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...