Meanwhile, back in DungeonWorld....

Eventually, Rose finds her way back to the top of the Clockwork Tower, after being sucked through a pipe and deposited elsewhere in its mechanical innards. She manages to conjure up Soulrender again, and together they spy on the upper chamber of the tower, under cover of spinning gears, gusting steam and occasionally bursting pipes.

It looks like they've missed out on quite a battle. At first, Rose is chagrined to see a gigantic steam tank that looks like it is blocking the only visible exit on the other side of the chamber, but then she notices that its boiler has been burst outward, and electrical charges play back and forth over its hull, while smoke billows out of places that really shouldn't be smoking. The rest of the chamber is marked with black soot, bloody smears, discarded potion flasks and salve pots, and countless bits of smashed mechanical golems - some of them riding along the conveyor belts that wind through the room toward its center. As she watches, she sees the odd system: As a pile of debris falls off the end of the conveyor belt line at the center of the room, one of two large cranes comes down through the spinning machinery filling the upper half of the room, picks up the golem pieces, and then deposits the pieces - seemingly randomly - at the start of one of the conveyor belt lines at the edges of the room. Eventually, the parts end up in one of the repair stations, where little spider-bots and large mechanical arms work furiously, gradually building the pieces back into golems again.

One of the stations, however, is occupied by a large golem torso, and as much as the spider-bots try to finish reassembling it, the remainder of its parts are scattered far and wide across the room. Rose is even less enthusiastic when she realizes that some of those missing parts include a mechanical cat's head, paws, and a tail: She reasons that Tinyanko must have been blown apart and abandoned during the battle, while the others escaped to ... where, exactly?

There are several still-functional golems that wander toward the center of the room - occasionally mis-stepping and getting picked up by one of the cranes and re-deposited elsewhere. Those that avoid the cranes (or stubbornly come back despite the detour) crane their mechanical necks, looking up into the mass of wildly spinning machinery at the top of the room. Rose follows their gaze, and sees that the top of the room features a curved dome with depictions of constellations and celestial bodies. Huge mechanical arms and wings whirl beneath the dome, supporting an array of spheres, rings, and stylized representations of heavenly bodies: sun, moon, planets, comets, and zodiac beasts. Within many of the hovering rings, there are shimmering, translucent images - images that appear to be of other places within DungeonWorld, or other worlds entirely.

Rose decides to do a bit of reconnaissance before she jumps to any conclusions. She leaves Soulrender behind, since he's not nearly so stealthy (on account of his large size, flaming mane, and tendency to laugh maniacally at inappropriate moments), and scouts on ahead. She watches the activity of the cranes, and the large amount of destruction centered in that general area, and assumes that her fellows must have fought their way there, and made their way up on the crane to hop off through one of those gates - but which one? She can tell that there is some dwarf fellow in a mechanical suit at one end of the chamber, pulling levers and such; it seems he thinks he has "guests" who are itching for a fight, but that he hasn't yet caught on to the fact that he's the only one there (aside from, of course, Rose) - so she reasons that the others can't be that far ahead of her.

First, she rules out the portals to the rest of DungeonWorld, since she figures that the whole point of coming here was to leave DungeonWorld. One by one, she rules out several other places. She figures that Kathmandu would want to go to the "sci-fi" place, since he'd voiced such an interest before. She guesses that she would be the only person interested in the "Hell" world that she sees. She sincerely hopes that nobody wanted to visit "Aphrodite" - and if they did, she figures that they can do so without her. She guesses that Voltage would love to go to the "futuristic city" she sees through one portal. But when she sees what looks like Superior City - but heavily trashed - she comes to her decision: If it's that badly blasted, then surely that must be the way her friends went!

So, Rose sneaks around the room, taking her time, running by the conveyor belts and grabbing a piece here, a piece there, and sneaking back, taking parts to Soulrender and leaving them under his protection. Some of it takes a bit more work, so she decides to use the conveyor belts and crane to her advantage, pushing some of the heavier pieces onto the belt and letting them ride to the center (past the clueless golems), and then taking a crane-ride back to the outside of the room (sometimes in her favor ... sometimes not, and then requiring another trip on the conveyor belts for the next try). It is a very time-consuming process, but eventually she has all the loose golem parts gathered together, out of sight of the other golems.

The trouble is, she has more parts collected than would necessarily be needed to build one Tinyanko ... and the colors of the parts don't match. Somehow, he has two tail ends. Rose starts to worry that she might have parts of another "technocat", and perhaps not a very friendly one. So, she hauls the parts over to one of the repair bays, and lets the mechanisms do their work, repairing as much of the body parts as possible ... though she keeps the head in reserve. Finally, she gets Soulrender's help to haul the pieces, and to get ready to make a run for the gate to the "battered city" ... but the golems finally notice that there is an intruder. They attack.

Rose wastes no more time: She sends Soulrender up to the gate with the pieces of Tinyanko (?), while she leaps about, distracting the golems. With her Super Senses - and the advantage of her Stealth and the cover provided by the machinery - she manages to avoid getting hit, but she takes a few close calls. Soulrender makes it through - so she leaps after him, carrying the golden mechanical cat's head under one arm.

DungeonWorld's polygonal realm gives way to a dreary, gloomy cityscape that seemed only a pale excuse for Superior City. The distinctive skyline of its taller buildings can be seen, limned in the glow of the newly full moon, but eerily darkened. Fog clings to the ground, and clouds blanket the sky, only occasionally parting for a better glimpse of the moon.

Rose finds herself in a square in one of the smaller towns swallowed up by the Superior City urban sprawl. A sign post identifies this as "Night City" - and while she can't be completely sure, that doesn't sound like anything familiar. A fountain is in the center of the intersection, and a park is nearby, complete with a large white gazebo. The pieces of the technocat are scattered nearby, and the ground is littered with countless silver coins. A quick check verifies that these are indeed coins from DungeonWorld ... and then she suddenly notices that the pocket of her apron is bulging. She opens it to check - and a spray of silver coins shoots out! It seems that while in DungeonWorld it was quite possible to carry a nigh-infinite number of silver coins, here they actually occupy space.

Fortunately for Rose, she wasn't carrying all that many coins compared to what her comrades were evidently hoarding. Still, she gathers up some of the coins, and notices that quite a few silver coins are piled up in the fountain. She tosses one in for good luck - though, given the howls in the distance and the grating moans, it sounds like good luck is in fairly short supply here.

With some effort, she pries back the latticework underneath the gazebo, and shoves the parts of the technocat underneath it for safekeeping. Then, after gathering up a few more coins and gathering them up in makeshift bundles of discarded newspapers, she hops onto Soulrender's back, and goads him to take flight - so she can get a better look around the city.

She takes off, and what she can see isn't pretty - but she has hardly any time to look around, before she's attacked by a swarm of bats. And these aren't ordinary bats, as she soon discovers: they're zombie bats! She screams, and urges Soulrender onward, down the street, and the zombie bats inexplicably turn away ... but apparently only because of the next swarm of monsters Rose encounters: a bunch of demonic little imps!

Soulrender turns away from the imps, and those that catch up tear mercilessly at Rose. She beats them off, then flings some of her roses at them with lethal accuracy. To her chagrin, she notices that her bouquet of roses is getting lighter with each volley she makes: Apparently, after all, her supply of roses is finite - at least, in this place.

Rather than following the street, Rose urges Soulrender to bolt over a row of buildings, until she flies over a small strip mall. One of the store fronts catches her attention - a big cartoony flower logo, with the name, "May's Flowers". At her command, Soulrender folds in his wings and dives down on the store. The imps fall back, apparently none too eager to go too far away from whatever it was that they were guarding, but that is of little consolation - since the street is swarming with zombies!

Rose takes full advantage of her elevation to make a "strafing run", flinging roses from Soulrender's back, and taking out several of the zombies in one pass. However, it seems like there is no end to the supply of zombies, so she's not especially eager to dally outside. Underneath a flickering street lamp, she notices a soda machine parked up against a wall, and she worries that, as fatigued as she's feeling, she might fall asleep - so she rushes over and tries to shove some silver coins into the slot to get some soda. The DungeonWorld coins don't fit, so she tries giving the machine a well-placed kick - and it starts shooting cans out at her! Rose just barely manages to avoid getting beaned on the head or socked in the gut. The cans explode as they smash against the building across the street. Once the mayhem ends, she finds three plastic Easter eggs that have popped out of the machine. She vaguely recalls how some of the other heroes were talking about looking for "Easter eggs" in the "game", and she wonders if this might be what they're talking about. When she opens up the plastic eggs, she find that each one contains ... a hand grenade. And now she has three!

By this time, the zombies are closing in, and Rose decides not to waste her newfound prizes on them. She retreats to the flower shop with Soulrender - and there, she is promptly attacked by a zombie cashier! Soulrender stomps the cashier, and the battle is soon over. Rose checks the remainder of the store to make absolutely certain there are no more zombies - and no back doors left open - but she is struck by the uneasy feeling that she can never let her guard down. When she goes to check the front window, one moment, she's looking out on what looks like an empty street, and then she turns - and there's a grotesquely mutilated zombie staring at her, bloodied hands sliding along the glass. She's fairly certain there's no way that zombie could have shambled all the way down the street to get there in the brief time she looked away: "Logic" as she knows it seems to be occasionally replaced by "horror movie logic". She relays this observation to Soulrender, but he is confused.

"What is this 'horror movie'?" he asks. Rose then proceeds to try to explain the genre of "horror movies" to him.

"What is this ... 'movie'?" he then asks. Rose glowers a bit, then explains that it's basically like a stage play. Soulrender seems to grasp this concept more readily.

As Rose explores the flower shop, she finds that a great many of the flowers are dead, but she is able to salvage quite a few roses ... and more than a few black roses. She is somewhat surprised to find some horribly mutated, even demonic-looking flowers. Not one to pass up a novelty, she grabs those as well. And, while she's at it, she breaks into the till and empties out the cash registers. Now, at least, she has some proper change, should she encounter another soda machine.

So, Rose makes herself a makeshift bed, to rest up a bit, though she doesn't actually want to go to sleep. She stays awake until the crack of dawn ... and then, inexplicably, she suddenly dozes off.

She has horrible, horrible dreams of monsters and ghouls and goblins.

("Neat!" thinks Rose.)

No, really! HORRIBLE dreams of the dead rising, and of being stuck in an endless cemetery full of creepy tombstones and mausoleums and ...

("Cool!" thinks Rose.)

Horrible HORRIBLE dreams of demons rising from the earth and terrorizing the living, and whole cities being destroyed and ...

("Wicked!" thinks Rose.)

And of VAMPIRES and WEREWOLVES and ...

("Oooo!" thinks Rose.)

When she awakes again, Rose feels rather well-rested. It is sundown - and it appears that Soulrender has nodded off as well. Judging by his tendency to talk (and laugh maniacally) in his sleep, it seems that he's having a similarly "pleasant" dream, so Rose opts not to wake him right away. She explores the store some more, finding petty supplies that might come in handy at some point, and gathering up some more spare change. Finally, she wakes Soulrender, and together they do their morning zombie-bashing to clear out the street.

Rose proceeds to wander around town, trying to find any sign of the others. Along the way back, she fights many more zombies, and she finds that her "Rain of Thorns" spell is very effective for quickly clearing the area of pesky zombies. However, she runs into quite a crowd of them at the S-Mart, and she finds a limitation to the spell: While it's great for clearing out zombies in the street, the roof of the S-Mart protects all those zombies lingering around inside. For that, she uses her "Arc Lightning" spell. Still, there's the matter of this pesky werewolf that doesn't drop quite so easily. She tries to take out the werewolf, but ends up fumbling with her roses and pricking her own thumb on a thorn. Then, she tries again, and botches a spell. It seems that luck is very much against her, as the zombies close in, and the werewolf rips up a street light to fling at her.

Then, the werewolf fumbles and drops the street light on itself. It seems that Rose isn't the only one suffering from a bout of bad luck! Rose, bleeding profusely from the savage attacks of the zombies, goads Soulrender to charge into the Super S-Mart, while the werewolf tosses a dumpster after them.

Into the store they go, with Rose flinging sharp-tipped roses at the occasional zombie "shopper". They make their way to the pharmaceuticals section, while they can hear the werewolf tearing into the grocery section. Hoping that this will buy them some time, Rose gathers up whatever medical supplies she can find, treating her wounds (and those of Soulrender) and applying bandages - and grabbing a couple of first aid kits to go.

Next, she makes a stop by the jewelry section, and smashes open the cases, grabbing every bit of silver jewelry she can find. She has Soulrender stomp on silver pieces to break them and smash them into shape to make sharp, jagged, unfriendly shapes. (Soulrender just loves stomping and destroying things, so he's more than happy to oblige.) There are a couple of items that she spares - a stylized "wicked-looking" crucifix that she figures matches her style, and a silver hand-mirror that she thinks might be handy for identifying vampires. She wears the crucifix, and stuffs the mirror into an apron pocket.

She hears the werewolf again - it seems to have heard the noise they made - so she gathers up all the silver bits she can in her apron, hops onto Soulrender's back, and urges him to fly over toward the grocery section to meet the werewolf midway. Along the way, she has to duck and weave to avoid hitting her head against hanging signs, displays, air ducts and supports. She sees the werewolf, and, to her chagrin, not only has the werewolf already recovered from what wounds it suffered in their previous encounter, but it is agile enough to leap up onto a set of shelves, and bound through the air to take a swipe at her and Soulrender. Fortunately, she dodges, and returns fire by flinging the silvered barbs at the werewolf. Most of them bounce harmlessly off of its shaggy hide - but several stick into it, and when it lands again, it inadvertently drives several barbs into its own feet. The werewolf lets out an anguished wail.

While it's distracted, Rose and Soulrender fly back to the jewelry section. She hastily gathers up more of the silver bits - and, while she's at it, broken glass from the display cases, and anything else that looks nasty. They fly back, finding the werewolf in one of the aisles - and make another "bombing run". The werewolf howls again in anguish, and chases after them, limping slightly but still capable of superhuman feats of agility. At last, they manage to lose it - and they circle back for the remainder of the jewelry. Another bombing run, and the werewolf falls to the ground, twitching and howling from the pain of the silver "poison". Finally, Soulrender is bold enough to land - and give the werewolf a good kick. The werewolf, overwhelmed, falls over.

Rose checks it. It's not dead. Apparently, all the silver "poisoning" will keep it from regenerating ... but it still poses a threat. Despite her morbid nature, she nonetheless feels bad about finishing the creature off. So, she pays a visit to the hardware section, and gets quite a few chains, ropes, duct tape, and anything else she can find that might be useful. She binds the werewolf up like Houdini, and throws it into a closet.

Rose then proceeds to ransack the cash registers, and to make a run through various sections of the store to stock up on supplies.

Soulrender checks out the grocery section. He discovers the wonders of junk food. Rose finds him laughing maniacally with a mouth half full of a mish-mash of various cream-filled snack cakes, with bits of beef jerky and just about anything else he could bite into. (He is just fine with canned food - he just crushes them and eats them, can and all.) When Rose sees what looks to be the last can of "Beef Stix" in Soulrender's mouth, she rushes over and tries to wrench them from him. He won't let go. They end up having quite a tussle, and Soulrender is rather put out when Rose actually manages to win.

(It turns out that there are plenty more Beef Stix to be had, in the next aisle, since that's where Soulrender goes next. "If there were more, why did you fight me over the jerky?" Rose asks. "Because I wanted THAT jerky!" Soulrender retorts, grinning with several Beef Stix hanging from his mouth.)

Soulrender insists that Rose make up some "saddle bags", and load them up with various junk foods. Rose looks at the Nightsteed with disgust, insisting that if he keeps this up, he'll be too fat to fly - or, for that matter, to terrorize anyone - but he just laughs all the more maniacally, and tears into more food. Rose tries to get a few more practical items, such as canned vegetables and bottled water. She stays clear of the meat section - since she is fairly sure that it is no longer "fresh" - and it looks like the produce section has spoiled as well. Out of pity - or perhaps in the hopes of silence - Rose hauls some bags of dog food into the closet where the werewolf is bound up. This at least stops its mournful howling for a bit, as it tears into the food.

Finally, Rose heads back out on Soulrender, clears out the zombies that have gathered in the street, and works her way back to the town square where she first came to Night City.

She makes her way down the street, picking a new direction off from the town square. She finds signs of battles with zombies, of something large and heavy being dragged along, and even finds a lost shuriken. She continues along, and finds what looks like the scene of an auto accident, though the vehicles have been moved. She follows the spots of oil, and passes a convenience store where some zombie dogs look like they really would like to get out (and, no doubt, chew on Rose). She doesn't oblige them.

She finds a wrecked school bus, and continues following the oil spots around a corner, until she reaches a gas station, and finds evidence of some anti-zombie fire traps (and several charred corpses). On the other side are several flattened corpses - as if they had been run down by a truck - and Rose opts to follow that path of destruction rather than to investigate the gas station. She continues along, and finds the remains of a truck smashed into the front of a hardware store. Certain that she's hot on the trail of her companions, she continues along, until she reaches an intersection - and she's not sure which way to go.

She takes the turn toward a church ... and a graveyard. She runs into the largest gathering of zombies she's found yet, combined with a bunch of vampires, and those demonic imps she ran into earlier. Deciding that caution is better than valor, she turns Soulrender around - and flees. The imps pursue. As they catch up to Rose and Soulrender, Rose turns around on Soulrender's back, and calls down a spell. To her amazement, the spell actually works fairly well this time - and she manages to finish off the remaining imps with a few well-placed roses.

She takes a roundabout way back to the church, half-fearing that the imps will have "respawned" in that time ... but when she gets there, she finds that her fears are unfounded. Her "Rain of Thorns" handily wears down the zombie crowd, and she deals with a few lesser vampires with some more roses. Then, as she approaches the church - a foursome of more powerful vampires show up. Their leader starts off by laughing menacingly, and starting off with a monologue about how a mere mortal has no chance of getting past, etc., etc. - but Rose cuts him off, by flinging a handful of wooden tent stakes (which she picked up in the camping/outdoors section at S-Mart). Four wooden stakes find their mark. Four very surprised vampires ... turn to dust.

Rose smirks, leaves Soulrender to watch the entrance, and steps inside the church.

There, she finds a lone priest who goes through an impassioned speech to praise the "heroes" who have come ... and then, he looks a little confused, until settling his eyes upon the little girl who has stepped inside. He inquires as to whether the heroes are with her; she says that "Everyone else is still outside." After all, she's reasonably sure that's true enough.

The priest then talks with Rose for a bit, as she asks what is going on, and what to do about it. She learns that a terrible curse has befallen Night City, all tied to an artifact of evil that has been brought from ancient Egypt. (Rose mutters, "I just knew Egypt had to get tied into this. Never mind all the European vampires and werewolves.")

The artifact in question is the Gate of Set, and the only way to find it would be for someone of good heart to use the Mirror of Souls to find it. Fortunately, both of them are located at the museum down by the river. Unfortunately, a great number of evil creatures have gathered there. So, in order to help in that inevitable battle to get inside, the priest offers Rose an arsenal of blessed weapons, a large crucifix, and several phials of holy water.

Once she's satisfied that there's nothing more to find at the church, Rose sets out, hops back onto Soulrender again and heads out. She's fairly certain that the others went down the remaining street at this intersection that she hasn't explored yet ... but instead she takes a turn and goes back to the town square. She's concerned that there might be others who, like herself, got left behind in DungeonWorld. So, she gathers up several of the silver coins lying about, and arranges them to form an arrow pointing in the direction of the intersection where she plans to go next. She arranges some more coins into an "evil vampire smiley face", which she hopes will be identifiable as something she would make.

Then, she makes another stop by S-Mart, to leave the werewolf some more dog food. She goes to the pet section, and briefly entertains the notion of using a large muzzle and taking the werewolf along on a chain leash as a "pet" ... but she finds that the muzzle isn't of very high quality (not high enough to hold a super-strong werewolf, anyway, once it should recover), and she has the uneasy feeling that all she's going to be doing is putting herself at greater risk. So, she restocks on medical supplies, wrestles Soulrender out of the junk food aisle, and heads off, in search of her comrades.

So, will Rose find the heroes? Will she ever get out of Night City? (Does she even want to?) Find out the answers to this in more in the next exciting session of ... Superior City!