The Maenads of the Third City

They can be seen during Rantine's highest summer, when the crimson sea smokes and boils, and when most of the population retreat to the shaded interiors of their homes and apartments, to share blood, or simply to wile away the days and escape the unbearable heat.The Imperial garrison also stay off the streets on the worst days - it is true that the sun (low in the sky, radiant heat from surfaces, the solar disk itself almost black) can kill you, or drive you mad, cook you in your armour, blind you; but it is also true that people go missing on days like this, and Imperial soldiers are no exception. Maenads are often young, but not exclusively, and often poor, but not exclusively. Their skin is stained red by the smoke that boils off the chemical sea, which they bathe in to commence the transformation after swallowing potent and poisonous psychoactive chemicals. Most of them wear masks (and sometimes people will throw masks out into the street for them) to make themselves anonymous to…