Ultraviolet Grasslands Episode 11: Vitreous Orange

The survivors take stock of the aftermath of the apocalyptic battle. The Porcelain Princes have retreated, but in good order, taking most of their riches with them but leaving a smattering of displaced polybodies and slaves behind. The gnomes and rebels declare victory, and declare their new citadel the Obsidian Serai. Jeshek, warrior poet, is declared first citizen and heads up the revolutionary council. But he is strangely peaceful - he seems to be unwilling to make any preparations for a counterattack or to prepare his people for further war.

Dante Thunderstone, meanwhile, is different - he has taken on a brutish, warlike demeanor, and insists on being called Orca Malificent, warlord of the fifth age. He says he existed as an Ultra for millennia, charged with protecting the seekers of the sky keys, in preparation of the end of days. His soul seems to have merged with Dante's. The group try to work out if Dante is still in there somewhere, and Orca snarls that he is, and perhaps someday he will not be so afraid to come out.

Sissy, punctured as a colander, is declared DOA, but in gratitude for his services to the revolution, the gnomes transfer his consciousness to a rogue polybody (a clone that had no emerged consciousness of it's own) and Sissy wakes up in a kind of weak and shaky body. The gnomes were not fully competent in the machinery, so Sissy is a little unsure of himself, but he at least is alive. His porcelain mask is a reflective silver. He decides to invest in a second body while he's at it - and is now Sissy-1 and Sissy-2. The polybody experience is strange to him, as is inhabiting a completely new body, but he vows to adapt.

Lisciac is well and truly dead, and is buried in a mass grave with the other fallen of the revolution.

Renko had stepped back into the mirror world at the first sign of trouble, and lived to fight another day. The Obsidian Gnomes, out of gratitude for his assistance in creating the mirror door, gift him with some necromantic rituals and equipment they located at the Serai - some sort of proto-porcelain resurrection equipment, including a pendant that seems to transfer souls and coptic jars useful in moving consciousnesses from one body to another.

They decide they need some muscle and find Vitreous Orangewear, a loose conglomeration of three polybodies, left behind in the evacuation - two of them based off an emergent long suppressed original personality, and the third a half-joined semi emergent personality in a dwarven body. They advance them enough cash to buy all their bodies armour.

Meanwhile, Renko reminds the rebels of their promise to provide them with the sky key. The gnomes gladly oblige - showing Renko and Sissy the moves to the second part of the sky key dance. Of course this confirms their suspicion that the sky key they were sold previously was a fake, but since Ish and Lisciac are both dead, there didn't seem any real recompense they could claim.

Renko works on activating the magical kitchen appliances and manages to get the breakfast setting working - he can produce any breakfast on demand, enough to keep one person fed continually. Sissy tries to learn from travellers what rumours there are. The place is rife with spies and ambassadors, and there are strong rumours the the Porcelain Princes are preparing for a counter attack.

They decide to leave the Obsidian Serai as soon as possible, before any more violence occurs. They provision up and head westward as quickly as they can, traversing the Rust Storm to the Way Stone. The tents are long gone, Laszlo having long packed up and left, so they shelter as best they can and push westwards to Fallen Umber.

This is the ruins of once great civilization, ground almost flat by time and covered by drab mushrooms and fungi. The very air is steeped in dullness and ennui. 

They arrive at Fallen Umber, and look for any sources of food as they are almost out. There do not seem to be any travellers or local villages. They search the ruins and then hear a sound - a lone, huge hulking shambling humanoid mound approaches, it has a human like form but no apparent head. It is covered in sprouting mushroom, toadstools and puffballs. It looks like it is readying to attack, but Sissy steps forward and tries to communicate with it. He explains they want food and supplies. For a moment it seems torn, and then points to their ponies and holds up two fingers. Sissy manages to negotiate down to one pony. The creature falls on the terrified creature and kills it, and then gestures for them to follow it - it leads them to a very well apportioned farm of fungi, and then it rends the creature into bits and throws the blood bone and viscera all over the field, before washing itself in the same. 

The trade is done - the creature allows them to fill up with mushrooms as supplies. They try to ask it if there are any places around here of interest - archeological sites for example - the creature thinks for a moment and then leads them to a large flat plinth where it clears off the covering mold to reveal a map of the area - it shows several sites but they hone in on what looks like a large valley where a city seems to reside, two days out from the trail. They decide to check it out.

That night they set camp and Renko loses a childhood memory to the drab sadness of a lost civilization.

The next day they set off and within two days they arrive at the Hall of the Umber King. This seems to be a valley of ruins covered in rainbow covered fungal spores. They see people wearing face masks gathering spores in large sacks. Others seem to be wandering around, in varying states of dessication, in a daze. Various dessicated corpses lie around, covered in multicolored fungus and spores.

They hail the spore gatherers, who explain they are gathering the spores to sell - they think they might sell them westward at the Near Moon, as they have heard of trouble at the last Serai. Sissy asks if it is a drug, and they say yes - they offer him some and he tries it - he experiences a profound sense of sweet sadness, a powerful longing and sweet regret for times lost that can never be regained. He names it 'Madeleine'. It is highly addictive.

They negotiate to buy a sack for $1000. The gatherers are chatty and helpful and one of them, Hanuman, strikes up a friendship with Sissy and shares with him the location of a tunnel where some particularly great spores can be gathered.

The group debate whether to capture spores but decide instead to press on - the map showed them there was a place called the Azure garden a few days away, and they decide to head there.

The Azure Garden turns out to be an enormous Geodesic dome greenhouse, long since shattered with only the livingstone frame remaining, filled with a forest of blue fungi. There are rodents of unusual size lounging around on flat rocks in the sun, but they flee as the travellers approach. Sissy is an expert on plants and botany, and is able to identify the blue fungus as a delicacy - he reckons they could gather it and sell it at their next destination.

They spend two days scraping out the edible parts of the blue fungi and come away with fours sacks of the stuff. They decide to leave at this point, and head back to Fallen Umber. They stay the night there, avoiding the shambling creature (Garry Shambling), and then leave for Behemoth Shell, where they are hoping there is a settlement they can acquire supplies at. The mushroom wastelands give way to low hills and scattered pine forests. On the way they encounter a large herd of grazing gastropods - at least cow sized. They wonder if they should slaughter one to eat, but they decide against it and push on to Behemoth Shell. There is still no grazing for their animals, but they reach the shell in good time. True to name, it is a mountain sized gastropod shell with a small settlement and encampment scattered over it, and in tunnels inside it.

They are welcomed by a local of the Great Folk, the local snail farmers. His name is Nen, and he finds them a small cave to shelter in, for a small fee. 

They explore local trade goods and buy supplies. Nen shows them where they can buy clockwork brain worms - Sissy and Renko both buy one (for $1000 apiece) and insert them int heir ears. The worms burrow in and cause brief but aginizing pain before Sissy feels an increase to his charm and confidence, and Renko feels smarter. They wonder whether to buy more but their funds are dwindling - they have less than $5k left of the $14k they left the Porcelain Citadel with.

They ask Nen about any Sky Keys, but he is unaware of any here. He does mention a local curiosity - the Ideal Island, a floating island on which there are rumoured to be fabulous treasures deep inside the dark pine forests to the north. Renko is skeptical - he wants to know if anyone has returned alive from this amazing sounding island, but they decide to explore it anyway.

They set out the next day, their walkers navigating the pine trees nimbly. Renko is disgusted that Sissy doesn't seem to be carrying his fair share of cargo and after a brief argument they reorganise the carrying of supplies. 

Deep in the forest they are awakened by a snuffling noise and find that some small dingo like creatures have been eating their money - they eat $66 worth of treasure and then flee into the night. They redouble the watch and push on the next day.

They see the island from afar - it rises above the earth as a flat disk of earth, tethered by strands of marble, rock, and strange vines. They camp near it and that evening as they sit around the fire, the air grows unnaturally cold and from the darkness ride five figures - shrouded in mists, feathers and rags, twisting and distorted as if they were reflections in a swirling mirror. The first rider introduces itself as Malakite.

King Elre the Dreaming steps forward - and calls out to Malakite - "It is I, Elre - do you not remember me?"

Malakite greets Elre as the King of Alphaville, and says it has been many millennia since they last spoke. Malakite says that they must pay the tribute - the soul of a servant. They try to offer up a polybody but Malakite says that will not do. Sissy shows them the captured soul of a hero they were gifted by the Shamen of their tribe before they set out on their quest. Malakite licks his lips at the sight of it and says that it will do admirably as tribute. 

But Sissy and Renko, remembering it is something of a relic, rescind the deal. Malakite is disappointed, his appetite for the soul of a hero is palpable. But out of his old friendship for Elre, he says that they can leave unmolested, but they cannot pass this way again. They withdraw, confer with Elre about how tough these guys are (fairly tough) and decide they will go around the forest and approach the pyramid from another direction.

They withdraw and spend two days and approach the floating island from the east. They do not encounter the void riders again. They set aside the porcelain walkers and clamber up the marble tethers. Vitreous' first polybody falls - the others grab him and help pull him back to the surface, They soon reach the floating island - it seems to be covered with some sort of living skin, and covered in fruit bearing trees. Sissy quickly identifies the fruit as poisonous and warns the others not to eat it. In fact, there seem to be many toxic fumes and clouds on the island.

They carefully pick their way inland toward the blue pyramid - it is like an aztec pyramid made out of a slightly translucent blue material. The group touch it - it tingles slightly to the touch. Vitrious Orange finds a secret door - a block slides open and a passageway inside the pyramid opens up...      

Ultraviolet Grasslands Episode 10: The Face of Death

Having reluctantly decided to help the rebels take the Last Serai, they brainstorm ideas. Sissy, who still thinks this is an insane idea, tries to bribe one of the obsidian gnomes into selling him the secret of the sky key, but balks at the price.

They decide they are going to need an escape route, so Sissy and Dante acquire a full length mirror, to remain at the base, to enable them to escape via mirror world if the need it. 

Vulcan manages to rig up the porcelain walker to be operated by remote control. their plan is this - if they can get close enough to the death facing tower, they can transport the face of death through the mirror (somehow - the details will be worked out) without looking at it, to the Last Serai, evaporating the Porcelain Princes. After some long debate about who is going to attempt this mission, they decide to seal up the walker, and operate it by remote control from inside the walker, so they are in no danger of seeing the Face of Death. In order to ensure they have enough supplies they bring two horses along also.

After a week of travel they arrive at the foot of the Face of Death - a tower made of some awful unknown material. They do not look up but they see around the base some oily liquid oozes out of the tower. Dante circumnavigates the tower but there appears to be no other entrance other than perhaps the low tunnel the oily water comes out of. Lisciac tries to make her pet millipede look at the Face of Death through a mirror - to test a theory - and the millipede is instantly evaporated and destroyed.

The surface of the tower is irregular and very climbable. They have no idea what the face of death looks like - since they can't look at it, but they figure they can remove it somehow and lower it to the ground, ready to transport by mirror. Vulcan decides to clamber up, loops some rope around his waits, grabs the tower and ... is instantly vapourised. His possessions fall to the ground. 

The others pile back in the walker and immediately head back to the Rebel Base. The plan is a no-go. 

Jeshek, on hearing of his friend and allies death, immediately orders a revolutionary state funeral for Vulcan (closed casket).

The group decide on another plan - a mirror world based trojan horse. They return to the Last Serai, leaving the Rebel Army in a hidden gulley about three days away from the Serai. Once there, they rent a large warehouse deep beneath the earth, and ensure security is tight, and then open a portal through the mirror world, while Renko guides the rebel army, three or four at a time, into the Serai. Since they anticipate this will take a week or so, Sissy and Dante and Lisciac all decide to go on a week long bender at the Serai - they figure there will not be much partying after the revolution.  

Sissy does well - he manages to win another porcelain walker while gambling. Lisciac however, wakes up after a week of partying in an alleyway, with a suicide vest on and an earpiece telling him to wake up. 

The earpiece tells him that the mystery voice is from the Dwarven Army of the UVG, and that the traitors of the Army of Ultraviolet Revolutionaries are fighting the wrong revolution - the only true revolution must be a proletarian international one - and she must go down to the hidden army and tell them the revolution is off. She goes down and tries to sneak to the local police station but the earpiece warns her against any tricks. So she goes down to the warehouse and tries to explain the situation to Jeshek. Jeshek thinks for a moment and then lunges at Lisciac and tries to pull out the trip wire to disarm the vest. Unfortunately, he is too slow. The vest goes off. Lisciac is killed instantly, and Jeshek would die too, except he is protected by the Great spirit of Revolution, which shields him from the blast. Many others though, obviously less true of heart, are killed.

Sirens go off throughout the Serai. They have lost the element of suprise. Stunned, but realising their plight, Jeshek rushes out into the tunnels to attempt to raise the dwarfs and other proletarian workers to rise up against their oppressors. He is tremendously successful - all over the Serai workers feel the revolutionary fervour and rise up against the Princes. 

The Princes however, are well armed, well resourced and extremely well coordinated. Jeshek is swamped by a small squad of black-masked princes, and is cut down - but rises again, revived by loose nanobots (although he grows a vomish mechanical tail). He manages to fight his way out, but he is sickened by the blood and swears to be a man of peace from this time forth. 

Sissy tries to hide - he slinks away int he shadows, intending to strike down his enemies one by one from the shadows - but he opens a door which he assumes to be a broom closet he can hise in and it turns out to be a main corridor from the militia. Sissy fights furiously - but he is hit with a Porcelain Prince bolter, and starts to bleed out. He goes into a blood rage, mowing down his opponents with glee as the great void of death opens before him. 

Dante has formed a great bond with the crimson spirit having been possessed by it numerous times. He allows the spirit to partially inhabit him, and fights with the strength of five men. But even that is not enough to protect him from the warrior Princes bearing down on him, and finally he lets the last remnants of his ego go, and lets the great red spirit take him over. The great blood lust overtakes him and he knows no more...

Ultraviolet Grasslands Episode 9: "You Are a Member of the Rebel Alliance, and a Spy..."

The artefacts are so large that they devise a plan with Laszlo to get them back to the Last Serai from where he can arrange transport, by making a large sled and dragging it behind their two walkers. They send Jeshek with Ish and Lisciac back to the Waystone to wait for them to return, as Jeshek is a wanted person.

They head back through the storm, and lose many more items to the rust, including Dante's battleaxe. A couple of days away from the Serai they see an enormous trade wagon, in bright rainbow colours, wheeling north, guarded by two figures, one in red and one in blue, wearing space helmets - Spectrum Satraps.

They approach carefully and indicate they come in peace. The Satraps introduce themselves as Satrap 246 Clarity and Satrap 829 Azure. They are a trade mission and after some haggling Sissy manages to negotiate the purchase of two sacks of rainbow prisms and two sacks of shift-silks at a great price.

They overtake the slow wagon and after two more days they arrive at the Last Serai. Security is tight due tot he rebel raids, and the travellers are all scanned for signs of vome infections - naturally they pick up on Vulcan's reprogrammed vomish bird, and tell him to stand aside while they incinerate it. Vulcan tries to argue with them - but eventually he gives up and the two black-masked guards incinerate the bird with their blasters.

Inside the Serai, they sell the shift silks and prisms and make a killing, for once. Everyone is genuinely suprised that Sissy, who is supposed to be an excellent trader, actually manages to make them money. Laszlo is grateful for their help to bring the artefacts and agrees to host them in a weeklong drug and alcohol binge by way of thanks. They party for a week - it's all a blur - Renko and Dante are exhausted, and Sissy ends up imbibing a bad drink and permanently glows with ultraviolet light, which is an odd effect but unnoticeable most of the time. 

By the time they've sobered up Laszlo has made a deal with the Spectrum Satraps to transport the artefacts back to the Violet City. Sissy worries about the rust storm, and buys somepots of grease to protect his possessions. As a group they invest in porcelain pistols on the theory they will not rust. 

They sell their three biomechanical motorcycles at a good price and negotiate to buy a walker. They are buying from a porcelain prince who for whatever reason, wants to sell very cheaply ("it was my husband's walker, the prick...") and they get it for next to nothing. It can carry 2 people and 8 sacks of goods.

They take stock. They have 4 horses, 2 ponies, and 2 walkers, and are worth around $14k in total.

Renko meanwhile, has been working on the magical implements and manages to get them to make toast, but only toast. Still - it's an important step to his dream of being able to travel without supplies. 

Despite the restrictions due to the rebel assaults, they manage to buy a large number ($2000 worth) of guns for the revolution.  They don't bother to make them rust proof - their hope is that this bribe will be enough for the rebels to give them the Sky Key.

They set out again, west to Waystone. On the way, Sissy drops his jellyfish container and the toxic fluid starts to leak out. Luckily, he manages to patch it handily, and his pet survives. 

At Waystone they pick up Jeshek and the Nomads, and then head Northeast on the trail to the Death-Facing Passage. As they reach the valley, they stop and blindfold their horses so they don't die horribly. They enter the valley but after a couple ofhours they hear a strange babble and chatter - and suddenly a large vomish worm rushes at them. It lunges at Dante, and paralyses him with a strange blue statis electricity while the others hack at it. Jeshek and Vulcan climb onto their walkers and take potshots form up high while Sissy hacks at it with his knife. As it fights it babbles in a hundred different voices. They manage to kill it, but not before it devours all the Ka from Dante, leaving him a soulless husk! Luckily Renko is ready for this - he takes his Soul Stone, a gift from the tribe when they left on their quest, and uses it to find Dante's Ultra before it goes too far, and return it to his body. Dante splutters and comes back to consciousness.

They count their blessings that the Red War spirit did not awaken in Dante's body and slaughter them all.

Vulcan tries to remove the head of the great worm, in order to work out how to control any other worms they might come across - he is a specialist in Vomish engineering, but unfortunately he hacks the head to bits trying to get it off the body. They leave it where it is.

Carefully they enter the passage, and then wend their way up a side gulley until they find a low cave carved like a mouth. They enter, and are greeted by a rude and sassy living door. Jeshek tells them to let them in - these neanderthals are with him, and the door grudgingly obliges.

Inside, there are a number of very large caverns, lit by luminescent trees and inhabited by chattering spider monkeys (monkeys with eight limbs) and filled with delicious looking fruit. It is a hidden paradise. Numerous Diesel Dwarfs, rogue multibodies, radicalised nomads and Obsidian gnomes greet them. They gratefully accept the weapons.

While Vulcan tinkers with a worm controlling device, the others try to negotiate the Sky Key. The rebels know a good thing when they see it - they want the neanderthals to help them take over the Last Serai, and when they have overthrown the Porcelain Princes, they will hand over the Sky Key. 

This seems like a suicide mission to the caravan, and they start to brainstorm ideas... 

Ultraviolet Grasslands Episode 8: Mercury Rising

They check their supplies again and ensure that they have enough to get to the Waystone - they know there is no grazing or water on the way so they carefully ensure they have enough supplies to get to Waystone. They are betting they will be able to find some supplies there - which is quite a gamble. The idea is that from there they will head Northeast to find the hidden rebel base. 

They find the trail again and push deeper and deeper into the terrible rust storm. They lose several metal items, rusted by contact with the raging rust storm, including the legendary sack-barrow.

Finally they approach the giant monolith at the centre of the storm. At the base of the monolith they see three large, sturdy and stormproof tents. Two guards in rugged military storm gear hail for them to stop, and ask them if they are friend or foe. They explain who they are, and ask if there is any shelter.

The guards lead them inside, clean them and offer them something to drink. They de-mask and reveal themselves to be two fierce, red-headed twins. They are ushered into the next tent where a Porcelain Prince and a Diesel Dwarf greet them. The Dwarf is in charge, and introduces himself as Laszlo Montague IV and his associate as Guilded 3-Era, a rogue slavebody consciousness. 

They mention they are seeking Sky-Keys and Laszlo mentions that the Obsidian Gnomes within the death-facing passage are rumoured to know where one is. Laszlo seems friendly and confident and openhanded, and he explains that he and his companions are archeologists, on a commission to find the tomb of the Dragon That Will Rise Again. Vulcan casually mentions that they have been there, and they agree to take Laszlo and his team there. They are ecstatic, and Laszlo agrees to resupply them in return. Laszlo leaves the twins to guard their supplies and they take their motorcycles, walker, and Laszlo's walker eastwards.

They head out, and head off the road toward where the ruins of the tomb lie. They come over a rise and see a field of humanoid figures moving around in the rust storm. They watch for a while and the figures seem to be moving in strange regular patterns. They decide to get closer and see that the figures are weird biomechanical zombies, who appear to be moving and working in some sort of factory or warehouse, long since rusted away. As they get closer they see the human parts have long since been scoured away, leaving long dead animated zombies. They walk amongst them cautiously but they do not react.

They pass beyond and travel for three days into the wastes, where the storm subsides and they find themselves amongst the huge metal pylons that mark the Tomb of the Dragon that will Rise. They explore for a little bit and Vulcan gasps and pulls Renko's hands back from digging in the wide plain between the pylons - it is a lake of mercury, toxic if ingested. The lake itself is probably worth an an incredible amount, if they had the ability to transport it. It is covered by a thick layer of rusted metal, floating above it.

From the location of the pythons they surmise that the entrance to the tomb is under the lake and they try to work out how they might remove the mercury. Then Vulcan has a brainwave, and utilises all his engineering skill and ingenuity.

He places one porcelain walker at either end of the lake, and strings copper wires between them, and runs a powerful electric current from the power plants of both walkers. It has the desired effect - the mercury parts along the patterns of the magnetic field created, and the rusted metal parts and liquid mercury forms arcs and ridges following the magnetic field, clearing a path to a sealed hatchway at the bottom of the lake.

They hurry down, open the hatch, enter the tomb and close it behind them. They find themselves in a long hallway, lined with coptic jars. Ish opens one and finds it contains small white porcelain ants, which start to come to life - he quickly closes the jar. They check each jar in turn and find semi-awakened mice, rats, birds, cats, snakes and dogs in each jar, in that order. 

At the end of the corridor before a great door are three jars, each of a different colour, with a venn diagram on the floor in the middle of them, with each of three circles in corresponding colours. Lisciac looks inside each vessel - it contains odd liquids and oils alongside various bones, organs and fluids. Vulcan deduces that this means they are supposed to mix the contents of the jars, but they decide as a the group that this is the last thing on Earth they will do.

Behind the door is a funeral chamber - a large sarcophagus with terracotta warriors surrounding it. After testing that the warriors will not come to life (they do not) they open the sarcophagus and see a human sized porcelain figure inside. 

After checking the hatch that the lake is still magnetised, they together haul the jars and treasure up to the surface by the shore of the lake. Sissy manages to drop the jar with the porcelain ants, and while most fall back into the tomb, some escape out into the lake bed.

The stand beside the lake edge, and Vulcan deactivates the magnetic field. As the magnetic field fails, the mercury falls back into the lake, and the metallic fragments and rust splash down, sinking, and then rising to the surface and within a minute completely concealing the mercury lake as the rust and metal floats to the surface. Sissy notices with annoyance a few white ceramic ants escape from the lake onto the shore, and burrow into the earth. Laszlo is extremely satisfied, and declares that the expedition has exceeded his wildest imagination. However, they have a huge amount of loot, and they are unsure how to get it back to civilisation...