Characters in the Last Session:
Naida: A Deft Yellowlander Climate Refugee and
Scope (member of the Legion of the Far Sight). The Legion is a semi-secret
society that tries to fight crime on the roads of the Grasslands and around the
Circular Sea. Bone grenade aficionada. She is accompanied by Ajax,
a grumpy exiled Cat Lord with a serpent tail and Otis, the
animatronic bear.
Saffron, a Wise Black Gold
Industrialist Machine Human whose personality was uploaded to a cybernetic prairie dog after
being killed by Johnny-7's auto immune system. Outfitted with positronic double
brain, extendable limbs and laser eyes. Accompanied by a furry animate kite. Seeking a prosthetic body for mother.
Kozue: An Wise Elven Moon Mountain
Witch, a soothsayer from the Sister of the Near Moon. Her singing spirit
(appearing as a wingless, serpentine creature to those who can see it) in a
pink bottle aids her in her auguries. She has dreams of the world ending and
seeks hidden messages about the looming apocalypse.
Azure Dee: A Blue God Cultist on her journey to the Black City
where she is supposed to bring the apocalypse by sacrificing Vile organs. The
Vile are a species of (demonic?) rulers from the Long Long Ago. She is
accompanied by Cataract, a Wire-and-bone biomechanical salamander. She has
undergone mutation after being exposed to a vome infection that made her
muscles grow uncontrollably. The mutation has slowed down after a week of
therapy sessions in the solarium of the Pylon Kraal.
Hamish Mac Rainbow: A Redland District Folk Hero with a black motorbike
and rainbow-colored beard. Wielder of the Fractal Blade. Slayer of a maddened Ka-Elemental. His heroic
reputation vastly exceeds his actual deeds but he's working on living up to the
legend.
N’Keth:
A
Strong Volkan Diesel Dwarf, bat eared, hyena snouted and with furry skin, who
is tracking a Vile intruder from the Void. Armed with a fierce Warhammer and
protected by his Holy Symbol, an unageing plastic spork.
Kozue and Azure traverse the ash
dunes on the stolen motorbike. Sama warns Kozue of the spatial-temporal dangers
of the Pre-City and the Moon Witch builds a simple construction from her tripod to
indicate distortions in the landscape to Azure. When they pass the
brutalist-fungus building of the Dark Hospital Kozue senses the presence of
Soba, who wishes her luck.
Naida shakes Hamish out of his drug
induced delirium and explains the urgency of the situation but Hamish had
already partially been informed by the Secretary and is ready to save the
world. They grab N’Keth and the reluctant Saffron (who convinces them to first visit the Dark hospital in order to bring Vicar's body to mother) and pursue the witches in the
Redlander Autowagon with Amberto in the turret protected by the ill-fitting
diving suit from the Lurid Pines. Naida spots the space-time anomalies through
the monocle that N’Keth made for her from the hard light that was lodged in her
eye and is able to evade them. They arrive at a moltenstone plaza surrounded by
hollowed out sculptures and enter the endless dusty corridors of the Dark
Hospital.
Azure and Kozue are hit by the
toxic dust of the Pre-City and feel jolts of pain running through their bodies.
Azure spots automatons in leather and lead armor who seem to extract something
from the grotesquely contorted bodies of dried up travelers with silvery rods.
Azure engages with a rather big one, manages to prevail and continues her journey with a new armor ... but when she touches
the rod she is overwhelmed by painful memories.
In the hospital old wooden tv-sets hanging under the ceiling show the heroes on black and white vertically shifting screens, a boiler clicks and gurgles, they hear the monotone beeping of a life support machine. Saffron follows the sound of a ringing telephone while the rest fights off waves of plastic faced nuns with blades and syringes. When Saffron picks up the phone they hear for the first time in a long while their mother’s voice, and although she is confused and unable to remember anything she indicates to Saffron her location. They venture deeper into the building passing racks of synthetic limbs and an auto surgery with the replacement body Soba inhabited for a while lying disemboweled in one corner.
The witches arrive at the Black City: And then, in all that structured desolation, that tiered advancement of fractured chaos, was revealed a city beyond the skills and fashioning of any portion of humanity they had ever encountered; a city on a scale that beggared belief; a city of twisted obsidian blades, outrageously curved, bizarrely patterned structures of indecipherable purpose and huge, sweeping vistas leading to canyons and strata and ranks of glistening, glittering edifices, one after another after another. And then they blink and they see before them an elegant city of glassy black towers, elegant promenades, parks and lakes of molten mercury. In the parks they find statues that mock the Blue God and on the walls of buildings the faces of the comrades they are about to betray. But Sama Zivani, the Eater of Dreams spurs them on and leads them through the Black City to a grassy cliff-top with a small black pyramid and a withered altar.
Saffron lowers Vicar’s body gently
into a dentist chair surrounded by wired instruments and begins singing with the
sweet voice of a 56k modem, modulating and weaving together mother’s time-fractured
mind. Outside in the corridor N’Keth holds off the Soba-possessed body of the Quarter-Ling
Avatar while Hamish and Naida blow up an army of Dark Hospitallers. Finally
Saffron collapses into mother’s lap and she cradles her gently. Later she
leads them to an underground metro station that transport them to the Black
City.
At the cliff-top spirits in the form
of pale mice-deer graze peacefully. Azure performs the ritual placing the vile
organs around the pyramid while Kozue constructs a protective structure from
the poles of her tripod refusing to aid Azure in her preparations. When the
heroes emerge from the Black City they are too late: A blue glow spills out of
the five vile parts while at the same time a blue storm escapes the five
portals around the Black City. A mass of mouths and eyes and tentacles arises
from the oily sea. Naida finds an elevated position to take aim at the Blue God
while Hamish and Amberto draw their weapons and jump towards the apocalyptic
entity. Mother in Vicar’s body evokes source code that detaches the Black City
from their reality. When Azure realizes that she had failed the Blue God she enters
the Black City and blows herself up in an eruption of blue light.
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