⭗ REDIRECTIONS XXIII⭗
⭗ TALES FROM THE UTTER WEST #3 ⭗
⭗ THE IRIDIUM ARCHIPELAGO ⭗
Charred-Hand gestured and Kvelak handed him a hand rolled cigarette, something from the yellowlands, wrapped in saffron paper and stuffed with honeysmoke pipeweed. The old man’s mangled hand shook as he held the thing, puffing on it while the Blue Oracle summoned flame from the tips of her fingers to light it. After Charred-Hand had taken a long, deep draw, he leaned back and let it out, shivering as the honeysmoke soothed his nerves.
“The Zenithali are native to the concretions of the Winedark, I think,” the old shaman said. “They are alien. Not like creatures from the void or horrors that bleed out of gates. They were born of shadow and darkness. They are chaotic in form, and they thrive in ways that defy our understanding of nature in the Rainbowlands. They know about us,” he took another shaky drag of the cigarette, “and they’re preparing a means to travel here, to the Rainbowlands, to meet us.”
“To what end?” Coda-2 asked. The two male bodies of the polybody pilgrim stared at Charred-Hand as the old man glanced at each of them in turn.
“I don’t know,” he shook his head, taking another drag off the cigarette. “Even after everything I’ve seen, I really don’t know.”
Charred-Hand gestured and Kvelak handed him a hand rolled cigarette, something from the yellowlands, wrapped in saffron paper and stuffed with honeysmoke pipeweed. The old man’s mangled hand shook as he held the thing, puffing on it while the Blue Oracle summoned flame from the tips of her fingers to light it. After Charred-Hand had taken a long, deep draw, he leaned back and let it out, shivering as the honeysmoke soothed his nerves.
“The Zenithali are native to the concretions of the Winedark, I think,” the old shaman said. “They are alien. Not like creatures from the void or horrors that bleed out of gates. They were born of shadow and darkness. They are chaotic in form, and they thrive in ways that defy our understanding of nature in the Rainbowlands. They know about us,” he took another shaky drag of the cigarette, “and they’re preparing a means to travel here, to the Rainbowlands, to meet us.”
“To what end?” Coda-2 asked. The two male bodies of the polybody pilgrim stared at Charred-Hand as the old man glanced at each of them in turn.
“I don’t know,” he shook his head, taking another drag off the cigarette. “Even after everything I’ve seen, I really don’t know.”
⭗ DESCRIPTION ⭗
Out among the islands in the deceptively calm waters of the Winedark Ocean, a nation that calls itself the Zenithali Enclave stirs in the silent darkness, building towers and fortresses from nigh-impenetrable Eldershale lifted from the seafloor with the use of magic. Their technology is smoky and permeable, vibrated into existence through elaborate rituals and powered by Urathyst crystals which must be mined out from deep within the concretions that have formed upon the sea like islands. They have a rich tradition of scouting and cavalry tactics using their domesticated nebulith slugmounts, and the members of their “military” carry fearsome anti-gluon rifles which reduce most living organisms to goo on impact. Sometimes certain nucleogenic elements within a creature (like a gamma crab) can react to the anti-gluon shot and explode spectacularly. Pray that you are not such a creature.
The Isles of the Iridium Archipelago may be the heart of their territory, but these concretions may also be only the edge of the lands they have claimed. However these islands relate to the Enclave’s total holdings, one thing is certain– they are definitely a busy hotspot for Zenithali activity.
⭗ WEATHER AND REST ⭗
The islands claimed by the Zenithali Enclave tend to be some of the hottest ones in the Winedark Ocean. Temperatures range from heatstroke-inducing on the low end to literally boiling on the high end. Whatever the temperature happens to be on a given day, the heat is constant under the unseeable sun and sometimes it gets so humid that the division between ocean and sky blurs to nothing.
Rest in the Iridium Archipelago is a difficult proposition. The Zenithali run constant patrols around their claimed islands, and there are few places (besides among the fleshy lobes of a cindersprig bush) where one can hide long enough to steal even so much as a catnap. Better to bring a portable gate with you that you can pop into for a quick siesta, especially if it has air conditioning.
⭗ MISFORTUNE IN THE ARCHIPELAGO ⭗
1. You stumble into a Zenithali defensive perimeter of carefully cultivated venus microwaves. Before you know it, one of your livestock or henchmen is wrapped up, boiled alive and reduced to a goo. If you have none, this happens to you instead.
2-4. Even your blisters and your burns have blisters and burns. -1d4 Health and Charisma.
5-7. Folds and shivers in the noösphere wash over you suddenly, cooling your skin but warping your brain. Make a difficult Aura test. If you succeed, gain one spell. Otherwise, lose 1d4 Aura.
8-9. Shadows close in and dart away suddenly. Somehow, you’re 1d4 sacks lighter when it comes to supplies.
10-11. Caught in the middle of a sudden swarm of mating gamma crabs. It’s gross, radioactive and blinding, but at least they aren’t interested in you at all. -1d4 Endurance and Life.
12-19. The sky above is the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel. Even in this steady heat, you persist.
20+ You stumble upon a cache left by a castaway from the world of visible light. There is a modest collection of trade goods and luxuries from home, but more importantly, there are a few Zenithali artifacts (including an anti-gluon rifle.) There is also a journal, detailing someone’s observations of the Zenithali, but the text cuts off abruptly at some point several years ago.
⭗ ENCOUNTERS ⭗
1. Vomish Nightmarchers (L6, whispering) skulk among the fleshy lobes of the cindersprig bushes, spear-fishing iron smelt with their sharpened stilt legs. They fold up like hasty origami when approached, making a mess of reality and disappearing into a realm where they can watch without being touched.
2. Zenithali breedswarms (L3, fulminating) drift across the radioactive sand beaches here, picking at ritualistic offerings of fileted gamma crab iced to perfection. Vaguely sentient and always hungry, they spend their time building new soldiers for the Zenithali Enclave while contemplating the tides of the Winedark.
3. Kettle-bellied skyhunters (L6, flying) are enormous, flying creatures with translucent wings that hunt the archipelago's skies. They swallow their prey whole and keep them in massive pot-bellies where the creature's powerfully radioactive digestive juices render their prey into a stew that the skyhunters can subsist on for months (or regurgitate to feed to their larvae in briny sludgepools further into the Winedark.)
4. Wizard ‘Crates, feral xenologist (L2, waxing poetic) is a yellowfolk explorer who has been stuck in the Winedark for so long that he’s actually started to adapt to it and prefer it to the world of visible light. He’s horribly mutated, but friendly (mostly) and trustworthy (sometimes.)
5. Zenithali patrol (L5, umbral, chiral) riding nebulith slugmounts. They carry anti-gluon rifles and patrol the archipelago, expecting nothing out of the ordinary, yet itching for it all the same.
6. Zenithali brain-jinn-eers (L3, dreaming) float about in threes, dreaming the new machines and umbral mutations of the Zenithali Enclave into being with the pure force of their minds. They can summon up weapons, armor, buildings, anything the Enclave needs, given enough time (and enough gamma crab spiritual essence.)
7. Nova echoshards (L18, scintillating) rattle through the Winedark at unpredictable intervals, vacuuming up whatever they pass through and depositing it into an alternate (echo) reality. These “shards” are cast off from the Eye of the Nova, a great invisible radiation hurricane boiling in the darkest, hottest depths of the Winedark Ocean / Sky. When the Eye of the Nova comes to the Archipelago, all of the “life” on the isles goes into hiding. Lava tubes and Eldershale buildings seem to be the only places safe from the flying storm of echoshards.
8. Radiplasma geyser-plants (L8, carnivorous) lay in wait for prey to stumble into them. Hiding just below the ground, they glow subtly and hypnotically on the visible light spectrum to attract prey about the size of a cat or a dog. Usually, they prey on gamma crabs, but they’ll eat anything that stumbles into them by geysering plasma out of themselves to instantly cook their prey and reduce it to a digestible slurry. Woe to anyone (or any livestock) that stumbles into one. Such an unlucky individual would likely fall in up to their hip / shoulder and suffer an attack from the plant that would make stepping on a landmine look tame by comparison.
⭗ DISCOVERIES ⭗
The Eldershale Bastion is a towering, terrifying edifice of slick dark rock that serves as the very heart of the Zenithali Enclave. It is massive and built like a city nested within an obelisk, ascending so high into the sky that one can scarcely perceive its highest points from a distance. The place is packed with Zenithali troopers (L5, umbral, chiral) of all kinds, as well as a plethora of treasures, captives and wonders from the world of visible light which the enclave has collected over unknowable eons. The deeper one goes within the claustrophobic, escher-esque city within the bastion, descending toward the seafloor, the closer one gets to the leadership and elite echelons of the Enclave. The higher one ascends, the closer one gets to the more enigmatic (unsavory?) elements, like the prisons, the pressurized re-possession chambers and the anti-spectral annihilation engine manufacturing facilities.
The Urathyst Mines are a massive quarry where Zenithali thralls (L3, recalcitrant) carve tunnels through the concretions and the depths of the seafloor hunting for veins of urathyst crystals. The hunger that the Enclave has for these crystals is insatiable, as they power most of the devices and weapons that the Zenithali use. Closer inspection reveals that the Enclave is also stockpiling the crystals in the Eldershale Bastion for some greater purpose that will require a great deal of power. What that purpose is, the thralls can only currently guess at.
The Neon Arboretum is a wide, low dome just offshore of one of the major isles which is tended by Zenithali arbolarios (L3, herb-wizards). The various chambers of the Arboretum are full of different plant, fungal and other dirt-rooted lifeform specimens collected from all over every world the Zenithali arbolarios have ever folded themselves into. The arbolarios cultivate vast gardens of plants here, from the utterly alien radiant life of the deep Winedark to the useful herbs and meat trees of the world of visible light. Plants from other echo realities are cultivated here as well, hinting at wondrous places that the arbolarios have frolicked through while the rest of the Zenithali continue to labor in the hot darkness of the Archipelago.
⭗ 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.
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