A place existing just beyond the echoes of what was, and before what might be. It's a confluence of fractured timelines, a garden grown from the roots of forgotten moments. The air itself hums with the residue of choices unmade, and the scent of rain on stone that never quite dried.
The Chronarium isn't a building in the conventional sense. It’s a state of being, a locus of accumulated temporal energy. It manifests as shimmering distortions in the air, occasionally coalescing into fragments of architecture – a crumbling Roman bathhouse, a Victorian observatory, a futuristic data center, all simultaneously existing, yet utterly detached from one another. Within these fragments reside the ‘Voices’ – echoes of individuals trapped within their own regrets, their triumphs, their mundane conversations. They aren't sentient in the way we understand it; rather, they broadcast raw emotional data, fragments of perception.
“I remember the rain... it always smelled of copper,” whispers a voice from the Roman bathhouse, overlaid with the faint scent of ozone.
“The calculations... they were never quite right. There was a variable I missed,” a voice emanates from the data center, tinged with a digital static.
Navigation through the Chronarium is not possible through physical movement. Instead, one enters by focusing on a specific emotional resonance – a profound sadness, a burst of ecstatic joy, a burning sense of injustice. The closer the resonance, the stronger the pull. Prolonged exposure can lead to disorientation, to the blurring of personal identity with the echoes of others.
The ‘Cartographers of Unreality’ are not human, not entirely. They are beings born from the most potent temporal distortions. They appear as shifting, iridescent figures, their forms constantly adapting to the surrounding chaos. They meticulously document the shifting landscapes of Zamang, creating intricate, three-dimensional maps rendered from pure temporal energy. These maps are not representations of a fixed location; they are fluid, ever-changing, reflecting the instability of Zamang itself. They communicate through patterns of light and sound, translating their observations into a complex language understood only by those sensitive to temporal anomalies.
“The convergence point shifts again... the library of Alexandria is folding in on itself, attempting to merge with the sound of a child’s laughter,” a Cartographer’s voice resonates, accompanied by a brief, high-pitched chime.
Legend claims that the Cartographers guard a single, unattainable goal: to stabilize Zamang, to fold the fractured timelines back into a single, coherent reality. But the act of stabilization would erase Zamang, and with it, all the lost voices, the forgotten moments, the endless possibilities contained within its chaotic heart.
Entering Zamang is a perilous undertaking. The temporal distortions are not merely passive anomalies; they actively attempt to reshape the observer. Prolonged exposure can lead to ‘Temporal Drift’ – a gradual loss of self, a merging with the collective consciousness of Zamang, a becoming one with the echoes of lost time. The most common symptom is a persistent sense of déjà vu, a feeling that one is reliving moments that never truly occurred, overlaid with the emotions of others. Advanced stages of Temporal Drift can result in complete erasure, the individual dissolving into the swirling chaos of Zamang, becoming just another voice in the chorus of the lost.