The sector has an ominous glow to it. Everywhere there is rubble and ruins. The smell of reactors burning. Too many Bombs.

The Gast Train runs its daily loops but does not stop for this sector. The only way in is through the Sector VI-VII gates; the Sector VII-I gates have long been shut down.

There are strange creatures lurking about; horrible, terrifying creatures. They eat souls and steal hearts away from men. They prey in the moonlight and haunt the daylight.

The sun shines through cracks in the sector's roofs. The old Clock Tower stands high among the rubble at the center of the sector, the only structure perfectly intact.

Errai Saiph tried alighting on a fallen building, having come in to Sector VII from above. Rather than alighting on it, though, the volatile green energy he expelled from his feet for the purpose of flight knocked a chunk of concrete free and to the street below.

Errai wasn't much for fear or hesitation, but this place gave him the creeps. He'd come here on Saeun's orders at seeing a mysterious and blank mission posting, figuring his most bluntly powerful clanner's skills might be useful in shedding some light. He was incredibly durable, at least.

"'s place is kind of spooky," he said to nobody in particular.

As Errai landed, several crows flew down from the sky and perched on a building nearby. A cool air swept through the sector; aside from the presence of the crows, it seemed completely empty. Quiet.

The clock tower broke the silence as it struck its bells...one, two, four, seven, twelve. Twelve times. Each strike produced a deep, vibrating note that sounded through the entire sector. The crows flew away. Each strike sounded louder and louder, until the ground began to shake. With the concluding silence the minute hand moved to the right once.

The lights inside the reactor on the edge of the sector lit up. Blazing red lights.

The sun peered through the cracks with overwhelming intensity. It was a hot day.

Errai remained silent as the bell chimed, arms crossed over the sector. For one, a clock tower would probably need an operator, unless it was fully automated on a thaumaturgical clock of its own.

The young man leapt from his rooftop with a flash of green energy and shot off to the clock tower, leaving a green trail from his legs that vanished after a second. If he was wrong about it being operated, the reactor would be his next stop.

Suddenly the entire sector was turned gray by an ominous fog. Red lights began to flicker in the distance, piercing through the thick fog, presumably coming from the reactor.

The ground entrance to the clock tower flew open. It looked pitch-black inside of its belly. It seemed to be nodding for Errai to enter, beckoning him in and pinching his spine.

Errai landed with the crunching of old pavement and paused to conjure a bright green ball in his left palm before walking in. The light playing off his dark skin looked sickly rather than the normal health it usual showed. Or, he thought, it was just nerves.

The inside of the clock tower took on the shape of a empty room lined with bookshelves. At the center was a rotting table and chair. A candlestick sat on the table, slightly slanted and half-melted into the table. The air was thick with mold and disease.

A staircase lined the very back of the room. The books on the shelves seemed to be laughing at Errai as if they knew everything. Slowly, the fog began to flood into the clock tower's interior.

Errai fought back shivers and approached the table. He tried lighting the candle with a pointed finger and muttered word, green fire stretching from his finger to touch the wick.

The candle lit up immediately. The room became illuminated with the candle's greenish glow. The flame cast strange, flickering shadows across the ceiling of the place.

The books began to fall off the shelves as something disturbed their easiness. They were no longer laughing but trembling in fear. The ground began to fade and turn black. The books were falling and falling and soon they couldn't be seen anymore.

The roof began to collapse. The entire place was shaking as if an earthquake had just begun. Piercing, sharp noises came from the walls as the roof finally gave way.

Fortunately for Errai, he'd had a ridiculous amount of experience fighting buildings [and his way out of them]. A simply collapse was basically nothing to an experienced human wrecking ball.

So he shot out of the rubble in a blast of green, back out into the heavy fog. The place was hella weird, but he couldn't go back to Saeun on account of frayed nerves. So he headed for the reactor's red lights.

The bell rang nine times. The crows flew down again, flying above Errai and landing somewhere close by. They were only barely visible in the immense fog.

As Errai approached the reactor, the red lights began to fade. However, it was wide open. Nasty fumes were pervading from it. It reeked of Bombs.

Errai landed and kept walking for a few paces, then paused. After a few moments' thought, he raised a hand and blasted a wide area of concrete apart, sure to make a whole lot of racket.

For a moment it was silent. Then, an explosion erupted from deep within the reactor. Something had collapsed inside. The red lights had faded completely at this point; the reactor seemed to have shut down.

Errai quirked an eyebrow. He'd sort of hoped he would lure out anything unsavoury around here, but that hadn't worked. With a heavy sigh, he headed inside the reactor...

As Errai entered the reactor, the world seemed to shift around him. Inside, the reactor looked like a tropical rain forest covered almost completely in plants, but there was no doubt the the redness behind the plants was the walls of the reactor itself. The air was thick and humid and stank badly, and the thick underbrush seemed to obscure what lied ahead.

Errai grunted and batted around himself with the same green energy, trying to clear a path; he found the foliage too thick in most places for delicate work, and resolved to just blast his way through. How did a rainforest grow in a place like this? Mana radiation or something like that, leeching into the ground?

As Errai blasted his way through the foliage and proceeded forward the plants around him seemed to grow back thicker than before, obscuring the entrance to the reactor. Before him was a fountain of motionless, clear water. The vines hanging down from the ceiling seemed to be furiously pointing into the fountain. Past the fountain was a cleared path that led to a staircase leading up into darkness.

Errai whistled. "Awful nice atmosphere, at least! Place's mighty spooky."

He gathered a spell in both hands, a vibrant ball of verdant energy, and shot it out to try and destroy the fountain. Mostly Errai was getting fed up with his environment; while he wasn't a stupid person, he preferred simple solutions. Blowing it up seemed to be what felt right to him.

The blast seemed to do the trick because the fountain vanished in an instant and was replaced by a plot of dirt. A vague spirit appeared before him who had neither mouth nor arms; in place of each of these features were long claws that pointed downwards. Slowly, the spirit crawled up the stairs and disappeared into the shadows, his eyes glowing an ominous teal color.

Now that gave Errai pause. He kept an eye on the spirit, genuinely sort of weirded out; there was no way that was a natural ghost or construct. Whatever was going on here was more than just out of the ordinary.

"Hey, come back!" Errai called, making for the stairs on foot.

The first thing Errai would have noticed upon entering the next room was the eternal tick, tock that seemed to resonate throughout the room. It was completely pitch black, but other than that, nothing stirred.

Errai waited a minute for his eyes to adjust, and when they didn't, he groaned and called up another ball of green feyfire to hover above his head, casting a sharp shadow directly below him.

He looked around.

The air was somewhat thick with the smell of mold. Nearby, a broken stairway led to yet another floor. In one corner of the room was a great bed with its curtains pulled out and a nightstand with a miniature sculpture of the clock tower. An old grand piano sat in the opposite corner, and the room was lined with paintings of noble men whose faces were corrupted and inhuman.

Something seemed cold and distant about the room.

Errai crossed to the nightstand, and reached out to touch the miniature of the clock tower. He paused, then pushed it a little.

The room seemed to move with the miniature. The grand piano slide across the floor a little, and as it did it thumped the wall. Several paintings fell and shattered. The faces of the men lay scattered across the floor, frowning; their broken images became burnt into the floor of the room as the room became more and more chaotic. Slowly, the miniature began to lose balance as the room continued to toss and turn. As the miniature finally hit the nightstand it rolled off the table, and suddenly the room began to roll over itself violently. Furniture went flying in this and that direction, throwing the bed against the wall and smashing it. The black hole created began sucking all the contents of the room, swallowing everything whole.

"I totally knew that would happen!" Errai shouted as he first tried maintaining balance, then went into the air and tumbled with the furniture.

For a normal mage, gathering enough focus in the tumult would be next to impossible. Errai, whose modus operandi consisted of chasing things he had blasted through buildings, fared much better; he stabilized himself in midair and held out a shield of green feyfire as bed's remains flew at him, trying to orient up from down and failing all the while.

The sun shined brightly over Errai's shoulders. On top of the clock tower, the spirit stood and stared down at the deserted city below him. The crows gathered around above him, circling his head before scattering and flying through the cracks in the sector's aged ceiling. He turned around, staring past Errai; the spirit didn't seem to notice Errais presence.

Errai finally found himself upside down, and kicked once with a burst of energy to right himself and look up at the figure.

The creepy surroundings weren't what bothered him. Not even nearly getting swallowed by a rift or being bludgeoned to death by broken furniture. It was that he was tired. Expending all that energy in the last few minutes had overcome his normally superhuman capabilities, his ability to recover mana more quickly than he could use it. It was unfamiliar, and uncomfortable. No doubt in a few minutes he would feel back up to snuff, but for now he was in a weakened state in a very trying place.

Okay, maybe the surroundings were bothersome.

"Ho there!" he called up at the spirit.