With the knights of the Storm Dealt with, the interest of the Union GPC alliance turns to the threat from the mists. Orellius Garr is a prisoner of the Union, and with the Help of Intaglio Deep, the effects of powerful mist magic are reversed.

Evelyn Minver talks at length to the criminal to establish how long he has been corrupted and what threat the Mistmind poses. After a long investigation it emerges Orellius has been working for the mist for many many years, back to when there was little interaction between the colonies, and the Union has no choice but to sentence him to a life time in prison.

With the threat of the Mistmind still very real, the old Earthborne Fragment Stack is Weaponised into a great spear, modifying Crusius' rocket technology to launch it straight down into the Mists. As the tip of the stack is replaced with a powerful warhead, and the whole thing coated in some super-effective anti-Mist potion produced by Comrade Ivan, the activity of the Mists increase, with tendrils reaching out to grasp the fragments. These are only barely countered by the allied Mist mages. Finally, the Fragment Spear is ready. As the rocket is ignited, Tomas Stanislavski stays near the tip, using his ability to convert all Mist around him into the raw stuff of life to protect the Spear. Cap'n Burton Twolegs, in the Jazzy Frigate, keeps pace just outside the area of effect, using his own Mist magic to navigate and perform daring feats of acrobatics with his ship, chasing off the kraken that try to attack the falling spear with a combination of Jazz and his heavy cannon. With a massive crunch the spear reached the crystal layer, punching a hole straight through it. As Burton flew away, picking up Tomas on the way, the payload exploded, sending great ripples throughout the crystals. All across the world, people could see a great disturbance in the Mists as they roiled, and heard a thousand eerie voices screaming in pain and slowly being silenced. Explorers to the Deep Mist find that where previously there was a vast, featureless plain of crystals, they have all disappeared, dissolved by the Mist. With no means to communicate with, or care about the Broken World, whatever entity that lurked within the Mists never extended its grasp into the world again.

Across all the colonies a buzz is building, as the Circus prepares to put on their greatest show to date. All across the colonies members of the circus run up large tabs, with vague tit bits of information of what the new show will be used to grease the spokes of getting credit. On the opening night of the new performance, Exodus or To Melt Like a Dream, the audience, having paid way over the odds for their tickets, are sitting on their plush seats and drinking fine wines, waiting for the performance to begin. As the curtain rises, however, there's nothing - no dancers, no set, no pyrotechnics, nothing. Further investigation shows that the entire circus seems to have disappeared into thin air, leaving nothing behind but elephant dung and a pile of unpaid bills. Canny people soon realized that Valk Tillerman disappeared with them, after a number of thefts around the Union Churches and Weaponology departments that he can never be conclusively linked to.