The island was quite small; Lepris had already made the circuit of the
shore at least twice and explored most of the interior although the rocks
were just high enough and full of crevices to make it impossible to tell
exactly how much of the island he had actually explored.

As far as games went, this one was the pits.

But Lepris refused to give up and sign off...not after having gone through
so much to get into the game. Bad enough that he was late getting signed
on, but it had been better to get his chores done before getting involved
and risk getting pulled away from the game just when it was getting interesting.

He needed have worried. He had stepped out of Bast's antechamber and right
onto the small lump of rocky land upon which he now sat. The shore looked
far away. Not impossibly far, of course, but risky. He supposed it wouldn't
be a big deal to die in this stage of the game, but he had no idea what the
rules were with regards to saving and retrieving his character's stats and
he didn't relish finding out the hard way.

To make matters worse, the narrowest stretch of water seemed to lead to the
shore over whose ridge sat Castle Plun-darr. It was not near enough for Lepris to be seen...it would take sharper eyes than that of the Mutants to
find *him* out here...but he was quite certain that Slythe would have taken
the precaution of setting up a monitoring system along this otherwise unprotected coast. Coming up on shore would be asking for a Mutant welcoming committee.

Come to think of it, the island itself might not be entirely secure in this
respect.

With no other option before him, the young Thunderian decided that he would
have to chance the crossing. But that didn't mean he would jump blindly into it. Concealing himself as best he could with what cover was available
amid the stones and scrub, Lepris quietly began scanning the far shore for
signs of activity.

*********************

"Okay, according to the computer map we can either climb this ridge and hike it through the field of dagger rocks or keep following the shore and
then climb over the rise."

"Differenshes?" prodded Shark, a faint lisp lent his words a throaty hiss.

"The first way is definitely shorter...but the second one is probably easier," said Casca, scratching his head as he mulled it over.

"I vote water," grinned Shark.

"Right. Stupid question," snorted Casca with a half-grin as he dismissed
the floating console. At least he was sure that they were not being watched. He could never have consulted the map otherwise. Pulling out his
sword, he went over battle strategies in his head as he walked, freezing in
a defensive stance every few minutes and executing a controlled parry or
lunge. If he was going to be wasting game time, he might as well keep in
shape.

Shark watched him as he strolled along. "Nicsh form," he hissed appreciatively, "'ut this ish a weapon!"

So stating, Shark pulled out his harpoon. It was a hybrid affair, long and
spear-like with a barbed tip, but one side of the spearhead was much longer
than the other and honed to a wicked edge. In a pinch, the weapon could be
made to slash like a halberd...damaging indeed.
Casca gave a low whistle. "I'd hate to be on the receiving end of that thing," he commented. "Especially once we get some gaming experience under
our belts."

"Have biting experiensh," said Shark conversationally. "An' breakfasht. Shnarfer shteaks."

This was news to Casca. "No shit? I'd have thought you'd have bragged about
*that* before now! Anyone notice?"

Shark shrugged. "Eh...Basht prob'ly fixshed it."

"Wouldn't want to take the honour away from everyone else," grinned Casca
evilly. "Although I think I'm going to aim a little higher up on the food
chain. Although not much until I get in some more practise. Maybe some Wollows or Balkins or something. They're probably pretty easy to beat up, but there *are* more of them..."

"Need exshplosions."

"Hmm...you're right," mused Casca. "We're going to have to teach these Mutants a thing or two about mass destruction. I had considered going to
the Lunataks originally...always was a fan of Red-Eye...but I felt I could
comfortably lord my superiority over the Mutants. You?"

"Shame," shrugged Shark. "Shuperiority and shenselesh deshtruction."

"Better stick with 'wreaking havok' or something else with less esses in
it," snickered the jaguar. "Why do you talk like that? Er...I mean, do you
really have a lisp? I would sort of expect a computer to correct that kind
of thing. It would be interesting to know exactly what this game does."

"No lishp," said Shark. "Ish an acshident." Here Shark opened his mouth wide, very wide, and pulled back the corners of his mouth with two fingers, exposing row upon row of needle-like teeth, three in all.

"Yerg," said Casca stepping back in surprise. "Remind me to make sure you stay fed."

"Ha ha. Didn't shpeshify shpeech," sulked Shark. "Shtuck now."

Casca shrugged helplessly. "Hey, maybe your morphing abilities will increase with your experience and you'll be able to fine-tune your humanoid
figure," he offered in consolation.

"Maybe."

"You planning on swimming the rest of the way when we get to the deeper water?"

"Yeah. Shwimming ish fashter. If we ever get there."

Casca snorted as he brought his sword around again. "If I'd known it was
going to be this far, I'd have tried to mug someone for transportation!"

Shark did not have time to reply to this as a number of Mutant lackeys leapt down on them from the ridge above the shore. Numbering six in all,
the Reptilians outnumbered the Monkians four to two. The players were moderately surprised to discover that the lackeys were not merely clones of their Mutant commanders.

"Lay down your weapons-s-s," hissed the tallest of the Reptilian Mutants,
obviously the one in charge, "your capture is-s-s ordered in the name of Lord S-s-slythe!"

"So he's a lord now?" Casca asked Shark conversationally. The metamorph shrugged. "Do we go peacefully or kick ass?"

"These are Mutantsh...there ish no peashfully."

"True. But still..." Casca raised his weapon. "We're going to Castle Plun-dar to offer ourselves as allies. We won't arrive as prisoners!" he called back.

"You expect us-s-s to believe a mis-s-serable cat?" sneered the Reptialian leader. "Mutants, attack!"

Casca was momentarily uncertain of his decision as all six of the Mutants
descended upon himself and Shark. Were his power levels high enough to defeat them? They certainly didn't look as incompetent as they had been on
the series. But even if he lost it was better to go down fighting than willingly give himself up as a prisoner. He dropped his pack to the ground
and saw Shark do the same. "Don't be gentle," he grinned at Shark before
launching himself at the nearest attacking Mutant.

"No problem," came Shark's throaty hiss as he parried a Reptilian attack,
catching the creature's axe in his harpoon and lunging forward to crunch
into the arm of the unsuspecting Mutant. It howled in pain and managed to
get away without losing the limb entirely though it dangled uselessly at
his side. Surprisingly, the handicap did not stop it though it might as well have given up...it would not longer be able to handle its axe effectively.

Casca was currently matching strength with one of the Simians, neither willing to give ground as they fought, sword to mace. The creature's blows
were vicious and the jaguar hoped that none of them would land directly on
his blade...that kind of abuse would snap it in two for sure. So far he had been lucky to parry any blows by catching the mace's handle in the hilt of
his weapon, but he wasn't sure how long his luck would hold out.

From the corder of his eye, he saw one of the Reptilians manoeuvre behind
him. With a sense of timing that amazed even himself, Casca managed to parry the Monkian's attack with enough force to throw him back a few steps,
giving the player enough time to turn and deal the scaled creature a strategic kick. Having thought that his approach had gone unnoticed, the
Reptilian caught Casca's foot in his chest and found himself sprawled on
the ground. Managing to dodge the Monkian's next attack entirely, Casca dove for the Reptilian's weapon, throwing it far away and disarming the hapless Mutant before a blow from the pommel of the jaguar's sword knocked him out for the remainder of the fight.

*One down and five to go,* thought Casca as the second Monkian joined the first.

The other reptilians had thrown themselves at Shark. Faster than the simian Mutants and nearly as strong, they had decided that they were the best suited to deal with the snapping, biting creature which had managed to finish off their companion with one swipe of the bladed end of his harpoon.

Shark was managing to hold them off...his strength and his speed were a match for any one of them. But they were two and unlike Casca, Shark had
not requested any form of martial arts skill. That he had asked to fight as well on land as he could in the water was all that was helping him to hold
the two Mutants off. As it was he'd already incurred a couple of minor flesh wounds, but nothing that wouldn't heal if he could get out of this fight alive.

What he needed to do was be rid of one of his attackers as quickly as possible reguardless of the cost to himself. It took a few rounds of thrust
and parry before the idea could take root in his mind, but once it had he
knew that it was his best course of action. Naturally it was risky and there was nothing certain about the outcome, but desperate times called for
desperate measures and it was certain that the move would never be expected...it was suited only to creatures like Shark.

But first...an opportunity.

Shark waited until he had managed to successfully parry both Reptilians nearly at once and scrambled back a few feet. Then, with careful aim, he
launched his harpoon at the furthest one and threw himself at the closest
who also happened to be the leader of the group. Barrelling into the Mutant, the force of Shark's attack sent them both tumbling to the ground
and they literally fell right past the second reptilian who had received a moderate wound while dodging the harpoon and was momentarily disoriented.

Shark felt the hand axe of his target bit into his side, but the cut was not as deep as he feared it might be. Then, without hesitation, he buried
all three rows of his teeth into the crook of the lizard's thick neck. Though the appendage was too thick to be bitten clear through, the player's
teeth were razor sharp and tore out a significant chunk of flesh. Though not yet dead, the Reptilian would not rise again. Shark might have finished
the job then and there, but he still had a fight to finish and the other
Reptilian was quickly reorienting himself.

Casca, meanwhile, wondered why he wasn't gaining any ground. One of the Monkians was skillful and difficult to face, but the other was rather clumsy and should have been disposed of long ago. Seeing Shark's battle out
of the corner of his eye, Casca realized what he was doing wrong. He had
been unintentionally trying to defeat the Mutants without killing them. Even the first Reptilian had been knocked out and would recover. The game
was so real that Casca, though he would not have had a problem blasting Mutants on a screen, still though of killing as 'bad' when, particularly in
this style of fantasy game, it was not only necessary, but sometimes desirable.

The Mutants were too thick skulled to knock out anyway.

With new determination, Casca threw himself more fully into the fight and
soon managed to throw the first Monkian back as he turned to disarm the second and run him through. Casca was momentarily disgusted by the action,
but he was brought back to his sense as he could almost feel the flow of
energy and strength into his character as the experience points were racked
up. But the pause was detrimental as he turned too slowly toward the first
Monkian and parried the attack badly, receiving a glancing blow to the skull.

Disoriented, Casca scrambled back to regroup and charged the Monkian again.He hadn't quite had the time to recover, but the Mutant seemed put off by a felinoid who actually killed in battle and swung his mace clumsily
allowing the opportunity to dodge and disarm his enemy.

Having seen what had happened to his fighting partner, the Monkian dropped to the ground before the jaguar. "Hoo hoo, I surrender! Don't kill me...I
can get you into Castle Plun-darr!"

Casca hesitated, almost killing the Mutant anyway, before realizing that he was right. Keeping a careful eye on the enemy, he pulled some rope from his
pack and tied the Mutant's wrists behind his back so that he could not attack again. Then he turned to see how Shark was faring.

It had taken some time for Shark to retrieve his weapon and he had received
a few other minor wounds in doing so, but all in all the remaining Reptilian seemed less than eager to fight now that its leader lay dying in
a pool of his own blood. Once Casca joined the fight, the Mutant gave up
entirely, dropping its axe and pleading surrender.

"Kill him anyway?" asked Shark eagerly.

"Actually, he's a she," replied Casca with some surprise as his feline senses managed to sort out the difference now that the fight was over, "and
we can use the surviving ones to get us to Castle Plun-darr." Shark looked
on the verge of frenzy so Casca suggested he 'clean up' the fighters who
were already dead before they brought the three survivors back to Plun-darr.

By the time the deed was done, the three live Mutants were bound and the
unconscious Reptilian had revived so the players continued their journey to
the Mutants' lair, herding their prisoners before them.

*********************

Meanwhile, in the field of dagger rocks which bordered the lands occupied
by Castle Plun-darr and its inhabitants, two heavy-duty hiking boots stepped out onto the hard-baked soil.

"Here I am!" announced the woman to no one in particular as she shielded
her eyes against the sun. Feeling a tug on her long, bound hair, she turned
to look down at the dry earth beneath her feet. "Merima'at!"

The little monkey looked up at her mistress and chittered away as though
explaining something extremely complex. "You're kiddin? That tough, eh?"
grinned Cleo at her familiar's indignation at having to travel so far through the ethers of creation just to be here. "In that case, you deserve
a ride. Climb on!"

She felt the little animal clambour up her long hair and come to perch on
her shoulder. It was odd the way she understood Merima'at. She'd thought
that her connection with her familiar would feel more like a telepathic link, but instead she seemed to simply understand what the monkey was telling her...as though she'd been speaking spider monkey all her life. Still, she somehow knew that if she ever tried it with a regular spider monkey, she would never be able to decypher what was being said.

At least, not until she learned the language for real. She had a feeling
that languages were definitely going to be one of her strong points.
Glancing at her surroundings, she consulted Merima'at. "So?" queried Cleo.
"Do we head toward that bleak and disgusting stretch of land to hang out
with the Mutants in slimy ol' Castle Plun-darr or do we go the other way
and kill ourselves in the desert to reach what looks to me like Mumm-ra's
pyramid? Bear in mind that it looks really far away...and it's a big building so it's probably even further than that!"

Merima'at chittered conversationally.

"Yeah, something about pyramids makes me feel all gooey inside too," grinned Cleo. "So let's do a provisions check...if we're strolling out into
the desert, we're going to need a lot of water!"

Merima'at commented again.

"And yes," agreed Cleo with a strange sort of gring. "I'm sure that if worse comes to worse there's always magic. And gods."

Spiritually fortified, Cleo and Merima'at set out to look for potable water
and a way to carry it.

*********************