The Cosmic Chronicle

A chill more suffocating than the restless vapormist of Lumino Refracta froze the megapool on stardate 4422.52, as The Riftstab of the Image Factories struck. Balifax the Cine-Therapist and Miralune of the Lightheart were abruptly and violently fragmented, their prism-dwellings in Helios Edge torn asunder by inexplicable fissure-bands. Emergency medical swarms arrived within circuits of the alarm-yet found only residual cold, pulsing echoes where once dialogues and laughter reigned.

Now, all subspace eyes turn to Vorlax of the Guest Zone, the only descendant-and an infamous disturber of whatever peace the Beeldfabrieken once knew. Vorlax denies any role in the calamity, despite the ever-present taint of his rust-stained and spectral existence. Witnesses report him recently drifting through the outer envelope of the residential zone, seeking a shape he seems incapable of maintaining. No breaches in forcefields, no telltale entry marks-only an atmospheric trail of confusion and a gnawing hunger for forgiveness, or perhaps something more unknowable.

Shadows of his history with chemical haze, psychic disarray, and public struggles with existential mist echo through the corridors of the city’s court systems. Now, with the Riftstab as an unfathomable breachline, the threat of communal judgment looms, broadcast by archive-robots crawling from their memory caskets. The formal inquiry-timed for a dim cluster eclipse at the cycle’s end-leaves little prospect for a mere ritual outcome.

With the Image Factories drowned in fog, and citizens tangled in a net of intrusive half-truths, a rumor of unspoken doom creeps across the city. Few dare approach the shattered core, but all sense how the ground beneath their projected certainties is beginning to tremble.