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Dear Diary, Well, after we got back from that adventure it was back to school.  First special summer school classes to get everyone (except for Parakile) up to speed. Things like reading and writing English, remedial world history and speech. My special class was all on social situations, manners (we got to read "Miss Manners" -- she has to be the best writer in the world), and current political theory (i.e. what is a Democrat, what is a Republican, how to tell the difference, that sort of thing). It seemed like no time until regular classes started again. More Greek (I love it), some anthropology. [3 credits] Classical Studies -- Selected Readings. [3 credits] Advanced Historical Greek, Selected Source Materials from the New Testament and other writings. [3 credits] Anthropology. [3 credits] Analytical Geometry (I'm glad I did so well in advanced algebra over the summer). [.5 credits] Physical Education: Rock Climbing -- I like it and it is good exercise. [.5 credits] Physical Education: Akido (I've left the Akijutsu club). [2 credits] Special Seminar -- Advanced topics. And then the Halloween dance. A costume dance. And Wolfie asked me to go, on a real date. Not just jogging in the hills with him, not just meeting for lunches between classes, but a real date. We haven't had much time to talk with the work that we had to do for school. It felt like an entire semester forced into the time of a quarter. At least my not-so-secret service person has been happy to see me. She was a great help on the politics and the math. I had no idea that she was an engineer, like Parakile.

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That was Tindalasse's costume when he came by with the group to lead us to the dance. He seemed a little distracted, but then he had a new girlfriend with him. He doesn't ever seem to think when he has just met a new girl. When he realized he did not have to escort any of us to the dance, he seemed the happiest I've seen him in a long, long time, and the next thing you know, he was showing up around campus with this girl -- the same one he was going to the dance with. Amber went with Parakile, Ariel went with Jean-Robert, I had Wolfie (of course), Marie had that young lightwalker who had come home to check up on us -- turns out that he is only about twenty-two or so, and has started taking some classes in particle physics. He is a "Korlinth" -- a race I'm not familiar with, but Amber vouched for him -- not to mention, her dad sent him. He and Teal got along really well. I think they have a lot in common. Anyway, we were off to the dance as a group.  It was kind of fun, though I didn't really like the wings that were part of costume Tinda's date was wearing. Not to mention she was not wearing much of it -- "just like an elf" I heard Jean-Robert remark, and that really captured it. The rest of us were having a lot of fun. Wolfie and I were dressed up in "Scarlet" period French wear (after the stories), like nobles in chains, as if we had just been arrested. The chains looked like cheap props, but Wolfie's chain was really his, just shapeshifted a bit, and I used my illusionary clothes to help create one of those dresses while being able to dance in it. Ariel was Ice Man (or woman) from the "X Men" (I get to study comic books next semester -- I can't wait) and Jean-Robert went as one of the Three Musketeers. Amber went as a princess ("sleeping beauty" -- something about a fairy tale, though she did not look like a fairy at all) and Parakile was dressed up like a mad scientist. We took a turn I didn't recognize on the way to the dance and then, in a glimmer of smoke, we entered the dance floor. It didn't feel right and, of course, it wasn't right.

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First thing that happened we were swept into the dance, and the music started to move in ways I wasn't comfortable with, not at all. Then I realized that at the head of the room, behind the illusion, there was Tinda, bound to a stone table. I looked, and suddenly the person who looked like Tinda broke out of his illusion. A chaos fiend, with a succubi -- one of those hentai slimes, though her illusory form was even worse in some ways. Some of us were unarmed, which was a bad thing, in that time and place. On the other hand, Jean-Robert's sword leapt from his lapel pin into his hand, Wolfie dropped the illusion from the chains he wore as I did. Ariel pulled her staff from the belted rope she wore. Amber pulled her sword from the gem at her throat. The lightwalker (hmm, he wasn't "the" lightwalker, I need to find out his name, I keep being distracted every time there is an introduction) embraced the light. Most of the crowd we were in consisted of various animated undead, mostly skeletons and zombies and a few draugr, swept up in the unhallowed dance of the Lord of Misrule, a gate that can be opened only once a year on All Hallows Eve. I don't blame the others for missing it, but I should have caught it. The fiend was dropping towards me and the maelstrom had begun, all to the beat of hard music and the ancient classic, "Safety Dance" (I think that is the title of the song, by men without pants or some band with a name like that).

We were all caught in the dance with a form or rule set aside, so Amber could not shift into her flame shape and Wolfie was caught in his human form -- one I rather like and the one we had been practicing sparring in a lot recently, but perhaps not his best in a fight. On the other hand, his armor looked really good on him -- usually you can't see it as the shapechange sweeps it up. Ever since the meld with the dragonscale it has been rather nice to look at, when a girl gets the chance. Ok, so I wasn't looking at his face. I'll have a better picture when I get the chance. But this wasn't exactly the right time, if you know what I mean, especially as everyone was forced to dance while they tried to fight, with Ariel exchanging spells with the slime demon, the lightwalker at the center of our circle, as it rotated counter-clockwise about him and the circle of the undead rotated clockwise against us. His light did something to them, daunting them, even as the music drove them on and Tinda broke free of his bonds and joined us, calling his spear to him. Parakile raised up golems out of the floorstones to fill the gaps in our line, and his hands were filled with hard fire. I swear, he winked at Amber when he did that. I gave a great leap and met the embodiment of misrule in the air, my bladed chain against his arms and mouths and claws, striking as I passed. He could leap and I can run on air as if it were solid ground. We passed and I drew first blood from him, the cut bursting into fire with the anti-chaos power of my strike. Ariel was parrying with her bladed rope staff while exchanging spells from wherever the circling line took her. The cold really affected the slime demon and I'm sure I heard her mutter something about "that will teach her to wear more clothes." Then Ariel took a strong blow that her armor barely stopped and Amber dropped a wall of flame on the slime creature as Ariel's magic wavered. The smell was terrible as the slime demon fried in the flames. The undead captain who struck Ariel regretted it as light transfixed him and her magic blighted him. Of course Wolfie was really mowing them down. Even in human form, he can fight. Of course he had his full armor and his bladed chain and the rage came upon him, even bound into human form by the dance. In man shape his mental powers are stronger and many of the undead are especially weak against such things. Suddenly the countercircle broke and Wolfie raged through them, while our group was able to reform into a corner with Parakile and Jean holding the point. I and the fiend of misrule continued our dance in the air as I caught him in mid-leap with a blast of inner power and then struck again with the sacred blade. Each cut on him burst into flame and he was a mass of self-consuming fire as he gibbered and leapt and I dodged and counterstruck. He was no longer seeking to strike me as he passed, he was trying to close and grapple when I let his last jump carry him corp-a-corp (I got that from the French speakers in our group) and my chain wrapped completely around him as he thought he was grasping me. Instead he was bound with his arms to his side and his legs cut out from under him, tumbling into the fire that had already taken his slime demon witch. I stood back as Parakile and Jean moved out to take down the last of the draugr and Wolfie paused to realize there were no more undead standing. Behind the stone table all that remained was an undead Shalgathi shadow-necromancer, eyes gone blind from the effort of holding all of the undead under control in the fight against us. Light struck it and it faded away into dust and death. The room suddenly fell quiet. I pulled my weapon to me and I heard Wolfie say "guess this wasn't the right dance." Everyone is a comic sometimes, I guess. Some how I didn't feel like dancing any more, and Wolfie pulled me close and held me as the after shakes of adrenalin overload hit me.  A lord of misrule can do more than just kill you, and this one had almost taken us. If that countercircle had not broken or Marie's date hadn't been able to withstand the hunger that fueled the undead who stood against us, we might well have been remembered only as a meal for the undead. I wondered. What part did the Shalgathi play in all of this, and what would we find next. Especially since one look around and I realized that even with our enemies slain and dismembered, we weren't in the mortal world any more.

Copyright 2001-2003 Stephen R. Marsh and Heather N. Marsh E-Mail comments and suggestions to: story (at) adrr (dot) com We would love to know how you got here and what you think about the site All Rights Reserved Terms of Use / Story Index

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