Checkers' Dilemma

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 29527

Checkers:

It's a bit of a shock to suddenly take on the form of a dark elf, and a male one at that. When it is explained to me what has happened, I realise that I could have changed into something far worse, though.

I am just getting over that shock when I get another one, one that means that I am faced with a terrible dilemma. It seems that if Belboz isn't stopped then he could destroy the whole world. But Belboz is apparantly linked to a human land by the contents of his hoard, which means that if he is killed then that land will be destroyed. Now Jenny has said a human land but, now that we've learnt from the tengu who was Astra that Belboz and Minestus are one and the same, I've put two and two together, and I don't like the snswer that I'm getting. I remember that book of Belboz's, [21981] written in Old High Dolomite. Given that we Gliders have had nothing to do with the outside world for many centuries, where else could he have obtained it but from us. And if he obtained one thing from us, then why not others? His hoard, for instance.

Loyalty to our own people could be said to be the defining Glider characteristic. How can I possibly choose between destroying the world and destroying my people? What an irony it is that killing the dragon is precisely what my people sent me out to do. Not that many of them will have thought that I had the slightest chance of doing so.

Some of the others seem to be looking at me, as if they think that I'm on the point of coming to some momentous decision. But I still can't decide...

The tengu formerly known as Astra:

I still have the memories of my former self, but it's as if they are those of another person, and someone whose way of thinking now seems very alien to me. Some things haven't changed, though. I still want to fight on the side of good against evil.

To accept life as a tengu wasn't that hard a decision for me to reach, knowing what I know about what Belboz/Minestus is capable of. He has to be stopped. I must say that it is convenient to have arms again. My hips and breasts have also been restored to their former size (they had not been changed by my initial conversion to a tengu). I suspect that my beak looks disfiguring to the others, but it now seems perfectly natural to me. It's lucky that I can communicate telepathically, though, since when I forget myself and try to speak I emit a sound that's something between a quack and a honk.

I'm pleased that the one who was Fred came to the same decision as I did. I would have found it rather lonely had I been the only one of my kind. It's strange, though; as well as recognising that we are probably the only tengus in this world, at the same time I know that I'm a member of the tengu non-ruling class, which you might think ought to imply that there are some members of the ruling class in existence somewhere. As a "common" mortal tengu, I don't have a name, nor do I merit one.

The mage called Jarlath offers to produce some clothes and weapons for us.

  1. We use our telepathic powers to show him what we would like, and he produces items to our specification.
  2. Checkers mulls over her decision

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JH

6/15/2003 10:19:38 AM

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