Subject: Summer 1999 D&D Cartoon On-Line Fan Club Newsletter, Part 5
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 12:15:02 EDT
.com

PLAYERS, the Finale!, Continued....
"Much better." His gun hand never wavered as he lifted his other
hand to his lips and took a puff. Smoke blurred the shadows where
he stood, making his melodious voice the only part of him they could
clearly perceive. "It appears that we are at somewhat of a stand. You
have the weapons to overcome me, but you cannot do so without
endangering your friend. Why don't you save time, skip the obligatory
posturing, and simply surrender?"

Sheila's mind whirred. How did he do that? She was the youngest
mistress of the Thieves' Guild on record, fighting off more coup
attempts in the last three years than she cared to remember thanks to
her new policies. Nobody could sneak up on her, magically or through
skill -- not even monks! How did he do that?

"You won't get away with this," Hank said, and she approved. Always
good to get the bad guys laughing and off guard.

"And who will stop me?" the smoking man asked rhetorically.

"Why, I will, Shadowdemon." Light flooded over the room, and they
turned to see a small whitehaired man in red robes appear out of
nowhere. "This has gone far enough."

The smoking man's mouth dropped open. "Dungeonmaster?!"

Mulder and Scully's mouths dropped equally far. "He's a what?"

"Shadowdemon," Sheila explained numbly. "Venger's servant."

Mulder's eyes hardened. "I always knew you weren't human."

"On the contrary. I am as human as you are...perhaps more," he
insinuated with a smile. "I have all the pains of mortality...
and all the pleasures as well. I have quite enjoyed being part
of your people."

"But how?" asked Hank.

"My pupils, you are not the first to learn how useful a polymorph
spell can be," Dungeonmaster said quietly. "So this is where you
went after I spared you. Serving He Who Should Not Be Named."

Mulder could not contain himself any longer. "Selling us out to
the aliens!"

Shadowdemon took another puff. "Actually, I was sent here to help
humanity."

Even Dungeonmaster looked surprised.

"Oh, yes," Shadowdemon smiled. "We are not so far apart as you
thought."

Mulder stood up shakily. "You're lying, you smoking bastard!"
Scully's hand stopped him.

Dungeonmaster ignored all this. "What did He Who Should Not Be Named
offer you, that you would willingly become human?"

"I don't know why I should tell you," said Shadowdemon, grinding his
cigarette out on the doorframe.

"Then I will tell you," Dungeonmaster replied. "Freedom for your
people. Freedom from the summonings of evil clerics and magic-users.
Freedom from doing the will of others. And freedom from your own
master, whom you hated and betrayed."

"If you know so much about it, why did you never do anything to
help us?"

"I was," said Dungeonmaster. "I trained Presto, who has become one
of the great wizards of his time, and who teaches other magic-users
to summon no being without fair compensation for their labors."

"My people are beyond any summoning now," said Shadowdemon
complacently.

"That is true enough." The wrinkled face sagged with sorrow.

"What do you mean, old man?" Shadowdemon's hands suddenly shook with
fear. Sheila slipped away from under his gun. He did not notice.

"I feared it was Venger's doing, but now I know the truth,"
Dungeonmaster said as if to himself. He gathered himself and looked
kindly at the smoking man. "There is no gentle way to say this, I'm
afraid. Your people no longer exist."

Shadowdemon's smooth voice stuttered. "You...you made that up. To
distract me. So the girl could escape."

"You know I did no such thing." Dungeonmaster gathered the others
together with his eyes. "We are leaving, Shadowdemon. You may explain
our loss to your masters as you will; I disabled the surveillance
equipment in these rooms. You will not attempt further interrogation
of any of my pupils on matters of the Realm; they are geased to say
nothing." He hesitated. "And if you ever tire of serving so many bad
masters, say my name. Even the greatest forces of evil cannot enslave
the unwilling."

A great light swept the room, so bright that he was forced to shield
his eyes. When it cleared, he stood alone.

All alone. He was the last of his people, living in a form that was
not his own, in a land that was farther from his home than he could
easily imagine.

But not quite kinless, he reminded himself. Remember young Jeffrey.
The thought made him breathe easier.

He went back to his work. He ordered his Men in Black to pull in the
parents for questioning. The parents too were gone; may have been for
days. His men had been doing surveillance on illusions -- Presto's
doing, no doubt, or perhaps that Varla girl he'd been so fond of.
Tom Blake was gone, too, and many of his files with him.

He smiled reluctantly. If he had to be defeated, at least it had
been done by people he respected. The same could not be said of his
human masters.

He ordered his men to pull the surveillance tape from Blake's office.
He watched it, smoking thoughtfully as Eric spoke to a ring and
banished the polymorph spell on himself where he stood in front of
Blake's desk.

"Hey, dad," he said casually. "I'm home."

Tom Blake must have recognized his son from the photos, thought
Shadowdemon. But they had hardly done the young man justice.  Eric
was not just taller and older; there was a look of wisdom in his
face.

Tom Blake's face turned gray. "Why did you come back? They'll do
worse than kill you if they find you here. Go!"

"I know what they'll do. That's why I've come -- to get you out away
from all this," Eric said. "You thought this'd be just another
government contract, maybe with security stricter than most. There'd
be no harm in a black budget project, just secrecy and money, and
prestige when the project was declassified later on. But it didn't
work that way, did it?"

"No," Blake said hollowly. "No, it wasn't. And they told me things...
if I didn't obey, I'd be dead. If I did, they'd protect us -- you and
your brother and I. By the time I figured out what they were doing, it
was too late. The things I've done --"

"I know," Eric said. "But it's not too late."

His father said nothing.

Eric leaned forward. "I mean it. My friends and I are fighting them.
We need to know the things you know. You need a chance to make up
for what you've done. Come with me, and you can."

"Just get up and go?"

"I don't think there's anything here that you need. Mike or I can
put you up -- I'd take Mike's place if I were you. He's got a
beautiful house adjoining the Library of the Sages he set up, but
all I can offer you is a bed in the Celestial Knights' barracks...
did I mention we revived them? Yeah, I'm commander, more by default
than qualifications. I hope you can give me some management advice,
'cause I've been having to teach myself or talk to my friends for
most of it...."

Shadowdemon watched, and thought of two young men he knew: one the
son of his body, one the son of his choice. Yes, if he could only
make Mulder see reason, he could give him his Scully, save him from
the aliens, and get a man he respected to work by his side. Then
both young men could work together, as Shadowdemon had worked with
his first human friends, Ronald and Bill. They might even have
children. The thought made Shadowdemon smile again.

"I'm going to marry soon. Hey," Eric said, mock-shocked, "it'll look
bad if the head of the new Celestial Knights doesn't have more of his
family there than his little brother. So what do you say, Dad?"

And Tom Blake smiled for the first time in ten years and quoted,
"I hear there's a great universe next door. Let's go."

Tom Blake, Shadowdemon mused, was a fortunate man.

Mulder and Scully looked around them. They stood in a circle, in a
courtyard in the middle of a castle. Armed people looked down on them
suspiciously. "What's the password?" one called.

"Your mother wears army boots and your father smells of gooseberries!"
Bobby yelled.

The guards relaxed and put away their weaponry. "Welcome home!" called
the one who'd spoken before. She took off her helmet to reveal purple
hair and pointed ears which were decidedly not the latex kind.

Presto and a gaggle of wizards came out. The polymorph spell was duly
broken, and Bobby, Hank and Diana regained their normal forms.

Eric came out. Michael came out. And then a wave of happy parents
converged upon their children.

Mulder and Scully stood watching, the only strangers in the midst of
the crowd. Their eyes turned to each other, and Mulder's hand fell
on Scully's shoulder. "Not a bad way for adventures to end."

"Once you hit tenth level you attract followers and build a
stronghold," Scully said, reminding him. "That's a different kind of
adventure."

Even as they watched, more people emerged from inside the castle,
including four who looked exactly like the Young Ones' polymorphed
forms.

"Deja vu, Mulder?"

"Fellow pupils of yours," said Dungeonmaster, who was suddenly right
beside them. "From the town of Muncie, in Indiana. Although I may have
made a mistake with them."

"Oh?"

"It is not every group of my students that retrieves an infectiously
evil artifact, throws it into a rabbit warren, waits for the rabbits
to be possessed by evil, and then slays them all with a blessed hand
grenade for the experience points."

"Is that legal?" asked Mulder, with a strange gleam in his eyes.

"It was. The software has been adjusted."

"Darn it...I mean, good. Wouldn't want people to do stuff just for
experience points."

"Of course not," said Dungeonmaster, with a secret smile. "But now
that one group of my pupils has returned to their home, it is time
for you to return to yours." He frowned. "Safely."

Epilogue: A Very Large Rock

(to Frohike) "I'm gonna go play a little D&D...uh, in memoriam."
-- Ringo Langly, "Three of a Kind", The X-Files

Walter Skinner looked at Mulder and Scully and grunted. In all his
years in the service and the FBI, he had seen some pretty strange
things. But he had never seen two lost agents drop down out of a
clear blue sky. And land in the bushes around a drained-for-the-winter
amusement park lake. Or seen said amusement park rock like a skyscraper
in California as someone set off charges to block the hidden tunnels
below.

But then, he'd never closed out a kidnapping case because the parents
disappeared, either.

"So this is your report?" He stared them down. "Doesn't tell much."

Mulder and Scully glanced at each other unhappily.

"Sir," said Scully carefully, "if there was anything we could add to
that report, I assure you, we would do so."

Skinner stared at them for a moment more, then closed the folder.
"Dismissed. And try not to cause me any more trouble...for at least
a week."

"Sounds like a plan, sir," said Mulder blandly. "If my partner will
cooperate."

The portal swirled on. Something was screaming madly in his ear.
Venger damned his useless vestigial wings and tried to keep his gorge
down.  He tried and failed a dozen times to teleport back to his
castle or perform any useful magic, but failed. He Who Should Not Be
Named (damned over-officious lord that he was) had taken all the power
he had.

Something tumbled past him, and the noise came with it. The unicorn
foal! He grabbed at her, and the terrified little idiot actually bit
him! He swore but refused to lose his hold on the creature.

Crazed hooves battered at him, but he hung on. "We are caught in this
place!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "Neither of us have
enough magic to escape it! We must work together!"

"Meh? Mor mut?" she demanded defiantly. Clearly she had more mane
than wit.

"Or we stay here forever, you fool!"

The unicorn stopped trying to do him bodily harm and actually looked
him in the eye thoughtfully. For once, he wasn't lying, and he hoped
she could tell.

"Meh," it said carefully. "Meh. Mor mau."

She gathered her power then, while he shaped it with all his skill.
The purity and strength of it was wondrous to work with, but the
goodness of it was so honey-sweet it was disgusting. But he could
stand it. He could stand anything to survive; that was his strength.

Soon they both could perceive the vortex of power about them. There
was no way home within reach, but a path leading elsewhere hung
before them. United by a common conviction that anywhere was better
than here, they reached for it....

....and found themselves in a place blazing with light, with a feel
more evil than Venger's throneroom. The unicorn actually shrunk
against his leg. He looked down, angered. "You dare to touch me?"

The unicorn looked insulted. "Meh, mehmuze me." It pranced a pace
away. Then it stuck out its tongue at him.

"Much better." He waved his hands and tried to detect something of
his surroundings. He could make no sense of what he learned, but at
least he got something.

He turned to the unicorn. She was sniffing the air, and it seemed that
she found it distasteful. But still she sniffed, and suddenly looked
excited. "Meh!" she said, and danced forward. Then she turned back,
looking impatient. "Meh!" she said again.

He had come to this: using a unicorn for a guide. But he followed her.

They walked through endless spiraling corridors, working their way in.
The little unicorn grew tired, but doggedly went on, walking more and
more slowly. They were making far too little progress, and the fear
of being captured by this unknown foe whose halls they walked began to
wear upon his patience.

"Can you not go faster?" he asked finally.

"Muh-uh."

"You are a tiresome creature!" he told her angrily. Then he picked the
unicorn up and stuffed her under one arm.

"Meh?!"

Venger stepped out briskly, his soul filled with humiliation and bile.
"Now perhaps we can find our way out of this place before we are
killed by slow torture. If indeed _this_ is not the slow torture."

They followed the scent to a chamber not far from the center of the
place, if he judged the spiraling correctly. He set the unicorn down
and she trotted toward it without hesitation, then stood looking at
him expectantly. The door of the chamber opened for them without him
having to touch it or use a spell. Within it, entangled in a mass of
small wires as if in a kraken's tentacles, a human woman hung
suspended in a tank of water.

"This is what you smelled?"

"Meh!"

"I came all this way with you...put myself in danger...not for a way
out, not for a way back to the Realm...but to...." He spit out the
words somehow. "To rescue a damsel in distress?"

The unicorn almost shrugged. "Meh."

He wanted to pound his head against the wall. Better, he wanted to
pound the _unicorn's_ head against the wall. Instead he made a virtue
of necessity, pulled the woman out of the tank, and began to
disconnect the wires. She had brown hair, he noticed. After he had
disconnected a certain number of wires and tubes, her eyes opened.
They were brown as well.

/Thank you,/ she said in his head.

"Who are you, to invade my thoughts?" he demanded.

/I don't know who I am,/ she said sadly. /I'm sorry. I didn't mean to
make you mad./ Her thoughts withdrew, but she said nothing.

"Can you not speak?" he asked exasperated.

She tried, but made only a gagging noise. The unicorn looked at him
accusingly.

"Fine," he said finally. "Use telepathy if you must."

/Thank you./

"Do you know any way to leave this place?"

/I know many ways. But our status is spacegoing. We must use a ship./

Venger did not concern himself with her odd way of expressing herself.
Only one thing was important now. "Where?"

/Two levels down, in the hangar bay./ Her mind reached out, and
suddenly a map of the place was impressed in his skull and the
unicorn's.

He would have left them behind, then. But something nagged at him
about that plan. What was it? Why did it not feel like the correct
thing to do?

Oh. Yes. He would not know how to sail this sort of ship. But the
woman would. Besides, a Psionicist such as herself would make a
valuable servant. And he would need the unicorn's magic again. How
else could he return to the Realm?

And so it was that Venger, deprived of the power of Evil, began his
slow turn towards Good; and a strange alliance formed between three
lost travelers seeking their homes: Venger, Uni, and Samantha Mulder.

--------------------------------------------------------------
"Although multidimensionality suggests infinite outcomes in an
infinite number of universes, each universe can produce only one
outcome."
-- Mulder quoting Scully's senior physics thesis, "Synchrony",
    The X-Files.

THE END
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