Sissy, the fourth member of the neo-neanderthals, who, unbeknownst to them is a silent killer and assassin, touts for work. He immediately offers to kill for an undercover police cat and ends up in jail. He is stuck overnight but immediately in the morning he insists to the judge that he is part of an oppressed minority, who was merely joking. The judge feels pity for the poor oppressed Bluelander, and accepts his story. He is set free and immediately goes about finding another contract - successfully this time. He is hired to kill a street urchin who is, unknown to the urchin, due to inherit a large amount of money from a distant relative. The next of kin wants the urchin taken out. Sissy agrees, takes payment of $1000, and lures the poor little girl into an alley where he silently and gruesomely garottes her, slices her into little pieces and disposes of her body in the sewers. He spends most of the money on a silver chainsword.
Meanwhile, Renko has worked out the caravan they want - a fast raiders caravan of two horses apiece (for the four of them and the diesel dwarf), two weeks supplies, and some basic kit. They visit Tiddles where Renko makes a gift to Tiddles of the sacks of books they liberated from Calcidus' tower. Tiddles is grateful, and Renko mentions that he has some small talent as a metaphysical engineer, and there are some spells in the books that might be useful to him. Tiddles promises to find some useful spells for him in the tomes as thanks. Renko presents to Tiddles the remains of Hondo Aberdeen, her previous pet. Tiddles is distraught, but not suprised, and vows to take better care of her future pets.
After some discussion and to and fro, the group agree to borrow $3,200 from Tiddles, an amount Tiddles agrees to, with 100% interest due in one year. Tiddles provides them with an intricate carved box - Tiddles will cast a spell at the end of a year and summon the box back to her - at that time (or before) the neo-neanderthals need to ensure there is $6,400 in the box to repay the principal and interest.
Tiddles presents Renko with a scroll with three dimensional transfer calculations - one that allows him to open a portal through a mirror, a second that allows him to use a living being as an interdimensional portal, and a final one that allows him to summon a pre-prepared object from a great distance.
The group pay for their caravan, and then, with the healed Adolf in tow, decide to throw an elaborate leaving party in Renko's slum apartment. It is a week-long revel, most of which they cannot remember. However a few highlights;
1. Sissy's table dancing routine becomes legendary among the townships
2. Adolf gets into a staring match with an eyebiter and loses an eye. However, due to excellent socialised medicine in the Violet City he is provided a replacement eye, with enhanced x-ray powers.
3. Renko and Dante both gain good reputations and hosts and bon-vivants in the townships.
The party drains the last of their resources and they are now utterly broke, aside from Sissy who still has some small dregs of his blood money remaining.
Sissy buys some Felix Whizz and Cat Coffee for the long journey, and just for the experience.
They leave the western gates, a large caravan of ten horses, only lightly laden. They travel swiftly over the western lands, where the Violet City farms and plantations give way to the Ultra infested borderlands. By early afternoon they arrive at a rugged mesa whereby resides the Last Chair Salon. The proprietor, Marsa Vinoble, welcomes them in, and they have their horses washed and watered, while they order a round of yellow beer, and subtly ask around after the Sky Keys, and also any money making opportunities.
The first thing they hear is that while none of the neer do wells, prospectors and drunken nomads in the place know of the Sky Keys, word on the steppes is that the Porcelain Princes, who are functionally immortal, have long memories, and know a lot about artefacts from the long long ago. They check their map and make a note that they want to travel that way anyway to get to the Black City.
They buy a few drinks for a grizzled old prospector with a mechanical leg, who lets slip a few clues about where wealth might be found. First off, it is common knowledge that in the basement of the Last Chair Salon is a Vome nest-mother, hooked up to a fermentation vat, who is the source of the Yellow Beer. They momentarily plot whether to storm the basement and take the Vome nest mother, but aren't sure whether they have the capacity to carry the stolen Vome nest-mother and still flee at speed.
They make subtle enquiries and learn of the following leads;
* Along the low and high roads are many dimensional portals left over from a long ago war - many contain mysterious treasures, many lead to certain death
* North of the Lime Nomads trail is a deep cave containing a lush garden occupied by a cave octopus - a traveller years ago told of it, and he carried many salvaged and valuable pieces of biomantic equipment.
* On the high and low road there is a broken potsherd crown, where many crystal artefacts can be excavated
They decide to stay the night - Adolf has the power of prophetic lucid dreaming and he uses that to travel in his dreams high above the Lime Steppes past the great northern trail into the badlands. He flies into a gulley where he sees Lime Nomad shamen performing ceremonies in a deep ravine at a yellow spring leading to a deep pool. He sails through the gullies, expertly avoiding the Ultras in the astral plane, and finds himself observing the great semi-robotic octopus in its lair - it is in a great semi submerged spherical cave, surrounded by serpentlings, with piles of long abandoned biomantic equipment, and strange partly human gibbering homunculi scurrying about, like crabs.
Satisfied he has a strong understanding of how to reach the cave, in the morning he alerts the others and they set out along the northern road into the Lime Nomad steppes.
They travel for half a week, swapping horses frequently and going at a swift pace. They encounter nothin in the barren steppes - not any other traveller, nor any beasts or nomads. They reach the point where Adolf knows the ravine to be, they turn off the road and head across the parched acrid land to the north, and enter dry badlands.
As they enter the grasslands they disturb a large flock of Vome birds - large greasy looking crows with black glass goggle eyes and mechanical guts. They circle menacingly around the caravan. Adolf uses Vulcan the diesel dwarf to launch him into the air, and he siezes a bird, much to the alarm of the others. Working quickly, he reprograms the birds bioware to be in servitude to him, and links his biotech eye to the bird. He instructs the bird to calm the flock down, and they travel on in safety, with Adolf's new pet in tow.
Adolf guides them to the right ravine, and after a couple of days careful travel they come across a well-travelled ravine, lined with religious drawings and paintings to long lost and obscure but powerful gods. toward the end of the day they come across a widening in the ravine and a yellow spring, where Adolf had dreamed a Lime nomad ceremony - but for now it is deserted. The spring is fresh and yellow, and springs from a crevice and then flows along a short channel into a deep pool. They peer into the pool and see that it goes down a long long way - as far as they can see. Adolf uses his bionic eye to peer into the murk - a few hundred feet down he discerns a considerable pile of treasure - gold, silver, metal - even a cannon. In the pool Adolf sees a couple of weird and aggressive looking biomechanical fish - technopikes.
Sissy decides to send his pet poisonous jellyfish into the pool to see if it can retrieve any of the treasure - but about halfway down the pike tears a piece off it and it quickly rises up to the surface where Sissy retrieves it from the water just in time before the technopike can bite it again.
They debate how they might block the spring and drain the pool. Finally they decide on a plan. Using the dimensional reft scroll, they hack the spout off their samovar and affix it to their hand mirror from their grooming kit, and Renko opens a portal into the mirror, and then they divert the spring into the samovar, which pours into the dimensional hole into the mirror. The scroll refers to the fact that the gate can be unstable after ten minutes so they retreat to a high place and watch - but nothing obvious happens so they camp near the spring overnight.
By morning the deep well is nearly drained. Adolf and Dante clamber down and over several trips bring up several sacks worth of treasure - coins, bullion, even an ancient silver cannon. They decide to overload the horses, and carefully pack ten sacks of loot. By their calculations they think they can get to the Lime Nomad Steppe in a weeks travel, which is just at the limit of their supplies. They decide that the Octopus' garden will have to wait for another day when they have more time and supplies - by Adolf's calculations it is still five days away.
As they set off, though, it occurs to Adolf, remembering his lucid dream, that these treasures are most likely offerings from the Lime Nomads, who may take a dim view of them trying to sell these treasures at the nearest oasis...
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