The hospital smelled of rusted machines and drying sweat. Faro lay in bed, pale and trembling, the green stains on his bedsheets growing darker by the hour. Rita hadn’t eaten in two days, sitting by his side with Sulari and Pifo asleep on her lap. She had begged Cal. She had tried everything.
As the evening shift changed, a young nurse, barely out of training, entered the room quietly. Her eyes darted around before she leaned close to Rita and whispered:
“If he stays here, he’ll die. They’ve already marked him for release.”
Rita looked up, stunned. “What do you mean? We have nowhere else.”
The nurse pulled a folded paper from her coat and slipped it under Rita’s hand.
“Take him to the Dames of the Sand—out in Thundarr Desert. They’re real. The warrior dames. My grandmother was one of them. Their potions can revive a dying liver, even re-grow what’s gone—if you prove yourself worthy.”
Rita’s heart skipped. “But… the desert… we have no supplies. No travel permit.”
The nurse’s eyes flickered. “Then go at night. Use the old metro tunnels under Southbank. Take only what you need. If anyone asks, you never saw me.”
As she turned to leave, Rita caught her wrist. “Why are you helping me?”
The nurse paused, her voice trembling.
“Because once… your husband saved my mother from a burning tram in Thundarr City. Before they took his ring. I remember.”
Chapter: Through the Tunnels of Forgotten Light
That night, with only a bag of stale bread, an old baby blanket, and the nurse’s directions, Rita and her children wheeled Faro on a stolen hospital gurney down the cracked alleys of Southbank. Rain mixed with ash from burning trash heaps. No one dared speak.
She found the rusted grate behind an abandoned soda bottling plant. The old metro tunnel, choked with vines and thick air, yawned open like the mouth of some ancient beast. They entered.
Inside, rats scattered. Glowing moss lit patches of stone. Pifo coughed; Sulari whimpered. Faro, semi-conscious, moaned softly as the gurney wheels squeaked against forgotten tracks.
Three hours in, just as Rita began to lose hope, a flicker of torchlight ahead—a cloaked woman, her face half-covered in sandcloth, blocked their path.
“Only the desperate walk this dark,” she said.
Rita stepped forward, shoulders squared despite her weariness. “I’m looking for the Warrior Dames. The desert calls me.”
The woman tilted her head. “You were once the Shecon.”
Rita froze.
“We knew you’d come. The potions exist. But your worth must be proven. Your husband’s life depends not on our herbs—but on your fire.”
The woman waved her torch. A dozen cloaked figures appeared. One pulled the gurney. Another took Sulari’s hand.
The woman turned. “Welcome to the Passage of Ash. Your trial begins before the dunes.”
Rita’s Quest for the Stone of Tomorrow
With Faro Faros lying weak in a straw bed at the edge of death, Rita Faros—former business tycoon turned outlaw mother and ex-heroine Shecon—was left with only one last hope: a whispered legend told by a young nurse at the crumbling Southbank hospital.
“Take him to the Warrior Dames in the Thundarr Desert. They know the way… to revive a dying liver. But you must earn their trust—and face the Witch of Westwick.”
Rita left that same night.
Traveling alone across wastelands of sandstorms and howling winds, she eventually stumbled upon the hidden village of the Warrior Dames, a proud and ancient tribe of all-female fighters, known for their alchemy and ancient knowledge passed down through the bloodlines of the Sand Sisters.
They saw something in Rita—something buried but still burning. The Dames gave her a challenge: retrieve the Stone of Tomorrow, a living crystal held deep within the cursed Mountains of Horror. No one had ever returned from the path to Westwick, where the witch lived alone, with illusions that broke minds and shadows that whispered.
As a gesture of their belief, they gifted her:
- A silver power sword that hums with ancestral energy.
- A full Warrior Dames outfit, lined in obsidian and desert silk.
- A loyal pet mammoth calf named Drumo, raised to guide and protect her.
Now Rita treks the haunted pass to the Mountains of Horror, while back in Thundarr City, Pifo is growing sicker, Faro can barely speak, and the D.E.C. and rebels clash in the streets.
The only light now lies in a mother’s determination… and a sword drawn under desert stars.
Chapter: The Witch of Westwick
The air grew thin and cold as Rita climbed the craggy path into the Mountains of Horror. Drumo, her mammoth companion, grunted softly beside her, sensing the danger ahead. The moon was veiled behind smoky clouds, and eerie voices echoed through the rocks—some in sorrow, some in seduction.
At last, she reached the Stone Gate, an arched crevice glowing faintly green. She stepped through, sword drawn.
“You seek the Stone of Tomorrow,” came a voice, melodic and ancient.
A figure emerged from a shifting fog—a tall, elegant woman draped in black threads and thorny jewelry. Her face was pale, ageless, her hair a nest of slithering vines. This was Westwick, the Witch of the Wastes.
“To heal your lover’s failing liver,” the witch whispered, “you’ll pay a price. The stone demands a trade—life for life… or truth for truth.”
Rita held her ground, shaking but firm. “Name your price.”
The Witch’s glowing eyes studied her. “Give me your deepest secret, and you may hold the Stone. But beware—secrets spoken aloud do not stay dead.”
Rita froze. She knew which secret the Witch meant. The one that even Faro never knew. The one about the night in the Pigmen village. The child not of blood, but of choice.
She whispered it.
The witch smiled cruelly.
With a flick of her wrist, a jagged black crystal rose from the ground. The Stone of Tomorrow. Glimmering with time-bound energy. Rita reached for it—
—but suddenly, she saw images: Faro on a hospital bed. Pifo coughing. Sulari calling her name. And behind them, Mr. Clown… watching everything.
Rita took the stone, and the witch vanished with a scream of laughter into the dark winds.
