Times Up

Chronomancer Eden was stood in the office waiting for the professor to finish teaching a group of overly keen young chronomancers in the next room. He could hear them peppering the professor with technical questions, backed up by their endless enthusiasm for the future and no small amount of competitiveness with their peers.

This professor was one of the rarest types, he was happy. He had many opportunities to move onto other things with more prestige but he loved his job and being surrounded by the level of enthusiasm only young people have.

The side walls of the grand room were filled with two giant representations of the stable shapes of time, the circle and the wave.

Moving circular portals, attached by glowing rune lines to the two main displays, showed examples from the timeline. Eden suspected they may even be technically illegal live portals rather than just recordings given the level of activity from the runes surrounding each portal.

One of the runes seemed to be slightly out of shape and dragging as it rotated so while he was waiting Eden used a tiny amount of the sands of time he was carrying to fix it.

Standing back to look at his work, the one he had fixed was just one of many small circular portals attached to the giant Ouroboros that itself was turning on the wall.

Facing it on the other wall was the wave timeline at the point when the Ouroboros had been formed. Capturing in detail the instant before the wave had pulled back both ends from infinity to form the loop and birth the Ouroboros.

The great work had been completed by wizards that had long since moved onto a different plane of existence. Generations of wizards had followed them, working to ensure the stability of the Ouroboros even as its shape was ever changing because of the free will and choices made by the inhabitants of the Runiverse.

The professor walked back into the room and greeted his old friend.

“What adventures have you been on this time, I am always so happy to hear them. Have you..”

He stopped abruptly as Chronomancer Eden shut the door and pushed a rune into it that hadn’t been used there for a very long time. Eden then reached down and picked up the edge of the carpet.

The professors face fell further as Eden slowly folded the carpet over revealing the third stable shape. Sitting on the floor of the room, carefully hidden by the carpet, lay a turbulent but stable vortex.

Bathed in the fluctuating light created by the now fully revealed vortex Eden simply turned to his friend and said

“I’m sorry, it’s started, I do hope you have finished your work. We are going to need it”

The professor did not respond, he just stood and stared at the maelstrom. Hypnotised by its flickering lights, its unpredictable movement and its endless chaos.

Entered by: 0xFa43…08e9