The Ultraviolet Grasslands Episode 7: Motorcycle Emptiness

They discuss Barush, who demands to be smuggled out of the Serai. They think there is a price on his head, and discuss secretly whether they should turn them in. They defer their decision and allow Barush to stay in their luxury room while they decide what to do. Renko does some market research and spends $100 to learn that his sack of luxury hats is worth $100 in Waystone. The Dreaming King mentions that there is a city there called Alphaville, but they point out to the befuddled king that the city is probably long, long gone.

Barush Velk, revolutionary diesel dwarf, poet, and fugitive.

Meanwhile, Barush is trying to convince them to join the revolution. He is disgusted by the debauched luxury the Porcelain Princes live in and says that with the help of their porcelain walker and large armoury they could, with the help of the Obsidian Gnomes, take the Serai. They're ambivalent, and even more so when they learn they need to go to the Death Facing Passage in order to find the secret revolutionary rebel base. The Dreaming King, meanwhile, is lording it over them, which they patiently put up with. Barush tells them that the King has lost all his memories, since the Princes carelessly stored Memory Worms next to his sarcophagus. 

They decide to go to the Way Stone, and then double back to get to the Death Facing Valley, to spend less time in peril from the Death Face. They send the Walker out of the Serai first, and then Renko opens a portal into his mirror in his hotel room and they exit in the full length mirror they are carrying with them, bringing Barush with them, successfully getting him past the checkpoints.

They hurry west, into a truly desolate wasteland that has no vegetation or water. As they head west, dry hot winds blow up, until they are in the throes of a full dust storm that gets stronger as they travel. Bits of shrapnel and debris are flung around. 

Ish suddenly cries out - a shard of black glass has struck her in her eye, and is stuck in there. She decides to leave it in there - oddly she can still see out of the destroyed eye, but she sees the worst of everyone. She puts an eyepatch over it in order not to be disgusted by the annoying foibles of her travelling companions.

At night, Ish tries to enter the King's memories but is unable to. On the third day, they awake to the constant dust storm to find four of their horses are gone. There are tracks - wheel tracks - and Vulcan sends his Vomish bird up to find the thieves - it sees six motorcycle riders in Mad Max style armour leading the horses to the north, but it is driven back by the storm and is unable to follow them or get close. 

The vome bird reports back - and they decide to go after the thieves. They can't carry all their supplies so they drop five sacks of supplies, marking them with a cairn, and head off the trail. They travel as fast as they can, but see no sign of tracks. Finally they exit the storm, and come into some badlands and see a bright light ahead. They come over to a small oasis, with palm trees and low adobe buildings - like a pueblo - and there are their four horses and six motorcycles. Above the pueblo is a low hill, with a metal bunker embedded in the side of it - where the bright light emits from.

Vulcan sends his bird to explore the bunker - it seems to have mirror lined corridors that shimmer and concentrate the light of the sun into a powerful beam that shoots deep into the hill. The bird manages to escape without being burned.

They head down into the oasis - and the riders are waiting for them at the end of the street, telling them to go no further, with their hands on their bolter rifles. The king and Barush take cover. Vulcan steps forward - and all hell breaks loose. The riders open fire, and Renko takes a bullet to the eye. But they prevail - killing four of the riders and two riders hole up in a hut, desperately shouting to be let free.

Six riders were approaching - the wind began to howl...

The group rescue their horses and take the motorcycles. They retrieve some of their supplies but the riders also seem to have several sacks of Cherenko cherries, which they keep half of and gift half to the locals, who are extremely grateful.

They rest and heal that night - Renko drinks a potion to heal his eye but is angry with himself for being shot. The oasis people are welcoming, and the caravan relaxes - not even caring that the two remaining riders manage to escape their holdup and flee into the night.

They use the cover of the night to explore the bunker. Vulcan goes in the top of the hill - there is a pit that leads all the way down into the earth, with mirrors that seem to direct the sunlight deep into the bowels of the earth. After a while there is a mezzanine lined with mirrors. Vulcan drops a torch down into the pit but it just falls seemingly forever. He stops at the mezzanine and examines the mirrors - he tries to pull one off the wall, when hands shoot out of it, and the mirror comes alive and attacks him!

This is the last he remembers - the red war spirit that is haunting them takes him over. When they finally pull him out of the pit, he is exhausted and has smashed all of the mirrors in the pit, rendering the solar passage useless.

They rest at the oasis - Renko manages to make more dog food for the oasis people using the magical implements, which they give to their giant millipedes they use as pets. Lisciac befriends a millipede which he names 'Millicent'.

Renko trades his fancy silken hats for two weeks accommodation among the oasis people, where they rest and heal. The oasis people kindly preserve the Cherenko cherries for them in jars. Ish again tries to enter the King's dreams, but is only able to enter very mundane dreams...