Lord Fred: Alive, But Barely

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 25853

The beetle was not designed to be used against multiple targets. It futilely continued repeating the cycle that was intended to kill its victim. Eventually its energy source would be exhausted and it would stop.

Meanwhile Astra was relieved to see that Fred's convulsions seemed to have stopped, though he was barely conscious. She completed cutting away his tunic, but then the clang of Checkers' spear landing in the tunnel fortuitously caused her to look up from Fred's body, and to spot out of the corner of her eye the goblin wielding his iron bar.

She waited until he had approached to within a few yards, before she spun round and rose from her crouch in one fluent motion. The goblin was taken totally by surprise. He had no chance to flee - his prefered course when anyone potentially dangerous challenged him - and the reach of her sword exceeded that of his iron bar. Her sword-thrust went into his chest and out through his back, and he died instantly.

Ten seconds later, Astra was making her slightly postponed examination of Fred's torso. It was a muscular torso, she noted, but like his face it was sweating profusely and an unnatural shade of pink. A large, roughly circular, area centered just to the left of his right armpit, and taking in the shoulder, upper arm and part of the neck, was worst affected. This area was a deep shade of red, darkening towards brown at the centre, and some of the skin was peeling away.

Astra had no idea what could have caused such terrible damage. Could the goblin have somehow stumbled on some magical weapon? Nor did she have any idea of how to treat that damage. Fred no longer seemed in imminent danger of death, but she feared that his constitution might have been so weakened that he would gradually slip away, especially since these caves were hardly the ideal place to recuperate from serious injury. Even if he got better, she wasn't sure whether he would ever recover the use of his right arm.

Then Checkers and Belboz arrived on the scene. Knowing that the dragon- mage could read her thoughts, Astra projected: Can you save him? If you will do all that you can for him, then I'll be your slave if that's what you want.

  1. Not just a good day but a very good day, Belboz thought.

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JH

4/21/2003 12:12:13 PM

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