Seven warriors facing beings who manipulate time itself. Each Chronoguard—Veltharion, Epheralda, Krathax, and Xel’Mor—wields terrifying powers that twist reality, memory, and causality. In a brutal clash on a snowy plateau, the mortals barely overcome these guardians, not through strength but unpredictability and willpower.
Their victory leads them to The Frozen Forge, a ruined dwarven citadel housing a Prototype Aetharion, a machine that imprisons timelines. They learn it was created to fuel something vast and terrible by sacrificing potential futures. One of them, Gaslord Nikoko, is chosen—willingly or fated—to give up his future to power the machine.
As Nikoko is unmade, the others are left in awe and fear, realizing their battle was only the beginning. Nikoko drifts in the Stream Between, confronting alternate versions of himself, pondering whether his sacrifice was redemption or simply another thread in a vast, unknowable design.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Four Chronoguards
1. Veltharion the Bleeding Clock
- Role: The Arbiter of Unmade Futures
- Form: Cloaked in torn timepieces and chimes that ring out of sync, Veltharion’s body is a shifting mass of gears and blood-soaked pendulums.
- Power: He drains possible futures from his foes — every second you spend near him, a life you could have lived dies and weakens you.
- Speech: Speaks in broken grammar, like future memories collapsing into now. “You was brave, then… and then… never were.”
2. Epheralda the Mirror-Skein
- Role: The Weaver of Regret
- Form: A woman made of hundreds of broken mirrors and flowing veils, constantly shifting to reflect her enemies’ worst moments.
- Power: Forces those who fight her to relive their most painful choices, distorting perception and breaking will.
- Speech: Gentle, mocking, almost maternal. “You would undo it if you could… let me help.”
3. Krathax of the Inverted Flame
- Role: The Extinguisher of Moments
- Form: A skeletal figure surrounded by reversed fire — black, cold, and burning backward into the air.
- Power: Reverses causality in small areas — a cut becomes uncut, a spell unsaid, an arrow unfired.
- Speech: Speaks with eerie calm, like a historian reading a closed chapter. “This already didn’t happen.”
4. Xel’Mor, the Silence Between Seconds
- Role: The Final Pause
- Form: Barely visible — a shimmer in the air, like heat distortion. Only truly seen when striking.
- Power: Can erase time momentarily from existence, freezing chunks of reality where nothing moves or changes.
- Speech: None. He communicates with gestures, echoed by soundless chimes.
The Clash Begins
The snowstorm howls above the plateau, wind slashing like razors. The group of seven stands in a loose formation — untrained for this battle, unprepared for enemies like these.
Chaos Unfolds
Veltharion strides forward first. His arms unwind into long, slashing pendulums that grind the air with groaning metallic screams. Pando’ Spiros charges with a roar, hammer raised — but every strike slows as he nears, aging into stillness.
“He is… stealing my will!” Pando growls.
Gleg hurls a bottle of flaming ale, which explodes midair — a burst of alchemical fire stalling Veltharion’s advance.
Epheralda drifts toward St. Amou and Doc Pitoros, her mirrors casting ghostly images.
Amou gasps, falling to his knees — images of the Aetharion war flash before him. His twisted machine. The screaming. Pitoros sees a vision of his sister, her eyes hollow, mouth stitched shut — a decision he buried long ago.
“You both did this…” Epheralda coos. “You can undo it with me…”
But Pitoros, gritting his teeth, carves a protective rune in the air, deflecting the illusions. Amou’s fingers tremble, but he clutches his amulet and rises.
Krathax leaps at Sir Kostanto and Gogos, his reverse-flames searing backward into their blades. Kostanto strikes with his greatsword — only for the blade to unbreak, rewind mid-swing, and freeze midair.
“He breaks the laws of battle itself,” Kostanto growls.
Gogos flips backward, hurling two knives — which fly, then reverse course and bury themselves into the snow behind him. “This guy cheats,” he mutters.
But then Gogos smirks and vanishes — not with stealth, but with an illusion. Krathax slashes through an image while the real Gogos reappears behind him with a grin. “Let’s see how well you rewind when your spine’s involved.” Stab.
Xel’Mor barely moves, but time collapses where he walks. A bubble of stillness swallows Gleg and Pando, freezing Pando mid-charge. Gleg is caught at the edge — not frozen, but slowed. The Brewmaster grits his teeth and smashes a bottle on the ground — a shockwave of frost spreads, momentarily disrupting the chrono-field.
St. Amou seizes the moment, chanting words older than the soil. A burst of void-light erupts, banishing Xel’Mor’s bubble for just a second.
The Turning Point
The battle spirals into chaos. Snow burns. Air cracks with reversed lightning. The Chronoguards falter — not because they’re overpowered, but because they underestimated the hearts of mortals unbound by logic.
Gogos whispers to Kostanto, “You know what makes them weak?”
“What?”
“They think we make sense.”
Pitoros screams as he channels unstable time through a blood sigil, twisting future pain into present strength. His veins burn — but Veltharion stumbles.
St. Amou and Gleg conjure a counterclockwise circle of magic and alchemy. It pulses against the cold silence.
And then, a cry: “Now!”
Seven weapons. Seven voices. Seven broken men who never asked to be here.
They strike.
The Chronoguards collapse not like men, but like undone threads — unraveling into howling echoes and sparks of vanishing light.
Aftermath
Silence.
The battlefield is littered with charred snow and fractured glass. Time itself feels… unsteady, like breath held too long.
Pando wipes his brow. “Is it over?”
“No,” St. Amou says, grim. “They were just a warning. Guardians. Sentinels. That means something far worse is watching.”
Gleg looks toward the horizon, where the Frozen Forge awaits, smoke spiraling skyward like a wound in the world.
“Let’s keep walking,” he says. “Before time notices we won.”
THE FROZEN FORGE Where time hums and metal remembers…
The wind howls louder now — no longer merely cold, but charged with the residue of something beyond the veil of reality. The battle with the Chronoguards has scarred the land. Time is frayed here, and every step forward feels like walking through a dream stitched from fragmented memories.
The seven survivors trudge toward a jagged silhouette of frozen iron and dead chimneys ahead — The Frozen Forge. Once a mighty dwarven citadel and heart of innovation, it now stands like a mausoleum, cloaked in permafrost and silence.
Arrival at the Gates
The enormous gate is carved from blackstone and brass, overgrown with frost. On its center: an ancient sigil — the sigil of Aetharion — cracked but unmistakable. As the group approaches, it shifts, reacting to their presence. Ice retreats. Metal groans.
Sir Kostanto places his hand upon the surface. “It knows we’re here.”
CHUUNGK…
The gates grind open, not from mechanism — but recognition.
The gates grind open, not from mechanism — but recognition.
Inside, a vast antechamber of scorched metal and cold breath. Frozen pipes line the walls. Long-dead machines loom like golems locked in stasis. The forge is dark, save for the eerie pulses of blue light flickering deep within.
Echoes of the Aetharion
As they descend, the hum grows louder. Pitoros mutters, “I recognize it. It’s the same sound. The same as the machine St. Amou built… but older.”
Amou is silent. He looks haunted.
Then they see it — at the heart of the chamber, a monstrous construct, half-embedded in the icy floor: a Prototype Aetharion. Older. Cruder. Yet unmistakably linked.
Around it, seven pods, each bearing a faint glow.
On the walls: carvings in a lost tongue. As Amou deciphers, his face twists in horror.
“This isn’t a machine of creation… it’s a prison. For moments. For timelines. Someone built this to harvest potential futures… and power something far beyond comprehension.”
The Truth Revealed
As the group approaches, the Prototype Aetharion activates — not violently, but… curiously. It recognizes them. The hum becomes a song — and from the machine, a holographic memory blossoms into view.
Nikiforos.
Younger. Leaner. Wearing the sigil of the Crowned One.
Younger. Leaner. Wearing the sigil of the Crowned One.
He speaks to the machine. “This is the last anchor. If the others fail, this will remain. The child is born. The knot is tied. The Inn… must devour what I could not.”
The projection ends.
Silence.
Gogos: “Did he build this?”
Gleg: “He left this.”
St. Amou (whispering): “Or worse… he was built by it.”
Gleg: “He left this.”
St. Amou (whispering): “Or worse… he was built by it.”
The Decision
The Prototype Aetharion pulses again. One of the seven pods opens — a seat awaiting one of them.
To go home… they must sacrifice their potential — one must burn a future that could have been, to power the machine.
They stare at each other. No words. Only breath and groans.A windless hush falls upon the Frozen Forge.
The hum of the Aetharion grows deeper, resonating not just in the walls, but in their very bones. Each of the seven feel it clawing through their minds, tasting memories, weighing futures.
The seven pods flare briefly — then six fall dark.
Only one remains glowing.
Gaslord Nikoko.
He looks stunned.
Gogos turns to him, eyes narrowed.
“What did you do?”
“What did you do?”
Nikoko chuckles dryly, shaking his head. “Nothing. Nothing recently, at least.”
Then, softer, “But I have done things.”
Then, softer, “But I have done things.”
He looks to the others — the once-proud Gaslord, now stripped of his posturing.
“I’ve known… pieces of this place. Of this plan. I’ve seen glimpses. In dreams, in metal reflections. The voices in the steam…” He places a trembling hand on the pod.
“Maybe… I was always supposed to be the one to pay.”
“I’ve known… pieces of this place. Of this plan. I’ve seen glimpses. In dreams, in metal reflections. The voices in the steam…” He places a trembling hand on the pod.
“Maybe… I was always supposed to be the one to pay.”
St. Amou tries to speak — but Nikoko cuts him off with a grin.
“Don’t. You’ve sacrificed enough.”
“Don’t. You’ve sacrificed enough.”
With a defiant shrug, Nikoko steps inside the pod. The shell closes with a hiss, and for a moment, he disappears into a blinding aurora.
Then —
A SCREAM.
A SCREAM.
Not of pain. But of unmaking.
Memories burn like parchment. Possibilities dissolve like snow on a forge. The chamber floods with light and heat, and the great Aetharion lurches forward in time.
Nikoko is gone.As the light of the Aetharion fades, silence reigns in the Forge.
Nikoko is gone — consumed by time, or perhaps embraced by it.
The six remain, staring at the pod, hearts heavy with awe and dread.
The six remain, staring at the pod, hearts heavy with awe and dread.
But the machine still hums.
Something has been set in motion.
Something has been set in motion.
Their journey is not over.
It has only shifted.
It has only shifted.
Time, once a locked door, now swings ajar — and beyond it, destinies once impossible now stir from slumber.In the endless corridors beyond time — where history is written not in ink but in echoes — Nikoko drifts.
He is no longer flesh, but thought. No longer thought, but fragments.
The Price of Gaslord Nikoko
The Aetharion did not simply transport him. It unwound him — separating soul from self, memory from moment.
He finds himself in the Stream Between, a fractured space where all potential timelines run like tangled rivers. Before him: countless versions of himself.
- In one, he is a tyrant, crowned in brass and flame.
- In another, a humble tinker who never left his village.
- In yet another, he is dead, stabbed in an alley before ever taking the name Gaslord.
But one reflection walks forward.
This version of Nikoko is older, wiser — with burned eyes and a voice like smelted iron.
This version of Nikoko is older, wiser — with burned eyes and a voice like smelted iron.
“So. You paid the toll.”
Nikoko looks at him. “I had to.”
“You think sacrifice is noble? It is a coin like any other. It buys nothing if you don’t spend it wisely.”
Nikoko trembles. “Will they make it? The others?”
“If they remember you as a man… perhaps. If they remember you as a mistake… then no.”
Suddenly, the reflections begin to flicker. One by one, they vanish — collapsed, rewritten, merged into the current of time.
Only one remains.
The Nikoko who paid.
