Heap

The Heap is a city in Lemuria, comprised of pieces of various rended Spiral worlds. It is connected to the Wildlands, beyond Ursai Village. To the other parts of Lemuria, the Heap gained the reputation of being a dark, wretched hive where lost things end up. The city was constructed by the Old One as a trash heap for "disposables," individuals that he considered to be degenerations from the First World and not worth preserving in his recreation of it, Lemuria.
Sometime in the Heap's history, the Lemur gang boss known as the Golden Lion found a secret Mana font within the Heap and used the power within to power up his loyalists. The surge of power caused the Heap to descend into a conflict that divided up the city. The crime would give rise to the Shadoe and Dog Tracy, two Heroes created from the template of Stallion Quartermane.
The conflict between the gangs in the Heap was escalated further by Lemuria's release from the Old One's office in the Arcanum into the Spiral, which caused a surplus of Mana. The three dominant gangs, Doctor Prune's Irregulars, the Prim Reaper's Gray Reapers, and Pips Mooless' Moo Crew fought to hoard the most Mana. The Wizard soon arrived with Dasein in order to find the sixth Attunement Stone, which they needed to unlock the Harmonic Gates in Telos and gain access to the World Synthesizer.
==History==
===Construction and purpose===
The Heap was constructed by the Old One as a place for him to put individuals in the Spiral that he deemed to be monsters and reprobates, degenerations from the First World and not worth preservation in his recreation of it. The Heap would then be periodically expunged in some manner.
===Earlier history===
According to stories told by the Heap's denizens, the Old One plucked their ancestors from Lemuria and intentionally cut them off from the Mana and Lifeforces of the world's other regions. While the locations of the other Monitoring Stations were marked by the Old One on a map intended for his aspiring Scion, the one in Heap was not, perhaps by design.
At some point, the gang boss known as the Golden Lion found a secret Mana font in the Heap and used the Mana within to power up his loyal lieutenants. The gangs descended, running amok casting spells and dividing up the town in order to enforce their corrupt order.
Duck Savage visited the Heap at least once, later describing it as a "wretched hive" and a place where lost things go. Sky City drifted over the Heap several times, with Buck Gordon describing it as a "place of darkness."
===Mana crime siege===
With Lemuria's introduction into the Spiral, the failing World Synthesizer's purpose of supplying Mana and Lifeforce to the world became obsolete, with the Spiral supplying the world with more of these resources than it ever could have needed. With a surplus of Mana, Mana Wisps began to appear in the streets of the Heap a lot more frequently, causing several of the city's feuding gangs to come into conflict with one another. Doctor Prune's Irregulars, the Prim Reaper's Gray Reapers, and Pips Mooless' Moo Crew all fought to hoard the most Mana, which would leave the regular citizens of the Heap utterly defenseless and divide the city into turfs. Detective Dog Tracy eventually began his fight attempting to establish law and order and lock up all the gangsters.
Before long, the Wizard arrived in Heap on their search to find the sixth and final Attunement Stone that they needed to unlock the Harmonic Gates in Telos and gain access to the World Synthesizer. They intervened in a situation between Angus and one of the Irregulars, who had accused him of attempting to steal one of Doctor Prune's Wisps. Angus directed the Wizard to speak with Dog Tracy in his station about the Old One, getting into a fight with one of the Prim Reaper's Gray Reapers on the way there.
Tracy, wanting to capture the gang bosses before their conflict turned into a full-scale war, was unable to answer the Wizard's questions about the Old One, passing off these duties to his lab assistant Tessa Truehart. She divulged the information that years ago, one of the gang bosses had found a Mana Font and used it to power up his loyal lieutenants, though it was unknown who this gang boss actually was. With this information, the Wizard intended to inquire further with Tracy, but they soon found out that Tracy had infiltrated a bootleg potion distillery and arrested Pips Mooless himself. Mooless revealed that he had been making potions to fight the Golden Lion and take his turf. Tracy left to get information about the Golden Lion from the gangs and allowed the Wizard to come along, but went too fast and left them behind, forcing them to focus their efforts on following the lead of the Mana Font instead, where they believed the Monitoring Station would be found.
The Wizard fought Stoolie and his fellow Gray Reapers for information on their Mana supplier, with Stoolie saying he didn't know where the Mana came from, and that only one of the bosses knew. The Wizard inquired about the Golden Lion, but Stoolie knew nothing of him and directed him to the former crime boss known as Bumbles instead, who ran the Honeybee Diner in Doctor Prune territory. The Wizard reconvened with Dog Tracy at the entrance of the Diner, and they fought Doctor Prune's Irregulars inside. While Tracy believed they were pressuring Bumbles for Treasure Card kickbacks, he soon learned they were actually pressuring him for information on the location of the Golden Lion, with Doctor Prune herself directly confronting him. After defeating Prune, Tracy arrested her as well as Bumbles, taking them both back to the Precinct for interrogation.
Dog Tracy learned that Bumbles was working for the Golden Lion, and that said Golden Lion was the original source of all of the gangs' Mana, making him the one responsible for the crime siege. The Wizard entered the Lock-Up and fought their way through the Moo Crew before finding Pips Mooless, who was in the process of melting the wall behind him. He ordered his men to get Bumbles back to their base so that he could make him spill the Golden Lion's location while he took on the Wizard alone. Mooless escaped after losing the fight, and the Wizard followed the trail of Bumbles and the Moo Crew, using their pet to track them to the Moo Cafe. However, the cafe was locked, so the Wizard fought the nearby Moo Crew gangsters for the key. Before they could get it, the Shadoe came in and took the key from the gangster who had it in his possession, keeping it from the Wizard as she believed they were nothing more than a bully picking fights with the Heap's citizens. But she soon came to understand the Wizard's motives of finding the Old One's secrets and agreed to help them find the Golden Lion so long as they left the people of Heap to their business afterwards.
The Wizard accompanied the Shadoe as she headed inside the Moo Cafe to confront the gangsters inside in her own way. She used her Mind Talisman to get inside the minds of Moo Crew gangster Ernest Bovine and Prim Reaper gangster Humphrey Bullgart, making Bovine rethink his life and leave his life of crime behind and Bullgart let the Wizard and Shadoe pass by. She then did the same to the Prim Reaper himself, and easily was able to retrieve Bumbles. The Wizard was disappointed in the lack of fighting, so the Shadoe had them try helping the people of the Heap instead of fighting them by gathering Fossa Fur to keep them warm and Wildland Cherries to keep them fed. This was done so the Shadoe knew the Wizard could be trusted with helping find the Golden Lion. The blankets and fruit were delivered to Renee Moosso, Paul Cudd, and Tom Holstein.
The Shadoe informed the Wizard she had left Bumbles with her "associate" Tessa Truehart in her lab, but back at the lab she quickly let it slip to the Wizard that Tessa was in fact her secret identity. She then used her Mind Talisman to project the Wizard into the mind of Bumbles so that they could clear out the static and find information about the Golden Lion. Among the information photomanced from within Bumbles' mind was a thought of the Golden Lion reestablishing his dominance by defeating Dog Tracy. Truehart took this as indication that Bumbles had set Tracy up. Using one of the other photos as a clue, Truehart sent the Wizard to the Chatty Café while she locked up Bumbles before heading there herself as the Shadoe. Inside the café, the Wizard and the Shadoe reconvened with Dog Tracy, who had been trapped in an invisible box by the Crime Mime. After freeing him, Truehart revealed herself to Tracy as the Shadoe. Tracy gave the information that Crime Mime had been invited to a party at the Tamarin House.
The Wizard, the Shadoe, and Dog Tracy all headed to the Tamarin House together in search of the Golden Lion. The Shadoe distracted the Bouncer outside while the Wizard and Dog Tracy slipped by. Tracy spoke with the partygoers and found out that three VIPs were holding court in the Drawing Room, the Lounge, and the Cellar, one of whom he believed could only be the Golden Lion. The Wizard entered the Cellar after gathering clues from the partygoers, but instead of finding the Golden Lion they found his power source, a wellspring of Mana that was responsible for keeping him in power. Within the wellspring, the Wizard and Dasein found a Monitoring Station, where the last Attunement Stone was generated. The Virtual Old One revealed the true nature of the Heap, a "trash heap of the disposables" that the Old One periodically would expunge.
Just outside the wellspring the Wizard was met by the Golden Lion himself. He explained how despite his uplifting of crime bosses in Heap, he was used to getting no respect and that the partygoers at Tamarin House were waiting for him to reveal himself so they could take their shot. The Golden Lion warned everyone to stay away but they pursued him to his office anyways. Within the office, the Golden Lion threatened to set off a Mana Burn, but the Shadoe attempted to reason with the Golden Lion and get him to calm down. She entered his mind with her Mind Talisman and cleared out his demons with the help of the Wizard, turning them into virtues. With a new outlook, the Golden Lion gave up and control of Lemuria was handed to the Shadoe and Dog Tracy.
==Points of interest==
*Capo K. Rool's Hideout
*Chatty Café
*Doctor Prune territory
**Honeybee Diner
*Moo Cafe
*Tamarin House
==Appearances==
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==Notes and references==
==External links==
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Category:Cities
Category:Heap locations
Category:Lemuria locations