Back in DungeonWorld, Fireman manages to find his way back up to the top of the Clockwork Tower. Not all that much time has passed since the other heroes have left this place, but, alas, he doesn't have much to tell him just where they've gone. As he reaches the top chamber, he finds signs of a terrible battle, with several surviving golems focusing their attention on a complex mass of spinning wheels and spheres at the top of the chamber. Judging from all the splotches of blood and burnt patches - and the scattered bits of golems, discarded potion bottles and salve containers - Fireman draws upon his criminology training to deduct that his companions have been here, and fared badly. He watches from hiding, examining the portals spinning in the gear-works up above, and tries to guess which way his fellows might have gone.

He hopes for the best, that they at least achieved their goal of finding a way out of DungeonWorld. Toward that end, he rules out the possibility that they might have taken one of the portals that show other parts of DungeonWorld. He tries to narrow down the other possibilities as they pass by. He sees that one way to get to these portals would be to ride some crane arms up - and that it might be possible to leap off from there to one of the portals. He focuses his gaze on those portals passing near the crane, and notices that some of them have signs of trauma, as if they might have been the focus of ranged attacks from some of the golems equipped with steam-guns - and, judging by a few splotches of blood, someone might have been hanging onto some of the portals (or passing close by) at the time. Fireman spends quite some time watching and doing his best to determine the right choice of where his fellows might have gone - and how to get there. He narrows it down to three possible choices, and of those, he decides that the portal that shows a wrecked-looking version of Superior City is probably the best candidate for where his fellows might have gone next.

Next, he tries to figure out how to get up there. Climbing the walls doesn't look like a safe option, with all the moving, crushing machinery in the chamber. Just making a mad dash to the center of the room and hopping on a crane looks suicidal, too: It's unlikely that he'd even make it that far. So, he watches the routine, as pieces of smashed golems and tank ride the conveyor belts toward the center of the room, then get picked up and sorted by the crane arms and put toward the edge of the room to start the conveyor belt ride all over again - occasionally ending in one of the repair centers. Fireman waits until a large pile of debris is put down on one of the conveyor belt lines, at the edge of the room - and then he dives in and rearranges the junk to try to hide himself.

His gambit works! He rides past several of the golems, undetected, until he is dumped off the end of the conveyor belt line - with several unpleasant-looking machines standing around him - and alerted that there is something non-mechanical in the latest debris pile. As they begin to train steam-cannons and spinning blades on him, Fireman sees the crane arm coming down - not fast enough to his liking. So, he scrambles atop the debris pile he just rode in on, dodging slashes from the bladed golems, and he leaps up, catching onto the crane arm. Several blasts go off around him, but the shield on his "portable fire hose" deflects those that get too close. He rides on up ... and then flings himself through his chosen portal.

On the other side, he finds that he is at a road intersection with a fountain in the center, in a town called Night City. There are silver coins strewn all about - the sort to be found in DungeonWorld. He takes this as proof that his fellows are about. So, he decides to see if he can reach them on the cell phone. While the cell phone didn't work in DungeonWorld, it looks more or less like he's back in the "real world" of Superior City (or something approximating it), so he tries calling up Scars. Alas, he doesn't get any answer from Scars. (Perhaps this could have something to do with the fact that when Scars went swimming in lava, most of his earthly possessions were burnt to a crisp. Oops.) He checks around for a bit, and then decides to try calling Voltage ... but then he notices that the sun is coming up. Suddenly, inexplicably, he is overcome with fatigue, and he slumps down, unconscious, next to the fountain.

Time passes. Much later, he wakes up, oblivious to the passing of a girl dressed in black (rearranging silver coins on the other side of the fountain), or to the passing of a demonic horse ... and also oblivious, it would seem, to the approach of several zombies. But, oblivious no more, Fireman wakes up, pockets his cell phone, and notices the advance of several shambling corpses. Rather than try to take them all on at once with his firehose, he makes a dash for a nearby gazebo, pulling out at the latticework at the bottom, and crawling underneath.

Outside, the zombies wander around aimlessly, trying to pick up Fireman's trail. Fireman notices that he's not alone underneath the gazebo: There are several parts of a mechanical cat-thing, and the disembodied mechanical cat head is staring more or less in his direction. "Who are you?" the cat head asks.

This is too much for Fireman to resist. As much as the cramped confines underneath the Gazebo will allow, he adopts a semi-heroic "pose", and boldly proclaims that he is "Fireman!"

While this might impress the mechanical cat, it has the unfortunate side effect of alerting the zombies to Fireman's presence. They close in on the gazebo, and start tearing away at the latticework. One of the zombies is so clumsy that it actually manages to impale itself on the broken woodwork, but the others crawl in and some of them manage to bite and tear at Fireman ferociously. He trains the fire hose on them, one by one, blasting them out from underneath the gazebo - or just knocking them apart with the sheer force of his weapon.

Bleeding profusely, a weakened Fireman crawls out from underneath the gazebo ... and fumbles around for his cell phone. He tries again, gets a signal, and calls Voltage. He hears her answer ... and he can also hear her voice, just down the street! After a bit, Voltage and the rest come marching up the street, and Rose shows up with Soulrender. First aid kits are broken out, and Fireman is patched up in short order. Rose shares with the others about her trip to the church, while Voltage and the others tell about their misadventure going about town. Rose relays what she learned from the priest at the church - that the cause of all this is a cursed artifact at the museum. She passes out holy water and various blessed weapons. Nao takes up a crossbow, Kathmandu takes up a shotgun, and Scars gets some blessed bullets for the revolver he's picked up. Voltage spends some time putting together the "Steamcat" that Rose brought with her from DungeonWorld, so the party now has two mechanical cats accompanying it.

Together, the group makes a detour for the hospital: Even after patching up, they could still use some more medical attention, and some more first aid packs. On the way there, they run into lots of zombies - but Rose's "Rain of Thorns" spell proves frightfully effective in clearing the basic zombies out very quickly. Once they get to the hospital, however, they find a bit of a flaw in relying overly much on that strategy: Rose can only manage to use the spell once in any given encounter, and while she manages to clear out a large number of lumbering zombies out in the street, there are several more that pour out of the lobby of the hospital.

So, in the front lot outside the hospital, the heroes fight a pitched battle against the zombies. Scars boldly holds the front line, while Fireman holds the right flank with his superior abilities at defending those nearby - combined with the added benefit of his "Blessed Tome" that provides protection against the undead. Soulrender moves forward, heedless of the danger posed by a flaming ambulance, while Mysterio hovers just over the flames and provides "fire support" with his spells. Midway through the battle, all the lights in the lot cut out, such that the flaming ambulance is the only source of light remaining - and then the ambulance explodes!

With spells, bullets and blunt instruments, our heroes manage to carve their way through the zombies pouring out of the hospital - and they work their way inside, with Scars bringing up the rear and securing the doors behind them. As zombie bats smack against the glass, and walking corpses slide their rotting hands ineffectually on the windows in search of a way in, our heroes take advantage of the break to use what remains of their medical supplies to bandage up more wounds.

Now that our heroes have gotten into the hospital, there's the matter of where to go next. It seems that even the backup generator has failed, so the interior is steeped in darkness. There's a suggestion of splitting up to find supplies, which draws mockery from some of the others.

"I'll go with the two babes!" Kathmandu volunteers. "Oh, wait, if you have sex, that means you're certain to get killed!" This earns Kathmandu a few glares, particularly since it's not entirely clear which "two babes" he was referring to.

Eventually, they find a directory, and figure out that there is a large supply room just one floor up. Now, it's just a matter of getting up one floor safely. So, they head into a stairwell ... and Soulrender's flaming mane sets off the water sprinkler system! Soulrender retreats - as water is anathema to him - and the others have to deal with a small horde of zombies and a couple of lesser vampires, with a couple of zombie security guards armed with pistols. Fortunately, the battle is over in short order, once the heroes get over the initial disruption caused by Soulrender's sudden retreat.

After some more searching around in the dark, and fretting over whether their flashlight batteries will go out, they break into the supply room, and replenish their first aid kits, and stock up on miscellaneous useful items. The haul isn't nearly as impressive as they had hoped, though at least they find the means to patch themselves up more-or-less back to full health. Rather than going out the same way they came in - which they're fairly sure is likely to be "respawned" with an army of zombies right now - they opt to head to the wing where the ambulance garage is located.

That, incidentally, means going down another stairwell. They go into it, expecting another fight. Scars scouts ahead, with pistol and flashlight. He finds a young woman collapsed in the stairwell. She pleads for help. Scars is skeptical. He checks, and sure enough, she looks rather pale ... but she doesn't have obvious fangs, or anything else that can make him absolutely positive that she might be a vampire. She's too talkative (pleading, anyway) to be a zombie ... but what proof is that? He comes to a decision: She must be faking. He shoots her. She screams and slumps over. He waits a bit, and she doesn't spring up to attack him. He sees a pool of blood expanding underneath her.

He turns back and calls to the others that it was a monster, and that she's dead now, and then he heads around the corner.

That's when he sees several bodies lying about, pale and drained of blood - and, before he can react, several vampires leap upon him, and the blood-drained bodies stagger up to their feet: zombies.

Even with his nigh-impervious nature, Scars finds that being assaulted on all sides by a crowd of zombies and vampires doesn't do much for him: Even though he regenerates quickly, he doesn't regenerate that quickly! He ends up having to retreat to the others, while they rush to catch up and provide additional firepower. The Steamcat ends up leaping off the edge of the railing to land on several zombies, squashing them - but then the remaining zombies disassemble the Steamcat before it can scramble to a better position. A particularly tough zombie picks up pieces of the Steamcat and hurls them at Fireman. Fireman taunts the zombie, prompting it to throw more and more of the Steamcat, until he's sure that all the parts have been hurled back. Then, he gives the okay for Kathmandu to take the zombie out with his shotgun.

After a wild battle, the last of the vampires and zombies are destroyed. As for the body of that girl that Scars shot ... well, it's nowhere to be found. Was it a vampire after all? Did it raise from the dead as a zombie? No one knows. Scars decides not to bring it up.

Finally, they make it into the garage. Voltage is delighted to find an ambulance that has been torn apart by zombies ... but not so badly torn up that she can't do something with it. With the help of Scars and Fireman, they cannibalize parts off of the other damaged ambulances, and manage to get this one in working order. While she's at it, Voltage (occasionally humming the "A-Team" theme song) takes advantage of the shop tools to bolt on extra pieces of metal as "armor shielding", adds a "zombie plow" to the front, various spikes (for looks), posts on the top, and other reinforcements. Before the night is over, they have the most intimidating ambulance ever seen.

So, everybody who can fit piles into the ambulance, or onto a makeshift trailer towed in back. Rose rides on Soulrender's back (since he can fly on his own), and Tinyanko has his own set of wheels. They hit the road, plowing through the zombies, with Rose providing magical fire support to clear out the weaker walking corpses along the way. There's some indecision on where to go next - to the church? The mall? The fire station? The navy surplus store? The sporting goods store? They settle on going to S-Mart, to stock up on whatever they can find there - since they have more cargo capacity now.

At S-Mart, they have another short battle, wiping out a crowd of zombies - and then they go "shopping". Soulrender tears into more junk food, prompting various jokes about how long it will be before he looks like a demonic "My Little Pony". Kathmandu tries tying a string around Soulrender's midsection to see if it breaks from expansion - but the string keeps getting burned off. "Ah well," Kathmandu says. "He's mastered Gluttony. Only eight more levels of the Inferno to go!"

They clear out anything resembling a weapon from the hunting/outdoors goods section, ransack the pharmaceuticals, and grab anything else that holds any interest. The Steamcat, meanwhile, spends most of the time transfixed in front of a flat-screen TV, watching a looping children's animated special about the "Halloween Cat Adventure". Jing-Li hits the toy section, and discovers a couple of working "super soaker" squirt guns. She demonstrates her new find by sneaking up on Kathmandu and "sniping" him. Somehow, she actually manages to hit him ... and then, there's a wild chase through the toy section, as Kathmandu tries to track down Jing-Li. He ends up changing to his little cat form and slinking along the tops of the aisles ... but then he botches on his attempt to make a surprise leap on her, and falls into a display of the "Frankenstein's Slime Lab". After an unpleasant episode of this, Jing-Li fishes the slimed cat out of the display, and finds Fireman to help her wash him off.

Of course, Fireman is only too happy to help. He gets out his portable fire hose.

Jing-Li runs.

Kathmandu slides.

Later, after a visit to the shampoo section, Kathmandu is finally cleaned off. Back in his human form, he is struck by inspiration: The squirt guns could actually be useful, if they're filled up with the holy water from the phials that Rose acquired at the church. So, after a bit, they have two new anti-vampire weapons.

Rose shows the others the werewolf that she defeated, still tied up in the closet. It howls mournfully, but nobody is inclined (or crazy enough) to let it run loose. In fact, Fireman and Kathmandu end up feeding it the "special chocolate" (all the laxatives they can find), just ... because.

Fortunately, our heroes don't stay for much longer after that.

After loading up the ambulance, our heroes set out for the museum. There are more zombies to fight along the way, but by now it's almost routine. However, as they get closer to the museum, they find that the street gets darker - and this seems to be a pervasive dark of arcane origin - for they find it difficult to see even by their own flashlights - or Soulrender's mane, for that matter. From the sounds of moaning and shuffling, it's evident that there is an extraordinary number of zombies gathered at the end of the street. Our heroes make a fateful decision - rather than trying to play it "safe" and slow down while driving, they decide to gun it, in order to ram through as many zombies as possible before - they figure - the ambulance will be forced to a stop.

Many limbs fly - and, alas, the ambulance clips an abandoned car in the absolute darkness, and rolls onto its side, sending everyone in the trailer flying. (Fortunately, there are nice soft zombie bodies to cushion their fall!)

After another Rain of Thorns to obliterate at least a small portion of the mob of zombies, our heroes manage to struggle their way along until they get past the wall of darkness, and find themselves in the front court of the Night City Museum. Zombies are everywhere - and especially packed in front of the entrance. Although Soulrender can fly, it looks like going airborne would be ill-advised, what with all the zombie bats and other flying creatures looking for prey. An irregular line has been more-or-less formed by several crashed cars just outside the court proper, and our heroes rush to take up positions. The ambulance is still intact but on its side, with Voltage pinned inside. Kathmandu gathers up Nao, April and Casey, and they set up position near a couple of battered police cars. To their surprise they find that there are some police officers still alive - if unconscious. They quickly administer first aid, and draft the officers to help in their assault on the zombie horrors.

Fireman takes up a hunting rifle with a night scope, and gets himself a good defensive position behind a broken wall of a wrecked outbuilding. The Turtles form up a shuriken-flinging firing line, and Ash readies his chainsaw and "boomstick" nearby. The Steamcat and Tinyanko flank the ambulance, ready to defend it (and Voltage) against zombies, and to provide support fire, while Mysterio hovers above, ready to use his spells to the best advantage. Fireman loans his Blessed Tome to Jing-Li, so she takes up a position behind the Turtles, to loan them the protection of the book against the undead, while she tries her hand at using the blessed shotgun. Rose uses the power of her Tome of Roses to transport herself across the battlefield and right into the middle of the zombies - and from this very exposed vantage point, she calls forth "Rain of Thorns" to greatly reduce the number of enemies. That done - she's unfortunately the most readily available target for those monsters that still remain!

The surviving zombies lurch forward, and vampires bound into the air - pursuing Rose. A mummy stands back, calling forth spells to summon skeletons, a screaming banshee, and other minions. Rather than rushing into the fray, our heroes stand back, as Rose retreats, drawing the first wave of monsters past the trees and other barricades of the outer garden, into the firing range of the police officers, Fireman's hunting rifle, and the Turtles' shuriken. Rose gets pinned down behind a planter, and Soulrender flies in to her defense, while the Turtles pick off various monsters that try to go after her. Nonetheless, enough attacks make it through that she falls unconscious - and Soulrender bites to grab her up in his mouth, then flies off back to the ambulance, before the monsters can tear her prone form to shreds.

One vampire with a pair of pistols flies behind the police officers, and tries to prey on April - but she proves to be a little too quick-witted for him to mesmerize. Kathmandu picks up a wrecked police car and smacks him with it. Then, April uses a nailgun to bolt him to the police door. Then, while he's pinned there, one of the police officers dumps holy water on him. The vampire shrieks and burns away! (The other officers look almost disappointed, as they were prepared to shoot him to pieces if he managed to survive all that.)

Jing-Li calls up a spell - borrowed from Rose - to animate several of the trees in the courtyard garden. These distract several of the zombies and vampires. Their wooden branches prove especially useful for staking vampires. Unfortunately, the last of the animated plants is eventually defeated by the vampires and summoned skeletons, but they've at least succeeded in breaking up the enemy forces.

One vampire tries to mesmerize Ash to attack his allies ... but Ash is too strong-willed, and he shows how to properly use a chainsaw against the undead. (Not a pretty sight.) Jing-Li even manages to get in on the act, taking out one of the vampires that tried to fly behind the heroes' lines, with her blessed shotgun.

By this point, the mummy casts a terrible spell that ensures that if any of the undead are destroyed, they'll do terrible damage to any living creature nearby, as they explode with tremendous force. Kathmandu and the police officers had been doing rather well against those zombies that managed to make it up to their line, but now they are presented with the threat of being worn down by attrition, if enough of the zombies can just manage to get close enough before being cut down. So, Kathmandu - in his werecat form - picks up a wrecked police car and rushes forward, leading the policemen behind him. He reaches one of the more powerful zombies, and, instead of dropping the car on him, he tosses it aside, then uses a martial arts maneuver (slightly modified for his large form), and flings the zombie away. There, the zombie can be safely shot up, and it explodes without harming Kathmandu or his companions.

By this point, there are enough breaks in the ranks of the undead that there's an opening to go after the mummy who seems to be orchestrating the defense of the museum. Fireman provides fire support by continuing to snipe the mummy's defenders. The Turtles rush forward, taking on the skeletons summoned by the mummy. Nao rushes forward and, armed with a super soaker packed with holy water, douses the mummy! The police officers riddle the mummy with bullets, and, with a bit more holy water - the monster is destroyed.

An unearthly scream echoes across the courtyard, and the corpses fall, lifeless ... but the shambling and moaning in the distance suggests that it's not quite all over yet.

Our heroes rush into the museum, Kathmandu taking a moment to take advantage of his super strength in werecat form, and hauling the ambulance up closer to the entrance (Voltage and all). After a bit of first aid, Rose is back in action, and our heroes are rather amazed they made it through this battle without any real casualties. With some more destructive spellcasting by Rose, the museum is cleared of zombies. Jing-Li manages to find the Mirror of Souls, and Kathmandu uses it to find the Gate of Set. A few incantations later, and the large hieroglyphic wall "opens" to reveal a portal to some infernal realm of Cthuloid horror.

Ash is certain what to do now: He's got some sticks of dynamite, and if he can just blow this thing up, the "game" will be over, and he can log out. The others, however, aren't quite clear on whether or not this would be a good thing. Ash, unwilling to wait for the others, decides to start taking shots at the gate with his shotgun. This prompts a gigantic ethereal hand to come out from the gate and to grab him, to drag him in! Kathmandu hastily turns back into werecat form, and knocks over a huge statue of Bast to block the doorway enough to give Ash something to hold onto. After a tense exchange, Ash wriggles free - and this time he keeps well clear of the portal.

There follows more arguing on what should be done. Rose proposes the idea that maybe she can get the gate to point somewhere else, so she tries performing a ritual to that effect. Despite her best efforts ... it doesn't work. Yet another ethereal gigantic hand comes forth to snatch at her. She manages to escape, fortunately, but this turn of events isn't exactly encouraging, and Ash is itching to just blow the thing up. (Plus, there's the matter of the zombies converging on the museum outside.)

Kathmandu tries quoting the chant from "Army of Darkness" - "Klaatu baratu {sic} nikto." The Gate of Set does not seem to be especially impressed. There is another giant ghost hand attack. Kathmandu manages to escape by turning into his little cat form and diving away. Finally (back in human form), he recalls aloud that in the movie, Ash's car went first ... so he rushes out, turns into werecat form, grabs the ambulance and tosses it inside.

And then he remembers that Scars and Voltage were still inside the ambulance at the time. He yowls and leaps in after it, to try to "rescue" it. This doesn't look good.

Jing-Li hastily argues that maybe they should leap in after the ambulance - and then let Ash blow it up. That way, those people who can log off can log off when the game ends, and the rest of them will be outside of Night City ... or something like that. She can't guarantee that this is necessarily a good thing ... but in light of the fact that several of their comrades are falling into a cthuloid realm of destruction, our heroes decide to plunge in after them to rescue them - and if Ash stays behind to blow up the gate and save the world, that's just fine.

So, that's what happens. Our heroes leap into the gate, headed toward certain doom, while Ash passes out sticks of dynamites to the police officers like they were celebratory cigars. They light them, and toss them at the gate ... then run for cover!

The gate blows up. The "Hurrah! You saved the world!" epilogue sequence plays. And then Ash logs off.

Meanwhile, the realm of cthuloid horror blinks out of existence. Our heroes, not being registered players of the Night City game, are not reset to their proper starting positions - and at this stage of the game, this demonic realm isn't in play yet. So ... they are nowhere.

Mysterio, at least, avoids the worst of it. A "LOGOUT" image appears over his form, and then he disappears. As for the rest, they plummet through a confused jumble of data streams and broken vectors and other technobabbly things that they can't identify. Nao focuses and conjures up the Temple of the White Tiger in the middle of the void. The ambulance and several heroes land roughly on the floor of the temple.

But then ... where to next? The Temple of the White Tiger might be preferable to falling through an endless void, but it seems to be as much "in the middle of nowhere" as anything could be.

Can our heroes find their way back to Superior City - or, for that matter, wherever it is they're supposed to go next? Find out the answers to this and more in the next exciting session of ... Superior City!