A Tale of Two Quests.

	Ah!  It has been to long since I have had the oppurtunity to take up
quill and parchment in the sake of preserving the gods' follies.  Truly, too
long indeed; for the gods have been, shall we say, 'lax' in the quest area.
However, when it was announced that there would be a quest, I was only too
happy to pen the events that occured.

	So have a seat, grasshopper, and I'll tell you a sinister tale....

	Of a young half-elf named Arioh.  Arioh is but 40, about 20 in human
years.  Yet in his 'short' lifetime, he has a achieved much status.  He has
been known as the leader of clan Anglon, the lieutenant of Bane (although
whether or not this title was bestowed by Bane himself or sel-implemented
is cause for speculation), and the Keeper of the legendary Flaming Sword.
Rest assured that these title have not come easily to Arioh; he has had to put
up with rival clans, angry gods, a Bum, and the occasional wad of crap Fate
throws his way.  But in each trial, Airoh emerges from teh other side stronger
than before.  He has risen from a lowly street urchin to one of the greatest
heroes, or villians (depending on your point of view)  in Landsverge.  His
is power that few can match.  Even most warrior-heroes will be deep in the
cold, cold ground before they admit an assassin is better then them. And
assassination is Arioh's primary talent.
	Of course, such a person would have some kind of weakness, as such.
The gods cursed Arioh with low charisma.  Besides this, he comes from the
northlands, where the language is different, and his Common breaks up 
sometimes.  Arioh jumps these hurdles by being a man of few words.  It does
not matter to him that he has few friends; as that is probably why he
is such a great killer: he keeps his alliances to himself.
	Now, then. As the saying goes, 'it's lonely at the top', and Arioh
is certainly at the top of his profession.  After his morning routine of
cleaning out a few nobles' homes in Waterdeep one morning to get the kinks
out of his system, he became, as usual, bored.  With no-one to kill, the life
of a master assassin can be very frustrating.  So, Arioh did what any
non-aesthiest mortal would and went to the gods.
They listened
	Rand (al'thor! The Dragon Reborn! The Car'a'carn! The Prince of Dawn!),
the avatar of the deceased demigod Mat, was in town, back from the war.  He and
I were delighted in seeing each other after so long, and were soon in the
midst of a lively discussion about life and stuff.
Then Kroog descended from the heavens.
	Kroog, as we all know, is the Paladin-god, one of the newer additions
to the pantheon of Quest dieties.  However, he had never actually run a quest
solo before; this would be his first.
Who ever knew that a god of good could be so evil?
Kroog simply said, 'Quest, everyone. '
It started, as it always does, or did.
	A sonic boom erupted all over Landsverge, the result of a million
ears perking up at the exact same time.  In Ofcol, stores were closed and
people hid.  In Waterdeep, the ballistae were loaded and guards, trembling
with fear, manned them atop the city walls.  In New Thalos, tumbleweed blew
on the deserted, dusty streets.  In Sundhaven, and old man had a hear attack
and some citizens were trampled.  Ghenna ordered the barrow wight to eat the
fly.  In the Great Eastern Ocean, I think a few fish floated belly up.  Heads
turned 360-degree circles.  Green bomit was in style.  Common was spoken
backwards, and the denizens of Elemental Canyon found they were running out
of element.  The wind stopped.  The sun spun round.  Kroog, being omniscient,
saw all of this and said, 'Whoa.'
	He might have said 'Quest' again, but refrained, seeing it had the same
effect on the world as 'Nee'.
	In Kemo there was a general rush to the Temple.  Rand and I were in
the quest Room; we needed only to ascend.  So we did, and Kroog was already
speaking.
	'...arena quest,' Kroog was saying. 'All Kemo vs. Arioh.  The winner
gets a Quest Ticket--'
'And a prize from my personal store.'  Arioh emerged from the shadows where
he'd been hiding.  'I shall decide who gets that.'
Present were Xeen, Redgard, Avatar, Whtzombi (hero), Terra (heroine), Dahmon,
Warcfaft, Rand, and myself.  After Kroog's proclamation, there was general
movement to the arena.  Whtzombi and Terra were about to follow, but Kroog
teleported in front of them and barred their way.
He said, 'No heroed.'
	Of course, Terra and Whtzombi protested, begged, and pleaded, but
Kroog was adamant.  So, Whtzombi went off to find an assassin friend, to
fight on his behalf.  Of Terra, I'm not sure what becamel save for the fact
that she played a pivitol role in saving Kemo later, which you'll find.
	The rabble at ther arena was preparing.
Protective magicks were cast, blades were being sharpened, armor was being
fitted, mana was being regained.  Xeen was jovial and optimistic.  Various
clerics moved about blessing the warriors.  Redgard was performing a kata to
warm up.  Warcraft (Who has a slight trace of orcish blood) was sneaking about,
tapping people on the shoulder, for thier suprise reactions.
	Dahmon was clueless.  Rand was leaning on his sword, calm and unafraid.
I was casting 'globe of protection' and other defensive mage spells on the
questors.  Avatar was looking avatarish.
	Kroog appeared before us in a beam of light. 'Ok, are we ready?'
General assent.  Rand and I grouped together, one of the few groups on this
little jaunt.

Kroog produced a flashing neon light. 'On your mark!' It read.

	I glanced Arioh moving through the crowd unnoticed.  He was dressed
for battle, his dagger gleaming with some vile toxin.  Tentativly I reached out
and touched him.  He turned to me, smiling, doubtless because he found a
challenge.

Get set!

	Weapons were pulled from scabbards, sheaths, and holders were held
high.  Arustling of pages as spellbooks and scrolls were readied.

Almost there!

	At this false start, I whipped out my Wand of Death and fired at Arioh
four times, each time dispelled by the anti-magic shell at the Front Desk.
There was giggling. 'Sorry,'  I mumbled, and cast 'globe of darkness' on
myself.

GO GO GO!

The Front Desk was emptied.

	The arena is a large, misty place.  It's hard enough to see; it's 
nigh impossible to scan.  Nevertheless, I trusted Rand's eyes to find Arioh.  
I had my wand ready, and dagger.  We stumbled upon Avatar (who will not, to
this day, know how close he came to death that moment.  Such was the tension).
Not sharing any words, Avatar passed on.

	All of my sense were alert, heightened by a 'sense life' spell.  There
was a soft gibber to my left.  Rand and I both looked around, buth nothing
was there.  The fog thickened.  All was silent.
Where was Arioh?

	That question was answered by screams up ahead.  Rand and I rushed
forth, to join whatever fight there was.  There was none.  It was Xeen, the
first fatality.  He was lying face forward, blood steaming from a wound in
his back.  Xeen was in real danger.  The arena is warded such that deaths
usually don't occur.  Instead, the loser in an arena battle is 'transported',
or sent back to Kemo.  They are usually in bad shap but alive.  Such was no the
case with Xeen: Arioh has a nasty habit of causing the 'arena death', that
is, the person actually dies in the arena.  Arioh's poison is so deadly that
the person so stabbed dissolves from teh inside out; and within seconds, before
either Rand or myself could help, Xeen lay dead.

INFO:Xeen slain by Arioh in arena combat!
INFO:Xeen has been slain.

	Something whisked past us in the fog.  The slight illumination made 
shadows do disturbing things.  There was another death cry, Warcraft this time.
Sounds of fighting were all around.  Rand and I frantically looke left, right,
only seeing semi-shapeless forms and more screams.  Avatar fell, and then
Dahmon.  Three people left: Redgard, Rand, and myself.  We were being picked off.
Apparently, this realization dawned on Rand also; he grabbed my hand and ran,
blindly, to the northern part of the arena. A small alcove is in that area
where it would be easy to spot enemy attacks, as they came from the south
only.  
	I suppose that was what Rand was running for.  We never made it.
Something too swift to see brushed past me, and lifted Rand off the ground,
into the air, and skipping face-down along the cobbled arena floor.  He
disappeared, sliding on his face, into the fog ahead.  I couldn't see.
Somewhere to my right, I head the fight.  I ran in that direction.  Rand
and Arioh were going toe to toe, Rand gettin in four hits for every one of 
Arioh's three.  Rand had a Greatsword, and Arioh had a black steel dagger, 
but Arioh was using this dagger to block some of Rand's hits, and dodged some,
too.  Rand was also at a disadvantage;  the two holes in his back, which were
already turning grey with poison, told me that.

I took this all in at .5 seconds.
	I used my wand to send pure death in Arioh's face.  He inhaled a double
lungful and gagged, while Rand struck Arioh four times in the ribs and stomach.
He fled, but not before cutting my arm to the bone (it's a very interesting scar)
Rand and I partook of the bonified healing potions at our disposal;  Rand's
back wounds were closed up and the poison was purged from his body, leaving
only a bloody scab.
	Said I, 'Rand, will you be all right?'  He didn't look all right.
Even heald, he looked like ground beef.
'Sure. I'm as fine as.......fine......can...<uppt>--'
'Rand?' I had difficulty seeing him in the fog.
'...*....' Gurgling noises.
Damn, I thought.
	Rand involuntarily shuffled a little closer.  Arioh was behind him,
his dagger still snug as a bug in a rug in Rand's back.  Arioh grinned at me,
then removed his dagger, twirled it and fled.
Rand fell face forward and disappeared, trasnported.
Damn!  I thought again.  But for Redgard, I was the only person in this place---
I felt cold steel in my back.  Once, twice.  Fade to black.

	I wound up in teh Temple of Kemo, with everyone else.  After receiving
the healing benefits of a bonified health potion, I rushed back to the Arena,
hardly noticing the INFO:Redgard has been slain.  on the Message Citadel.
	Avatar, Warcraft, and a few others ran with me.  At the front desk, we
split up, entering the fog again.  After casting a few protective spells upon
my-self, I entered the fog again.  I decided to have Arioh come to me.
	Arioh was hurting, I assure you.  HE had not gone through us all without
takign a few hits himself (hew was not allowed to heal; that was the condition
Kroog gave him in order to agree with helping).  Noting this fact, I stood,
stock-still, waiting, listening for him.
A slight breeze made my hair sway.  That was it.
	I turned around, quickly, helped by 'haste', and sent a cloud of acidic
vapors in his face.  He gagged, coughed, and such, then fled.  I waited again,
not daring to move, lest the rustle of my clothes cover his approach.  I still
stood with my wand out in a half-electric slide.  A pebble skittered and hit 
my boot.  I would not have felt it were I moving.  Again, a swift turn, to see
Arioh's dagger, aimed for my back but now shooting towards my stomach.  I 
sidestepped (out of panic more than skill, you can be sure of THAT) and
released toxic death into Arioh's face again.  About to retch, he fled again.
	Then I made a mistake and straightened up.  I saw a glimmer, and knew
even then that I was dead.  Back in the temple, I was quite content to just
sort of lay sprawled face down on teh floor and rest awhile, but even as I
struggled to get up, the god news came:

INFO:Arioh slain by Avatar in arena combat!
You could almost see the question marks/exclamation points over the peoples'
heads.

	Yes, 'twas Avatar that struck teh killing blow!  Arioh was transported 
back to the temple.  Avatar strutted in from the south, his sword still red with
Arioh's blood.  He stuck this into the soil in front of the temple, joyous
of his triumph.  The warriors cheered Avatar and he was lifted upong their
shoulders.  Arioh declared, 'Avatar and Kalistes are the winners.  Come to the
Quest Room to claim your prize.'  I won, such as it was, and received from Arioh
a small glowing greenish ball that seemed to contain magical energies yet
unleashed.  Arioh called it, 'Arcane Force';  I stuck it in my Chaos Quantum,
bowed to Arioh and Avatar, then went upstairs to celebrate Avatar's victory.

But we celebrated too soon...

	At about this time Gargamel of Grizzleguts had found a book lost to 
several generations: the sacred tome known only as 'Unearthed Arcana'.
Gargamel, a cranky old coot that thought that smurfs, were, for some reason,
the cause of his troubles and seeked to get rid of them, thought that this
spellbook would give him power enough to banish the smurfs to the 10th
Hell.
	Thumbing through the mouldy text, he found one spell that struck his 
fancy: 'Pool of Darkness'.  With the magic words, 'Dhim Kala Allacho Bham', 
The pool, a one sided portal that consumed all, was brought into existence.  
Gargamel and Axrael, his cat, were immediatley sucked into the pool and now
live on the dead god Moander, who floats somewhere in the Astral Plane.  
No great loss there.
	However, the pool had some intelligence.  You see, it needed to suck
more and more souls to gain power, else it would fade from existence.  It
saw the smurfs as a tasty appetizer, and floated outside.

Meanwhile, back at Kemo....
	It was about 3 a.m.  After the hubbub with Avatar, people had once
again gone out to seek adventure.  I was meditating in teh mage's bar.
Rand had gone off to talk to Kroog on a matter of some inportance;  I did
not know what at the time.  It had begun to rain outside, and rained harder
and harder until it was torrential.  This struck no-one as odd, until the
winds began to howl.
	It was no ordinary whistling, it was howling; as if Pandemonium had
broken loose.  The howls sounded strangely human.  Awakening, I went to the
window above the magic shop, and received a sight.
	Way, way far north, about where the smurf village was located, there 
was a huge vortex of inky blackness, blacker than the night sky,  Well, thought
 I, -that's- something you don't see every day.  I headed downstairs and
outside, and almost bumped into Artful (who made his own martial art, called
Artiste), who was heading in teh direction of the smurf village.  I excused
myself, and asked if I could tag along.  Artful nodded and we ran towards
the smurf village.

	The winds at the entrance to the village were gale force.  Artful and
I noticed and odd thing, too:  the winds seemed to pick up, not in force
but litterally lift dust, toadstool houses, and smurfs up into the void.
Smurfs, as smurfs do when there is trouble, were runnig running blindly
to and fro, and were getting sucked up into the void at will.  Artful
produced a scroll of identification and read it.  His eyes widened.
'We'd better go.  Linke, now.'  Not understanding why, I decided to stay and
see what happened.  Artful turned to leave, but two new arrivals, Kurgen and
Terra, arrived.  'What's going on?  What the hell is that?' Terra shouted,
pointing at the void.  Artful just shook his head.  Kurgen and Terra both
produced scrolls of identification, and recited them.  They stood there for
a second, shocked.  Then Kurgen spoke first.
'Holy $h!t.'

He and Terra both immediatly drew weapons.
'What is it?' I asked them.
'Its's a creature most foul.' Terra shouted to make herself heard.  'It's
going to wipe this village off the map.'
The winds increased in force.
Terra continued, 'It's what is known as a Pool of Darkness.  I'd heard of
such things in the Waterdeep Library, but didn't think they existed...'
'Pool of Darkness?' asked I/
'And intelligent gateway to some other plane.  If the mortal dies in the
new plane, the Pool takes its soul and does.. things... with it.'
'Oh. Hey, Artful, your're sliding,' I remarked idly.'

	Artful had been listening intently on our conversation, but had failed
to notice he had slid some 10 feet towards the pool.  Artful looked around for
confirmation, then flailed his arms wildly about, then tried to run back.
IT was too late.  The pool had him.  Artful, seeing his position not a 
comprimising one, drew forth a dagger.  When he reached the middle of the village
and was picked up along with about six smurfs, he raised his dagger above his
head.  He went in dagger first.
	When Artful went through, the howling suddenly stopped.  The winds
did not.  The pool flashed with a whitish radiance, then shrunk to about the
size of a portable hole.  It fell from the sky and landed with a dull phloomph.
It got up (insomuch as a black hole can get up) and gloated in the air, a one-
meter hole of nothing.  It apparently had not stopped sucking air however;
rain that fell near the hole was sucked in.

'What happened to it?' I inquired.
'Maybe Artful gave it indigestion,' said Kurgen

	Such as it was, perhaps it did.  But nothing could prepare me for when
it spoke.

'Ahh... tasty.  Didn't quite agree with me, and why should it, since I was 
attempting to kill it?'  There was a sound like a piece of chalk made of 
greased lighting being scraped across a chalkboard made of eggshells.  That
was it's laughter. 'Ahh...heh, didn't agree, but tasty indeed.  I must get
more of these..Kemoians.' Laughter again.

Witty fellow.

	Kurgen and Terra brandished their weapons at the pool.  The pool
saw this and merely said, 'Ahh... more soulds for my master!' IT floated 
towards them.  Kurgen ran swiftly through the slicing rain at the pool.
I saw what he was attempting: he was going to try to hop to the side of the
pool and give it a few hits before it could turn its deadly face towards him,
a manuever used by man Kemoians called a 'Yarrite flank'.
And it would have worked, were it not raining.
Kurgen charged, feinted, then hopped sideways, but his feet caught a mud 
slope and he fell.  As he did so, he managed to hit the pool a couple of
times with his sword, but upon falling, was immediatley sucked in.
	Did I mention how disturbing it is to see something that, by all
means, should be an inanimate object move about with intelligence?  It's 
quite.  Seeing Kurgen so fallen, Terra charged at the pool, leapt high in 
the air, and jumped in sword first, a la Artful.  But, as she reached the
dark pool, held one hand high overhead and grabbed the rim of the pool,
clinging literally between two planes of existence.  I think she hit it
some sixteen times before the incoming winds forced her to let go, and
she too was a prisoner of the pool.

Uh oh, I thought.  Here we go.
The pool turned towards me.  I ran for it. The 'it' I ran for was the
smurfberry patch.  It was a maze of bushes and would suit me well.  The pool
followed, but I soon lost it in the hedges.  Catching my breath, drenched
with the torrent, I heard it yelling at me; I don't know what.  Then a malicious
smurf saw me in the hedges.  It ran at me and caught my angle, causing me
to fall.  It then proceeded to kick mud in my face.  I raised my dagger and
clove it in two.  It stopped raining all of a sudden.  I looked up and saw
a nightmare:
It was the pool of darkness! It had found me!

'Ahh...I can fly, foolish girl,' it said, and I was sucked in.

	And was snagged by Terra on her way out.  Apparently, she had known 
what she was doign when she jumped in the pool, and had grabbed Artful and
Kurgen and made to exuent.  With her free hand, she grabbed me just as I
fell into the other plane (a place of toal and absolute darkness) and we tumbled
back into Landsverge, waterlogged and covered with mud.
	The pool apparently had never known food to come back up.  It wavered
for an instant, and the winds into its body stopped.  Terra, Kurgen, Artful,
and I took this oppurtunity to run back to Kemo and regroup.
	Poor Artful, who had beein in the pool teh longest, was out of his
mind with plane-induced fear.
'AIIIIEEEGGGGHH!!! Dark..so dark..must run..down! Look down!' Artful in a less
coherent moment.
	Terra said, 'He'll be ok, but I don't think he'll be much use to us
anymore. I'll send for help from the Dark Assassins.'  She left to do so.

I asked Kurgen what he'd seen in the pool.
'It's heaven, hell, war, peace, colors, monotone, that lax feeling between 
wakefulness and sleep, death, life, light, and darkness in there at the same 
time.  It's sensory overload.  It's..' he trailed off.
'All that? Wow. And what is this thing again?' Rand emerged from the quest
room, and Kurgen brought him up to speed.  'It seems you could use another
sword in your attempts,' Rand said. 'Mind if I join?'
'Not at all,' said Kurgen.

Terra came rushing from the rain. 'Cecil is on his way,' she told us.

	While waiting for Cecil, we gave another go at the pool.  Some clerics 
were brought along to assist in the healing process.  The pool looked sick
when we reached it.  How a hole in reality can look sick, I don't know, but
the pool did it well.  It ha become slightly ethereal, so that you could see
through it.  The edges wavered. The pool itself had small bursts of pulsating
light from its inside, giving it a sickly look.
Kurgen began, 'Hey. He's--'
'It's,' Terra corrected.
'-It's- hurting,' Kurgen finished.  A wild look came into his eyes. 'Let's
kill it!'

	I looked at the pool. Could a simple upchuck make it that sick? There
was something odd about the pool.  Then I saw it: where the rain fell next
to the pool, it evaporated into mist.
Franditcally I shouted, 'No, wait---'
It was to late, Kurgen, Rand, and Terra, with cries of BANZAI!, rushed the
pool.  Although the pool could not force creatures into itself at the moment,
it responded with another form of attack: an aura of energy drain.
	Terra was the first to feel it, and thought she felt a bit odd. But
unrelenting, she swung her sword low, under the pool, then brought it up
with incredible force.  The pool was sliced in two by her tremedous blow.

Then it reformed.
	The three warriors, confused at the pool's miraculous recovery from
what should have been a fatal strike, stopped in their tracks.  The pool then
drained both of them to their bones.  Gone was the pool's sick appearance:
it appeared as if it couldn't be better.  It had drained Terra and Kurgen's
energy, making their lifeforce its own.  Rand, seeing this, spun on his heel,
pivoted, adn brought his enormous sword around in a huge backhand swing.
The pool was cut in half again, this time with what appeared to be light
at the edges.  Then it reformed and drained Rand, too.  He crumpled like an
old coat.
Once again, it turned to me.
	Casting 'globe of protection' on myself, I raised my hands and released a
barrage of rocky, fiery meteors into its general direction (I did not have
time to draw my wand).  It absorbed the meteors into its yawning pit. Seeing
this, I then tried to run, but found I had no strength left to do so; and the
cold, muddy earth rushed up to meet me.

	After all four of us had reformed on the cloud of life, we went, 
cautiously, to the Smurf Village.  The pool was nowhere to be seen. We went
to our corpses and gathered our stuff.
'Whoa...' Rand muttered, who was still weak from draining, as were we all.
'Gonna take me a couple of minutes..to shake off that..'
	We split up to look for the pool.  Finding no luck with Gargamel's 
castle, I went to look for the others.  The rain had begun to slacken, so
it was easier to see the footprints Kurgen and Terra had made. I followed
them, and saw Kurgen, busily stomping some smurf's house.  He didn't see the
inky blackness behind him.
'Kurgen--!' I called, to warn him.
	Kurgen turned around, saw, and understood.  Then he was blocked by the
pool.  I think I saw his sword flash through the pool, perhaps four times,
before he wilted like a flower and died from teh pool's mere presence.
Then i saw something fast, very fast, slice through the pool and was then
gone.  The pool healed the cut as fast as it was made, but the question
remained: What was that? I rushed foward, and heard Terra running along
behind me.  So it wasn't Terra.  Rand was resting.  The pool, seeing three
of us now and knowing that it faced a new enemy, whirled about in a despaerate
attempt to find its assailant, to no avail.  There was but a slight drizzle
now, and I noticed for the first time that the smurfs would have their
hands full cleaning -this- mess up; their village was almost completely
destroyed.
No big loss there, either.

	The thing, whatever it was, moved with inhuman speed past the pool
again, cutting a swath in it.  Terra and I watched, transfixed, as this
thing buzzed the pool again and again.  With no new energy to feed it, the
pool was once again beginning to look unhealthy.  A few more passes, and the
pool flashed with radiance, then fell to the ground.
	Terra and I stood there for a while, perhaps no more then five minutes,
perhaps an hour, looking at the pile of blackness in the mud.  Then a figure
dropped from teh trees and landed between us.
'Lord Cecil!' Terra cried.
The rain stopped; the sun came out.
Kurgen adn Rand rejoined us.
	We approached the pool, slowly, becasue it was impossible to tell whether
the thing was dead or not.
'It's dead,' Cecil assured us.
	We hesitated, Then Terra moved tentatively forth and poked it with her
swird at arms length.
'It's dead,' Cecil said again. '>I< killed it.' It looked that way...
To demonstrate, Cecil strode over and punted the thing with his foot.
'See? No worried, people. I---' he stopped and looked down.
'You what?' asked Kurgen.
'Ummmm..'
'What is it?' prodded Rand.
'Um. It won't let go of my foot.'
	We looked down at Cecil's boot.  The pool had attached itself to it 
when Cecil kicked it and sat there, pulsating with faint light. I pointed
my finger at Cecil's foot and concentrated on an acid arrow spell. Cecil
noticed the telltale acid beginning to drop from my finger and said, 'Kalistes,
may I ask what you're doing?'
Said I, 'I'm going to kill it.'
'It's dead though.'

'No it's not.'
The acid dripped a little faster, becoming a small stream.
'Have you noticed it's my foot, and that you might burn of somthing important?
I make my living with these feet.'
'Yes. Hold still.'
Cecil drew his dagger. 'You're not.'
'Gods above. Trust me Cecil, it's for the best.'

	I probably would have been missing a finger or a hand today if the 
pool had not chosen that exact moment to drain all of Cecil's energy, suck
Rand into its void, grow to monstrous proportions, and drain our energy as
well.  After our spirits had been given new bodies, we rushed back to the 
village.  Rand wasn't with us, he was on some nether-realm.
'See?' I yelled at Cecil in triumph.
I was duly ignored.
	Cecil, Terra, and Kurgen were healed by their respective clerics.
They then attacked the pool, which had regained much strength from the auras
of the five of us.  I flew up into a tree to record the events that followed;
I had enough of dying for one day.
	Terra, Kurgen, and Cecil went at the pool and, with Terra's patented
twenty blade technique, Cecil'a unorthodox fighting style ( a style taught
in a small dojo in Waterdeep), and Kurgen's expertise, they whittled the pool
down, each time a suicide strike; hitting the pool as many times as they could
before it enevitably drained the very life from their bodies.  The pool
eventually came to look like a cracked mirror and absolutely vibrated with
yellowish light (I have come to understand that this light was perhaps a
sign of pain or bleeding). The pool gained what energy it could from each
encounter, but the three warriors took all of this energy, and more.

Eventually, they killed it, but not before it took Kurgen.

	During one of thier kamikaze attacks, the pool stopped draining energy.
Cecil, Terra, and Kurgen saw this as a sign of near-death, adn renewed their
attacks with fervor.  The pool once again began to force reality into its
black maw. Kurgen, who had just ran his sword completely through the pool, was
off-balance, and was pitched headlong into the darkness.  The toe of his boot
caught the rim of the pool.  The next chain of events seemed to happen in
slow-motion.  Cecil, reacting with astounding speed, braced himself by holding
onto a nearby tree and reached into the pool, grabbing Kurgen's toe. Cecil
pulled. The poole pulled.
	Cecil pulled harder, and bade Terra to help him.  She did.  The pool
pulled, pulled, pulled, and won.  Terra and Cecil were left holding Kurgen's
boot.  The pool drained Cecil's and Terra's energy, mocking them both.
	After regaining their weapons, armor, and equipment, and after healing 
again, Terra ran down the slight grade towards the hateful pool. The pool
said, 'Ahh.. the fish has come again, has she? Where's your companion?'
Terra, in her fury, paid no heed to this.  She struck the pool again and
again, unmindful of her ebbing strength.  She took a chance, during this
fight, to glance around.
Where -was- Cecil, anyway?
Seeing him nowhere about, she continued her assault on the pool, until at
last the time came when she became so weak from teh draining that she could
not hold her own sword.  The pool was in no better condition; if it had
looked like a cracked mirror before, the pieces were begginning to fall
out.  It glowed steadily. It dampened its energy-draining aura.

'`ghAhh...I gueszz (..) your %friend' and le@der deserte& you (!!). Heh.
``ared my <><>ter, no doubt?(!.*grzkt). Brepazr #o qembrace the <.>
unfathomable!!'
	No, seriously. That's what it sounded like. The pool started
it's vortex winds. Terra didn't move. Perhaps she didn't feel them in
her weakened, perhaps she did but didn't care. It was over. She'd lost--

	There was a sound like paper being torn by someone that felt sad and happy
at the same time.  There was an incredible flash of light.  Terra felt
shards of glass (?) rain about her, saw little bits of blackness melt into
the earth before her face. Heard someone grunt.
She summoned the strength to look up.
	There stood Cecil, dagger held blade downward, its edge glowing, 
dripping pur radiance.  Behind him sat Kurgen, his arms hugging his kneesm
blinking as if he hadn't seen light in awhile.  Rand was sprawled upon the
ground, his greatsword beside him.  Around were shards of the pool, which
looked like black glass.  Droplets of radiance were on teh ground.  As
she watched, the 'black glass' melted into the earth, leaving only imprints.
The radiance turned into lightning bugs and flitted away.
She passed out.

	When she came to, she was at the temple.
Kroog was there, and with a smile said, 'Bout time you woke up.  I gotta
go to bed.'
Terra rose up, 'The pool?--'
'Cecil hid and killed it, but your efforts weakened it so that he could.
Here, take this; you earned it.'

And Kroog handed Terra a golden Level 3 Quest Ticket.

EPILOGUE

	And so ends this documentation of the god Kroog's first quest effort. 
Beause this quest was so much like a Mat (Kroog's patron diety when he was
mortal) Quest (TM), and teh pool quest was influenced by Rand (Mat's proxy)
, what he did will be praised by some, frowned upon by others.
The latter can go to Hell.

	Arioh's methods of killing are primarily the tried and true Backstab!
Flee! combination used by many assassins, but his hits are incredibly harder
then most.  Id him and see why.  Also, if you think you're better then ole
Arioh, fight him in the arena sometime, and you will see why the first few
paragraphs of this story are well justified.

	Although Cecil did indeed strike the killing blow on the pool, it 
should be noted that Terra did a lot mroe work then he did.  No offense to
Cecil, or Kurgen OR Rand, for that matter; as they all did more then a fair
share of damage to that accursed pool, but Terra was really the primary
player.  Kudos, Terra.  And Excelsior to you, Kurgen, Cecil, and Rand.
Kemo wouldn't be the same without you; and we owe you our thanks.

Until next time, dearly beloved eader,
--Kalistes Cylithera

1:00 pm, on the day of the Great Gods
12th Day of the Month of the Sun, Year 210 (Happy millineum, by the way!)

Note---
This story was among several lost due to carelessness and some computer
crashes.  I managed to find a printed coppy of it, so i had to retype
the entire story.  It took be several hours to do so.  However I think
the story is worth it.
-Kroog