L.T. File: 018: Frůɸe̊b̧ù- Reality Breaks

Discription and Summary

Among the most dangerous, and thankfully rare, phenomena in Hechesoieh are the reality breaks. These are spaces where an entire different dimension is superimposed over our own. These breaks are only barely visible to the trained eye, and due to this present an even greater danger than they otherwose would, if, per se, they manifested as a glowing portal. The Frůɸe̊b̧ù vary in size in our dimension from those that are harmless to an aulvinoid due to size to those as large as barges or even pyramids. If a person or structure cannot fit within the entry dimensions of a break, then it simply does not affect them, so it is difficult to tell how many of these exist on our plane, as those who are trained to search for them are very rare.

The Tranquil Shadows have designed spectacles that allow one to perceive dimensional breaks as fluctuating crystalline structures, and those few shadows who are not on active cases often take the spectacles and chart new areas that others have not yet charted. Due to the lack of free agents, and the prototypical nature of the spectacles, these investigations are unfortunately slow. Usually when a dimensional break occurs, a Shadow or a Jester is sent to resolve it, and, if possible, rescue the individual trapped inside. The danger of the break can be ascertained by the spectacles, and, typically (but not always) based on dimension, of the break, a danger level is prescribed to it on the danger sphere scale.

No known break has been above a sphere 6 obstacle, but such obstacles require a concerted effort between the Jesters and the Shadows for resolution. All breaks should be considered extremely dangerous as they represent a different dimension that has the potential to leak into our own. They also give an opportunity to gain access to rare materials and to meet new people that do not exist in our world. Each dimension break has a "source" a powerful object or being t hat must be destroyed to close the break. Once destroyed, the break destabilizes, and operatives have between ten and fifteen minutes to find somewhere safe.

Operatives, being extraplanar beings in these rifts tear holes in reality when they leave, everything within five feet of an operative when they return, with the exception of incredibly dense materials, such as certain star metals, are torn from their world into ours. The more of our world that leaks into a dimensional break, the more of that world can enter into ours, and the greater the danger, and size, of the break becomes. This is one of the reasons that such breaks must be found and resolved as quickly as possible. A number of operatives have been lost to these breaks, and even a few Jester hopefuls have been slain by the dangers of such phenomena.

Initial cordoning procedures should cordon off an area no less than ten times the size of the break to account for growth phenomena, and operatives should be sent immediately. Breaks smaller than a cat usually dissipate on their own, and those larger should be watched and entered by operatives at the soonest opportunity. Archivist's note: this writer suggests training goblins and awakened operatives, though rare, as operatives for these small breaks, as their small size will allow them to resolve these concerns earlier than an aulvi, kolobvol, or human agent would be able to.- Water-at-Dawn.Internal Environment

Article I: Field Journal of Operative Tallow

Clearance: Fourth Sphere
Location: Hechesoieh, Daebzat frontier wetlands
Break Classification: Unassigned (approaching Sphere 3)
Current Aperture Size: ~1meter (comparable to a small child)

Day 1:
I was made aware of the break at dawn, and quickly requisitioned spectacles to view it. Through the spectacles it presents as a breathing crystalline seam, like ice grown in midair and forgotten by the heat. Without lenses it is nearly invisible, though the skin prickles when one stands too close.

Per protocol, I have established a cordon at fifteen times the current diameter. This exceeds regulation, but the terrain allows it, and slow breaks are the ones that punish optimism, as the growth stabilizes over time.

Day 18:
Incremental growth continues: two fingers’ width every nine days. I have requested a replacement to maintain the portal, but no available operatives have come forth of applicable clearance levels

I have reinforced the cordon with false fencing, rumor, and a fabricated claim of toxic plant-life. Civilians obey poison more readily than mystery.

Day 34:
The break can now admit a child. That means it can admit a goblin. I have submitted a formal request for a small-bodied operative team to enter, locate the focus, and withdraw before further growth occurs.

I cannot attempt entry myself at this size. If this break expands faster after crossing the threshold of life-sized admission, I will be the one to resolve the concern within

— Operative Tallow

Article II: Operative Report — Sphere 2 Reality Break

Reporting Operative: Seaglass
Clearance: Third Sphere
Classification: Sphere 2 — ön (Inconvenient)

Location: Ngakhuenwha, river-adjacent tenement quarter
Aperture Size: Doorway-width

Upon entry, the internal space resembled a distorted reflection of the tenement itself: hallways elongated, angles softened, walls breathing in slow rhythm. Gravity was stable. Time matched baseline flow.

Environmental hazards were mild but disorienting. Light lagged behind movement. Whispering echoes repeated thoughts a moment after they were formed. I experienced a feeling of insomnia (despite having rested for a long period prior) and unease but no direct hostility. The focus was located in what corresponded to the building’s communal washroom: a cracked river-stone fetish embedded in the wall, enlarged to the size of a barrel and slowly bleeding water upward.

Destruction of the focus caused destabilization to begin. Process was complete within ten minutes. structural integrity of TauSkau residence reported improved by engineers in area after event.

Casualties: None
Notes: Sphere 2 interiors often mimic familiar spaces, but imperfectly. This false familiarity is the primary hazard.

— Operative Seaglass

Article III: Containment Division Report — Sphere 4 Reality Break

Reporting Operative: Snowball, Containment Division
Clearance: Fifth Sphere
Classification: Sphere 4 — Thè (Danger)

Location: Daebzat salt flats, abandoned Jant processing yard
Aperture Size: Wagon-width

Internal conditions diverged sharply from baseline reality. The interior dimension was a vast Ash flat under a fractured sky, gravity fluctuating in pulses. Sound carried inconsistently; voices arrived seconds late or not at all.

Environmental corruption was active. Ash formations moved when not observed. A civilian had entered prior to our arrival; we recovered fragments but no complete body.

The focus manifested as a bone-metal lattice half-buried beneath an ash dune, semi-sentient and reactive to attention. Engagement caused spatial recoil injuries among the team.

Neutralization required coordinated strikes and constant anchoring. Upon destruction, the environment collapsed inward violently. Extraction completed with seven minutes remaining. Exit shear caused minor reality laceration to my left arm. minor injury. Ash from extra dimensional space proves to be more effective than prior ash for plant growth. Aulven kinesio-primal biologists are researching how to create a similar ash for future plant production

Casualties:
• One civilian (unrecorded) (human)

Notes: Sphere 4 breaks no longer pretend to be our world. Preparation and purification wards are mandatory.

— Operative Snowball-Containment Division

 Article IV: Joint Operation Record — Sphere 6 Reality Break

Reporting Operative: Ashen Sky–Yssima
Clearance: Sixth / Seventh Sphere
Classification: Sphere 6 — Plèṭṣïb̧ (Existence)

Location: Outskirts ofsealed district Gënlèul- Land of Dawn (former artisan quarter) until extent of damage can be ascertained.

Participating Units: Tranquil Shadows & Jester’s Blade

Aperture Size at Engagement: Equivalent to a pyramid base; accelerating expansion

Date of resolution: 8/31/96

Pre-Engagement Observation 

The break was first reported due to a large section of the artisan quarter suddenly going silent. When it was realized to be a reality break

Through enhanced lenses, the break was not a single aperture but a field—a superimposition of incompatible geometries. The crystalline structure associated with lesser breaks was present only at the margins. At the center, reality behaved as if it were an afterthought. Danger classification was immediately elevated to Sphere 6. District sealing commenced. No attempt at partial containment was made.

Internal Environment

Entry did not produce the sensation of crossing a boundary. One simply realized, seconds too late, that the rules had changed. I have been through Sphere four and multiple sphere two and three breaches, but I was not prepared for my first excursion into a sphere six.

The interior dimension cannot be described as a place. There was no consistent ground, horizon, or orientation. Operatives reported existing in multiple configurations simultaneously standing, falling, embedded, remembered. Movement was achieved by intent rather than motion. Failure to maintain self-concept resulted in partial dissolution. This writer believes that this fate is what occurred to most civilians that had been caught up in this anomaly.

Several operatives lost the ability to distinguish between their bodies and the environment. One Jester reported that the space "was wearing him incorrectly." Luckily for the Jesters, myself and the other sphere six operatives were able to shield their minds enough to re-align them to the altered reality. Time was non-linear. Wounds preceded injuries. Commands were obeyed before being given.

 The Focus Entity

The focus was not singular. It was a distributed intelligence, later designated The Polyanchor Witness (Official Tranquil Shadows designation). Rather than occupying the space, it defined it. The entity was anchored across at least nine spatial-conceptual nodes, each manifesting as a structure that resembled an impossible cathedral spire grown sideways through memory.

The entity exhibited passive awareness. Direct observation caused it to reconfigure. Communication attempts resulted in immediate cognitive cascade failure among operatives—loss of language, identity bleed, involuntary prayer to unknown constants. Operative Walks-on-Rivers was lost in an attempt at communication, her mouth pouring water like a red river as she attempted to communicate until she was turned inside-out into a river-mass that cascaded at sharp angles up the walls of the structures then into the sky.

Analysis suggests the entity was not invading our reality intentionally. Our world was merely one of many surfaces it was resting against.

Engagement and Neutralization

Standard assault doctrine was ineffective. Damage to one anchor caused reinforcement of the others. A joint decision was made to employ sacrificial binding. Three operatives volunteered to function as conceptual weights, fixing the entity’s attention long enough for the remaining team to sever anchors individually.

Each anchor destruction altered the environment catastrophically. One anchor’s collapse inverted causality locally, resulting in the instant temporal erasure of Operative Elion Marr.

The final anchor resisted termination. Operative Vethryn of Falling Ash (Aulvi) maintained physical contact while Operative Sàelune — Storm-After-Glass enacted the severance. Vethryn did not disengage in time and Vethryn was discorporated into a misty field of bloody bubbles. Upon destruction of the final anchor, the break entered terminal destabilization.

Sings-in-Hallowed-Dunes (Kolobvol) and Captain Roenne Hale, both Jester hopefuls, were slain as the creature began to stir. They fought it off long enough for the anchor dissolution to occur, but were torn apart in its resulting death throes.

Extraction and Closure

Collapse occurred around the operatives, each exiting individual tore free approximately five feet of the interior reality.

This resulted in:

*   Atmospheric anomalies (non-breathable vapor dissipated after seconds)

*   Fragments of non-Euclidean structure embedded in surrounding streets eventually reacclimated to Euclidean norms.

*   The partial manifestation of an entity limb that did not survive baseline physics, and dissipated nearly instantaneously.

One Shadow, Divian- Winter's Kiss, self-terminated inside the break to prevent propagation through exit overlap as another indescribable creature from that realm latched itself onto her, rather than allow such a creature into our world.

 Casualties

Tranquil Shadows

- Elion Marr (erased) (human)

- Vethryn of Falling Ash (Aulvi)

- Divian- Winter's Kiss (Aulvi)

- Sàelune — Storm-After-Glass (Aulvi)

- Walks-on-Rivers (Kolobvol)

Jester’s Blade

• Captain Roenne Hale - Dhampir

• Sings-in-Hallowed-Dunes (Kolobvol)

Three bodies were unrecovered. One death unconfirmed but presumed total. Final body could not be remembered even by other jesters. Damn metaphysical realities.

Thousands of Aulvi, human, Kolobvol civilians, as well as two Jant artisans, one goblin inventor, and two-dozen "starter" Hues who were working in the district.

This is the single worst metaphysical disaster among the aulven people since the end of the exodus, and the first to take the lives of children.

Post-Operation Status

The district remained sealed for two rotations. Residual matter from the extracted five-foot zones persists in stable pockets. These are under continuous observation.

Materials from alternate dimension have been classified as temporarily hazardous, and will be placed under scientific observation until a record of safety and use can be determined.

This operative did find an object shaped like a knife, but the blade of which is a monofilament of some non-natural element. If it is a safe material, I may have it made into a blade with which to combat such anomalies in the future.

Final Assessment

Sphere 6 breaks are not incursions. They are intersections between incompatible truths. Resolution is not victory, only refusal. After my experience within this sphere 6 break, I can only hope that no greater breaks are ever established, and that such breaks as these become increasingly rare.

— Ashen Sky- Yssima