it on a table, then goes over to another table, and lifts a glass cover from over a plate of cookies. She brings you two white chocolate chip cookies. "Oooh, you found one that was actually fertile? That's great! Wait...you got attacked by an evil Corrine?" Shaft nods, munching down on the cookies. "Oh, did anyone tell ya? An evil you zapped the shit outta me a few nights ago too. Wakaba says, "...." Wakaba says, "Did you catch the evil version of me? " Shaft shrugs. "Either she got away, or died. Sank into the harbor. Remember all that dead fish a few days ago? That's from her." Wakaba frowns. Wakaba says, "If you run into her again, call me. I don't want someone running around looking like me and wrecking my good name." Wakaba goes and gets herself a cup of tea. "Would you like some tea? It's very nice." Shaft laughs. "Hey, I was as surprised as you. Thought you went crazy lookin' for a night job." You check her hand. She wears a golden ring which resembles a lion made out of fire, with a ruby for an eye. The other Wakaba wore a gold ring set with a yellow gem. It also resembled a lion, but that lion seemed to be made of lightning. She also wears a silver ring on her other hand, marked with a five pointed star in a circle. Shaft says, "so what the heck you need this nasty rooster-thing for anyway?" Wakaba says, "Cockatrices produce a fluid internally which turns the stone they eat back into flesh." Wakaba says, "I can extract it and distill it and produce a general antidote for being turned to stone." Shaft nods. "Oh." Wakaba says, "Also, baked cockatrice is apparently considered a delicacy in Cathay, so once I extracted the fluid, I was going to have it rendered into cuts and give it to the Cathayan ambassador, who I owe a few favors." Wakaba says, "He helped me find some rare books I needed." Shaft says, "mmm, sounds tasty," in a way that clearly means he doesn't think it does. Wakaba says, "So how have things been with you lately, Ota? Nanami was saying you were feeling sort of overworked." Shaft leans back and shrugs. "Just a little, I guess. Y'know how it goes, find this ambasador, find that crime lord, overthrow this government, etc-cetera." Shaft says, "so what's the word on what's goin'on around here?" Shaft says, "been hangin' out down at the Dead U mostly, as of late." Wakaba says, "Well, maybe you should take a vacation for a while." Wakaba says, "What's been up here..." Wakaba says, "Well, Miki and Madoka got engaged." Wakaba says, "And Lady Haruna is seeing Lord Clark again; it's anyone's guess if anything will come of that." Shaft laughs Wakaba says, "And there's this lunatic mage from Wroland who is trying to get Wasyuu to marry him. I could hardly believe it." Shaft says, "marry? Wasyuu? gedouttahere." Shaft says, "what's that crazy fool's name?" Wakaba says, "He's the biggest klutz I've ever seen; I went down to borrow some chemicals from Wasyuu, and he'd managed to mummify himself in a pile of bandages." Wakaba says, "His name is 'Ano Itai', but he likes to call himself 'The Grey Wizard of Wroclaw'" Shaft says, "..." Wakaba says, "Wasyuu seems to just call him " Wakaba says, "'You fool'" Wakaba says, "He's really sweet and kind, but I'm surprised he didn't die on the boat ride here." Wakaba says, "Apparently, they went to the same sorceror's college a long time ago." Wakaba says, "I got the impression she came here and took the job of royal nurse to get away from him without having to kill him." Wakaba says, "I'm sure you'll see him around. Or hear him falling down the stairs again." Shaft's eyes suddenly narrow and he looks about warily. This is the part, he suspects, where Wasyuu pops in and asks him to find 'You Fool' Wakaba pauses for a sip of tea. Wakaba says, "Oh, and I hear your new cousin Hiko can talk to Animals." Shaft says, "uh... yeah... kinda strange, that girl" Wakaba says, "I'm sure she's just nervous being around everyone in a new environment." Shaft says, " yeah, talkin' to the animals, she'll fit in real easy 'round here." Wakaba says, "It's easy for us to forget how strange Amber is to someone who grew up in Shadow."