{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1813",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1813,
    "subject": "Slug Fest",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-10-02T13:20:39+00:00",
    "last": "1999-10-02T13:20:39+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0162@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Greene, Carlton",
        "address": "cgreene2 at hunton.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-10-02T13:20:39+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Slug Fest",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Mr. Borski\n\nRe: Hethor's Slug\n\nGiven the relatively few facts about Hethor's creature, and Mother Pyrexia,\nits certainly difficult to reach a firm conclusion, but a few thoughts \n\n* It's also quite possible the slug has\ngrown since taking to the Saltus backwoods; remember, eighteen years have\n\nAgreed, although it did not really have time to make a proper meal of\nDecuman -- it was too busy trying to get Sev.\n\nBut it raises some important questions for which the text supplies us no\nanswers -- if Mother Pyrexia was a happy slug creature frolicking in the\nwoods around Saltus (for 18 years without being noticed), how did Hethor\nfind her and impress her into service in the first place?  That would be a\nfairly unusual event, on par with Hethor's use of mirrors, but we are never\ntold of it.  This is a particularly important fact to expect from the text\nbecause recruiting a creature found along the way does not fit the pattern\nfound elsewhere in the books -- ie. extraterrestrial summoning.  \n\n* never meant to imply the slug was afraid of fire. Certainly, Wolfe never"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "says this. Rather, the alcalde says, \"It didn't like the light, or the\nfire\neither.\" Nocturnal creatures, of course, shun daylight, and other than\ndomesticated pets, all animals generally avoid fire--nocturnals even more\nso for the light it generates. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Unlike Mother Pyrexia, we have no firm indication that Hethor's slug is\nnocturnal or afraid of the light -- it attacks in the antechamber, but\nHethor may have chosen a night attack simply because the rather large\ncreature would have been difficult to see.  If it was nocturnal, why did it\nattack Sev during the day in a longhouse lined with torches, instead of\ngetting him at night out on the open road, or better yet oozing down into\nthe tunnels in the magic academy and getting him in the pitch black?\n\nOne fact that doesn't really cut either way -- why doesn't Jonas notice or\nremark on the fact that he's been slimed?  And why didn't contact with the\ncreature burn him the way it burned Decuman?\n\nAnother thought -- the Alcalde went back for torches when he discovered the\ntransmogrified Mother P., and she was still hanging out in the house when he\ngot back, which suggests to me that they kept it contained in the interim.\nAre we to believe then, that they simply released it once they had fire and\nhad cornered it?  Or that it oozed past a crowd of men armed with fire?  If\nits the same creature as Hethor's why didn't the Alcade mention its ability\nto put out their torches -- remember it seems to put Sev's torch out without\ntouching it -- and if it had the ability but didn't use it back then, why\nnot?  Would they really let something like that get away unless they had to?\nThe alcalde's tale does not suggest that it overwhelmed them and might still\nbe out there somewhere -- it sounds more like he's bragging about he and his\nmen besting it."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "One question for you, Carlton: if you don't think Mother Pyrexia has been\nturned into the slug, how do you explain the alcalde's remark about how \"a\nwoman sealed in the dark long enough can become something very strange,\n*just like the strange things you find in rotten wood, back among the\ntrees*\"? If he's not talking about a slug/grub/worm/larva here, what's\nleft?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I agree with you that this comment is very interesting!  The Alcalde's use\nof \"just like\" suggests a fair degree of identity, and he seems to assume\nthat Sev knows the kind of creatures he is talking about -- grubs, worms,\nlarvae, whatever -- so I agree with you that Mother P. has probably changed\ninto some kind of grub or worm or maybe even a slug.\n\nHowever, Sev I don't believe that Sev ever suggests that Hethor's \"slug\"\nactually looks like a slug -- it leaves a trail all right, but Sevs\ndescribes the creature as a muddy, pudding - like mass, the \"bottom of a\nmarsh,\" with no description of eyestalks, spots, wrinkles etc.  Furthermore,\nif Sev knew what the Alcalde was referring to when he talked about \"you\nknow, those things that live in rotting wood,\" why doesn't Sev note this\nresemblence and refer back to the Alcalde's comment when he sees the\ncreature?  In the alternative, if Sev had no idea what the Alacalde was\ntalking about when he mentioned things that live in rotting wood, why didn't\nhe ask for clarification \"what kind of strange things are you talking about,\nAlacalde?\"  In short, I think Mother P. was turned into some nasty creature,\njust not the same nasty that tried to eat Sev.\n\nAnyway, this is all just a long way of saying that Occam's razor seems to me\nto favor the idea that Hethor just pulled it out of his pocket book space\nmirror -- he's done that before, and it requires us to assume fewer facts\nthan the Mother P. theory.  Hence, I am inclined to go with Mantis'\nconjecture in the Lexicon that the Saltus Posse probably put Mother P. to\ndeath.  (For one thing, if people bricked up like that change into weird\nworm things, and the worm things were more than they could handle, you'd\nthink they would stop the practice of entombing!)\n\nC/\n\nPS -- the happy munching of mulch comment had me LOL!"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}