Before the Great Stillness, before the fracturing of the harmonic weave, there existed Shittimwood. Not a place in any conventional sense, but a resonance, a pocket of warped time and amplified emotion. It bloomed from the silence left behind after the Un-Making – a cosmic event best described as the intentional erasure of a melody. The forest wasn’t built; it *remembered*.
“The silence is a canvas, and the echoes, the paint.” - Elder Lyra of the Obsidian Chorus.
Artifact Designation: 7-Omega-Delta. Material Composition: Primarily solidified grief, interwoven with strands of chroniton and traces of something… else. Analysis inconclusive.
The inhabitants of Shittimwood aren’t creatures of flesh and bone. They are fragments of memory, solidified anxieties, and the lingering vestiges of songs that were never finished. They call themselves the Obsidian Chorus, and they communicate not through sound, but through the subtle shifts in the forest’s density – changes in the way light refracts, the way shadows lengthen, the way the air vibrates with unspoken regret.
“To listen is to feel the fractures. To understand is to accept the dissonance.” - Kaelen, the Weaver of Lost Harmonies.
Artifact Designation: 12-Theta-Gamma. Function: A device capable of briefly amplifying emotional resonance. Warning: Prolonged exposure can lead to temporal displacement and… alterations.
At the center of Shittimwood lies the Heartwood – a towering structure of pure obsidian, pulsing with a slow, rhythmic light. It is the source of the Stillness, the force that maintains the forest’s existence. The Stillness isn’t empty; it’s a carefully curated void, a space where unfulfilled potential and unresolved sorrow can coalesce. The further one ventures into the forest, the more pronounced the Stillness becomes, until it threatens to absorb all sensation, all thought, all… being.
“The Stillness is not a refuge, but a reflection. It shows you what you refuse to acknowledge.” - Sirus, the Silent Sentinel.
Artifact Designation: 4-Alpha-Epsilon. Material Composition: Condensed Chroniton, heavily saturated with the emotional signature of profound loss. Caution: Extreme sensitivity to temporal distortions.
The Veils of Shittimwood are not barriers, but pathways. They are points of intersection between timelines, where echoes of the Un-Making bleed through. These aren't visual phenomena; they are felt – a prickling on the skin, a sudden sense of disorientation, a fleeting impression of a world that never was. The Obsidian Chorus attempts to navigate these Veils, seeking fragments of the lost melody, hoping to understand the nature of the Un-Making and, perhaps, to find a way to… reverse it.
“A broken song can still hold a note of truth.” - Lysandra, the Cartographer of Lost Harmonies.
Artifact Designation: 9-Zeta-Delta. Function: A device used to temporarily stabilize temporal distortions within the Veils. Operational Risk: Significant risk of creating paradoxes.