For years the townsfolk looked up from their homes and roads and workplaces and saw the strangetower in the distance, and were consoled.  Whatever reality they happened to hail from -- whether they were robots working in the martian mines to the west of the city, or demons bound to the elven arch-magi in the east of the city -- they knew that the strangetower was keeping track of them and making sure they were okay.  Interreality commerce was taxed, interreality immigration was controlled, and interreality crime was investigated.   Under its watchful eye, their little town at the edge of the multiverse had grown from a disjointed community of loners and rabble rousers to a quaint and bustling destination for cosmic tourism. Their town was a stained glass mish-mash of architecture, culture and law, but the strangetower held it together.   The townsfolk had a lot of hope for their future -- the most valuable thing in any reality. And then, one day, it disappeared.   The townsfolk woke up in the morning, and it was just gone.   The pink-purple of the morning sky seemed vast and naked, without the balconies and spires of the strangetower to force its way in.