Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 03:30:56 +0000 From: Christopher Vaughan Subject: INT: A visit in KEEPing with the Emjays... You wake up with a slowly creeping fog filling your bedroom and try to remember if you turned off the wok when you are suddenly yanked through a growing vortex of green and white light forming at the foot of your bed... "Where am I?" You ask the question as you struggle to your feet. You've landed on a hard floor made from uneven stones. The walls and ceiling are also stone, though mostly obscured by shadows, dust, and the ash from the torches mounted at even intervals along the wall. You seem to be in a hallway, though its ends are well beyond the limits of your vision. You feel as though you are standing on a stone floor in the middle of a black infinity. "Hello." A voice resounds in your mind. "Wh - who's that?" You ask, your heart pounds in your chest until you think it may burst out of your breast and explode in painful, red fireworks. "I am the Keep." "'The Keep?'" You vaguely recall reading about the Keep somewhere. Where was it? "Silence." The voice is a thunderclap slapping you senseless to all but its words... "I have brought you here to remind you that you must vote for me lest your soul be forefeit." You rub your arms and they feel like ice. Something itches on your leg. Something else in your hair. Suddenly, a pig-faced Ice Warrior pushes past you and races down the hall. He is pursued, a moment later, by a massive white tiger. "M - my soul? Isn't that - isn't that a little severe?" You smile, sheepishly, hoping to appeal to its sense of pity. "NO!" "oh..." "You risk your soul by voting for anything less than the Keep in the Emjays, for you know that it is the greatest interactive story, ever, in the annals of WRITERS. To vote for anything else would be to wound your immortal soul..." *Gulp* "Now, begone, fool, but lest you doubt my word - here is a taste of what awaits you should you fail to vote your conscience..." Before it transports you back to your bed it first allows you to pass through its floor. You land in a well of frigid water at the end of a long cylinder of muck-covered blackness. You claw feverishly - but your nails are only split and shattered against the stone. Beneath your toes, something slimely moves in the black waters... _____________________________ Chris Vaughan space.cowboy@worldnet.att.net