Qi Lung: The Cylinder

THE STORY SO FAR:

Two barely conceivable beings, ancient Yama Kings, Levh and Tilia, have fought an incomprehensible war for a generation over Sajavedra, a barely legendary Hell far to the southeast in the Yomi Wan. They wish to claim its rich harvests of souls and fields, its intricate networks of dragon lines and temples, for their own. They have devastated it utterly. Their war covers the Hell in immensity and madness: sky and water and land whirling and blending, geography warping, reality itself plastic, shelled and torn. One minor artifact from this war misfired in the burning sky above and fell to land in the Qi Lung River valley, on the western edge of Sajavedra, causing the river valley to break off from the Hell entirely and begin its own independent evolution -  a nascent Hell of its own in the making.

Think of the artifact that caused this rift as a jammed shell from a gunfight, ejected and forgotten as the battle rages on. It is the Cylinder. And the Cylinder’s sorcery has, in its minor way, begun to deform the Qi Lung valley. The Cylinder leaks balefire, a magical power contaminant. It poisons the beasts and the plants, the water and the grayish loess soil. Food grows short, famine comes even where war had left pockets of health and fertility. The denizens of the valley have changed, the balefire turning them selfish, inhuman, and cruel. Actually, the war and famine have done that – the balefire gives them power to act on this change.

Faced with the growing corruption of the realm's dragon lines, the Monks of the Poison Lotus Cult began working on a great ritual to cleanse the realm of this blight. Unfortunately, it required pushing poison into Prospect's chinatown. A treaty was negotiated between Prospect's Shen and the Cult, which turned the monks towards a different solution that avoided corrupting Chinatown. Unfortunately? It would destroy the realm of Qi Lung utterly in its execution, throwing the baby out with the bath water, such as it were. A second compromise was then further negotiated, buying time for an alternative solution to deal with the artifact corrupting the realm.

But now? Now it appears that Master Prem may have decided to forego the compromise to take matters into his own hands. Or worse? Another party may have decided to intervene, taking the Master to pillage plans and secrets for some unknown purpose. Either way, it's not good, and the only thing to be done is follow the clues and tracks from the Master's disappearance - and they lead straight to the one place our protagonists have yet to explore. The flooded muck of the valley where the Cylinder is said to have fallen.

AND NOW THE STORY PICKS UP WITH OUR PROTAGONISTS HOT ON THE TRAIL! ...