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Message: <blockquote data-quote="skotothalamos" data-source="post: 6271122" data-attributes="member: 83398">This is the EndThe world was turning solid again. Xambria lay dying on the floor of the under-construction subrail tunnel. IronPeak was being controlled by Sijhen, working a golden plate engraved with concentric rings, each representing a planet. Cazara was being systematically pushed away down the rail tunnel by the power of Sijhen’s mind.James and Summer were trying to realign the eight lanterns to disrupt Sijhen’s ritual. James managed to align one lantern, its silvery light turning golden, but otherwise they were having no success. On the nearby wall, the golden seal of Apet was glowing with power. Sijhen was only moments from opening a portal to its home planet of Gidim.Suddenly, IronPeak broke Sijhen’s control over her and she ran off down the tunnel with the golden plate. Cazara yelled at her to throw it to the ground and she complied. Sijhen gave chase and once again took control of IronPeak’s brain. Cazara leapt across the railroad tracks and kicked the golden plate out of reach while punching Sijhen.The alien being’s voice was suddenly in Cazara’s head. “Let me go home and I’ll return the archaeologist to you.” Cazara asked how long the portal would remain open, and Sijhen told her that the portal could stay open for five minutes at the most. Sijhen’s superior attitude implied that it thought this was a well-known fact. Cazara asked when Sijhen would return with its army, but the thing claimed it only wanted to return to Gidim. Cazara told Sijhen she could not make the decision herself and that it should ask the entire group.Sijhen did so. Summer warned that she was afraid that using a portal that led to a planet outside of their own solar system would cause a feedback of Nem energy. She had an instinctual feeling that the outermost planet of their system was working as a gatekeeper of sorts, preventing travel that crossed its orbit. She mentioned that she had recently had a vision of RHC Headquarters being destroyed and that she was worried that allowing Sijhen to cross through his portal could have catastrophic consequences.Cazara agreed to Sijhen’s deal, being more concerned with Xambria than the RHC. She encouraged the others to go along with her and allow the alien to leave peacefully. Everyone heeded Summer’s warning and made a run for it down the subrail tunnel. Sijhen reached into Cazara’s brain and deposited Xambria’s consciousness. Xambria’s body had died during the altercation, but that was a problem to worry about after this crisis had been resolved.Sijhen made for its exit. The world became transparent again. James M. Chinast’s Remarkable Mechanical Hat and Mort Stark opened fire, striking down Sijhen just as it was about to exit.A shockwave shuddered out from the portal, knocking everyone down and burning them with the ruinous energy of Nem. From within the portal emerged a gigantic armored slug-worm thing covered in golden spines and whose body seemed to contain ghostly screaming faces. Mort was running up the stairs in RHC HQ when reality warped and he found himself suddenly right in front of the slug thing. It hurled the Golden Seal of Apet at Mort, crushing him beneath its weight.The horrible creature had to be banished, but Cazara and Summer were overcome by the urge to run away as fast as they could. Cazara focused on surviving to enact future vengeance, while Summer just kept seeing the devastation of her vision. After seeing Mort go down, IronPeak had to head back to save him. She found a nearby train engine and started pushing it toward the end of the tracks. With enough speed, the engine could hopefully break through the barrier at the end of the tracks and push the giant slug thing back through its portal. James saw what she was doing and jumped aboard the train to try to fire up its engine. After a few failures, he finally got the steam engine to light. IronPeak helped the machine accelerate up to full speed, then let it go at the slug thing while she ran to rescue Mort, scooping up his limp form. She looked through the portal and saw an alien world where pulsating thoughtform flora were clinging to red stones while a titanic purple tendril of psychic light swayed into the sky from beyond the horizon. IronPeak could not shake the feeling that the world beyond had noticed her and was studying her. She ran down the tunnel, away from the portal. Mort regained consciousness just before the train made contact with the slug.Mort Stark checked his watch. “It will all turn to dust,” he said calmly, and IronPeak felt a chill, as though winter had come early. The walls, which had still been pulsing with Apet energy, changed. The tunnel above peeled away, as though thousands of years of decay happened in a moment. Mort climbed through the ruined tunnel up to street level and had one last look at the sun before the end came.The train engine slammed into the alien slug thing, driving it back into the portal from which it had emerged. The momentum of the train engine carried it into the portal as well. Immediately the entire wall began to disintegrate into frozen charcoal. The portal’s edges cracked and shattered and collapsed. Everything went dark and the world turned silent except for the tolling of a single bell. The ruinous energies of Nem swept out for a quarter-mile in every direction, turning organic matter to dust and all else to frozen charcoal. Cazara and Summer were near the edge of the energy blast and survived it. IronPeak and James were closer, but were able to survive the surge of magical energies. Mort Stark and everyone else in the blast was not so lucky, and were burnt to ash and then dust.RHC Headquarters and the surrounding blocks were devastated, as though a thousand years had passed in an instant. When the light returned, the surviving constables found themselves in a wasteland in the middle of Flint’s Central District.***Several days later, a memorial was held for the hundreds who had died in The Incident, including a ceremony for the fallen RHC members. Governor Roland Stanfield spoke, referring to the RHC as heroes, and he commended those constables who had helped others escape the area before the blast came. Of course, the press focused on IronPeak. Newspaper articles, undoubtedly influenced by the Risuri Navy and RHC, focused on the lives IronPeak had saved. Lady Inspectress Saxby was on the run, having apparently betrayed both Risur and the Obscurati. In her place, Stover Delft was promoted to Chief Inspector.  The Royal Homeland Constabulary had lost over 80% of its staff and was going to be temporarily housed at Pardwight University while they rebuilt.***Digging through the wreckage of the RHC, James M. Chinast found something that had survived: the head of the brass golem he had been working on. It was pitted and tarnished, but it still seemed to be working. How had this one thing survived? What secrets did it hold? James was determined to find out.***“Uh, hi,” said Xambria’s voice in Cazara’s head. “I, of all people, know exactly how rude it is to live in someone else’s mind, but I don’t have anywhere to live right now. Would it be okay if I just, sort of, crashed here until I can find my own place?”***Summer dreamt of lying back on the sentient grass. It swayed around her in the gluttonous breeze. She pondered the heavens above her, and her curiosity sated the grass’s hunger. Above her floated flames and waves and wind and stone, but not the same she had seen as a child, nor even the similar skies of modern Risur. The stars and planets traced strange paths and hummed with impossible possibilities. For the first time in half a millennium, she could not read the stars. Beneath that alien sky, the future had not yet been written.***The Danoran Consulate held a funeral for Mort Stark. The day of the funeral, a black steamship cruised into Flint Bay. Mort’s mother had made the voyage from Danor to meet the constables who had worked with her son. She wanted to find out what had happened to her son. Someone was responsible for her son’s untimely demise, and Madame Stark meant to get to the bottom of it, no matter the cost.</blockquote>

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