The Ultraviolet Grasslands Episode 5: A Stately Pleasure Dome

Meanwhile Renco has been partying with the Princes - he wakes up after a week long revel much poorer, hung-over in a ditch with a dead vome beside him.

The caravan try to find out a little more about this Pleasure Palace they want to raid. Apparently a few hardy adventurers have set out already to raid it, but none have returned. They try to find Bestiana the sorceror who summoned the protective wind spirits around the pleasure palace, but they learn that he lives far, far to the east beyond the Circle Sea.

As they've heard that the air guardians can be soothed by a tune on a flute, they buy a flute, although none of them know the tune required and none of them can play a musical instrument.

They leave sissy, who is recovering from his debauchery, behind, and pile into their two porcelain walkers to the Pleasure Palace.

It is a low and minimalist looking place, about an hour away from the Porcelain Citadel, surrounded by tall grasses. They see the main building, a little like a palm springs resort, surrounded by overrun gardens. Outside they see a large obsidian monolith standing int he garden, covered with writing which turns out to be a morose poem. They decide they might want to take the monolith - using the power of the walkers they expertly and cleanly pluck the monolith out of the ground, but they decide to leave it there while they search for more portable loot.

They move the walkers under a patio near the front entrance where a glass sliding door is half open. They dismount and then cautiously enter the Pleasure Palace. They enter some sort of small bedroom. There is a dead body on the floor of what looks like some sort of Limelander freebooter, horribly lacerated. The body looks a few weeks old. They go deeper into the house and come across an enormous elaborate room with a pair of curved stairs up to a mezzanine. They debate taking the elaborate chandelier, but decide to search deeper. They take the right stair and go through a doorway to a rooftop garden with cacti and many porcelain garden gnomes in amusing positions. 

Vulcan, who can talk to plants, tries to commune with the cacti and they warn him 'Beware the winds'. As they say this a mysterious wind springs up, chilling them/ "Don't say we didn't warn you," the cacti say.

They go back down the stairs to where they feel the winds can't reach them, and go through a side door to a large room, open to the sky, where there is a clean water fountain with a moss-covered marble swan statuette. 

They find a master bedroom - they ransack all the fine clothes but Renco decides all he wants to do is keep the many fine hats. As they are ransacking the room they smell a sweet but distinctly unpleasant smell that has no discernable source. 

As they head back to the fountain they hear howls outside - or inside? They backtrack through another door into - a large and well apportioned kitchen with many magical appliances. Renco is taken by the appliances and insists they schlep them to the chandelier hallway, where they are keeping their loot pile. But while gathering up the appliances they find a severed, rotting human leg, lying in a corner. 

When they pass by the fountain room they see a single, large, blood red claw print on the ground - that had not been there before. They see shadows moving in the master bedroom where they had found all the clothing and they cautiously look inside - a window and blinds have been torn open and whatever was in the room is now retreating through the tall grasses.

They realise they are in peril and argue for five minutes about whether they should leave. But greed triumphs over fear and they decide to go back up the left hand stairs and explore the upper stairs. They find an enormous dining room, with a huge marble table, and a large feature window at the far side. Vulcan looks out the window and finds he has a fantastic view out over the long grasses. But moving through the grasses, keeping low, are six or seven huge furred gargoyle like creatures. Vulcan shouts, alerting his comrades, and they blast the windows out with their guns, and then rain bullets down on the creatures. They race for the sides of the house, although they think they have hit perhaps one or two.

Meanwhile, when the sound of gunfire stops ringing in their ears, they hear howls and heavy footfalls coming up the stairs.

Vulcan and Renco try to barricade the door. Dante tries to pull the table over to barricade the door but it is too heavy. The creatures smash at the door, while Dante fires over the heads of Vulcan and Renco to try to hit the creatures.

They are quickly overcome - Vulcan falls back while two of the creatures push through the door and swarm on him. Vulcan lays down a wave of bolter fire, but is overcome and badly hurt. The others, with great difficulty, manage to kill all six of the creatures with the help of their porcelain armour, but they hear more creatures coming, and Vulcan is badly hurt, and they are unsure if they can survive much longer.

Heavily adrenalised, they pus the long table out the window to form a ramp, and slide out to safety. But four or five more of the creatures emerge from the long grasses. Dante decides his own safety is paramount - he throws down his gun, swiftly strips off his expensive but inhibiting armour, and sprints for it. Renco runs for it, but keeps his gun and armour - the creatures rapidly gain on him but he just manages to reach his porcelain walker in time. Vulcan in the meantime has finally remembered that he has acquired some rocket boots in the porcelain citadel. He shoots up back to the roof of the Pleasure Palace and runs across the roof to the other side, and then leaps into the departing porcelain walker.

An angry local

The creatures, perhaps 10 -12 in number, gain on them but Dante and Renco desperately throw out two sacks of supplies - plus the infamous sack of cat coffee behind them. The creatures fall on the spilled supplies and devour them, so our heroes are able to escape...