Janel isn’t merely a name; it’s a resonance, a whisper carried on the currents of the Chronarium. The Chronarium, you see, isn’t a place, but a state – a confluence of temporal echoes, where moments bleed into one another, and the past isn’t simply remembered, but *felt*. Janel, according to the fragmented records salvaged from the Obsidian Archives, was the name given to the first Chronomancer, not in a linear sense, but as a reflection of the Chronarium itself. She wasn’t born, not in the way we understand birth. She *emerged* – a shimmering distortion in the fabric of time, coalescing around a point of intense temporal instability. Some scholars – the more radical ones, naturally – theorize she was a fragment of the Chronarium itself, granted a semblance of awareness.
The initial documentation suggests she was tasked with stabilizing the Chronarium, a task that proved… challenging. The Chronarium, it turns out, isn't a passive repository of time; it *reacts*. It remembers, it judges, and occasionally, it throws unexpected curveballs. Janel's early efforts involved intricate rituals, the manipulation of resonating crystals, and a disconcerting amount of conversation with entities that shouldn’t have existed in any single timeframe. The records are riddled with warnings about “avoiding the chromatic dissonance” – a phrase that remains stubbornly undefined.
The core of Janel’s existence – and the existence of all Chronomancers – revolves around the 'Cycle of Echoes'. Every 72 Chronal Shifts (approximately 372 Earth years), the Chronarium undergoes a period of heightened instability. During this time, the boundaries between timelines blur, and 'Echoes' – fragments of past, present, and potential futures – manifest as tangible distortions. These Echoes aren't always hostile; some are simply curious, others are driven by a desperate longing for their original timelines. Janel's primary function became containment and, when necessary, guided negotiation. It’s said she learned to "speak" to the Echoes, to understand their motivations, and to gently steer them back towards their designated timelines. The method involved a complex system of harmonic resonance, utilizing a device known as the 'Chronarium Loom' – a machine of bewildering complexity that appears to be both a loom and a cage, all at once.
A particularly unsettling aspect of the Cycle is the emergence of ‘Static Echoes’ – moments of pure temporal disruption, devoid of any discernible cause or consequence. These were, according to the records, incredibly rare, and often associated with significant shifts in the Chronarium’s overall stability. One such event, recorded in the Obsidian Archives as ‘The Crimson Bleed’, resulted in the temporary manifestation of a Baroque-era Venetian cardinal within the heart of the Chronarium – a jarring reminder of the vastness and indifference of time.
The Chronarium Loom isn't a simple device; it’s a sentient construct, or at least, it appears to be. The records indicate it responded to Janel’s thoughts, anticipated her needs, and even exhibited a disconcerting sense of… frustration when she attempted to circumvent its protocols. It seems Janel, in her efforts to stabilize the Chronarium, inadvertently created a feedback loop, amplifying the Echoes' influence. The final stages of her work involved a desperate attempt to ‘harmonize’ the Loom, a process that ultimately led to its 'Requiem' – a catastrophic surge of temporal energy that erased a significant portion of the Obsidian Archives and left Janel adrift in a sea of fragmented timelines.
“The Chronarium does not yield to coercion,” she is recorded as saying, “It responds only to understanding. And understanding, my dear, is a far more elusive echo than any we can capture.”
Despite the Loom's Requiem, Janel's influence persists. The remaining fragments of the Obsidian Archives speak of subsequent Chronomancers who attempted to follow in her footsteps, each with varying degrees of success. Some achieved remarkable feats of temporal manipulation, while others vanished without a trace, consumed by the Chronarium’s chaotic energies. The most consistent legacy of Janel is the concept of 'Temporal Stewardship' – the understanding that the Chronarium is not a tool to be wielded, but a force to be respected, guided, and, above all, *understood*. The echoes of her actions – and her warnings – continue to resonate throughout the Chronarium, a constant reminder of the profound responsibility that comes with manipulating the very fabric of time. The final entry in the last surviving fragment reads: “Beware the Chromatic Dissonance. It is a song of oblivion.”