⭗ REDIRECTIONS XXII⭗
⭗ TALES FROM THE UTTER WEST #2 ⭗
⭗ THE MIRRORCHROME ISLES ⭗
“The gamma spires, was that how you lost your fingers?” Lleva asked, leaning forward. She was wide-eyed, listening to Charred-Hand’s tale.
“No, not there,” the old weathered shaman shook his head, cradling his hand. His memories were murky, but there were horrors that he could not forget, no matter how many times the jelly midges had tried to suck the memories out of him. “These I lost to magic. When I was a young man, I was foolish. Corruption took the fingers from this hand.”
“How far into the Winedark did you go?” Kvelak asked, no longer doubting Charred-Hand’s story.
“Far enough,” the old man said, and he swallowed past the quaver in his voice.
“The gamma spires, was that how you lost your fingers?” Lleva asked, leaning forward. She was wide-eyed, listening to Charred-Hand’s tale.
“No, not there,” the old weathered shaman shook his head, cradling his hand. His memories were murky, but there were horrors that he could not forget, no matter how many times the jelly midges had tried to suck the memories out of him. “These I lost to magic. When I was a young man, I was foolish. Corruption took the fingers from this hand.”
“How far into the Winedark did you go?” Kvelak asked, no longer doubting Charred-Hand’s story.
“Far enough,” the old man said, and he swallowed past the quaver in his voice.
⭗ DESCRIPTION ⭗
Beyond the turbulent skies and clawing waves of the Winedark Ocean, beyond where it meets the Northern and Southern Dust, the waters calm and become eerily placid. There is no light, but there is a heat, radiant and constant, like being out upon the water in the tropics, blind to everything the light from the sun should reveal for you to see. Out here in the murky depths, there are islands, or something like them, places where the concretions of the deep have built up over millennia to pierce the still waters and spread out like fungal mats. These places often harbor strange life, life unlike anything seen in the world you left to come here.
⭗ WEATHER AND REST ⭗
Weather in the Mirrorchrome Isles ranges from uncomfortably warm to stewing-in-your-juices hot. The presence of the sun is vaguely perceptible, but only as a source of radiating heat and exotic rays. It never seems to rise or set, but only hangs in the sky, invisible to the human eye. Occasionally the isles are gnawed by hurricanes of wind-driven seaglass and tepid rain, but these are generally heralded by the sudden disappearance of all of the gamma crabs in an area. Rest out in the open is difficult, but there are slick, mucus-lined tunnels (lava tubes? Brachial tubes?) here and there on the isles that can afford some protection from the unseeable elements. The blind marmotfolk on the isles (if you can find them) know of decent places to sleep, and they’re more than happy to show them to you in exchange for wonders from the world of visible light.
⭗ MISFORTUNE AMONG THE ISLES ⭗
1. The invisible sun brings its heat to everyone. Everyone caught out in it must make a difficult endurance test or lose 1d4 Agility and Thought.
2-4. Rattled by the whispers of radiation ghosts, you wail and rage in equal amounts, but nothing seems to drive them off (lose 1d4 Aura.)
5-7. Just because you can’t see the sun doesn’t mean it can’t burn you (lose 1d4 life)
8-9. Your means of travel is starting to decay at a terrifying rate as the radiation and the waters of the Winedark rot it out from under you.
10-11. You cross through a fold in reality and all of your limbs suddenly reorient into unfamiliar physical dimensions of time and space. It's not painful, but it is disconcerting, and it makes it very difficult to move and accomplish things (-2 Agility) for 1d4 days.
12-19. The sky and sea are calm. The heat is manageable. Even your doubts and worries ebb a little in the stillness. Maybe this place isn’t so bad after all.
20+ Somewhere in the murk, you bump against the remnants of a doomed ship that succumbed to the Winedark. Hidden in the remains are 1d4 useful potions, 1d6 sacks of edible supplies and a cracked pair of goggles that allow human eyes to see colors far outside the range of the normal visible light spectrum.
⭗ ENCOUNTERS ⭗
1. Jelly midge larvae (L3, psychic vampiric) stir in the shallows of the isles, siphoning off the memories of the unwary.
2. Blind marmotfolk troglodites (L1, stone-slinging) gather sootprunes from the glassy sand here. The descendants of an ill-fated scouting expedition, they have lost almost all use of language, but they're nice enough, if absolutely gobsmacked to see anyone else from the world of visible light.
3. Razor-wing gunbats (L3, heatrays), an abomination from long ago and one of the few forms of “life” that could actually thrive out here. They swarm up on anything that moves through their territory. Nothing has been foolish enough to wander into their scorchzone for a long time, so they're itching for something to barbecue.
4. Venus microwaves (L4, radioactive) are vomish plant predators that hide their tendrils in swaths of hallucinogenic slime mold. Waiting patiently until the tiny, psychoactive spores of the slime mold take hold, they strike suddenly, binding up their prey (livestock, henchmen, whatever) and promptly blast it with so much electromagnificent radiation that it is cooked all the way through in seconds. The freshly fricasseed prey is then flensed, pulped and rendered into a paste that takes the microwave about a month to completely digest. The slime molds are, in turn, fed with the venus microwave's waste.
5. Translucent newts (L1, curious) with velvety, glassy hides skim black algae off the surface of the Winedark. Could be seen as an exotic pet, but the venom in their bite is a powerful natural laxative.
6. Iron smelt (L1, mercurial) flash and shimmer in the shallows. Their white-hot and razor-sharp teeth cleave through meat with incredible ease. When a school of these wee nasties smells blood, they frenzy. Death can come in seconds.
7. Shimmering vimivores (L8, crafty) appear like luminescent spectres, indescribably beautiful, and tailoring their appearance to the preferences, tastes and fetishes of their prey. Visible only to the prey itself, a vimivore will seduce their target and slowly siphon off that target's vitality and willpower. Over the course of a few days, they will reduce most prey to hollow, gibbering shells that live only to serve the vimivore as thralls, scouting out new victims for their master to take.
8. Zenithali scouting party (L4, umbral, chiral) riding nebulith slugmounts patrol the isles periodically, searching for outsiders to capture. They often stop and rest, using gamma crabs (L3, radioactive) for target practice with their anti-gluon rifles. Every hit results in a spectacular and blinding explosion, which is unfortunate (for the crabs.)
⭗ DISCOVERIES ⭗
The Gloaming Basin: one of the Mirrorchrome isles is little more than a sprawling, shallow basalt depression nearly half a kilometer across. Swampy in the middle, the misty, muddy mire is spotted with crystal spikes of Translucium (€300/sack) as well as various reality-bending herbs and clusters of radianthum orchids (a rare alchemical ingredient worth €500/sack) here and there between them. A giant gamma crab (L10, radioactive and ravenous) and her brood have their nest here.
The Chromalith Hive is not native to these parts. It’s probably not even from the Winedark. It must have fallen into the ocean from some other distant shore. It’s ancient and alien, biomechanical in nature, and floats low in the water, sagging against one of the concreted isles. You can smell it before you can perceive it with any other sense, and the scent that it puts off is like cinnamon and rotting squash. Dare to crawl inside this mansion-sized sunken nest and you will find the mummified remains of hundreds of hairless, bony dwarves with massive black eyes and wide, seven fingered hands. Bizarre, unrecognizable treasures lay unpilfered here and there, but stay too long and you may wake the spirits of the nest, suddenly finding yourself swarmed by radiation ghosts and vomish, hairless dwarf-zombies (L6, Revenants).
The Kurotobi Ruins are the only indication of any kind of permanent settlement that you’ve seen so far in the murk of the Winedark. Half buried by a basaltic landslide on one side and crumbling into the sea on the other, there is little to recommend it. The young scouts of the Zenithali Enclave have mostly picked it clean over the centuries, covering the subtly glowing runes on the euclidean ruins with dark mud to hide their light. Here and there, though, one can see traces to indicate that this place was not always cloaked in total darkness. This was a city that saw. It was a city of visible light, until something terrible happened that ended it.
⭗ OUR PARTY (SO FAR) ⭗
Lleva Vyeldisana, Greenfolk Naturalist and Zoa Conservationist
"Charred-Hand" a perfectly ordinary and unassuming wastelander
The Blue Oracle, Dreamer of Dreams
Coda-1, Coda-2 and Coda-3, a bluelander polybody pilgrim, allegedly.
Comments
Post a Comment