The Ultraviolet Grasslands - Episode 1

A Prophecy

Our noble heroes

For time uncountable the tribes of neo-neanderthals have lived on the fringes of the Azure Lands, in the wildlands bordering the Psychopapacy of the Emerald City. This has been your home since the first humans were sculpted from solar dust by the Faceless Ones in seventeen years of creation. You are of the Tiphani Blue Tribe. The Psychopapists call you degenerates but your people live by the way of the ancient sky spirits and the laws of the medicine men.

Many of your tribe have been visited by the same dream, the same prophecy - the lands on fire, huge lumbering black stones hovering over the land, blanketing the earth in shadow and smoke, the sky and earth on fire and everything between destroyed.

The elders recalled a time when the First Lings destroyed themselves in iron and machinery and the Second Lings told themselves tales of Vile Ones wreaking the destruction to salve their fragile memories. Ab-plastic magics and half-remembered mentalists stood behind the Springtime of the Monarchies, inaugurating gleaming autocracies to replace the corrupt popular dictatorships of earlier times.

At this time your people travelled into the sky. Your shamen visited the Dornic Realms and many remained there, and many more returned with powerful treasures, songs, lore, weapons. But the third and fifth Cerulean Pontiffs combined to establish the great sky bridge, and stole from the Azure Demi-tribes the three sky-keys, and the Rainbow way was lost.

Flodius Bhel, your shaman, undertook the ritual of the Third New Realism, and when he returned he said that warriors from your tribe must travel to the Black City, for scattered along the way are the three sky keys needed to open the Sky Way once more, and visit the ancestors who dwell in the sky once more to seek their help against the great black fire to come.

Episode 1

The shaded lavender plazas of Violet City

Spurred by the prophecy, three pioneers have been sent to travel to the Black City by the Tiphani Blue tribe. After a long journey they arrive at the Violet City, on the shores of the Circle Sea. They are Dante Thunderstone, Adolf Thatcher, and Rupert Templeton Warburg III, accompanied by Adolf's diesl Dwarf, named Vulcan. They pass out of the dusty trails into the  hinterlands of the Violet City, and are greeted at the city gates by their kinsman, Renko Wrangler, who has been sent at great expense to study magic at the Purple Academy, but who has, unknown to the tribe, dropped out due to a complete lack of magical acuity. 

Tired after their long journey, Renko gives them refreshments in his comfortable shack in the Bluelander slums, and then shows his kinsmen the Violet City - the cool promenades, the lavendar scented streets, the purple river and the cool clean fountains. Renko explains the relationships between the cats and their pets.

In the cool shade of a plaza they discuss how to assemble a caravan to enter the Ultraviolet Grasslands. It requires much more money than they have - so they decide whether to seek an employer, or a patron. Renko suggests they go to the Western Gate, where the caravans assemble, and see if they can find work. They cross the city, and come across fighting pits where confiscated dogs are set to fight street rats. Adolf wins ten dollars but scorn from the onlooking cats by betting on a dog to win. Dante loses twenty dollars betting on a street rat.

They arrive at the western gate and Renko sees a cat pet and her cat look them over, think better of it, and move on. Renko runs after them, and says they are prepared to work - and adds that they are cheap, strong, dumb and expendable. The cat, Tiddles, and her pet, Zidano Verovoko, are amused, and they invite the group to dine with them that evening at Tiddles' palace in the Street of Lavender, to discuss an employment opportunity.

In the meantime, in anticipation of future employment, they go shopping for gear. Renko buys a flail and Adolf purchases boiled leather armour. Adolf wishes to learn more about the three Sky-Keys they must find, and tries to find a temple to the Neo-Neanderthal Sky temple, and manages to make contact with a heavily naturalised Violet city Neo-Neanderthal, who tells him to be at a certain address at midnight to meet others of their cult.

Tiddles and Zidano Verovoko

They arrive at Tiddles' house, and are invited in by an oiled and shiny muscular majordomo. They are offered wine, and they accept a glass each - none of them have ever had wine before. Adolf manages to sneak a bottle of expensive looking wine into his robes without anyone noticing. After a while the majordomo invites them to dinner - they are seated at a table with Zidano Verovoko and Tiddles. 

They are fed, wined, and given dancing girls. Tiddles explains that there is a place a day tot he south where there are continual lightning storms. Tiddles' previous pet, Hondo Aberdeen, went missing there three months ago while hunting for the blue mice that Tiddles craves so much. She is certain Hondo is dead, but she would like to know his fate and give him a proper burial. Tiddles agrees that if they perform this service for her, she will lend them the funds for a caravan. They agree, and Tiddles invites them to spend the night at her palace, and they all accept the offer of dancing girls as companions for the night. They are all dazzled by the unimaginable luxury and decadence they are exposed to. Tiddles gives them a wax mask of Hondo Aberdeen, to help them identify him.

The next morning they have a light breakfast and set off. Adolf manages to sell his stolen bottle of wine for fifty dollars. They travel along the rim of the Circle Sea, through dull Bluelander peasant villages and Cat coffee plantations, until they reach foothills and the sound and sight of distant thunder and lightning. They camp in the foothills, noting the blue mice that run through their camp. 

The mysterious tower
on a lightning blasted plateau

In the morning they hike into the foothills, until they reach the top of a hill overlooking the sea. At the centre of the plateau is a tower, carved as many faces, with brassy metallic tentacles or branches reaching up to the sky. Every few minutes lightning strikes the ground - a circle about 800m in diameter is continually blasted by lightning. About 20m from the tower is the burned and dessicated body of a person. 

Adolf sets aside his metal objects and runs into the blasted circle, scoops up the body and returns to the perimeter with most of it. They examine it but it is so badly blasted, rotted and eaten that they can't confirm it's identity. however, they find a satchel with a small cage with twenty dead mice in it, which convinces them that this is Hondo, and he met his end via lightning while trying to approach the tower.

Renko advocates they have achieved their mission and should return home. Adolf says he is going to explore the tower and the others agree to go with him. They dash to the tower - Adolf leaves his axe behind but the others all carry their weapons and metal items - Dante is nearly struck but all make it to the front door in safety. Adolf reaches out for the metel snake door handle, and it writhes like a living snake and bites his hand. He starts back, and Dante beats it flat with his axe. They kick the door in. 

They stumble into a small empty room, sparkling clean. Adolf uses Dante's axe to hack off a leg off a plastic composite coffee table to use as a club. Thus armed they proceed to explore the tower. They enter a second room - this one is filthy with dust and dirt. A sideboard contains four bottles of wine, which Adolf loads into a sack. At the far end is a vertical shaft with a dial with seven settings. They examine some boxes under stairs and find a trap door. They unbolt the trap door and see a large room full of polymer plastic containers. Adolf and Dante drop down into the room and examine the boxes - they all appear to be full of varieties of human bones. They examine six or seven boxes and then give up and clamber out of the room. Renko takes a shoulderbone as a souvenir. Each bone they see is labelled with some sort of identifier in an unknown language. 

They decide to go down the stairs. In the basement there are various horrible imlements and dissected animal bodies. There is a human body, dissected and then sewn up with gold thread. There is an alcove with several mirrors. Renko looks in one mirror and is blasted with a searing ray of light. He staggers back. Meanwhile Adolf examines the gold thread looking to see if he can untie it. But as he looks closely, he sees something writhe under the skin. Dante immediately lunges forward and beats the abdomen of the corpse several times before they beat a hasty retreat. They stagger up the stairs and then decide to explore the upper stairs. 

On the next floor are several rooms, empty except for pots and pans and long abandoned furniture - then they see more stairs heading upwards - and a thin trickle of blood coming dow the stairs. They find at the top a plastic polymer door with a single glowing panel. Blood is leaking from behind the panel. Adolf tries to smash the panel but fails.  Renko rushes the door and smashes it open. The door swings back and a torrent of blood rushes out of the room and sweeps Adolf down the stairs - he tumbles down the entire flight and is badly hurt. 

Calcidus affecting a casual pose

In the room is a strange sight - a man, seated cross legged inside a circle of salt. It looks like the room had been filled to a depth of about half a meter with blood, but the circle and the man had been untouched. The man says to them, "Ah finally!" He explains that he is Calcidus and he has been trapped in the circle for some time - he just needs them to smudge the salt circle so he can leave. He offers to pay them $100 to do so. Renko demurs - he asks Calcidus about the dissected bodies. Calcidus looks briefly angry, but composes himself and increases his offer to $1000. The group discuss what to do and finally decide to leave Calcidus where he is for now - at which point Calcidus explodes with rage, cursing them with all manner of foul language and blasting them with powerful spells and energy weapons (all of which are safely contained within the circle). A book is open on a stand in the room and Renko quickly takes it. They quickly leave Calcidus to rage ineffectually within his circle. He promises to kill them and everyone they have ever met, and all manner of tortures.

They go back to the ground floor, and manage to decipher the strange markings at the shaft - it is a lift, and they summon a glowing disk, stand on it, and it takes them up to the top floor. There they see a mechanism with a button and four switches, and a large silver dome which Adolf, who has experience with some ancient and alien mechanisms, identifies as a telescope. Adolf realises this could be a way to find clues as to their sky-dwelling ancestors. They press the button and then flick the switches in order. The roof of the tower slowly opens and a telescope slowly extends out. The lightning and thunder, which had been intermittent, now picks up the pace and strikes occur several times a minute. A brazier of coal spontaneously lights up. Renko looks in the telescope and sees a distant world - he zooms into the surface and sees a red light, that has shone from the telescope, form a red circle on the ground. Weird creatures, blue and slimy and mossy, gather around the red light and begin to writhe and dance rhythmically. Meanwhile Dante has been examining the book they took from Calcidus' room and finds reference to the telescope  just in time he pulls Renko back from the lens as a red ray shoots from the telescope and evaporates a large disk of the floor where Renko had been standing. They quickly flick back the switches and retreat to the floor below as the telescope retracts and the roof closes. In the floor below they see a small room with a table and two chairs - an Ultra in the form of a man appears in one chair and offers to wager the soul of one of the adventurers in return for opening the door. Bravely, or rather foolishly, Adolf agrees, and quickly demolishes the ghost in a game of chess. With a cry of despair, the ultra disappears, as does the blue force field around the door. Inside they find an extensive library - shelves and shelves of esoteric tomes. They quickly take as many sacks as they can of books - trying to narrow down those that may relate to the nature of the sky keys and by setting aside most of their supplies and rations, manage to stuff 9 sacks worth and stagger out of the tower under a heavy load. 

They manage to reach the rim of the blasted plateau without being struck by lightning, although the traverse takes them longer as they stagger under the heavy weight of the books. Adolf decides ha can't also carry the wines he has - they open one and share it amongst themselves (except for Vulcan who drinks only Diesel) to celebrate their great find. Then they remember they also must return the body they found to Tiddles, so they bury many books alongside the wine and take up the lightning scorched corpse, and return to the Violet city...