The Storm Beyond Worlds

(This mission statement was too long. TLDR, Big bad evil space rift opened, agents have three seconds to stop it before it destroys a universe but they have magic serum that lets them move 300 times faster. They spawned in an almost upside-down tower with a computer that controlled a network of marble that could reform into whatever you needed)

Full Statement:

It could happen anytime, anywhere— it’s just very, VERY unlikely…

Atoms have a small chance of passing through each other due to a very rare effect called quantum tunneling. Theoretically, if two objects were to have a large enough portion of their matter undergo a simultaneous quantum tunneling, they would phase into each other. When this happens, the matter could potentially fuse together into something entirely new. Long ago, it was hypothesized that extremely deadly forms of matter could form in such an instance.

These theories were considered ridiculous, given the compounding astronomical improbabilities that would be required, but a detector was built nevertheless. After lying dormant for iterations untold, the detector alerted us to a nightmare scenario— a Kjálkar Event Horizon has spawned in the utopian hi-tech metropolis of Ruani. The energy within is all-consuming, growing exponentially in power. Three seconds from the present time, it will reach a point of no return, consuming not just the planet but Ruani’s entire inchoasal lattice.

In three seconds, a universe will be destroyed. You have fifteen minutes to stop that from happening.

The Enclave is providing the assigned agents with Centichron serum. When injected, this will allow one to pass through time at 1/300 Manifold Temporal Constant. We honor and remember the attendants who sacrificed themselves to the black rifts to provide this boon.

Emergency Pingout will be provided on a 0.5 second delay (real time)
Population of Ruani: 7,342,901
Population of Ruani’s Inchoasal lattice: 2.74 x10^36

Your mission is to prevent the Kjálkar Event Horizon from reaching the point of no return by any means necessary. The Enclave thanks you for your service to Manifold.

Mission Statement Update:

-You will each receive a Twelvefold Medallion. So long as you keep this on your person, you may choose to communicate telepathically. It also provides a high ward against magic that would consume or possess you.

-Also Earplugs (H+) and a watch

Your port-in location will be in the observation tower at the top of the Ruani Central Control Tower, which has just started falling into the crater that has been created around the rift (which formed in an underground quarry, several miles away). It is currently at a -45 degree angle The lower levels of the tower contain a control room with a central quantum computer for the intelligent marble. Below that lies the fission reactor that powers the entire Ruani city. We hypothesize that the Kjálkar will most likely be vulnerable to physical weapons, especially in the early stages.

(And just to be abundantly clear: The 15 minute time limit is NOT an irl timer— that would make this mission bad and ineligible for the season of slaughter)

The agents, Jasper the Lithomancer, Belatrix the Brainiac, Fay the Beserker, and Zahak the Thunderbird arrived falling, smacking into the window peering down upon the rift as shadowy beings drifted up towards them. Belatrix and Jasper used their Gantries to climb up to the floor of the observation deck and up through the stairs to the lower levels (located above because building is almost upside-down). Zahak flew his housecarl Temujin and Fay up to the ceiling, Fay joined Jasper and Belatrix while Zahak and Temujin fought off the beasts. They were fairly trivial to defeat, but dissolved into shadows that stained the floor.

Jasper and Belatrix interfaced with the central quantum computer. This gave them control over the intelligent marble, which they used first to create energy detectors. Belatrix used the information gleaned from the detectors to determine that the Kjálkar were likely vulnerable to electrostatic interference due to their similarity to strange matter. They used this to create an electrostatic barrier around the tower, reinforced and supercharged by Zahak's tempestuous tornado stormbrewing.

While this sufficed to keep the outside threats at bay for the time being, the shadows within the tower began to sprout fangs and eventually turned into beasts with maws moving across their body in a horrific non-Euclidean fashion. Zahak continued to fight, buying time for his fellow agents, but the shadowy beings managed to slip past. Fay and Jasper managed to fight them off while Belatrix prepared an electrostatic atomic laser beam.

After the fight, Fay offered some hallucinogens to Zahak. Upon imbibing them, he had a vision of his Ancestor, Lucifer Morningstar, the progenitor of the Khaganate and the first High Khagan. Zahak professed his commitment to defending the Khaganate and his fellow agents, vowing that he'd be willing to sacrifice anything to keep them safe. The Morningstar lauded this commitment and told Zahak that the enemy was below.

The barrier and tornado were then breached by a draconic eldritch entity resembling the shadow beasts, but the agents managed to bind it in place and then Belatrix unleashed her electromagnetic laser upon it, frying it to a crisp and proving that this laser could indeed do serious damage to these entities.

Belatrix then tried to fire the laser upon the bottom of the pit, but there seemed to be something large blocking the way. Upon closer inspection it proved to be another eldritch beast, the size of a titanic Kaiju with three heads. Jasper created a ramp for Fay to slide down and Zahak activated his "Behold the Khan" form, a disturbing looking hundred-foot-tall demonic demon. Jasper then followed up by throwing a bomb down as Fay engaged the beast.

Belatrix resumed firing the laser, and one of the beast's three heads focused on blocking it, sacrificing wave upon wave of small shadowy beings emitted from its maw. The point where Jasper's explosion hit left a patch where one head seemed unable to sprout fangs/a mouth. Fay landed upon this spot and began moving down the neck, but she was assailed by shadow beasts. She fought them off but ended up losing her spatha in one.

Jasper reconstructed the ramp into a battering ram that began trying to push the creature, but for now it held its ground.

Zahak arrived slightly later after taking the time to transform, and engaged the head neither blocking the laser or harboring Fay. It fought back but Zahak, in a fury, bit into the creature. Unfortunately this was a dangerous play, as not even the medallion was strong enough to fully counter the shadow-entrenching effects from within. Zahak managed to blast the attacker within his mouth with a lightning discharge, but inflicting this upon himself caused an internal shockwave that rendered him blind. In a fury of rage, Zahak dug his hand into the wound his bite had created and ripped the head clean off. In doing so, he lost his vantage and began to fall down below into the abyss.

At this moment, in a last-ditch effort, Fay fed her remaining entheogens into the Kaiju's maw. This caused it to hyperfixate on its purpose: protect the core of the storm below it. The Kaiju diverted all attention and strength to blocking the beam from above.

From hundreds of feet below, Zahak decided it was time to go for it. He used a combination of Storm-Bound Leap and Wrath of the Storm Dragon, turning his Out of the Blue upwards and manifesting a titanic thundering dragon around him, the guidance of Lucifer Morningstar and the Khans the only eyes he needed. He smashed into the kaiju from below with godlike force, which was more than enough to hit it at a vulnerable point and stun it. The beast was then pushed out of the way wholly by Jasper's battering ram as Belatrix's laser slammed into the core of the storm below. There was a massive implosion as the energies that were released from the core started to become sucked back inwards.

Fay took immediate evasive action, dodging back to the stone ramp, which Jasper quickly reformed into stairs that helped her upwards. Zahak took the full force of the implosion point blank.

When the shadows cleared, Zahak's body was at the bottom of the crater.

Badges pinged, and the agents mourned.

Total lives lost in the incursion: 71,023
including Agent Zahak Barzikhani, Khan of Ghandara. Level 8 Thunderbird.
Lives saved: 2.74 x10^36

Mission Success

• Zahak Barzikani (Aspirant V1)

• Jasper unregistered
• Fay unregistered
• Belatrix unregistered