Questioning the Notion

[Brian]

Catherine doesn't hesitate, just nodding.  "Exactly like that one," she says, narrowing her eyes.  "Who are you?"

[Bjorn]

"Not the guy you dreamt of," Bjorn replies, dismissing the bracelet.  "I was sent this bracelet, probably by the man you saw.   Never met him, don't know his name, but have met his successor.  The statue... interesting.  We have a friend who also had a piece of the statue.

His eyes narrow, and his stance hardens ever so slightly.  "So you're also from reality?"

[Brian]

She nods.  "Chicago," she adds.  "But, I've been told you know the way back, so...?"

[Bjorn]

"So we need to get cracking on the beating people up bit," Bjorn finishes. 

Through the Waking Dream, he touches Nathan's mind.  Pax or Cabal?

[Rezantis]

I'm going to believe 'independent'.  It's happened before.

[Bjorn]

Or lying.  Keep an eye on her.  Just an eye.  Playboy.

[Dracos]

"Definitely.  We can't really get to the picnic without the mandatory work being done first.  Is everyone ready to go?"

[Rezantis]

What are you, my mother?  You're just jealous!

"We'll explain this in a little more detail later, Catherine.  For now, we have work to do."

[Brian]

"Work?" Catherine asks, just before the earthquake begins.  Or at least ... it seems like an earthquake for the first instant.  Everything in the room begins shaking slowly, swaying from side-to-side, as though the entire crystal palace wereon springy stilts.  The effect is accompanied by a sickening blur that melts edges and colors, perspective and meaning from the environs into a mad, whirling blend of undefined reality.  "Not again," Catherine groans, covering her eyes with one hand.

Holmes looks a bit confused, glancing around as though nothing were amiss.  And just as suddenly as the oddity began, it stops.  On the walls, at least; where they were once polished and care-worn wood, they are now burnished steel.  The windows seem thinner, but no more fragile.  The paintings on the wall now have more severe frames, and their content has changed, but their messages remain the same.  Where there had been a man with a bow standing over a stag, now there's the same man with a gun, standing over a nearly identical creature in a different pose.  The thin rugs on the floor have been replaced by a single, very thick carpet, and the tapestry is gone, replaced with a complex tile mural.

But now, everyone's clothing blurs, shifts, and adjusts, as well.  Now the suits look right out of a sci-fi anime, very minimalist and stark gray.  Catherine's dress loses much of the needless flounces and hoops, becoming something only a bit more frilly than core-Earth fashions.  Those with watches find that they're still watches, but there's no longer a spring to wind them, and the display flickers with a tiny pulsing crystal, as though the hands were holographic projections instead of solid matter.

"What, again?" Holmes finally asks.  "Is something amiss?"

A glance out the window shows much more industrialized and less Victorian-era surroundings.  In the distance, a large swath of Victorian thatched cottages blurs into a row of more compact town-houses.

[Carthrat]

Once he recovers his bearings, the redskin speaks- "It's as if the entire world got hurled through one of those.. progression gates?"

[Dracos]

"...What the hell?  Did nothing seem odd to you Holmes?"

[Brian]

Holmes blinks at this.  "What?"

"Maybe," Catherine says, rubbing at her temples.  "I don't know.  It happens every few days, here.  Every time it does, it takes me hours to figure out what my 'spark' is supposed to do now, or how everyone around me has changed."

"I noticed nothing out of the ordinary," the inspector says with a shrug.

[Dracos]

"It must only be noticeable to offworlders.  Holmes, a dramatic change just happened to the entire city...possibly the entire sphere.  Indeed, it was as if you just leapt two hundred years into the future."

[Brian]

Holmes looks supremely skeptical.  "I see."

[Carthrat]

"More importantly, could this occur to the other spheres as well?" wonders Tom. "I'm willing to bet it does, which could pose all sorts of problems down the line."