[center][h1]PROLOGUE: TICKET NUMBER 404[/h1][/center]
[hr]

[h2]THE WAKING WORLD: Pontypool, South Wales[/h2]
[indent]It is a painfully dreary Tuesday morning in the regional office of the [b][color=#5555FF]Bureau of Environmental Compliance[/color][/b]. Rain lashes against the single-pane windows, and the radiator in the corner produces a rhythmic, metallic [i]clank[/i] precisely every fourteen seconds—a frequency deliberately engineered by the Crown to prevent a continuous train of thought.

You are sitting in a plastic chair bolted to the floor. The queue has not moved in forty-seven minutes. Behind the reinforced glass, the receptionist—a Hollow Person with a detectably stale, cold aura—has been slowly and deliberately restapling the exact same stack of blank paper for half an hour. The institutional friction in the room is thick enough to choke on.

Then, the man sitting three chairs down gasps.[/indent]

[h2]THE INCIDENT[/h2]
[indent]He is wearing a bespoke suit that looks violently out of place in this damp Welsh office. He clutches his chest, pitching forward onto the cheap linoleum floor. Massive cardiac arrest.

As his physical heart stops, the fluorescent lights in the waiting room violently flicker. To the unawakened Sleepwalkers around you, it is simply a tragedy: a man having a heart attack.

But you are Awakened.

The air suddenly smells of ozone and static electricity. The dying man's leather briefcase pops open, and instead of paperwork, a blinding, high-definition glow spills out across the linoleum. Un-rendered dream-fiat is leaking into the waking world.[/indent]

[hr]

[h2]THE DREAMSCAPE SHIFT[/h2]
[indent]Your consciousness snaps into the Subconscious layer.

The dreary waiting room dissolves, replaced by a towering, fortified [b][color=#FF1111]IRM Border Checkpoint[/color][/b] occupying the exact same space. The dying man is no longer on the floor. He is standing at the glowing gates, a frantic soul desperately trying to push a literal wheelbarrow made of solid gold, overflowing with blindingly bright essence, toward the Banking Halls.

He has exactly [b][color=#FF5555]six minutes[/color][/b] of waking-world brain activity left before his soul is foreclosed.

Behind the reinforced glass, the Hollow receptionist's eyes burn with cold, white light. She slams a massive red button on her desk. The lockdown klaxons begin to blare.

[center][i]"Unscheduled Death Event detected. Commencing asset liquidation."[/i][/center]

The dying man spots you. [i]"Ten percent!"[/i] he screams over the klaxons, his voice echoing with the weight of hyper-inflated billions. [i]"Get me through the gates and I'll give you ten percent of the wheelbarrow!"[/i][/indent]

[hr]

[h2]PLAYER DIRECTIVES[/h2]
[indent]The clock is ticking. You have six minutes of real-world time (which stretches into hours within the Dreamscape) to decide how you will exploit this bureaucratic chaos.

[list]
[] [b][color=#FF5555]The Escort:[/color][/b] Accept his deal. Smash through the Border Checkpoint's red tape and drag his wealth into the Banking Halls before his brain dies. (10% of this fiat is enough to buy functional immortality).
[] [b][color=#55FF55]The Smuggler:[/color][/b] Why help him? Hijack the wheelbarrow, detonate an Epiphany Bomb in the waiting room to awaken all the dreary NPC commuters, and use the psychic riot to mask your escape with the stolen funds.
[] [b][color=#5555FF]The Comptroller / Arbitrageur:[/color][/b] Side with the IRM. Help the Hollow receptionist stall the man with aggressive, nonsensical red tape until his six minutes run out. Securing the assets for the Crown will earn you massive favor in the deep state.
[] [b][color=#FFAA00]The Wildcard:[/color][/b] Do something entirely unexpected to break the ledger.
[/list][/indent]

[center][hider=OOC / GM Notes]
Post your character's immediate reaction and what action they are taking. Are they drawing a weapon? Forging a document? Reaching for the gold? Remember, the Sleepwalkers around you in the waking world just see you standing in an administrative office while a man has a heart attack. Actions taken in the Dreamscape will manifest as strange, out-of-context physical behaviors in the waking world!
[/hider][/center]