A Who's Who from the "Dark Tower" (Part 5)

Now, to understand Blaine you must first realize that it has something very much to do with the world "moving on." Basically, that phrase seems to mean things like things breaking down and becoming more and more brutal as tome progresses. But .....that sort of also applies to things other than society. Okay, originally things, as you have already guess, were much more advance technologically and socially than they are now. Once, Mid-world apparently had a very high tech society and a very advanced social structure. However, things started to break down...."move on." Enlightened democracies devolved into brutal dictatorships....to anarchy. Large armies break down into small bandits and gangs. Large nations breaking into smaller kingdoms. That sort of thing. Weapons of mass destruction (gas, biological, nuclear, stuff of that nature) were used in anger and large areas of land were made uninhabitable for human beings. The supersonic train that Roland and friends are on right now is the only possible way through a large tract of deadly land in their quest to reach the Dark Tower. 

Now, Lud is the city that Blaine's computer intellect is housed in. Housed in a secure bunker below ground. The artificial intelligence known as Blaine might have served many purposed back when things were better, but.....the world has moved on and something in the air.....the corrosive nature of the damage to the Dark Tower seems to have.....er....infected the computer perhaps and the things gone around the bend! The resulting......creature called Blaine is psychotic with a dash of mutliple personality to make things interesting. The dominant personality is the cruel side known as Big Blaine. The somewhat kinder but passive side of this creature is Little Blaine. Big Blaine appears to not know about his other side, but Little Blaine knows of Big Blaine. Eh, don't ask me, I'm not an expert in Dipolar Computers (the kind of computer the AI is here). 

Now, Lud soon became an isolated, war torn ruin with two gangs (the Pubes and the Grays) fighting over the carcass. Now, Blaine being a bit psychotic, has set himself up as something of a god....it appears and every time the still working Public Announcement system starts playing the "god drums" (what Eddie Dean recognizes as the backbeat drum to the ZZ Top song "Velcro Fly" of all things) yet another person gets strung up to appease him. But soon, as Roland and gang makes the scene the luney AI decides it's been in the world too long and wants to destroy itself.....and take the brave adventurers with him! The adventurers MUST board the very train that Blaine controls because besides being the only means through the deadly wasteland beyond, there is the extra insentive that Blaine had set in motion the release of some deadly nerve gas that would kill all left in Lud! 

Once aboard and on their way (after treating his captive audience to the scenes of death below as they began to speed away by making the train carriage walls transparent), Blaine then revealed his intentions to take the adventurers all the way to Topeka....at full speed and CRASH. The destruction of the train would also destroy the AI, who felt it was the only thing left to it. But, to make things interesting and pass the time (making it interesting for the bored, crazy AI), it wanted Roland to ask it a bunch of riddles. 

Fun, fun, fun!! 

But before Roland was going to tell Blaine what he could do with that request, that's when the Champions popped in. Shocked the others, including Blaine, by no small means ! 

1. But , by the time the Champions have finished introducing themselves and telling about themselves, even the pet of Jake's called Oy (small mammal called a billy-bumbler that Jake which can repeat words) just stare at them. 

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