Ernest (Carlos Juan Victor Sanchez) just can't stop cackling out, "Here's a little tale from my nut-sack! Heh heh heh heh!" Chris (Dmitri Baranov) speculates that it is this sort of thing that gives gamers such the reputation in public places. This brings Tim (Christophe Joseph Pépin) to reflect upon the Dark Years when he spent a lot of time eating late at night at El Patio, where angry fathers and sullen daughters glare at each other, never addressing each other directly but using the younger sister as a go-between. Chuck (Quent Lawrence) mentions, "Yeah, I'm pretty messed up too." Paul (Smith) affirms that he has only sustained minor damage. Bruce decides that he is doing nothing suitable of mention, even if the others disagree.
The characters find themselves standing on the forty-fifth floor of the Emperor Tower, looking down upon Christophe Joseph Pépin's bloodstained form. Dmitri Baranov comments, "Well, looks like that Martian rifle bullet just took the fight right out of him. Anyone know how to bring him around?"
Chirp chirp. Chirp chirp.
Dmitri tries again, "Okay, does anybody know how to use those selenium poultices on him, without making fire shoot out of his ears?"
Chirp chirp. Chirp chirp.
General agreement is quickly reached: the characters will carry Pépin down from the tower and back to the Egyptian's camp, then go looking for medical aid. During the discussion, Smith notices that his new pet eft-chef is eyeing Pépin in the sort of way it eyes the gibbets of meat he throws to it at mealtimes. The creature's spinnerets slurp open. Smith warns it back, "No! Bad lizard-dog! Don't spin him into a cocoon!" The creature retreats. The other characters exchange dubious glances.
Feeling rather unhurried by the ongoing medical situation, Carlos Juan Victor Sanchez decides that he'd like to spend some time searching for artifacts. He manages to locate a perfect textured book worth 280 Lv. He crows at Smith, "Look what I found! In your face, mechanical man!" Sanchez doesn't see Baranov's frantic gestures towards Smith's huge scything blade. Fortunately, Smith simply rummages around in a pile of debris to one side and pulls out a dusty unearthly staff worth 290 Lv. Sanchez looks crestfallen, until Baranov explains that Smith has a hidden compartment in his chest and just pretends to find things. Baranov is just glad that Smith didn't choose this moment to fall into a genocidal anti-human rage.
But the artifact-searching fever has taken hold, and Baranov can't bear to let the others find all of the nice things. He leaves Pépin in the care of the also-wounded Quent Lawrence and the Bavarian former officer Klaus Heigen and goes on his own round of the floor. He returns with a buried savage goblet worth 35 Lv. He tells the others, "Hey look, guys! I found a goblet, but I don't understand it."
The characters finally load up the wounded (and unconscious) characters onto Smith and head back down to the camp. On the way, Baranov asks the others, "So, where did we leave the whore makeup?"
As they leave the 45th floor, Sanchez asks the others, "Should we leave a guard behind to make sure the mcnuggets don't infiltrate the lower floors again?"
Baranov replies, "There are secret passages, so they can infiltrate anytime they want anyway. And we'd just end up writing them off anyway after they got taken by clockworks."
Quent remembers that the Egyptian was also wounded and exclaims, "I've figured it out! They hate scientists!"
Baranov chortles and replies, "That's why the clockworks went for me!"
Smith explains to the Russian, "They figured out that you are the ultimate weapon against scientists!"
Baranov grumbles.
The characters quickly figure out that bringing Pépin down into the Egyptian's camp doesn't bring him much closer to medical attention. Then they think of all the Xea-Osk laborers working for the Egyptian. They decide to ask around to see if any of them have any medical training. As it turns out, they are successful: the laborer Vek explains that he learned medicine in the Trois Tours military. They ask him to apply some selenium poultices to Pépin. Strangely, this works.
Baranov (who hadn't been involved in the search for a Xea-Osk medic) walks up to find Vek applying glowing bandages to Pépin's chest. He reaches for his hatchets and asks, "Hey, who is this guy?" Sanchez explains. Baranov gives Vek 20 Lv.
Quent comments, "We should hire him! Now heal me!" It turns out that Vek doesn't have that much skill, and is working against a ferocious unfamiliarity penalty. He doesn't do a very good job of treating Quent. Fortunately, by this time Pépin is back up and can take over the situation. Quent gets better.
Pépin finishes working on Quent, then mentions that he's down to just one healing poultice. Everyone decides that a shopping trip to an apothecary in a native settlement would be a really good idea. Quent indicates that he knows the sort of person to ask for selenium healing supplies, but will need Pépin's help to know what to buy.
The characters discuss finding enough components to construct a simple pharmaceutical lab so Pépin can synthesize some antivenom for the khalgun-gatat poison. Sanchez points out that if Pépin has a lab, he's just going to use it to make drugs all day. Pépin points out that he has enough money that he doesn't need to rely upon home-brew. And Baranov points out that if Pépin has a lab, then he can have a still too. It is decided that there will be a lab.
Gathering gear for the lab from the lower parts of the Emperor Tower is easier if there are gukin-lugal laborers involved. Pépin persuades the Egyptian to contribute the laborers. He isn't too enthusiastic, but he agrees.
The characters decide that it is high time for a quick shopping trip to the Lemdok's people to buy selenium poultices. It takes them three days to get there, and three more to return. They expect to spend maybe a day there, but end up spending two.
It takes Quent little time to find a reputable dealer of medical supplies. Pépin promptly buys ten of the things. The other characters pass the time by pursuing their own shopping needs. Smith buys a 25 kg bag of eft-chef chow for his pet. Baranov and Sanchez look around for mab-yetso ammunition for the, but come up empty. They decide that they should someday hit up the Lemdok to see if he might have some ammo in his storerooms. Or if he might be willing to sell the secret of ancient Martian gunpowder to them.
By sundown, the characters find themselves sitting around a table in a Xea-Osk common house holding a drunken debate on why all the animals around here are named stupid things. Pépin in particular suggests that instead of referring to creatures by their names in the Xea-Osk or Xea-Shvet languages, the characters should come up with simple, easy-to-remember names for beasts. Quent chuckles, "But we're all actually speaking French, so your simple names should all be in French! Hah!" Pépin looks displeased, but doesn't really understand why.
Sanchez looks up Pere Francis while the characters are at the Lemdok's palace. He learns that the Lemdok is quite pleased with the Egyptian and his excavation projects. Apparently, the Egyptian recently traveled to the Lemdok's court to put on a show of artifacts recovered from the Wailing Towers. The Lemdok was so pleased that he gave the Egyptian a commission to excavate some other sites.
Sanchez questions Pere Francis upon the urgu-subur, but the priest knows nothing of them. He had assumed that the urgu-subur were largely extinct, except for a few small, isolated settlements far from Trois Tours. Pere Francis does know that the bandit Black Kurrack has pulled back to the northern edge of Trois Tours, as the plague in Criqueronde has caused the Methodists to stay closer to the settlements.
Sanchez finally gets around to the subject of mab-yetso ammunition. Pere Francis points out that firearms and the knowledge to support them are both very rare in contemporary Xea-Osk society. However, one of the Lemdok's councilors is interested in the subject and might have useful information. He offers to speak to the man on the characters' behalf. Sanchez agrees to return the next day to see how the conversation went.
The next day, Sanchez returns to Pere Francis' apartments with all the other characters in tow. Pere Francis introduces them to the scholar Abak-Yongen, an aged gukin-lugal in finely embroidered robes.
Abak-Yongen examines Pépin's mab-yetso very carefully. He tells Pépin, "You realize there are not many of these left? This is quite old."
Sanchez replies, "There are newer ones?"
Abak-Yongen shakes his head, "Oh, no." But he goes on to explain that there are quite a few cases of ancient ammunition for the mab-yetso in the Lemdok's collection, far more than he requires for simple scholarship. The characters quickly negotiate an agreement to exchange artifacts for ammunition at a rate of 1 Lv per round, for up to 200 rounds. The characters turn over slightly more than 200 Lv in artifact value. Abak-Yongen produces an appropriate number of mab-yetso cartridges, carefully packaged in thin-walled wooden boxes.
Quent mentions to Pépin, "Here's your ammo. You owe us." Pépin explains that he has only just dropped some 750 Lv on selenium poultices that are mostly going to be used to patch up other characters' life-threatening injuries. Quent agrees that this seems fair.
Smith complains that he has no use for money, but he can't find anything to buy. Pépin mentions that he has a very fine rifle-musket, purchased from Earth. He gives it to Smith. Smith admires the gun, then comments, "And this end doubles as a club!" Pépin moans, "Nooo..."
Before the characters head back to the Wailing Towers, Smith hunts down Ashdok and Deshmet, the two gukin-lugal-built mechanical men. As before, the two of them bow to him, open their skulls, and murmur very politely "We open our brains to you." As before, they are disappointed that Smith remains unable to extend them a similar courtesy. Neither of them shows any visible reaction to the new scything blade decorating his arm.
Smith asks them if they have ever had any exposure to firearms. It turns out that Ashdok was once a miner and used explosives. This is interesting, but fundamentally not very useful for the characters' purposes. Then Deshmet mentions that once he was a soldier and has used firearms. Smith tells him, "We have a mab-yetso! Do you know anything about the maintenance of one?" Deshmet tells him all sort of things. All of Deshmet's experience is very much user-level: he knows how to operate and maintain a mab-yetso, but he doesn't know anything about how to manufacture gunpowder or perform more than simple repairs upon the weapon. Smith listens carefully to everything Deshmet has to say.
The characters trek back to the Wailing Towers the next day. As they come over the final hill, Sanchez mentions to the others, "Oh yeah, wasn't there supposed to be some kind of mass morlock migration around here?" The characters talk to the Egyptian and learn that it already went by. They missed it totally.
Baranov grouses, "Gee, the referee is being really passive-aggressive today."
The characters get over their disappointment by heading back up into the Emperor Tower. They ascent through the 46th to 54th floors without any particular danger. Then Quent encounters a repeating crossbow trap as he walks into the 55th floor. Quent barely has time to sag to the floor before Baranov pulls him down. Smith stomps over to the trap and destroys the crossbow with a single shattering blow from his claw. Baranov yells out, "Stop! It's valuable! Oh, maybe not anymore."
The characters decide that a modified march order is needed. Smith gets to go in the front. The characters that can't bounce crossbow bolts off their metal hides follow behind. This lasts almost to the end of the room, when Smith notices a strange wire structure concealed in the dirt on the floor. And then he spots another wire construction built into the doorway to his right. Both he and Baranov recognize the second structure as an aetheric inductor, a device that can be used to erase clockwork minds.
Baranov yells, "Smith! Get back or it'll erase your mind!" And then Baranov gets attacked by Happy Energy Ball. There is a crackling sound and the smell of burnt hair.
The characters quickly determine that the entire 55th floor is loaded with traps. Worst among them are two generators able to produce a seemingly endless string of aetheric fire-forms. Smith, understanding that he is especially vulnerable to the fire-forms' attacks and could be instantly erased by contact with one of the aetheric inductors, becomes very conservative. The characters start a slow retreat back to the stairs, desperately blazing away at fire-forms with their pistols and rifles.
Things become more complicated when Pépin gets cut off and finds himself on the front lines of the fight. He absorbs several fire-form discharges before he is able to find safety. But in the meantime, Baranov takes another fire-form hit and goes berserk. The other characters watch with dismay as he howls in exaggerated rage and storms off into the depths of the floor. Quent and Pépin run after him, understanding that they will probably need to retrieve the Russian's incinerated corpse. They find Baranov in a doomed standoff with one of the fire-form generators. He manages to destroy the thing, but avoids being completely microwaved only because the other two characters shoot away enough fire-forms to keep him from being completely overwhelmed.
On the other side of the floor, Heigen and Sanchez run into the second fire-form generator, but only after they stumble through a gas trap and another aetheric inductor (which proves to inflict only minimal damage upon living creatures). Sanchez demonstrates his tremendous agility and stamina as he evades fire-form after fire-form in a race against time to destroy the generator. Behind him, Heigen plugs away at the fire-forms, only pausing for a moment to accidentally shoot his comrade in the back. Sanchez mutters, "That's it. I now officially hate the Bavarian."
Sanchez' sense that things are going well, even with a certain amount of team-killing, collapses when he hears the terrible "click" sound that means his pistol is empty. He howls for help as the fire-form generator pours out more hostile shapes.
Quent hears Sanchez' call and runs for him through an unexplored section of the floor. He is in sight of the Spaniard when he triggers yet another aetheric trap, leaving him disoriented and confused. Sanchez wastes no time: he takes Quent's pistol and uses it to destroy the fire-form generator.
Quent recovers from his trance to become even more confused. He thinks, "Hey! Just a moment ago, I had a pistol in my hand! Where did it go?"
With the most dangerous traps gone, the characters who are not actively involved in saving Baranov's life take some time out to search for artifacts. Heigen finds a rotten viridian cup worth 2.5 Lv. Sanchez finds a large chewed scroll worth 9 Lv and a dusty faceted plate worth 90 Lv.
Pépin sets his sights a bit higher. He turns to the ruined fire-form generators and starts making Mechanic rolls. He retrieves enough parts to make a chemical lab, plus 300 Lv in spare parts. He also manages to turn off the last intact aetheric inductor, and disassembles it enough to figure out that the power supply is buried in the wall. Smith could tear through the wall to get at it, but he refuses because he knows that the Aetheric inductor is intended to erase clockwork minds. Pépin carefully marks the generator location with chalk.
Sanchez finds another repeating crossbow trap. Pépin breaks it trying to deactivate it, then turns off the corrosive gas trap for good measure.
The characters consider camping on the 55th floor, or moving up to the 56th floor, until Baranov points out that everything on this floor seemed designed to stop a clockwork. He suggests that the traps might have been put in place to keep something really rapacious trapped in the upper floors. The other characters, mindful that they have already run into several varieties of inimical clockworks, take his suggestion very seriously. A mutual decision is made to retreat back to the camp and rest while Baranov recovers from his incredible injuries.
During the next few days, Pépin puts his lab together. Sanchez serenades Baranov, secure in the knowledge that the Russian can hear him, but can't actually move enough to kill him. Quent reassures Baranov, "You were shocked by the electric floaty things... No, we didn't recover anything of value."
Pépin decides that now is the time to polish his reputation with his wealthy older relatives. He starts writing letters. One group goes to his uncle and his grandfather about how he's doing things to expand human knowledge ("It's better than freedom!"). Another goes to various government officials and Legion officers, offering an Aetheric Inductor and various spare parts for sale. He thinks about writing similar letters to the Lemdok's advisors, until he remembers that the French government might not be happy about his selling weapons to the Martians. Some government bureaucrats are so humorless that they might even characterize such behavior as "treason."
Pépin is not alone in his literary pursuits. Sanchez writes a letter to his beloved Iphegenia Catherine Pépin describing Pépin's attempt to sell weapons to the French government in the worst possible terms. He makes sure it gets on the first daukha-apak out of the camp.
The session ends with the characters back in the Egyptian's camp. They are ready to venture further into the Wailing Tower, beyond the 55th floor. Each character gains four experience points.
Pépin spends some points to buy himself an Independent Income. He will have a monthly income of 1600 Lv, but only if he can roll 11-. If he fails the roll, his allowance is held up by the displeasure of his relatives (doubtless prompted by letters from Catherine Iphegenia). He also learns accented Xea-Osk. And he buys Klaus Heigen as an Ally.
Not to be outdone, Sanchez proposes marriage to Iphegenia Catherine. To cement the deal, he also spends points to make her his Ally. He learns that she is a 150 point character, and eagerly awaits the day when Bruce gets around to creating some stats for her.