ftp.ee.pdx.edu/2014.02.ftp.ee.pdx.edu.tar/ftp.ee.pdx.edu/pub/frp/Archives/1059

Internet Message Format | 1995-08-04 | 9KB

Path: usenet.ee.pdx.edu!cs.uoregon.edu!news.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!uunet!in2.uu.net!not-for-mail
From: Guido Roessling <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.archives
Subject: STORY:  Qelrik part
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.misc
Date: 31 Jul 1995 14:06:08 -0400
Organization: TU Darmstadt
Lines: 167
Sender: [e-mail]
Approved: [e-mail]
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <3vj62g$[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

---------------------------------2015385859473366656680683193
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

***
Take a look at QELRIK's WWW page at
http://www.pu.informatik.th-darmstadt.de/dida/qelrik.html
***

---------------------------------2015385859473366656680683193
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain

>From [e-mail] Mon Nov 28 08:23 MEZ 1994
Received: from rbhp89.rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de by rbhp56.rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de with SMTP
    (1.37.109.4/15.6) id AA29476; Mon, 28 Nov 94 08:23:26 +0100
Return-Path: <[e-mail]>
Received: from rs2.hrz.th-darmstadt.de by rbhp89.rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de with SMTP
    (1.37.109.4/15.6) id AA29166; Mon, 28 Nov 94 08:23:19 +0100
Received: from backus.pu.informatik.th-darmstadt.de by rs2.hrz.th-darmstadt.de with SMTP id AA33631
  (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for <[e-mail]>); Mon, 28 Nov 1994 08:23:18 +0100
Received: from adele.pu.informatik.th-darmstadt.de by backus.pu.informatik.th-darmstadt.de (16.6/Server-1.5/HRZ-THD)
    id AA09627; Mon, 28 Nov 94 08:20:26 +0100
Received: by adele.pu.informatik.th-darmstadt.de (4.1/Forwarder-1.5/HRZ-THD)
    id AA05380; Mon, 28 Nov 94 08:23:45 +0100
Received: from ashley.business.uwo.ca by backus.pu.informatik.th-darmstadt.de (16.6/Server-1.5/HRZ-THD)
    id AA09579; Mon, 28 Nov 94 02:24:13 +0100
Received: (from bhughes@localhost) by ashley.business.uwo.ca (8.6.8/8.6.6) id UAA14216 for [e-mail]; Sun, 27 Nov 1994 20:26:31 -0500
From: Brent Hughes <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Squonk
To: [e-mail]
Date: Sun, 27 Nov 1994 20:26:31 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]> from "[e-mail]" at Nov 19, 94 12:07:50 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Content-Type: text
Content-Length: 6252
Sender: [e-mail]
Status: RO


An old post, complete with all the headers!  I don't know if it is the
final version, though I don't remember any changes being made to the
version without the song.

----------------
>From [e-mail]  Thu Mar 24 11:39:20 1994
Received: by borg.cis.rit.edu (5.57/Ultrix3.0-C)
    id AA09891; Thu, 24 Mar 94 11:25:40 -0500
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 11:25:40 -0500
From: [e-mail] (J.E. Mason )
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail], [e-mail],
        [e-mail], [e-mail],
        [e-mail], [e-mail],
        [e-mail]
Subject: Squonk repost

Here is the Squonk post, sans song.  It still flows, IMHO, but tell me what
you think...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                 Squonk
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The creature was no longer whimpering, but openly sobbing.  It no longer took
the form of a hideous demon, but of an ugly, harmless-looking rodent-like
thing that was not even two feet tall.  It grabbed the red rag out of Kyle's
hand and held it to its open mouth.  It sobbed incessantly, with tears falling
to the ground in constant time.  What once was a pool of blood at its feet was
now a pool of softly glowing, bubbly tears.

Voices from the crowd breathed the work "Squonk" over and over again, and the
people stood transfixed at the transformation they had witnessed.  Kyle
reached down and stroked what he though should have been the fur coat of the
creature, but it felt sticky and gross at the touch.  The creature shyed away,
but had nowhere to go.  So it stood there sobbing and suffering through Kyle's
attempts to comfort it.

"There, there, little one.  You'll be all right now."  The soothing of Kyle's
voice seemed to sooth the creature a little, but the tears never stopped
flowing.  "You see," he addressed to the crowd.  "The demon-image was all
just an illusion.  This harmless creature was only using it as a defense
mechanism to scare off his attackers."  Kyle was convinced of his reasoning,
and some of the people seemed to be swayed by his words.  Until Tjahlem
recovered himself.

"_This_ could be the illusion," he said, indicating the ugly creature sobbing
at Kyle's feet.  "I say it's still a demon, using _this_ as a disguise."  But
Tjahlem was uncertain of his own words.

"Think, Tjahlem," Kyle argued.  "If this were a real demon, wouldn't he just
scale these rocks?  Why would he be afraid of townsfolk?  He'd just wipe out
everyone.  No.  This is no demon.  Just a harmless creature."

"A Squonk!" cried someone in the crowd.  Kyle had heard stories of the mythical
creature, as had everyone else in the crowd.  No one had ever seen one, but
the Squonk was rumored to be so ugly that it couldn't stand itself and cried
constant shimmering tears that glowed at night.

The collective conscience of the crowd echoed what Kyle and Tjahlem knew.  That
this creature crying before them was indeed the mythical Squonk.  A creature
much more rare in appearance than a common demon or devil.  A look of greed
replaced the raving anger and fear that Tjahlem had carried with him.

"Well, if it is the Squonk, then we must capture it and bring it back to town
for all the world to see.  We'll be famous.  We'll be rich!"  Tjahlem cried.
Murmurs from the crowd agreed with him.

"No!" Kyle shouted.  "You've done enough.  This poor creature is terrified.
Look at what you're doing to him.  He's done you no harm, leave him alone!"

"Fool!  Don't you see what we have here?  This is a _legend_!  Now, get out
of the way."

"No."

"Allright, have it your way."  Tjahlem rushed Kyle, tackling him to the ground.
"Get him!" he shouted.  As Kyle struggled to be free, several of the townsmen
converged on the Squonk and buried him underneath the weight of their bodies.
It was trapped with no hope of escape.

"We got him!" one of the men shouted from the pile.  "Gods, he stinks!"  From
under the pile, the sounds of the Squonk's constant sobbings could still be
heard.

"Good!" Tjahlem smiled and he heavily shoved Kyle into the ground as he raised
himself off of the boy.  "Someone get something we can put him in or tie him
up with so he cannot escape on our way back to the village."  The people
milled about, looking for something to fulfill Tjahlem's request.  But they
had rushed out of the village with destruction on their minds, not capture.
Finding nothing, Tjahlem turned again to Kyle.

"I know," he sneered.  "Your shirt will do just fine."  He grabbed Kyle's
shirt by his neck and ripped it off his back, revealing several ugly looking
black and blue bruises and cuts all over his body.

"Hey!" one of the men cried out.  "I think it's stopped crying."  Several of
the women came over to Kyle to tend to his injuries.

"Here," Tjahlem called to the men, "use this."  He tossed Kyle's shirt to them.

The men disengaged from the pile slowly, ready to wrap up the creature with
the shirt.  But as they left the pile one by one, they began to argue amongst
each other.  The creature was gone!  It had escaped somehow.  All that
remained as evidence that the creature was ever there was the pool of glowing
tears it had left behind.  The men accused each other of letting the creature
escape.

Tjahlem was beside himself with rage.  "I don't care whose fault it is!  We
must hurry and catch the creature.  Hurry, find its trail!"  The people spread
out from the cave, but could not find the tell-tale mark of the glowing trail
the Squonk had given them previously.  Disgusted, they fanned out further and
further until Kyle was once again left alone in the clearing.

He shivered in the cool breeze, as he looked down at the pool of glowing
liquid, and thought about the unique creature that he had touched.  He took
out his water flask and emptied it of its contents.  He filled the flask with
the tears from the shimmering pool so that he would remember the ugly beast.
Gathering the remains of his shirt about him, he strode out into the trees and
underbrush, to search for Finn and the rest of his companions.



---------------------------------2015385859473366656680683193--