When Treisel was a boy, his favorite stories were always adventures. In those stories, when the hero or heroes escaped from a dangerous situation, they did so on the backs of fast horses that were conveniently available. If the evil monsters or soldiers pursuing the heroes had bows or rocks or what-have-you, their aim was always lousy, and while arrows might hit a hero in his saddle or her armored back, they'd never do any real damage. In those stories, the heroes always got away. The monsters who'd survived the explosion of the Human's Head Inn -- a giant, several trolls, two vampires, and a random selection of smaller creatures -- had not heard those stories. -------------------------------------------- To Hell and Back Chapter 10: Chase Scenes and Stranger Things Begun by Steven Scougall Continued at the moment by Thomas Wilde -------------------------------------------- A chunk of masonry slammed into the cart. The masonry, which had been part of the inn's chimney before the explosion, shattered, showering Treisel and Tao with rock dust. Both Tao and Treisel ducked down, covering their heads, as another rock sailed overhead. The trolls' aim was improving. A two-headed giant, one of the survivors of the explosion in the Human's Head Inn, jogged up to the side of the cart. As fast as Simon was running, the giant was twelve feet tall; one of its steps was equal to about four of Simon's. The giant reached for Tao, grinning crookedly. Zeke rapped the giant smartly across the knuckles with his mace. The giant howled and pulled its hand back, but Zeke wasn't done; leaning almost all the way out of the cart, he hit the giant on the back of the knee. The giant's leg buckled beneath it, and it toppled, skidding through the grass at the side of the road like a shuffleboard weight. "Are you all right, Treisel?" Waj asked. "That was quite a close--" he thwacked a lamia across the forehead with the butt of his pitchfork, "--thing there." "...yeah." Treisel sat back up. "Tao?" "I'm fine." Tao looked around, her eyes wide. "Are we safe?" "We're outrunning them handily, except for that last fellow there. The cart's a bit damaged, but we can fix it in a bit with a quick Repair cantrip, once we've lost these monsters," Zeke said confidently. "I'd say we're all right, just as long as --" ======== Elsewhere in the universe, a diety leaned forward expectantly. Someone was playing his song. ======== "--their aim doesn't improve." ======== The diety laughed, and went about his business. ======== Another thrown chunk of rock hit the cart's right wheel, breaking the wheel off where it met the cart's axle. A moment later, the cart tipped, spilling its contents out onto the road. Waj and Zeke were on their feet first, mace and pitchfork raised. The giant Zeke had knocked down earlier was back on its feet, and the rest of the surviving monsters were rushing to catch up to it. "I think I'm going to have to have a word with that particular god," Zeke muttered to himself. "What do we do now?" Treisel gasped. He helped a stunned Tao to her feet. Waj and Zeke looked at each other, then back at Treisel, and shrugged. "I guess we fight," Waj said. "Too bad about the odds, really." ======== "We should help them!" Iryien Maglashka, spurred on by her remarkably large crush on Tao, shouted. "They're going to die if we don't!" Bulman cleared his throat. "I'd like to, Ms. Maglashka, but there is this enormous flaming pile of wreckage in the--" "There's nothing on either side of the damn wreckage! We can walk *around* it!" Iryien did so to underscore her point. "Aren't we supposed to be bringing those two back to the university?" "Well, yes, Ms. Maglashka," Bulman said. "But--" Pavel Bulman broke off. He realized that what he'd been about to say was something along the lines of, "But I don't really want to die at the hands of those dozen or more monsters, thanks awfully." He had to stop and consider that for a moment; he was, after all, the same Pavel Bulman who'd walloped Xllshptts, a demon from the Eighth Pit of Hell (who, it was rumored, stole the vowels out of children's names while they slept), with a cocktail straw. Maybe, he thought, he was getting old, or growing soft. Maybe he'd grown too used to the comforts of university; he'd forgotten how to confront dangers outside a school's walls. Maybe he was about to get a fledgling adventurer really killed, because she was rounding the wreckage and heading straight for the fight. Bulman swallowed, hard, and ran after Iryien. Genni Poshtin, who'd been more or less forgotten and ignored for the last few minutes, followed him. ======== Treisel wasn't having a good time. Zeke was busy with a pair of trolls, and Waj had his hands full with the same giant that Zeke had given a mouthful of grass to earlier. Tao was behind him, staying back so she wouldn't interfere with his spells. With a gesture and a shouted incantation, he finished a Water spell. In theory, the spell should've doused both of the orcs charging Treisel, hopefully knocking them down. Instead, the spell rushed forth from his outstretched hand like a fire hose. The stream of water arced through the air, back over Treisel's head, performed three loops around him, bounced off two trees and Simon (who glared at it), and knocked one of the orcs flat on his back. The other orc grunted, almost apologetically, and ran the hell away. "Could you take another step back, Tao?" Treisel asked, not unkindly. "Sorry." Tao's eyes widened, as she saw something past Treisel. "Treisel, get--" ======== Earlier, a vampire had thrown a Fire spell at Waj, who'd more or less ignored it. If Treisel had been paying more attention at the time, he'd've thought this to be odd. The average vampire is a dry, dead thing that burns very well, so as a general rule, they avoid anything that has to do with fire. However, the vampire in question, a relatively young one named Keldon, had made some deals with some of Waj's contemporaries. (Ryu, Ken, and Dan, to be exact. They were doing extra credit work in Interdimensional Business class.) In short, in exchange for a relative immunity to and control of fire, Keldon agreed that, upon his death, his soul belonged to the other party. Keldon had thought that he'd gotten a pretty good deal on the matter, since vampires are immortal. As Keldon cast the Fire spell, magical energies tapped straight from Hell surged up through him. He gestured, and a blast of flame rushed forth from his outstretched hand, headed straight for Treisel's back. ======== "--down!" Tao shoved Treisel to the ground, and the bolt of fire meant for him struck her head-on. More precisely, it struck her aura. For a moment, the firebolt stopped dead in mid-air. Tao could've reached out and touched it. Slowly, it lost its shape and definition, ceasing to be identifiable as fire and looking more like a bolt of pure light. Tao's eyes widened. The vampire's eyes widened. The bolt shot back along the path it had taken, and lodged in the vampire's chest. With a scream, he vanished, leaving only a faint scattering of ash along the surface of the road. For a long minute, no one moved. The monsters, Treisel, Iryien, Bulman, and Genni all gawked openly at Tao, who gawked openly at the spot where the vampire had been. Finally, someone cleared his throat. That someone was Zeke. "Gentlemen, I'd like to point something out to you, if you don't mind," he said urbanely. "So far tonight, we've destroyed your bar with an enormous explosion of magical power, and now we've obliterated your friend over there. Now, it takes a little bit for my friend there to work herself up for another one of those spells, but I assure you, she *can*." He paused, for maximum dramatic effect. "How about we call this one a--" He realized that the monsters were already fleeing. "--draw." Zeke smiled, and let his mace disappear. "All right, then. Everyone all right?" "I'm fine," Treisel said, remembering to stand up. "Thanks to Tao... and she's fine... and..." His voice trailed off as he looked around for Waj. They found him lying next to the broken cart, near Simon. He wasn't moving. ======== Rahve Lisken sneezed several times in rapid succession, and threw another folder onto the pile beside her. She'd spent four hours in the university's library. She was covered in dust. She'd had to deal with a lecherous librarian who couldn't say anything that *wasn't* a double entendre, a Byzantine card catalogue system that appeared to double as some kind of sanity test, a small wormlike creature that lived in the historical fiction section and answered to "George", and the occasional clueless student who assumed that she worked in the library. She'd gone through all of the files marked "F", "T", "F-T", "T-F", "S" (on the off-chance someone might've filed Tao Feymu's academic career under "screw-up"). She'd also gone through a number of files that were marked with letters unfamiliar to either her or the librarian, and the only thing she'd gotten from those was the nagging feeling that she needed to read more. Rahve Lisken was a detective. She was forced to conclude that, for whatever reason, something was fishy around here. With a shudder, she went back to the lecherous librarian's desk. His nameplate identified him as Jarl Halfaxle, and to look at him, he was ten days older than the invention of the written word. He grinned, exposing his last surviving tooth, as she got close. "What can I do for you, sweetie?" Rahve thought of a half-dozen responses, and discarded them all. "If someone wanted to hide all traces of a student's file, how would they go about doing that?" "I don't rightly know. If you wanted to do that, you'd have to be a pretty important guy around here. As a matter of fact, I think the only one who has the ability to do that would be..." Jarl made a show of thinking about it. "...Chancellor Hatstring." "Is that a fact?" Rahve made a note, asking for the proper spelling of his name. (It took her three tries to get it right.) "Thanks. Out of curiosity, is Hatstring's file down here?" "Sure is." "Thanks again." "Anything else I can do for you, darlin'?" His face split with an enormous grin. "You can stop looking at me like that before I make you eat your desk." "Oh. Um. Well, if you need anything else..." "Right." Rahve walked off. She had a file to look at, and several questions that needed answers. ======== SO YOU HAVEN'T FOUND ANYTHING. "Look," Hatstring pleaded, "we've got a search party out looking for Feymu. We've got a private investigator digging into her past. We can't locate her or Arrayarli magically because of her aura. I'm doing all I can here, and constant interruptions by the black-garbed personification of Entropy just don't help!" YOUR BEST EFFORTS DON'T SEEM TO HAVE BEEN ENOUGH, PBVHEYWLLIUHCQKWE HATTDHESSZTRYINGGNKGYWE, Death rumbled. I REALIZE THAT YOU ARE POSSESSED OF LIMITED RESOURCES, BUT THIS IS JUST RIDICULOUS. UNLESS YOU COME UP WITH LEADS SOON-- "Um, Chancellor?" Hatstring looked up from his desk, to see Neville standing in his doorway. Death was nowhere in sight. "WHAT, Neville?!" "There's... a lady here to see you." Hatstring noticed that Neville was sporting a fresh black eye. "You must be joking. Didn't I tell you that there were to be no visitors, Neville? Ever again? What kind of--" "She mentioned the 'Alpaca Incident', sir." Hatstring went pale. "What?" "She says that she knows people at the town crier's office, sir," Neville continued, "and that unless you see her, she'll--" "...send her in." Rahve Lisken walked in behind Neville, closed the door behind her, and stood in front of Hatstring's desk. She was chewing gum. "I want Tao Feymu's files, Hatstring." "I don't know what you mean. Those should be in the archives in the library." "Don't try to lie to me, Hatstring," Lisken said. "They aren't in the archives, and I think you know why. Don't think people haven't noticed how you were able to replace your desk so soon after Feymu's little accident ruined it." Hatstring rubbed at his temples. "What are you suggesting?" "I'm not suggesting anything. I know." She leaned on his desk. "Tao Feymu leaves this university, after ruining your desk. You tell the Vice Chancellor of Library Affairs, who will tell anyone anything in exchange for a flask of blueberry wine, to 'lose' Feymu's file. Soon afterwards, people notice that old Hatstring has more money than he should, and spends a lot of it on importing himself a new desk, all the way from his hometown." Lisken leaned forward a bit further, putting herself eye to eye with Hatstring. "Soon afterward, I am hired by this university to investigate Feymu's past, and immediately run into a problem, which just happens to be that someone has paid off the head of the university to make my job as difficult as it can possibly be." "Enough!" Hatstring sprang to his feet. "I am the Chancellor of this University, young woman, and I will not be spoken to in this way! If you want answers from me, you will ask in a proper tone, and show me the respect I deserve given my station!" Lisken tossed a scroll onto Hatstring's desk. "I can't respect you after reading that, Hatstring. I mean, come on. I may not be the Chancellor around here, but I know enough to wear something under my--" Hatstring cut into her sentence. "What do you want, Ms. Lisken?" "I want your cooperation while I'm on this case, Mr. Hatstring," Lisken said calmly. "I want Tao Feymu's personal files and academic records, as well as the full support, both financially and magically, of this university. Otherwise, the story of the 'Alpaca Incident' gets told from one side of Zinnonea to the other." Hatstring continued to glare at her for a few minutes before sitting heavily in his chair. Lisken, to her credit, didn't smile. He sighed, reached into a desk drawer, and slid a scroll across his desk. "Fine. Whatever you need, tell Neville, and I'll make the arrangements for it immediately. Are you satisfied?" "Yes, actually. I'll see myself out. Good day, Mr. Hatstring." Lisken picked up the scrolls and turned smartly on her heel. Hatstring waited until the door was closed before he started throwing things. WHO WAS THAT? Death asked, scaring Hatstring out of his wits. After his heart went back to normal, Hatstring threw another vase at his wall. "Rahve Lisken. The private investigator that Rhaynd Yrxel hired to look into Feymu's past." INTERESTING, Death said. Hatstring turned around a few minutes later, and Death was gone. ======== When sunrise came, it found Zeke and Treisel repairing the wagon. Waj was unconscious, but was essentially fine. Neither Zeke or Bulman could figure out exactly why, either, although he'd been knocked out right when Tao's aura had countered the Fire spell. They had lay him on a patch of soft grass to the side of the road, and Zeke expected him to wake up at any time. Tao sat by the side of the road, leaning against a tree. She was still a little unnerved by the whole thing, but was still nowhere near as unnerved as she would have been a few weeks ago, when she'd accidentally turned Hunter into a clay statue. She decided that, for better or for worse, she was getting used to being in mortal danger, and she couldn't decide whether that worried her or not. She heard the clink of metal on metal a second before Iryien Maglashka sat down beside her. Iryien hadn't gotten to the fight in time to really help, but she'd tried, and Tao appreciated that. She seemed awfully friendly, too. Tao figured that she was just looking for someone she could talk to, since Genni was a little spacey and Bulman was, from what she'd seen, a condescending jerk. "Pretty sunrise," Iryien said casually. "Yes, I guess so," Tao said. "So... where are you headed?" "Back to the Zinnothian University, I guess," Iryien replied. "I used to be a student there." "I figured you were a student. You seem awfully smart." Iryien turned to face Tao. "Did anyone ever tell you you have awfully nice hair?" "No, not really." Tao, lost in thought, wasn't really paying any attention. "Well, you do. And nice eyes. And --" "Um, Tao?" Tao looked up to see Treisel standing in front of her. "...I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you two were talking." "Well, yes, actually--" Iryien began. "No! No, it's okay," Tao said hurriedly. "What is it?" "Look, Tao, I just wanted to say..." Treisel seemed to struggle with his words for a few seconds. "...you saved my life, back there. Thanks." Tao's cheeks burned. "Oh. Well... you're welcome, I guess." "Yeah, I know. There's no real easy way to say this kind of thing." Treisel half-smiled, and Tao's knees started to wobble. "Anyway, I need to get back to fixing the wagon, so... thanks again, Tao. I owe you one." "No, it's okay, Treisel." Tao stood up. "You'd do the same for me, right?" Treisel didn't even hesitate. "Yeah. In a second." *This is it,* Tao thought, all in a rush. *Now, as the first rays of sunlight hit us, so we're nicely backlit and all that, he'll touch my chin, and take off my glasses, and kiss me, and say that coming that close to death has made him realize that he's loved me all along, and --* "Treisel! I need you to finish this spell!" "I'm coming, Zeke!" Treisel clapped Tao on the shoulder. "Thanks again, Tao. We'll be on the road again in a bit. Tao, speechless, watched him go. The mood was ruined. Again. ======== Iryien stood up and stalked off in disgust. The mood was ruined. Again. ======== After catching a few hours of sleep in the woods by the side of the road, the intrepid band of heroes (or something) got ready to get back on the road to Hasbro. Waj had finally woke up earlier in the morning, and after a quick conference, the four of them decided that they would never, ever, deviate from the route on the map again. So decided, they climbed onto their cart, picked up the reins, started into motion, and ran straight into a brick wall called Pavel Bulman. "Mr. Arrayarli, Ms. Feymu?" Bulman said, with all the pomp and circumstance he could call upon. "I've been sent by the university to get you. I believe you should come with me." Treisel stared at him. "What for? I was expelled!" "I don't know, exactly, but the Chancellor himself has charged me to return you to the university. Ours is not to reason why, Mr. Arrayarli." Bulman folded his arms. "If you don't mind, I believe that you're heading in the wrong direction." "Look, Mr. Bulman, we really have to deliver this mail--" Tao began. "Young lady, the mail doesn't matter right now, as important as it may seem." Bulman drew himself up to his full height. "I know that both of you are smart, and I'm guessing that you're both sick of gallivanting around the continent. I saw the mess you left Lurien in, and I'm surprised it wasn't burning to the ground. I'd like you both to make the right decision, and return to the university with me." He stopped talking. Bulman's face assumed the comfortable expression of a man who's assuming that he's just won the argument he's involved in. "No," Treisel said, in a quiet voice. "Excuse me?" Bulman said. "What?" Tao said. "I said 'no'," Treisel replied, more loudly. "Well, why the hell did you do *that*?" Bulman asked incredulously. "We're talking about the university letting you come back, Arrayarli! After what you did, you're lucky we aren't sending mercenaries after you, let alone offering you reinstatement!" "You can reinstate me all you like, Bulman," Treisel retorted. "Wait. That didn't come out right... maybe... Never mind! The point is, even if you reinstate me in the university, I'll still have *him* to deal with every moment of my life, until I send him back to Hell!" He pointed at Waj, who crooked an eyebrow. "Since I left the university, I've been shot at, sent to another dimension, nearly made into soup stock, nearly turned into a living statue, and a bloody dozen other things! I nearly *died* last night, Bulman! If I go back now, everything I've done up until now has been utterly pointless!" "What will you do if you don't come back, Arrayarli?" Bulman asked, his voice disturbingly pleasant. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do!" Treisel yelled back. "I'll tell you! Any minute now! ...really!" A long pause. "It'll be really impressive!" "I thought so." Bulman snorted. "You mentioned 'pointless', I believe?" "Now you wait just a..." "Just follow me back to the university, Arrayarli," Bulman said with a sigh. "I've heard these stories too many times to be swayed by another one from you. You could've been a great sorcerer, and you still can, as long as you follow me--" "I'm going to go to Hell," Treisel said. Bulman's jaw dropped. Genni, Tao, and Iryien turned to Bulman to see if a response was forthcoming. None seemed likely, so they turned back to Treisel, like spectators at a volleyball match. Zeke and Waj, for their part, watched the argument with amused, nearly identical "oh-those-silly-mortals-are-at-it-again" grins. "I'm going to Hasbro, I'm going to talk to Elmunster, and I'm going to find out how to get to Hell. I'll return Waj to his home, and then I think I might look into the educational opportunities down there. A man who's got a degree from the netherworld ought to be able to write his own ticket, don't you think?" Treisel smiled at Bulman. "It's a unique qualification for any field in the industry. You don't see those every day." "This is outrageous!" Bulman spluttered. "This is unheard-of!" "Not anymore, because I'm doing it," Treisel said. "Get out of the road." "I will not! I will not let you pursue this hen-pecked, crazy, thoughtless--" Waj calmly flicked a stone at Bulman's horse's rump. The horse whinnied and reared, spilling Bulman onto the road, and pranced out of the cart's path. With a nod, Zeke raised the reins and spurred Simon into motion. At the same time, Iryien gently applied her spurs to her horse's flanks, and moved up alongside the wagon, following it. "Can I help you?" Zeke asked Iryien. "It's like this," Iryien said calmly. "You're having an adventure, and I'm an adventurer. I figure I can go with you, and come back to the university with at least a few extra credit hours for my trouble. Besides, if that exploding inn is any indication, you could use an extra sword arm." She very carefully avoided looking at Tao while she spoke. Zeke looked at her like he suspected treachery, but finally nodded. "Do what you will. Maybe you'll come in handy." Iryien smiled. "Pleasure to be of service." She glanced at Tao, and her smile got bigger. Tao smiled back, completely innocently. Behind them, Genni stood protectively over Bulman, where he sat rubbing his injured pride (which, incidentally, is located right about where your ass is). "What should we do, Dr. Bulman?" Bulman simply glared at the wagon as it rolled away. ======== "I remember the girl," Collea Dumesne said. She sat with Rahve Lisken in an isolated room in the Great Zinnonean University. Once, Collea had been a midwife, and when advanced arthritis had made her unable to do that job any longer, she found work at one of Zinnonea's orphanages. She was an old woman now, all laugh lines and grey hair, but she was still as smart as anyone Rahve had ever met. "Yes... Tao Feymu," Collea continued. "She was always a smart girl... although she liked to break things. We went through dozens of chronostones while she was with us, the dear." "Do you remember anything about how Ms. Feymu came to be at your orphanage, Ms. Dumesne?" Rahve prompted. "As a matter of fact, I do," Collea replied, sipping at a cup of tea. "It was so strange..." Rahve leaned forward to hear her better. "Most of the boys and girls who come to us are brought to us by the authorities, after some kind of accident. Tao, though..." She smiled. "It was almost like a story. I remember the night very well." She stopped looking at Rahve, and her eyes focused on something in the distance. "I was up late with one of the boys. It might've been little Connel, because I remember that was the winter that he couldn't seem to shake the flu. There was a knock at the door, and when I answered it, there was a man standing there with a baby in his arms. "I asked him what was wrong, and started to tell him that I wasn't a midwife anymore, but he put the baby in my arms. He said that her name was Tao Feymu, and before I could ask him any more questions, he ran off. It was snowing that night, and I started to try to chase him, but just then, little Tao started crying. I couldn't let her go hungry, so I let the man go. It's not all that unusual to find a baby at our door, but we don't get to see who delivered them very often..." Rahve smiled, writing furiously. She asked Collea a few more questions, but they weren't all that important, and she didn't bother to write the answers down. She had what she needed. Politely, she thanked Collea for her time, and gave her ten gold coins' worth of the university's money. As Collea got up to leave, she looked into the corner of the room, and nearly screamed out loud. A figure in a black robe stood there, watching Rahve's every move. He looked at Collea, and raised a single skeletal finger to his lips. Collea pointed at herself, her eyes wide, and slowly, Death shook his head. Rahve left the room just then, and with a nod to Collea, Death glided after her. Collea Dumesne didn't sleep well that night. ======== "Is this ethical?" "She told me the story of her own free will," Rahve said. "All you're doing is showing me the pictures." She sat in the university's scrying chamber, with a plump woman named Ales Mooney. Ales was one of the university's Vice Chancellors of Divination, which was a fancy way of saying that she looked at stuff very well. Rahve had requisitioned her services through Hatstring's office. The two of them crouched over a scrying crystal, looking at Collea Dumesne's memory. Slowly, Ales stirred the waters, bringing the memory into clearer and clearer focus. Before Rahve's eyes, a much younger Collea set a baby in a crib and went to answer the door. A man stood there with a baby in a bundle, his eyes wide. "Stop," Rahve said quietly. "Can you show me that man's face?" "Easily." Ales dragged her finger through the water, and it rippled, losing focus. When they calmed, all that was in it was the man's face. It was blurry, and indistinct, but it was recognizable. Rahve started to draw a crude sketch, but noted the expression on Ales's face. "Is something the matter?" "He's a lot younger... but I think I recognize this guy." "Is that right?" "Yes. I've only seen him once, but I think that's Gunther Mishal." Ales looked up. "He's a priest, at a town called Culdale, about two days from here. I grew up there. I used to hear his sermons every week." "Are you sure about this?" Rahve asked. "I'll probably have to go find this man and talk to him. I don't want to ride for two days for something that won't go anywhere." "I'm just about positive." Rahve chewed on the end of her pen for a second. "All right. Thanks for your time." She left, to go pack. ======== Rahve Lisken left Zinnonea the next morning, headed for Culdale. And Death was riding with her. ======== Author's Notes: -- take out trash -- pay 'phone bill -- tell Michelle her mom called -- wait. This isn't "Girls With Guns". What the hell am I doing? Oh, yeah. This was my first try at writing for someone else's Impro, so I hope I acquitted myself well. I tried to play with existing characters, situations, and facts as much as I could, hopefully for the better. A few things I wanted to note for future authors: -- Rahve, as Steven Scougall mentioned offhand, knows where a portal to Hell is. So I got her out of town where she could theoretically meet up with Treisel and the gang. -- Treisel's little outburst was sort of planned. It was predicated on the assumption that he needed a third dimension, and quick, because Tao was starting to overshadow him; for that matter, he also needed to show some sign that what he's been going through has actually started to make him wise up. I apologize if it seems like too much of a personality shift, but you can chalk it up to my limitations as a writer; I can't really write stupid. -- I deliberately left Genni and Bulman up in the air, so do what you want with 'em. -- I stuck Iryien with Treisel and company because bizarre love triangles are fun. Besides, an Impro without lesbians is like a day without sunshine. (You know I'm right.) -- Can I plug Self-Extraction [http://bluenothing.com/impro/self] here? No? Damn. Thanks for reading. The next chapter comes courtesy of either ColdFury, or ravi "Urd's New Boyfriend" duvvuri and Phoebe. Good luck, folks. Thomas Wilde [who didn't make Kristen Smirnov do a damn thing] storyteller@msc.net http://www.dimfuture.net/elsewhere 5/10/2000