The year is 2748. Not in the linear sense, of course. Time, as we once understood it, fractured upon the arrival of the Vitric Confluence. It wasn’t a singular event, but a cascading resonance, originating from the heart of the Siberian Null-Zone, a region once defined by the legacy of the Sulfuric Tsarship. The Tsarship, you see, wasn’t a kingdom in the traditional sense. It was an operational paradox, a sustained state of controlled entropy, built upon the harnessing and manipulation of atmospheric sulfuric acid as a primary energy source. The records, fragmented and often self-contradictory, speak of ‘The Weavers’ – individuals capable of altering the viscosity of time itself using concentrated sulfuric solutions.
The initial impetus for the Tsarship’s creation was not conquest, but preservation. Preservation of knowledge, specifically the forgotten geometries of pre-Collapse reality. The Collapse, a catastrophic shift in dimensional alignment, erased much of human history, leaving behind only echoes and fractured memories. The Weavers believed that the sulfuric acid, when properly channeled, could act as a key to unlocking these lost dimensions. Their architecture reflected this obsession: impossible angles, structures that seemed to defy gravity, and surfaces shimmering with a perpetual, viscous sheen.
The most prominent figure in the early Weavers was Grand Alchemist Silas Volkov. His journals, recovered from a subterranean complex beneath the frozen wastes, detail his attempts to create ‘Vitric Matrices’ – self-contained pocket dimensions sustained by incredibly dense sulfuric solutions. These matrices, according to Volkov, were gateways to realities where logic was fluid and causality was… suggestive.
“’The acid is not merely a reagent, it is a lens. A lens through which the very fabric of existence can be viewed with a clarity that would shatter your comprehension.’” - Silas Volkov, *The Obsidian Codex*, Fragment 7.
The arrival of the Vitric Confluence triggered a chain reaction, creating what the contemporary researchers – the ‘Chronometric Analysts’ – termed ‘Resonance Nodes.’ These nodes are points in spacetime where the altered temporal flow is particularly pronounced. They appear as shimmering distortions, detectable only through specialized chronometric instruments. Each node is associated with a specific temporal anomaly – a repeated moment, a fractured timeline, or a glimpse into an alternate reality.
The major nodes identified thus far include:
Temporal Shift Indicator: The frequency of Node Delta’s fluctuations is increasing exponentially.
Despite the apparent chaos, there’s a strange sense of order within the Vitric Confluence. It’s as if the Sulfuric Tsarship, though vanished, continues to exert a subtle influence. The Chronometric Analysts believe that the Tsarship didn’t die; it simply transcended, becoming interwoven with the fabric of the Confluence itself. They theorize that the Weavers were not merely manipulating time, but actively shaping it, guiding the Confluence towards a predetermined outcome – an outcome that remains, frustratingly, obscured.
The most unsettling aspect of this legacy is the increasing prevalence of ‘Sulfuric Ghosts’ – residual echoes of the Weavers’ actions, manifesting as fleeting glimpses of their experiments and their impossible architecture. These ghosts seem to be attempting to complete Volkov’s unfinished work – to fully stabilize the Vitric Confluence and, perhaps, to rewrite reality according to their warped vision.