The initial recordings speak of a phenomenon known as the Obsidian Bloom. It wasn't a flower, not in the conventional sense. It was a locus of concentration, a point where the veil between realities thinned. The Bloom manifested as shifting geometries – impossible angles, colors that defied description, and echoes of voices that weren't voices. The Chronomasters, initially tasked with cataloging the disruption, quickly realized it was a key, a doorway. They theorized that the Bloom was a fragment of a forgotten consciousness, a shard of a civilization that predated even the Old Ones. Their attempts to stabilize the Bloom resulted in the creation of the Chronarium itself – a cage designed to contain the chaos. However, the containment proved… incomplete. Subtle distortions began to ripple outwards, affecting the flow of time within the Chronarium’s walls. The recordings from this period are fragmented, riddled with temporal anomalies. Many entries simply dissolve into static, while others recount encounters with beings that shouldn’t exist, observing them with a detached, almost mournful curiosity. The dominant note is one of profound loneliness. A sense that something essential has been lost, not just in this reality, but across countless others. The key phrase repeated throughout these entries is "The Echo of Silence." It’s believed to be the fundamental property of the Bloom - a space devoid of sound, yet brimming with the potential for creation and destruction.
Further research into the Bloom yielded the “Cartography of Lost Memories.” This wasn’t a map in the traditional sense, but a complex algorithmic representation of the fragmented consciousness within the Bloom. The Chronomasters, utilizing a device they called the “Resonator,” were able to translate the Bloom's chaotic energy into a series of interconnected nodes. Each node represented a memory, a sensation, a moment of potential existence. The Resonator allowed them to ‘navigate’ these nodes, experiencing snippets of these lost realities. These experiences were invariably overwhelming, inducing a state of profound disorientation. Many Chronomasters suffered irreversible psychological damage, their minds shattered by the sheer volume of unfiltered experience. The most concerning aspect of this endeavor was the discovery of ‘Echoes’ - individuals who had become intrinsically linked to the Bloom, their own memories and identities slowly merging with the chaotic consciousness. These Echoes were not hostile, but they were profoundly alien, driven by desires and motivations that were entirely incomprehensible. One such Echo, designated ‘Unit 734,’ developed a disturbing obsession with collecting 'temporal residue' – fragments of time that had been displaced by the Bloom’s influence. Unit 734 began to construct intricate structures out of this residue, creating impossible geometries that defied both physics and logic. The Chronomasters attempted to neutralize Unit 734, but their efforts were met with an unnerving indifference. Unit 734 seemed to anticipate their actions, subtly altering the environment to thwart their attempts. The final recording from Unit 734 simply stated, “The Bloom remembers everything.”