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Message: <blockquote data-quote="skotothalamos" data-source="post: 6268708" data-attributes="member: 83398">This Just Got RealReality was pulsing in and out of solidity in the Royal Homeland Constabulary Headquarters, on about a thirty-second cycle. Every thirty seconds, there was a short period where anyone could walk right through the walls and floors, which became transparent during this time. They would fade back to complete opacity and solidity on the other end of the cycle. Dozens of thought monsters were whipping through the building, preying on anyone they could find.The constables were spread throughout the building, as were many staffers and other constables. When everyone regained their balance after the vertigo-inducing wave of energy, Cazara and Summer were focused on tracking down the escaping Xambria and/or Sijhen, last seen heading for Saxby’s office. Cazara downed a potion to protect herself from the psychic energies of Apet, while Summer turned invisible and ran for the stairs out of the basement as fast as she could. Cazara sent a Messenger Wind to IronPeak, telling her that Sijhen had escaped and to keep an eye out for Xambria, and also informing her that when reality had become transparent, Xambria had climbed right through the ceiling as though it did not exist.On the ground floor, James had just finished treating IronPeak’s Distant Madness. The two of them at first thought that the weird visual effects were a result of of James’s spell, but then they heard screaming coming from the hall. IronPeak led the way into the hallway, where she saw a glowing orb and some crawling beasts killing RHC staff and visitors. She charged into action, followed by James, who got off a couple of musket shots to keep the beasts at bay. After they dealt with the hallway, the walls and ceiling became transparent. Looking up, IronPeak saw that she was right below Xambria, who was threatening Lady Inspectress Saxby.Upstairs, Mort Stark and Malkie Vienne were in separate offices. Outside his window, Mort saw a flying thing identical to the ones the constables had seen at the fair. Without hesitating, he drew a pistol and, wanting to waste no time actually opening his window, he shot through the glass, nearly killing the thing in a single shot. It came after him, but he made quick work of it with the bladed end of his pistol. Just as he killed the thing, he heard Summer’s voice directing him toward Saxby’s office as she ran through his office invisibly.In the far corner of the building, Malkie saw that Assistant Chief Inspector Delft was being menaced by a massive bodiless worm maw similar to the one that had “eaten” IronPeak at the Arms Expo. It had devoured her, setting off her Distant Madness over three weeks ago. But since the maw was unconnected to a body, she had just fallen out the other side, confused and insane, but physically okay. Although the maw was currently unable to get past Delft’s office door, Malkie was convinced the maw would kill Delft, and she moved to rescue him. She climbed out the window of her office, threw a brick through the nearby window of Delft office, and scampered along the wall (with her Boots of Spider Climbing). She entered his office, holding a pair of potions in her hand to help Delft escape. Delft panicked, shouting, “back you Dopplegänger,” before shooting Malkie solidly in the chest. Malkie barely had a moment to convince Delft that she was there to help before reality became unsolid again. The worm maw slipped through the wall, tearing at Malkie and Delft with its tentacles. The thing lifted Malkie to its mouth and swallowed her whole. With the energy of Apet surging through this reality, somehow the worm maw had finally connected with its body, and Malkie was never seen again. Malkie’s last act did achieve her goal, though: Delft was now convinced that Malkie was not in league with the alien beings surging through the building. He escaped from the maw (which was now trapped inside his office when the walls became solid again) and began to rally the RHC, collecting cowering workers from offices and bathrooms. These he organized into a fighting force.While Malkie was dying in the Assistant Chief’s office, Ironpeak was pulling herself up through the floor into the Chief’s office, just in time to see Xambria take a two-foot diameter gold plate from Saxby’s safe. Xambria then majestically allowed herself to fall through the floor all the way back down to the basement, where she vanished. Just as IronPeak began to threaten Saxby, a group of black-clad assassins kicked the door in. Saxby scampered, passing by Mort as the two phased through her wall in different directions. This left Mort and IronPeak to fight Saxby’s battles, while she gathered her own team of constables (Blake, Durakh-al, and Fantôme). She assigned Durakh-al and Fantôme to fight the assassins while she and Blake headed down the stairs to the ground floor. As Delft was already organizing the survivors, Lady Inspectress Saxby had little trouble slipping out of the RHC while everyone else was distracted.An assassin grabbed IronPeak and teleported her down to the basement, thinking he had isolated her from the others. Mort was caught in a tangle of living darkness summoned up by one of the other assassins. Cazara saw IronPeak’s situation just as the walls and floor became solid again. Downing a potion that let her walk through walls anyway, she descended as fast as she could, directly through the floor. James followed, opting for the stairs.Summer helped Durakh-al and Fantôme clear the upper hallway of assassins and then she, too joined the others in the basement. Mort eventually escaped the assassin’s spell and made his way downstairs as well, with the help of Fantôme. In the basement, Cazara opened her inner eye, trying to sense where Sijhen had gone. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his true form, all grey and tentacled, clinging to the invisible Xambria, near the south wall of the jail cells. She pointed his position out to IronPeak, and IronPeak pulled out the Blade of the Ancients and charged toward the wall. When she swung the sword, it summoned another hostile ball of light, but IronPeak managed to crash into Xambria anyway and was able to awkwardly shove her into a nearby cell and lock the door.IronPeak somehow managed to banish the light creature almost immediately. This was enough for the assassin. Seeing the RHC in action convinced him he needed to be somewhere else. He ran for the far end of the prison level, where he stepped through a ring of rusted iron and returned to the Bleak Gate.With Xambria locked in a cell, but not visible, the constables blasted the area with everything they had. It seemed to work, as Sijhen was unable to keep his invisibility spell going. Poisoned, electrocuted, burning, and himself under the effects of a psychic attack (Mort’s Id Moss poison), Sijhen made a run for it when the world slipped once more into transparency. He ran straight through forty feet of solid rock, into the nearby subrail under-construction subrail tunnel. This exertion plus Mort’s poison gave Xambria a chance to gain control of her body for a moment. Her old mining pick manifested in her hand and the group looked on as she drove the pick right into her own leg and then passed out.IronPeak was the only constable able to give chase before reality became solid again. She found Xambria lying amongst a circle of eight lanterns, which were all emitting a silvery light. Up against one of the walls of the subrail tunnel was the golden seal of Apet, glowing with energy. When she collapsed, Xambria dropped the two-foot golden plate she had stolen from Saxby’s office. IronPeak saw that it had eight concentric rings with representations of the planets on it. Additionally, it had rings showing the various constellations that were associated with the planets.IronPeak shoved Xambria’s unconscious body out of the circle of lanterns, then turned back to retrieve the solar-system plate when she felt ephemeral fingertips caress her brain. “I rather liked that body. But yours will do,” whispered Sijhen as it took her over. Ironpeak found herself picking up the plate and re-aligning the sigils, so different constellations matched up with different planets. She managed to wrest control of her body back momentarily, during which time she bent the plate, hoping to destroy it. An earthquake shook through Flint as Ironpeak roughly handled the representation of the planet Urim, plane of earth. Sijhen quickly regained control, bent the plate back to some semblance of operability and continued its ritual.After thirty seconds, Cazara, James, and Summer came dashing through the forty feet of solid stone they had been forced to wait behind. Cazara attacked Sijhen while Summer and James took in the arcane ritual it was creating. Summer immediately recognized that the eight lanterns were channeling starlight. As IronPeak worked the Ancient Star Map, the lanterns aligned themselves with different constellations. Summer immediately inferred that if she could manually realign the lanterns to the constellation of The Lost (associated with Nem, the outermost planet and plane of Ruin), she could shut down the ritual. She tried to push out of her mind the dream she’d recently had where she’d seen RHC Headquarters reduced to a blasted wasteland.Mort, upon seeing Sijhen with its fingers in IronPeak’s skull, could not restrain himself. He lined up a shot at the alien creature and fired his pistol. The bullet never made it through the wall, getting swallowed up somewhere amongst the forty feet of stone as the walls became solid. It was only at that moment that he realized that he’d forgotten to traverse the intervening distance and would have to wait another thirty seconds to join the others in the subrail tunnel. Turning to his left, he also noticed that he was inside a jail cell. He really hoped the door wasn’t locked…</blockquote>

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