Subject: D&D Cartoon Newsletter Via E-Mail, Part 2! ****************************************************************************** D&D CARTOON TRIVIA CORNER! Here's the answers from last issue's trivia section. 1. The year written on the barrel in the "Servant of Evil" episode was (c) 1865. 2. (b) Willy was the pet slimebeast from 'P-R-E-S-T-O Spells Disaster". 3. Some of the theme music often heard in the D&D Cartoon was also in the (d) Incredible Hulk cartoon. 4. Eric mentions (b) Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in "The Time Lost" episode. 5. Presto pulls out a map of (a) Pittsburgh in "Child of the Stargazer". ****************************************************************************** The OOOOPS! Squad! The what, you ask? Well, this little space each issue will be devoted to those quick-thinking, thorough people who catch all my silly mistakes in this newsletter. Our winner this month is Patrick Drazen, who wrote in and corrected a wrong answer I had on Issue #2s Trivia Questions -- that the unforgettable DM line of 'Rise, my son', was from THE DRAGON'S GRAVEYARD episode, and not the TREASURE OF TARDOS that I had originally written. Good catch, Patrick! And to everyone else -- if you catch an error, let me know! Thanks! ****************************************************************************** Next in the Corner is Part 3 of "Lambs Among Wolves" by the ever-talented Victoria Bishop! Lambs Among Wolves Part III by Victoria Bishop Standard Disclaimer: The kids aren't my creation, I'm just being mean to them for a little while. They belong to Marvel. Queen Sabra et al came from my twisted little mind, though. Rated: PG-13, just to be on the safe side. Kinda dark and depressing. Hank rolled his shoulders, trying unsuccessfully to work the cricks out of his neck and back before hoisting the hammer again and bringing it down on the rocks. He heard a muttered curse from behind him, and when he turned, he saw that the wagon Presto had been loading the smaller pieces of rock into had tipped over. Knowing that no matter what had happened, Presto would receive the punishment, he quickly dropped the hammer and knelt beside the magician, helping him refill the wagon before any of the taskmasters noticed. They weren't quite fast enough. "You!" Hank stood while Presto scrambled to put the few remaining rocks in the wagon. One of the taskmasters, not Boaz, but someone just as big and ugly, approached them. "Light-hair, why have you left your task?" Hank sighed inwardly with relief. So he was in trouble, not Presto. "It's my fault--" Presto began, but Hank waved for him to be quiet. "I hear from the others that you are always leaving your task, light- hair. I think you need something that occupies you better." Hank didn't reply, just regarded the taskmaster evenly. The taskmaster pointed to the cliffs. "Up there, you worry about your task and falling to your death. Let's go." Hank didn't move. He couldn't afford to be separated from Presto as well. "I said, let's go," the guard repeated with a snarl, raising his whip. "Hank, go!" Presto whispered behind him. "I'll stay," Hank informed the guard. "You don't have to worry about me leaving my task again." Inwardly, he was glad his voice didn't tremble when he spoke. "Oh, you'll stay?" The taskmaster looked amused. There was a crack, and the whip snaked tightly around Hank's neck. "You'll do as you're told." Hank gripped the taut length of the whip with both hands, but as the taskmaster pulled, he either had to follow or have his air cut off. "I'll be okay, Hank," Presto assured him. Only then did Hank move, allowing the taskmaster to lead him away with the whip. Hank looked up the sheer wall of the cliffs as he and his taskmaster rode up on the scaffolding. They reached the top and the taskmaster stepped off, dragging Hank behind him. Hank struggled to maintain his balance on the rocky ground. "What do you want?" another voice snarled at them. Hank turned towards the sound of the voice and saw a slim young woman advancing towards them, her pickax raised. "Stand where you are!" the taskmaster ordered. The girl remained where she was, swinging the pickax casually but menacingly as she regarded them with dark eyes. "Put it down." Curling her lip, the girl flung the tool down so hard that the pick cut several inches into the rock. Finally, the taskmaster loosened the whip from around Hank's throat and shoved him forward. As he did so, he let the whip loose towards the girl. She dodged it easily, but lost her footing in the process, just barely managing to hang on with a precarious grip. Acting on pure instinct, Hank rushed forward, grabbing both of her wrists. He hauled her back onto the cliff top. "Are you alright?" he asked as he helped her to her feet. "I'm fine," she replied, brushing his hands away. It was only when she shook her dark red hair out of her face that Hank realized she wasn't any older than he was. "Are you sure?" The girl rolled her eyes in exasperation. "I'm well enough to do this." She hooked her foot behind Hank's ankle and pulled both his legs out from under him. "Any other stupid questions, Kid Galahad?" "Nope, I'm convinced," Hank managed through clenched teeth. A whip cracked over their heads. Quickly, the girl grabbed Hank's arm and hauled him up. "Let's go." "I'm Hank, by the way." "What do you think this is?" she scowled at him. "A garden party? Get to work before Dodrek decides to better acquaint you with his whip." She grabbed her pickax and began digging where she was. Hank picked up a shovel and started digging, wondering if there was any particular purpose to this task. "Look," he said, "If we're going to be working together, I think it'd be better if I knew your name." "Why? Either of us could be dead tomorrow. Besides, you ought to save your breath for working instead of chatting. If we don't look properly miserable, Dodrek will find a way to make sure we are." "You seem to know alot about this place," Hank said, hoping he'd found a source of information about the mines. "How long have you been here?" "Maybe you didn't realize it, but for the past five minutes, I've been trying to tell you to _shut up_," the girl snapped. Hank was silent, and they both fell into the rhythm of the work. No wonder so many people wanted that mouthy girl dead. Diana scowled and she stirred the bubbling cauldron with renewed vigor. Her heart had nearly stopped when she spotted Hank's blond head on the cliffs. Then she saw the girl knock him over--she was positive that's what had happened. She'd already decided not to mention it to Sheila, knowing that would only cause more unneccessary worry for her already worried friend. She knew Sheila didn't have a view of the cliffs from the small cave where her work was done. Hank was alright, after all. She'd also seen them both being taken back down the cliffs for their individual rest breaks. The mouthy girl was led past the high wooden tower Diana was standing on, but see the Acrobat glaring at her. Although she couldn't see what was going on, Diana did hear a voice she'd grown to recognize coming from the metal working area. "That was stupid, you know." That was the blonde chatterbox, Diana was certain. "He wouldn't shut up."The mouthy girl replied. That's all that was said before the guards reminded them about the no talking rule with yet another crack of their whips. Diana shook her head and went back to her task. *Out out out.* *Where is my boy?* *Soon I can shift myself again. Bad shift before. The evil woman found me.* *Why can I not connect with my boy like the others of my kind?* *Why can I not shift to where he is?* *Tired. Hungry. * *What has happened to my boy and my friends?* Eric hadn't realized he could ever reach a point beyond pain, but he was there now. He concentrated on staying as still as possible, but even that was agony. The only real pain he'd ever experienced up to this point had been when he broke his leg in a riding accident. Ten years old at the time, he'd cried and hollered all the way to the hospital and back, and for the entire time they put the cast on. What happened in Queen Sabra's dungeon went way beyond that. Although he'd let out a startled scream the first time the whip sliced into the skin on his back, he was unable to make a sound after that. His silence only served to infuriate the Queen and her henchman further. The whipping became more brutal as punishment for what was perceived as defiance. Eric would have screamed or begged for mercy or done whatever was necessary to stop the torture, but his vocal chords seemed to be frozen. In a desperate attempt to ignore the agony, he counted the swish-CRACK! of the whip until he finally passed out. He'd awakened to find himself face down on a dank dirt floor, completely disoriented and with no idea how much time had passed. As he regained full conciousness, the pain hit him full force it was impossible to concentrate on his surrounding, the time, or anything except the agony of his mutilated back. 'Think about something else!' he told himself. 'Think about anything else, or you're going to go nuts! The others,' he suddenly realized in horror. 'What did she do to everyone else?' He recalled the Queen saying that because he was noble his offense was considered worse than anything his friends had done. Did that mean their punishment wasn't as bad as his? 'God, I hope it wasn't.' 'This isn't working...' Eric groaned and pressed his cheek harder against the cold floor. He supposed he should be grateful that the guards who had tossed him into the cell had thown him down on his stomach. He doubted he would have been able to turn over if he had landed on his mangled back. 'So things could be worse,' Eric thought with dark humor. 'What was that witch thinking? Ungrateful...if it hadn't been for us, her nobles would end up starving. There must be something else to this. She must be working for Venger. This can't just be because Grandfather is an Earl and everyone else doesn't have that kind of background. Who would do something like this just because of that?' Eric sighed, then gritted his teeth against the pain the slight movement brought. 'Well, I've got to move sometime.' Eric finally decided, and braced both hands against the floor. He'd barely begun to lift himself before every nerve in his body shrieked with the torture. Gratefully, Eric allowed blackness to overtake him and passed out again. Hank was laying in wait for either Presto or Bobby. While he was glad to see Presto when the magician was shoved into their cell, he had been hoping to see Bobby, too. It appeared that the children got fewer rest periods that adults, something that made Hank angrier than anything else. "There's a way out!" he told Presto excitedly as soon as the door was shut behind them. "Are you okay?" Presto asked, ignoring his news. Hank blinked. "Sure. But listen--" "Man, I think I got an ulcer seeing you on top of those cliffs. Did that girl try to push you off? I thought I saw--" "Nah," Hank shrugged. "I had room." 'Not much, but room.' "But listen, the one good thing about being up there is that I've seen a passage that I'm sure leads out of the mines. I see the guards coming and going through there." Presto sat down. "So how do we get to them? They must be guarded." "Well...yeah," Hank was at loathe to admit that he hadn't thought that far yet. He was grasping at the one slim hope he had found. "How are we all going to get there? We haven't been able to get near Sheila or Diana, and Bobby--well, we aren't even sure where he is." Hank sighed. It wasn't like Presto to be so pessimistic. 'This place is getting to him.' It was getting to all of them. He wasn't sure how long they'd been in the mines, although originally he had been trying to keep track of the time, he soon gave that up. There was no daylight to go by, and he was convinced that their rest periods weren't based on any specific timing. "What about all the other slaves? Will we be able to help them?" Hank blinked in surprise. That was a little more like Presto, but now he had to disappoint his friend. "No. I wasn't planning on trying. I just want to get us out." "What?" Presto's voice held a note of astonishment. "Us. All of us, I mean." "I know that's what you meant, but...I mean, aren't we even going to try..? We always try to..." "I _know_," Hank said through gritted teeth. It hadn't been an easy decision to reach, but it was the only one he'd been able to come to. "But we can't--there's no way. I'll count us lucky if we all get out alive." Presto swallowed hard. "You don't think we will." "Of course we will," Hank tried to sound confident, but failed miserably. "We _have_ to," he added in a low voice. Apparently one of the advantages to having poor sight was excellent hearing, because Presto caught the last part. "Right. We have to," he said firmly. "So we will. Right?" "Right," Hank managed a smile. "But how do we let the others know? And Eric--we haven't even seen Eric. Or Uni." "If we get out of--_when_ we get out of the mines, and find our weapons, we can find Eric and Uni." "Queen Sabra seemed to think he was special," Presto couldn't help pointing out. "Maybe he's okay." Hank frowned, "He'd be wondering where we are." "Yeah..." Presto agreed slowly. Too slowly, as far as Hank was concerned. "What? Do you think that just because Queen Sabra makes a fuss over him, he'll forget we exist?" Presto shrugged, torn between angering Hank and saying what he felt. "He did before, didn't he? With the Queen of Zinn?" "He helped us get the medicine Bobby needed," Hank countered. Presto nodded to concede that fact. "He hasn't seen us since the feast. He's bound to be wondering where we are." "But why isn't he _here_?" Presto demanded. Hank shrugged. Presto muttered something under his breath. "What?" Hank asked sharply. "Nothing," Presto said with a sigh. "I'm just tired, I guess." "I can't believe Eric wouldn't worry about us," Hank had to say. "No. You're right." Presto was silent for several minutes. "So then what happened to him?" Hank couldn't come up with a reply. "I saw Bobby," Diana said as soon as the door to their cell shut behind her and Sheila. "What? Where?" Sheila asked frantically. "Is he okay? Did he look hurt? Do you know where--" "Easy, Sheila," Diana put a comforting arm around her friend's shoulders. "I couldn't talk to him. I just saw him from the vats. It looked like they were taking him from the cells--the ones where Hank and Presto are." Sheila looked relieved. Diana was tempted to let her think that, but the situation demanded honesty. "I think he was on a rest break, like the rest of us take. Hopefully, they put him in the same cell as Hank and Presto." Sheila nodded and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. "Could you see much? How did he look?" "Tired and dirty, like us," Diana said, sinking down beside her. "He didn't look hurt though." "Could you tell where they were taking him?" "To the other end of the cavern--whatever is there." Sheila nodded again. "Was he fighting with the guards? I'm so scared that his temper is going to...well, that the guards will..." "It looked like he was keeping his head," Diana reassured her. "He's smart enough to know that." Sheila took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. "He's okay, Sheila. That's all you have to know right now." "Right," the redhead's voice was barely more than a whisper. "Right," she repeated more loudly. She stretched out an arm an picked up the jug of water that was their ration for the day. "How are your hands?" "Not too bad," Diana lied, trying to cover the blisters and burns that came from her labor and the splattering molten metal. "Save the water to drink." Sheila ignored the advice, drenching a clean corner of her woolen skirt with water. "Let me see." Diana relented and held out both hands for her friend to clean as best she could. Without Bobby around, Sheila needed someone to look after, and Diana was grateful to be elected. 'Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry! Don't be a baby. Don't cry.' Bobby kept up the constant litany in his head, trying desperately to hold tears of exhaustion and horror at bay. Something caught his foot and he stumbled. Before he thought, he looked behind him to see what he'd tripped over and a small choking sound escaped him. He was staring directly into the clear glassy eyes of a little girl. In the dark, he skin seemed to be off a deep blue, but Bobby barely acknowledged that observation. What he couldn't shake from his mind was the fact that she was even smaller than he was. That she was probably younger than he was. And that she was very, very dead. Blood was oozing from where the jagged rocks on the tunnel floor had scraped open his palms and knees, but Bobby barely noticed. He could only stare--transfixed at the little girl's corpse. "Who's holding up the line?!" A voice growled from behind him. "When I find out who--" The taskmaster's threats brought Bobby back to his situation with a start. After tenatively touching the little girl's hand--in sorrow or empathy--he got painfully to his feet and re-shouldered his burden of rocks. 'Don't cry. Don't be a baby.' *Shift. Shift!* *Where am I now? Is my boy here?* *No. Not my boy.* *Not my boy, but him.* *Well enough.* 'That was one of the dumber ideas I've had.' Eric groaned. 'I can't move. What am I supposed to do?' Forcing his eyes open again, he looked around the cell as much as he could without moving his head. He could see the door, but it looked about a million miles away and was no doubt locked. 'She's just going to leave me here. She's going to leave me here to rot in this cell.' Rage grew inside of him. 'How dare she?!' he thought in an involuntary imitation the aristocratic indignation his grandfather so often displayed. 'Just who does she think she is? I'm going to get out of here. I wasn't brought up to die in the dirt like an animal.' Common sense told him to take things more slowly when he tried to move again. Cautiously, he shifted his shoulders. The way the skin on his back seemed to pull indicated that most of his wounds had dried over. ''Course I'm probably going to rip them open again when I try to sit up.' He levered his arms under him, but had barely begun to straighten them when lights began exploding behind his eyes again. He lowered himself back down and tried to hold onto his sanity and ignore the pain. 'I'm going to die in the dirt like an animal. Alone. Oh god. The others will never know what happened to me. I'll never know what happened to them.' Eric squeezed his eyes shut, fighting back tears. 'This can't be happening. This can't be real. Please...' Eric froze when he heard a small sound behind him. Although he considered turning his head to see what it was, he decided he really didn't care anymore. The was a clattering on the floor that was vaguely familiar, but Eric didn't bother trying to place it. When a soft muzzle touched his cheek, Eric ignored that, too. 'Great. Now I'm hallucinating.' An inquisitive bleat, however, made his eyes fly open. "Uni?" his voice was so hoarse that the name was barely discernable. The tiny unicorn folded her legs gracefully underneath her and leaned against Eric's side, giving and receiving comfort in equal measure. "How did you get here? Teleport?" "Byeah," Uni's bleat was quieter then usual. "Gonna have to work on that, Uni," Eric said sadly. "You definitely came to the wrong place." Uni made no sound in reply, she merely pressed her silken nose to the hollow of Eric's throat, obviously intent on remaining there for some time. Eric sighed, inexplicably grateful to have the annoying little animal beside him. End Part III Thanks to Rhonda for being a great sounding board.