Poltergeist activity stormed all around us. Events were happening so fast now no-one could react quick enough to keep up with them. Any object left unsecured flew violently back and forth, or spontaneously combusted. Clothes grew too large, or ripped and tore as they shrank. Fires burned unsupported on the air, and beads of sweat rolled sluggishly up the walls. There were hails of stones and rains of fish, and people spoke in unknown tongues.

I fought my way through the chaos to grab hold of Lu-cretia Grave, who was on her knees and clinging numbly to her rocking podium. I hauled her back onto her feet, and she clung to me like a child. I had hoped she'd have some emergency backup magics she could call on, but it didn't look like it. The teddy bears were staggering back and forth among the panicking crowd, trying to help, but there was little they could do except try and shield people with their padded bodies.

A genius loci invaded the Hall, overpowering and supplanting the old Barn's actual ambience, and, immediately, powerful emotions stormed our minds, slapping aside our defences with contemptuous ease. People began laughing, crying, and howling with an hysteria that shook them the way a dog shakes a rat. I was laughing so hard I hurt, but I couldn't stop. And then the horrors swept through us all, the same basic fears; of the dark, of falling, of people not being who we thought they were. People struck out at each other because they had to strike out at something. Men and women fell down and did not rise again, forced into cata-tonia by terrors and emotions they couldn't face. There was a new genius loci in residence, and the Great Auction Hall had become an alien, unbearable place. A few people staggered towards the exits, only to find that the doors had disappeared. There was no way out any more.