Returning character: Nat Mordechai, a Deft Cogflower
Necromantic Lawyer and leader of the caravan
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| Glass Bridge with Three Sticks Lake in the background |
After leaving the Gemstone Tomb the caravan picks up the
trail of black glyphs leading North. After a week of travelling they come
across a blinding light in the distance: The colossal Glass Bridge. They pay
the mirror armored nomads guarding the bridge a substantial toll and slowly
cross over to the other side, carefully waiting for the singing glass gargoyles
to stop their daily work of repairing the structure. At the towering skyscraper
of Red Baer village they stay for a week, declining the invitation to sleep in
the carved out midden - euphemistically called the Red Bear Guest & Servicing
Accommodation - spending their nights in the auto-wagons instead.
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| Red Bear Village and Madame Red Star (artist impression) |
Naida acquires a detailed tourist map of the area from one of the rude guards in front Red Bear, while Azure impresses Whoosh, the other guard, with her bullyish behavior. The guards reluctantly tell them about two of the missing caravans who have past through: The Redlander Scavengers travelled to Ferry Graves looking for machine parts to loot and the Greenlander trading caravan tried to find a save trading route around the Three Stick Lake. When they mention the letter for Madame Red Star the demeanor of the guards changes and the heroes are lead before the pipe adorned iron furnace that is their spiritual and political leader: Madame Red Star is surrounded by devotees and being fed information by a constant flow of villagers entering and leaving her chamber. Communicating through pipe signal that her personal assistant Kraka translates, she thanks them for the letter from the Satrap outpost, but rejects the offer mentioned in the letter as she regards both Satraps and Princes to be imperialistic pigs. She also tells Naida that her information about Jade Baobab being in league with the Princes is incomplete at best. Was she reading Naida's mind or was it mentioned in the letter?
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| High Moon Crossing |
Sarqo spends the week carousing in mud baths with the Clan of Sanitation
and is treated as family. They discourage him from visiting Ferry Graves, a dangerous slog filled with monsters. Nat meets Nomads herding antlered horses and finds
out that the dryland coral seeds the villagers sell is not in demand in the settlements
to the West. Azure climbs on top of the building to survey the area and spots shiny
object at the mouth of the Gravel River to the North. Naida finds work as a security guard
and quizzes her colleagues about Madame Red Star. Maybe if they find a
biological body for her they could become allies? On the last night Babeffe
entertains the village with a carefully rehearsed wrestling show. Everybody is
attending including Woosh, who has asked Azure on a date. Azure gets hooked on
Golden Amber, a drug Whoosh is selling. Nat buys two sacks.
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| Greeted by rotten vegetables at the Jade Baobab |
They travel east past crumbling lakeside villas and turn
North at the High Moon crossing, a perfectly round hillock ritually pierced
with pikes and spears. As they approach the two gigantic biomechanical trees of
Jade Baobab they a greeted by a lone rotten potato thrown against the windshield.
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