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For your curiosity, and hopefully amusement, here are some alternative segments that *might* have been in Collusion.
This first one takes place after Marchal is rescued by the whaling ship. I think I got carried away with Talaris having a heat gun... hehe.
test
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Below decks, Marchal entered the utilitarian kitchen of the vessel. Standing in front of a cast-iron stove was a short, black haired man, stirring a tall pot. Judging from the smell, whatever was brewing involved a whale. Didn’t the crew ever get tired of eating their work?
"Um, hello!" Marchal greeted the man.
The man turned from the oversize pot, and replied in a congenial voice. "What can I do for you?" Before he could reply, the cook continued. "Hey, you're the fellow we pulled out of the drink yesterday! What’s your name?"
Marchal didn’t remember much of the ensuing moments after he landed in the water, but all things considered, it was pretty well certain he was the person the cook referred too.
"My name’s Marchal," Marchal responded.
"Well, I’m glad you seem all right."
"Can I ask where exactly we are?"
"Yer on the whaling ship Kira Tolten, owned and operated by captain Yesh Pynos. We’re presently a day’s voyage out from Felbar, headed back to Tatrinas."
"Which island?" asked Marchal.
"Tramel, ‘tis our home port, but we’ll be stopping in Mevren to drop off a passenger."
"Passenger?"
"Yeah, a scientist from Mevren. We picked ‘er up there, she was sent by the institute to document our method whale hunting." The cook said.
"Why on earth did they want to do that?" asked Marchal.
"They’re trying to figure out if there are enough whales to sustain the need for them. They have some theories on it, that if we only take certain whales that ain’t breeding, and leave the females, then the whale population we expand. We’ll have more whales, and we won’t have to worry about runnin’ out of ‘em."
"Makes sense." Marchal agreed, seeing as how much the economy of Tatrinas, and to a extent, the entire Coastal Empire, depended on whale products.
"So, do you know the name of the scientist? I’m headed to Mevren, as well..."
"Talaris. I think..."
"Really? That’s great! I was headed over here on that zeppelin to see her, so I guess it works out all right..." Marchal said, fading out.
"Why?"
"Oh? Umm.. some unusual creatures have appeared in Cythera. I was traveling to Mevren to see if they could shed some light on it."
The cook nodded. "Wouldn’t by any chance be Shroomish, would it?" The cook asked, his tone suddenly wicked.
"We are Shroomish, We act for the Overmind!" The cook exclaimed, as he drew a large butcher’s knife from a nearby table.
Marchal almost died from surprise, the cook wouldn’t have needed to do anything. Scrambling for his life again, Marchal turned and nearly tripped as he fled the kitchen.
"Your attempt to escape will be useless," the cook informed Marchal without emotion.
The cook raised the knife, and rushed at Marchal. In a flurry of action, Marchal managed to get past the cook and deliver a blow to the back the the cook’s neck.
The cook-turned Shroomish mind slave lurched and fell. It wasn’t over yet, though.
Thankfully, a kitchen provided a large number of sharp objects with which one could defend oneself. Marchal grabbed another knife from a rack, and attempted to throw it at the host.
It was then that Marchal realized that something had snuck up from behind him and grabbed his arm.
Marchal craned his neck around to see who was responsible. One of the Whalers was present, and had the glazed expression of a Shroomish host not intending to conceal the fact of their allegiance.
It was to no avail that Marchal struggled to escape, the Whaler was twice his size, and endowed with the exceptional quality of being a Shroomish host.
The recovering cook got up, and wielded the large knife.
Marchal in that instant thought his fate was sealed, a emotion he’d become disturbing familiar with in recent days, when a jet of fire shot past his shoulder (And the bulk of the whaler behind him) and into the chest of the cook. The flamebolt cleanly knocked the attacker over, and did a excellent job of eliminating the Shroomish parasites within.
Before the whaler restraining Marchal could react, a second firebolt struck the mind-slave whaler in the small of the back. Marchal jumped out of the way, avoiding being crushed by the immense falling body.
Marchal moved to view the source of the firebolts - Talaris, holding some kind of weapon the like of which Marchal had never seen. The device, constructed of brass and having quite a number of small pipes and valves, reminded Marchal more of a musical instrument than a weapon, but he could not argue with the evident effectiveness of it.
Behind Talaris stood the captain, Yesh Pynos, brandishing a longsword. The captain, obviously impressed by the construct Talaris held, shouted to Marchal.
"Come quick, the whole crew’s gone mad!" The captain warned. Marchal nodded, and ran hurriedly up the stairs with captain Pynos and Talaris, and onto the deck.
"Over there!" One of the whalers shouted, pointing to the group. The whalers, obviously also Shroomish hosts, ran towards Marchal and company. The motley lot had all sorts of makeshift armaments, from whale gutting lances to good old-fashioned hammers.
Marchal, the only still unarmed member of the small group, stood back as Talaris’ flame gun made short work of the leading host. Another headed straight for the captain, who engaged it with his sword.
Two more whalers came out seemingly from nowhere, and charged.
Talaris turned to fire, only to be confronted with little more than a candle flame from the odd weapon’s mouth.
"We’re in trouble!" The scientist proclaimed, needlessly. The captain, having just at great effort eliminated one of the attacking hosts, yelled. "Quick, to one of the boats!"
The others nodded and fallowed the captain to the small whaling boat. In seconds, they were in the boat and lowered into the ocean.
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In the end I decided that that sequence was a little too violent, and that there wasn’t really a point to it. Oh, well.
The next one is after Marchal and company arrive in Mevren. Flying Shroomish - that would be almost too bad <IMG SRC="http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/smile.gif" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="15">
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"Why? Talaris, the only reason I’m standing here discussing nonsense is..."
Tarvin did not finish the sentience before a crash shattered the (relative) quiet of the lecture hall.
Tiny fragments of glass showered the room from a newly shattered skylight.
Pouring through the broken pane were the greatest abominations Marchal had seen yet - brown, insectoid things with translucent, fibrous wings, attached to bodies ending the clusters of tentacles.
Although it was by now mostly unnecessary, at least from Marchal’s point of view, the ominous words filled his mind once again.
We Are Shroomish. We act for the Overmind
Flying Shroomish. Great. Marchal felt that this was an almost inevitable development, and probably what would seal their fates.
The little machinations swarmed down with great speed at the group,
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I cut that off rather quickly. In mid-sentence, in fact. Imagine your own ending <IMG SRC="http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/wink.gif" HEIGHT="15" WIDTH="15">
Btw, Tarvin was a teacher at the institute, and he became Dervin in the finished story. You may or may not note his personality in his only line...
This paragraph was a cut line from Talaris in the library, when Pynos and Marchal come to find her so she can tell Dervin to fork over the lens. She originally offered an explanation for not asking him herself in the first place, but I decided it wasn’t really germane.
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"So, why did you send us to get it, if you knew he wouldn't give it to us?"
"To test Devrin. These students are going into a harsh world, and will be the guardian of things that could do as much harm as good if misused. We can't send them out if they are the types to forsake their duty, or be careless."
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Hmm. Okay, that’s about all there is in the neighborhood of interesting outtakes. Sorry there aren’t more, I didn’t think to save them until the story was over halfway done. Thanks, of course, to everyone who read this and, more importantly, Collusion itself.
[This message has been edited by moderator (edited 08-13-2002).]
This post has been edited by Bryce: 05 October 2005 - 03:22 PM
MultiQuote
Just another reason why it's good that it was left out. 
