I have decided that this list is too quiet. The following is designed to stir the pot a bit. Also, it's designed to make you laugh, through a careful combination of pomposity, elegance, and crude shock value. Warning: The following contains parody, humor, and other themes not suitable for young minds. To avoid legal issues, Steve is free to use any wording, ideas, etc with or without credit as he chooses, should he be insane enough to wish such a thing. A wind rose among the slopes of Dzur Mountain, slopes that reflected the faint orange light of dusk within the borders of the Empire. The wind scattered dust, sent it swirling among the rocks, growing in fury until it howled past the ear of the Dzur itself, the ear within which the Enchantress was said to lurk. The howling fury grew as the wind passed down the massive shape in stone, joining other winds from other mountains, merging to flow into the heart of the Empire like a river to the sea. It was not /the/ beginning... but it was /a/ beginning. But in the sheltering ear of the great Dzur, great sorceries were at work. The aura of power flickered and hummed, a deep uneven rhythm, straining to contain that which sought potent escape. The powerful energies at work within the Mountain gathered strength, and the great Dzur almost seemed to purr, the massive stone of its spine appearing in the fading light to be arched in some arcane feline pleasure. And if the well-nigh legendary shape of Dzur Mountain could be interpreted in that manner, how then are we to describe the soft voice of the Enchantress herself, wrapped in the bonds of her magic that gleamed with a strong resemblence to the blackest of silks, clothed in the mystic and indeed mistic energies of the Orb itself, shorn of all ornamentation save the hilt of Iceflame itself, as she moaned with a voice that commanded the energies of the universe... "Oh, Vlad, more!" Not even the most stringent interrogation could be sufficient to draw forth a description of what some dauntless Dzur Hero would have found upon reaching that most eldritch dwelling, for indeed the sight would have torn asunder the mind of any casual observer. As we would view the Medusa itself in a mirror lest we be turned to stone, so we must approach this scene by means of the mirror that adorns the ceiling of that particular ear. As we now turn our gaze into the mirror we must inquire of the reader whether they appreciate the dire peril which even this precaution, admittedly one of elementary design and fashioned by a hand unskilled in the art which is sorcery, though perhaps not entirely without talent in his own art, that of history, or perhaps in this matter more of historical interpertation, for we seek to interpert the visions history has provided in a manner neither unseemly nor overly florid, but rather with precision and deftness sketch the outlines of a picture the reader can surely fill in for himself, cannot entirely avert. The mirror itself, we should say, is ... ah... Sethra... I was just wanting to ask... um... researching for my new book, "The Enchantress of..." you've heard of it then? Ah, yes, I'll be going now... Ribbit. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp