The name Jodoin. It wasn’t chosen. It *emerged*. It began with the hum of the Chronarium, a device built not for time travel, but for temporal resonance. Jodoin wasn’t a person, not entirely. It was a locus, a focal point for echoes – whispers of potential futures, fragments of forgotten pasts, and the raw, untamed energy of possibility. The Chronarium, a labyrinth of obsidian and pulsating quartz, was built by Silas Blackwood, a cartographer obsessed with charting the unchartable. Blackwood believed that time wasn’t a river, but a vast, shimmering ocean, and the Chronarium was his ship, attempting to catch a single, fleeting wave.
“The past isn’t a tomb, child. It’s a fractal reflection, endlessly branching. We merely need to learn to listen to the echoes.” - Silas Blackwood (recorded transmission, 2347)
Those who tended the Chronarium were known as the Archivists. They weren’t scholars, not in the traditional sense. They were… attuned. They possessed a rare genetic anomaly – a heightened sensitivity to temporal distortions. Each Archivist was assigned a “resonance signature,” a specific frequency they could manipulate within the Chronarium. The most skilled, Lyra Vance, could coax entire timelines into temporary coherence, allowing glimpses of alternate realities. But the process was unstable. Extended exposure led to “Temporal Drift,” a progressive loss of self, a fracturing of identity as the Archivist became increasingly intertwined with the echoes themselves.
Archivist records indicate a peculiar ritual involving the consumption of “Chronal Dew,” harvested from the Chronarium’s core. This substance, theorized to stabilize the Archivists’ resonance, often resulted in vivid hallucinations – entire cities appearing and disappearing, conversations with long-dead ancestors, and the unsettling sensation of existing simultaneously in multiple points in time.
The Chronarium wasn’t merely collecting echoes. It was *attracting* them. Unexplained events began to occur – objects appearing and disappearing without explanation, localized shifts in reality, and the unsettling appearance of “Temporal Ghosts” – fragments of individuals trapped within the Chronarium’s resonance field. These ghosts weren’t remnants of the dead, but rather iterations of potential selves – Jodoin’s most persistent anomaly. It manifested as a young man, perpetually clad in a worn leather jacket, carrying a tarnished silver chronometer.
The most significant anomaly was the “Convergence,” a catastrophic event where several timelines intersected simultaneously, creating a chaotic vortex of temporal energy. The Chronarium was partially destroyed, and the Archivists were scattered across time. Lyra Vance vanished completely, and the silver chronometer, once carried by the echoes, became the key to understanding Jodoin’s origins.
The fate of Jodoin remains shrouded in mystery. Some believe it’s a force of nature, a fundamental aspect of the universe’s temporal dynamics. Others believe it's a warning – a testament to the dangers of tampering with time. The silver chronometer, discovered in the ruins of the Chronarium, is now housed in a secure vault, guarded by the Temporal Watch – an organization dedicated to containing the echoes and preventing another Convergence. They study the records, analyze the anomalies, and wait… for Jodoin to return.
“The river flows, but it remembers. Listen to the echoes, and you may yet find your way.” - Unattributed Temporal Watch Directive, 2789