Tail First

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 32950

Astra persisted for about fifteen minutes before giving up. The low thermal conductivity of the granite-like material defeated her plan. Thin sheets of fractured and decomposed rock fell as sand off the wall, but the layers shed were only a few millimeters think. Astra rested for a couple of minutes. She saw a large cobble, about the size of her forepaw, lying on the ground. She obeyed a whim, and skipped the cobble down the passway that she was trying to get through. It clattered a couple of times. Then it just vanished. No clunk against a wall or skidding against the ground. It was about four meters out from the sound of it. Astra remembered that Checkers' voice was cut off after about two paces. Astra's pace of two steps, when she was human, was about a meter and a half. Checkers was somewhat shorter, and her pace might cover about a meter. Checkers did not call out a third time. So somewhere between two and three meters' distance, something happened. Astra looked at her body. Her forepaws were not quite long enough, and her snout would get caught in the passage, but her tail tapered nicely. "Two meters, easy. Three might be a stretch. What have I got to lose?" she thought. Astra proceeded to back into the passageway.


In the room where Fred and Checkers first entered after coming out of the passage, they were sitting down, with two maps spread out. Checkers also had her ditypch out. Because of the differences in their vision, Fred would draw what he saw on his map, and Checkers would then add to it. Then they would do the same to her map. They found that the Allarian expedition that created Fred's map a generation ago had found the cavern where the fight took place to be large. On Checkers' map, which was quite out of date, the room did not appear at all. The two nodded at each other, and drew the same conclusion. The caves were reverting to their earlier state, the way that they were on Checkers' map.

After discovering this, Checkers asked Fred, "So the plan is to stay here, and hope that Astra finds a way out?"

"Yes, Checkers. We have plenty of food, and besides, this passage looks like a street that only goes one way. Surely Astra will figure something out."

"I wish that I could think of some way to help."

A large piece of rock dropped from the wall.

"What was that?" asked a startled Fred.

"It came from that wall, from whence I came. Did it fall off?"

Fred shook his head. It did not make sense. The wall looked very sound, and was not crumbling. There really was not a place where the rock fit in the wall.

  1. Suddenly, they saw Astra Dragon standing with her face to the wall.
  2. Suddenly, they saw a passage open in the wall, and part of a dragon's tail poking out, wagging.
  3. Suddenly, they saw Astra in human form, standing with her face to the wall.

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9/25/2003 10:37:03 PM

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