Mecurial isn't a planet. It's a fracture. A sliver of a timeline ripped from the grand loom of existence. It drifts, an anomaly of concentrated temporal distortion, held together by the frantic pulses of a dying god. The air itself vibrates with the ghost-sounds of futures that never were, and the weight of possibilities that crush against the edges of reality. Those who linger too long within Mecurial's embrace find their memories fractured, their identities eroded, replaced by the echoes of countless iterations.
During this iteration, the temporal storms manifested as colossal, obsidian flowers, each petal a frozen moment of utter devastation. They bloomed for a single cycle, radiating a chilling entropy that consumed entire eras. The inhabitants, known only as the ‘Silents,’ were consumed, leaving behind only perfectly preserved, vacant shells. The recordings – if one can call them recordings – are of a deep, subsonic hum, layered with the screams of geometries that shouldn't exist.
This iteration was dominated by a single entity: a being that called itself ‘Xanthos.’ Xanthos meticulously charted the shifting currents of the timeline, driven by a desperate, futile attempt to impose order upon chaos. His maps weren’t of space, but of *time* – shimmering, unstable structures of potential and regret. He vanished without a trace, leaving behind only a single, perfectly rendered sphere of compressed chroniton, pulsing with a sickly, iridescent light.
The air in this iteration was thick with a deafening chorus – a cascade of overlapping voices, each vying for dominance. The cause: a colossal, crystalline structure that resonated with the memories of every sentient being that had ever existed, or would exist, or *could* exist. Prolonged exposure resulted in complete psychic obliteration, leaving behind only a shell of raw, unformed potential.
The 'fragments' aren't physical objects, but rather echoes of consciousness, remnants of timelines that have been shattered. They drift within Mecurial, constantly shifting, occasionally coalescing into fleeting images, emotions, or whispers of forgotten languages. They are drawn to those who possess a certain… sensitivity – a vulnerability to the currents of time. Some seek them out, drawn by the intoxicating allure of infinite possibility. Others desperately try to avoid them, fearing the inevitable erosion of their own identity.