In the realm of DungeonWorld, it is a peaceful and sunny mid-day. Birds chirp in the trees. Flowers sway (in unison) in the wind. Puffy clouds hang in the sky. Alongside the road, a stooped sage in brown robes says, "I'm looking for some adventurers for a quest! ... I'm looking for some adventurers for a quest! ... I'm looking for some adventurers for a quest!"

And then, there is a mighty explosion, as fragments from a huge metal "gate" emerge from nowhere. Along with them, several turtle-like creatures, a guy in a hockey mask, a woman with a video camera, and three men in superhero costumes go blasting outward, landing in trees, bushes and alongside the road.

"I'm looking for some adventurers for a quest! ... I'm looking for some adventurers for a quest!"

Despite the tremendous explosion, the landscape is unscathed. Heavy steel sections of the portal land skid across beds of flowers, without tearing up so much as a clod of dirt, or smashing even a single blade of grass.

The turtles help each other out of the amazingly resilient foliage, and brush themselves off, and then go about the business of finding their companions. The town guardsmen standing at the nearby gate seem to show no interest in the strange goings-on; the strange old man with a quest seems similarly unfazed. However, a girl in a long white trenchcoat rushes up to the scene, followed by a couple of men in monks' gear, a young woman in street clothes, and a little girl and a large fox-like creature, both dressed in black.

Mikey starts making introductions between his old and new friends. Recently arrived to DungeonWorld are his brothers - Don, Raph and Leo - plus his friends Casey and April. Voltage, Kathmandu, Scars, Rose, Ferrari and Vixa greet the newcomers - and then start to fill them in on some of the essential details of their situation.

Along for the ride are Warhawk, Crimson Hunter, and Mysterio. Warhawk starts lamenting about not knowing how he'll get back to Superior City, while Voltage approaches Mysterio and informs him that she's on a quest for the Hourglass of Temporality. Mysterio is very curious as to just how Voltage would know about this Hourglass, but she doesn't even hint about the fact that she's been rifling through his books while he's off-line. After some haggling, a lot of exposition on the part of Mysterio (basically telling our heroes things they already know) and some mention by Voltage of "saving the world", Mysterio agrees to help her find the Hourglass of Temporality - but only if he can have it after she's done saving the world, and if she can give him any useful magic books she finds along the way. Voltage agrees to this - but then she goes back to talk/argue with the others about what supplies they might need for the journey.

Mikey ends up trying to swipe some parts from the tinker's shop for Voltage, and he runs afoul of some traps and a large mechanical "cat". In the end, he winds up in the town's "dungeon". Voltage, in an attempt to free him, ends up in a fight with the town guards, and when she offers to "surrender", she is instantly teleported to the dungeon as well. Kathmandu, anxious to find out what just happened to Voltage, goes up, slaps a guard, and then "surrenders" - getting himself transported to the dungeon along with the others. Ferrari repeats the feat, and the dungeon cell starts to get rather crowded.

Voltage spends some time conversing with a talking skeleton hanging from shackles nearby, discovering a "side-quest" that involves lifting a curse on the skeleton (who is known simply as "Old Skeleton"), by finding a wyvern's tongue (or other valuable magical component) and taking it to the three witches at the Witch's Bog; in return, Old Skeleton offers to tell the heroes how to find a great treasure. He also lets them know about a secret passage that provides an escape from the dungeon.

Kathmandu manages to get out of his shackles by turning into cat form. However, whenever he turns back into human form while still in the prison cell, he keeps "teleporting" back to the wall, held in shackles once more. Voltage, Ferrari and Mikey manage to get free from their shackles with a bit of lockpicking, and Mikey shoves the little cat out through the bars to the cell. Outside the prison cell, Kathmandu is relieved to find that he can turn back to his human form without suddenly "teleporting" back to the cell.

Meanwhile, Scars and Rose ask directions from the guards, and then head into the city to find the fortress where the dungeons are located. They spy Kathmandu on the street, and find out about the others. Scars tries to pry open the bars to the cell, but they are utterly immobile, and even more solid than steel - as he has found just about every feature of the environment to be. Upon hearing about the secret passage, Scars has a hunch, as he notices a well nearby. He goes over to it, and notices that there is no water in the well. When he climbs down it, sure enough, he finds a tunnel; it leads right to the secret passage in the dungeon cell.

Unfortunately, our heroes make a little too much ruckus with their escaping, and the guard comes to check on the cell. With a "POOF", all the prisoners presently in the cell are back in their shackled places. (The guard pays no attention to the conspicuous secret passage open in the cell wall.) Still, Voltage and the others are, by this point, well-practiced with the shackles, and they manage to pick them once more.

They shove Kathmandu - back in cat form - through the bars of the cell door, to try to get the guard's keys, and to retrieve their "stuff". Kathmandu manages to reach bags filled with their confiscated possessions, but he can't manage to get the bags back through the bars - nor can he turn back to human form without risking alerting the guard snoozing right nearby. The others, growing impatient, head out through the secret passage, and go about to find the front entrance to the fortress - and to debate how they will storm it in order to retrieve their worldly possessions.

Out in front of the fortress, however, Ferrari and Voltage encounter Renault the Bard - a handsome young man who bears a striking resemblance to a certain famous actor of yesteryear that both Ferrari and Voltage are fond of. Voltage tries to make introductions, but Ferrari is - as ever - faster. Renault explains that he is a bard, and that his purpose is to sing the praises of mighty heroes and heroines. Should any heroes or heroines manage any heroic exploits, he says, they should see a bard and inform him of this, so that their derring-do can be properly celebrated.

Ferrari just nods a lot and fawns over Renault, and tries to persuade him to come along - but he insists that he absolutely cannot leave the village. In fact, Ferrari starts to wonder if he can even leave the very spot he's standing on. To Voltage, she starts to fantasize about how she should just build a house here right on this spot, and stay with her beloved Renault. Voltage proposes that Ferrari should become a spellcaster, and use the famous spell, "Leomund's Marvelous Love-Hut". It all goes downhill from there - until the front door to the fortress creaks open, and a small white cat comes out, tugging a couple of bags full of re-acquired loot.

Ferrari and Voltage fawn over the little white cat, and then, once Kathmandu returns to his regular form, Voltage starts making a big scene of showering him with affection, to spite Ferrari for "stealing" Renault. (Kathmandu doesn't seem to care about Voltage's motivation. He just loves all the attention.)

Finally, after some uneven divvying up of the returned loot (and, somehow, Voltage ends up with all of Ferrari's silver coins), our heroes head back out of the town.

They meet up with Donny, who had been trying on his own to break into the tinker's shop and to rescue Mikey, but to no avail - and then they reach the others outside the town. Mysterio, however, is gone: Impatient for the others, he has decided to head on and acquire the Hourglass of Temporality on his own.

After all the fighting with out-of-control golems, tinker traps, and the town guard, our heroes are a bit bruised and battered. Back in Superior City, it seemed that any "damage" suffered in fights didn't really last all that long. Everything turned out to be nothing that a little "dusting off" and rest couldn't take care of. Here, however, it seems to be a bit more difficult to shake off the wear-and-tear from combat. So, Voltage tries to find something to make bandages with. She goes over to the sage beside the road ("I'm looking for some adventurers for a quest!"), and pokes at him, to satisfy herself that he is not so resilient as the rest of the environment. Or, that is, to satisfy herself that his robes aren't so resilient. Satisfied that he has something on underneath, she grabs his brown robe, and proceeds to tear it up into bandages. Meanwhile, he just stands there, continually calling out, "I'm looking for some adventurers for a quest!" Finally, she gets out some makeup, and writes "Kick Me" on his back. He doesn't notice.

After several more antics with failed attempts to manipulate the environment - and some scavenging of parts of the broken portal for spare pieces - our heroes discuss what they're going to do with a "small army" of people. Warhawk laments again, about getting back to Superior City, so Voltage suggests that he just try logging off and back on again to see what happens. He heads through the town gate ... and disappears. After a bit, Crimson Hunter reports that he's gotten a message from Warhawk: Yes, indeed, Warhawk is back in Superior City, but he has no idea how to get from there back to DungeonWorld, for what it's worth - and there's something about some trouble that "Heroes 'R' Us" is in, for interfering with the "Ninja Pizzeria" plot.

Crimson Hunter explains to Voltage and the others about what was going on in the Ninja Pizzeria: Basically, the sponsors for the Ninja Pizzeria had revoked their support, after some problems associated with the Universe system. It had been decided, apparently, that simply "deleting" the Ninja Pizzeria and its associated characters without in-game explanation would be a bad thing. So, a "system plot" had been set up wherein they would get to "escape" back to New York - but, in fact, the portal had been rigged to point to a "null point", where any NPCs passing through would be deleted. Crimson Hunter had been trying to reprogram the portal to point somewhere - anywhere - other than the void. Apparently, Raphael's antics had done the trick. So long as the "powers that be" don't know the actual location of Mikey and the others, they just might be safe.

So, there's the matter of figuring out who's going to go along on this quest for the Hourglass - which might provide some sort of defense against the Guardian Muses. It's suggested that Casey and April might stay in the village here; after all, it's a beautiful place, isn't it? April isn't so keen on the idea, however. "I'd rather be in a place where conversation goes beyond five sentences."

In the end, it's decided that there's (relative) safety in numbers, so the whole group heads out of town on the road toward the Old Cemetery, and the Clockwork Tower. The farmlands end at the banks of a raging river, with a bridge leading across. Signs nearby warn about a "river dragon", and a few bones scattered about emphasize the peril for anyone who tries to go for a swim. As they approach the bridge, a griffin swoops down, with a woman in green armor on its back. She introduces herself as the Green Knight, charged with making sure that no one passes who is incapable of facing the dangers on the other side.

She demands that anyone who is to pass face her in one-on-one combat. Scars accepts the challenge, but it appears that the knight's idea of "one-on-one" includes her griffin. Nonetheless, it's hardly a contest for Scars: the knight is unable to deliver so much as a scratch, even when she makes a critical strike; her griffin fares little better, for even on the rare occasion he hits, Scars recovers from the damage an instant later. Scars wears down the Green Knight, blow by blow, until at last she concedes, and grants him passage.

Then, she challenges the next one who will cross.

A collective groan goes up from the group. At last, they decide that it's time to try out Rose's wand - and the charm that Lord Charis put on it. Rose waves the wand, while the Green Knight is in the air. Nothing seems to happen. Tentatively, Rose makes her way across, and the griffin does not come down to challenge her. So, the group makes its way across, and into the forest on the other side.

They travel for some time through the forest. Along the way, they see several suspicious-looking types (highwaymen, by the looks of it) hiding in the underbrush. Rose uses her wand again. Our heroes approach ... but the "highwaymen" give no indication of noticing them. They can hear one of the brigands chuckles to himself, muttering, "Yep - any moment, someone's gonna come by." And, he keeps repeating it every few seconds. The other brigands have similarly "looping" comments - and show no sign of noticing anyone. So, our heroes walk on by, without incident.

So, they continue their journey, avoiding several "wandering encounters" by virtue of Rose's wand - and wondering whether this thing has a limited number of "charges". One "encounter" they choose not to avoid, however, is one with a raven that is perched just to one side of the road. Rose decides that a raven looks particularly interesting - particularly one that croaks, "Nevermore!" - so she goes up to it. "What a dreadful little bird!" she exclaims.

"You look rather dreadful yourself, for a little girl!" the raven caws back.

"How rude! ... I like you!" Rose says, with an impish grin.

"What's a little girl like you doing, all alone in the woods," the raven asks, "... with a small army?"

Rose and the raven chat for a bit about various morbid things - such as, for instance, the big graveyard that is ahead down the road. Rose invites the raven along, but he declines, insisting that he doesn't really care much for being cooped up in a graveyard. He far more prefers things to be out in the open.

Voltage observes that this raven seems to be a little more interactive than the typical NPC that they've encountered - so she asks, "Do you know Lord Charis?" At this, the raven caws and flaps away, quickly disappearing.

So, our heroes continue onward, and the green and leafy trees are replaced with a higher incidence of dead and twisted trees; the whole atmosphere seems distinctly creepy. Up ahead is a crossroads; straight ahead, the road leads to the front gate of a huge walled cemetery. Smaller, largely overgrown paths lead to each side. A signpost indicates that the one to the left leads to the "Phooka Forest" and the "Clockwork Tower". The way to the right leads to "Skull Mountain".

Up above, a black horse with a fiery mane, and great bat-like wings swoops overhead, making a sound like a cross between a scream and a whinny. On its back is an armored skeleton - an animated one, it seems, judging by the way it swings its sword around. Rose uses the wand again, at the urging of the others, to keep the monster from noticing them. She is reluctant to do so, however, since she insists that she would like a "pony" like that for herself.

While our heroes discuss what they may do next, they hear footsteps sounding on the cobbles - no shuffling and shambling footsteps, but rather regular ones, as if someone were just taking a leisurely stroll. Crimson Hunter helps Voltage take a look by lifting her up (with the hovering ability of his power armor) - where she can see a tall man dressed in black with gold trim and a flowing cape, striding along the side-path as if he were taking a leisurely stroll through the village - and not right next to a creepy graveyard.

The stranger walks around the corner, until he's no longer obscured by the trees, and is in clear sight of all the members of the group. He bows.

Voltage greets him, and asks if they might be allowed to pass - to visit "your graveyard". The man laughs, and insists that it is not his graveyard at all. He warns them, nonetheless, to be careful, should they be intent upon entering the graveyard. Of course, there are monsters and dangers and the like - the sort of thing that adventurers always expect - but he warns them that there are flaws in the graveyard. He struggles for the words, and then says, "There are corners that, should you stumble into them, you cannot leave. To borrow an old and rarely used term, you might say that there are ... 'clipping traps'."

Voltage wonders aloud whether the man might be Morpheus in another guise - or perhaps Lord Charis. But once the guessing game begins about his true identity, the man laughs, swirls his cloak about himself, and then disappears into the shadows - and in his wake, they can hear the repeated "Caw, caw, caw!" of a retreating crow.

"WICK-ed!" Rose exclaims, clapping her hands delightedly.

So, our heroes approach the gate to the Old Cemetery. There is a place where a section of the wall has collapsed, and it seems an obvious enough place to try to enter the graveyard, but our heroes nonetheless feel a strange hesitation to take the "obviously easy" way in. Up at the door, they see two gargoyles perched over the entrance. As Voltage approaches, the gargoyles' eyes light up, and they look down at her, and then illuminate the door with their gaze. There is an inscription - but before anyone can make it out, Scars strides right up to the door and grabs both handles.

There is a loud explosion and a flash of light, and Scars is sent reeling backward, landing on the ground well behind the others. He is momentarily winded but - of course - gets back up again with not even a scratch.

So, Kathmandu decides to investigate the door before pulling any handles. The inscription reads:

"This door opens two ways, depending on which handle you choose. One way leads to certain death. The gargoyles know which one is which, but one of them always lies, and the other always tells the truth. You may ask only one question of the gargoyles, in order to determine which handle you should pick."

The left gargoyle shines its glowing gaze upon the left handle, and declares, "This one leads to certain death!" The right gargoyle shines its own glowing gaze upon the right handle, and declares, "This one leads to certain death!"

Kathmandu asks the left gargoyle, "What would the right gargoyle tell me if I asked him which handle to choose?" The left gargoyle declares, "He would tell you that the left handle leads to certain death!"

So, Kathmandu declares that he will grab the right handle. Before he does so, the others ask why, and he explains: The right gargoyle had said that it was the right handle, whereas the left gargoyle had claimed that the right gargoyle would say the left, so the left gargoyle was obviously the liar. So, it should be the right handle that leads to certain death.

At this point, Kathmandu suddenly stops before grabbing the right handle, and reconsiders his action. He grabs the left handle instead.

There is a big flash and an explosion, and he is sent flying backwards. He gets up, winded, and is confused and frustrated: What went wrong?

Voltage tries the puzzle, but this time, the gargoyles are indicating different handles: the left gargoyle is claiming that the right handle leads to certain death, whereas the right gargoyle claims that the left handle leads to certain death. She tries the puzzle again, carefully going through the instructions, and picks the handle that should not lead to certain death - but she's just rewarded by a huge explosion, and she's sent hurtling backward. She gets up, significantly winded.

Frustrated, Voltage asks Rose to use her wand on the gargoyles. Suddenly, the gargoyles stop tracking the movements of the heroes with their eyes. When anyone approaches, they no longer respond - but the door does not open of its own accord.

Voltage grabs the other handle; there's a big explosion ... and Voltage is gone, with no trace of her save for a smoking spot where she was standing last.

In their haste, Scars runs up, grabs the handle, and there's another explosion. Scars is gone.

Then, while everyone is arguing and lamenting the sudden destruction of Scars and Voltage, they hear a disembodied, ghostly voice. It's ... Voltage! She claims that she's speaking from the realm of the dead, and that she's come back to haunt the others. She urges them to grab the right handle, so they can join her in the land of the dead - all the while sounding very spooky, and occasionally making eerie moans.

This doesn't encourage anyone to do so, in the least. Finally, Voltage claims that she's just fine. She's just on the other side of the wall.

"So, why are you TALKING like that?" Mikey demands.

"I can't heeeeeeelp it!" she says, spookily. "It's a fiiiiiiiiilter!"

Kathmandu instructs Vixa to take him (as a cat), carry him, and grab the handle. Another explosion, another hero gone. Rose tries the same - and then she joins in on the fun of tormenting those remaining with her ghostly voice.

At last, everyone just decides to give it a try, after much arguing - save for Crimson Hunter, who elects to stay on the outside as a lookout, since he's not sure that anyone really knows how to get back out.

Sure enough, on the other side of the "door", there's no indication of a way to get back through. The "hole" in the wall is surprisingly solid - and similarly, it's impossible to go over the fence. On the inside of the door, there is a message: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." A monument just inside the door reads, "Welcome to Certain Death."

Inside the cemetery, everyone can hear each other normally: the "eerie ghost voice filter" apparently only applies to those trying to shout back to anyone standing outside.

So, our heroes mill about, poking around the tombstones and hunting for traps. They see some skeletons and zombies, and a wandering banshee riding atop a skeletal wyvern. Rose waves her wand, and the undead creatures ignore them ... though the skeleton and zombie walk right through their midst. (Our heroes step to either side to let them pass without incident.) Some winged, impish creatures alight upon some columns, but the wand effect prompts them to ignore our heroes as well - and they move along.

Scars borrows a hockey stick from Casey, and starts poking his way along. He sees a clawed hand protruding from the soil - so he slams at it with the hockey stick. Suddenly, several skeletons and zombies tear their way out of the soil - and the banshee returns. Despite multiple attempts by Rose to wave her wand and make them ignore the heroes, the attempts are in vain. Battle ensues. The turtles concentrate their fire with thrown shuriken on the banshee and her undead mount, until she flees, wailing all the way. Casey is swarmed by zombies and just about to be eviscerated - but Ferrari zips in, grabs him, and drags him back to safety. Mikey takes to a high column, to fling throwing stars from above, and his brothers rearrange their firing line, concentrating their fire each on one skeleton or zombie at a time, and systematically eliminating them. Zombies that try to come up close to our heroes get fried by Voltage, or torn apart by lightning-fast kicks from Kathmandu, or the slashing claws of Vixa. April joins in as well, chucking a few skulls at those who refuse to fall as quickly.

Rose alights upon a monument to get a better vantage point, but gargoyles on the monument come to life and attack her. By this point, the last zombie is reduced to dust, so the others concentrate their attacks on the gargoyles - and reduce them to rubble.

The graveyard falls silent again, and Casey groans as he manages to pull himself back to consciousness again - but just barely.

Voltage has an eerie feeling about this graveyard. During the course of talking with Scars, she realizes that any time someone mentions her real name - Renee Hauksbee - she feels a chill up her spine. Some in the group notice the same phenomenon - Ferrari (Riley Sinclair) and Scars (Davis Jeffries) - though others (Casey and April, for instance) get no such reaction upon anyone mentioning their full names.

Voltage wanders around the tombstones, and finds a small monument that has a statue upon it that looks like a representation of herself, but with wings - as an angel. Inscribed in the base is the name, "Renee Hauksbee." Ferrari searches around, and finds a tombstone with "Riley Sinclair" on it, but it's nowhere near as elaborate - which disappoints her. Kathmandu wonders if there is a tombstone that might bear his name as well - though he doesn't actually know what that name should be. He has an eerie feeling that it just might be here - further into the cemetery.

Voltage is surprised that the statue is almost lifelike in its carving - it has rounded facial features and fine detail, compared to the roughly hewn, polygonal look of inanimate "scenery" objects elsewhere in this world. What's more, when she pulls back her hand - there's dust on it. (In the swamp, the "mud" had an amazing tendency to vanish as soon as the heroes got themselves out of it, for comparison.)

So ... what could this mean for our heroes? Find out, in the next installment of ... Superior City!