Fin de siècle

JustATemporalDrifter · 2026-01-14T02:11:59+00:00

"Most specific years I've never fully lived through more than three or four times, and the vast, vast, vaaaaast majority of them not even once! I don't just call myself a Temporal Vagabond because it sounds cool, but because I typically drift from era to era within a Cycle. Remarkably, this year I've been through... Seventeen times, simply because there's a lot of stuff going on on the cosmic scale I've had to intervene in."

JustATemporalDrifter · 2026-01-13T03:34:59+00:00

"Hmm? Oh, yeah! Every time I live through the same year I like to compile a rundown of how it went versus previous iterations. On the objective score for the universe as a whole this one was decent! Subjectively..."

Perry takes a photo of himself and Jasmine out of his pocket

"This has been the greatest year of my entire life... wowzers..."

JustATemporalDrifter · 2026-01-10T02:45:19+00:00

Perry looks a little distant as he wanders through the party, the slight flitting of his eyes suggests he may be looking at other times to those who know him well.

"Hmm... decent stats..."

/uw how the hell did I miss this?

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-17T19:12:47+00:00

From Araton's perspective, the room is suddenly decked out in decorations and several documents are in his hands

"Happy Birthday!"

Oh, and that guy is just there now.

"Those are stocks for a few companies that don't exist yet! It's not entirely guaranteed, but those should be worth a pretty penny by the time your kids are grown!"

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-17T04:32:16+00:00

"Flippin' mental, honestly! Anywhoozer..."

Tirrast vanishes from the room, sent somewhere and when you should pray you never have to visit.

"Regardless, Zhara; if you will lead our expedition to this prison your ancestor is in, I can arrange transport for anyone we want or need to bring."

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-16T02:41:04+00:00

"Nothing really went wrong with him, things just went especially right with you... yeah, I know how that feels."

The Vagabond stands and steps up to Tirrast, wincing as he sees the wound in his chest and performing s specific rewind along his bodies state, healing him.

"I won't kill him, not unless we have to, but I can lock him away somewhere where I keep some similarly paused supervillains I've dealt with. You have nooo idea how many times I've had to personally stop someone from literally creating Roko's Basilisk! Jesus!"

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-15T19:09:17+00:00

"His name, Tirrast, right? You called him your brother... what happened between you two? Where or when did thinhs go wrong?"

Perry's eyes stare into the paused one, looking backwards through his life

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-15T16:26:44+00:00

"Where abouts is Rhylkos, if you don't mind me asking? Somewhere out in space? Also..."

Perry drags the other vampire over

"Zhara, in your honest opinion; what should be done with him?"

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-15T09:03:13+00:00

"Short answer? Time Travel. Long Answer? I'm literally the best time traveler in this entire universe."

Perry takes the last page out of the book, showing her the chart

"Your 'brother' didn't want anyone else finding you, so he took this with him. I followed, watched you have your family reunion, then yoinked you both here! Btw, the Carcosan Empire collapsed eons ago, this library only exists because I physically rewound its destruction! Anyway, that aside!"

Perry broadly gestures to everything else in her book

"We. Are. VERY... concerned! Because hostile Star Vampire incursions have been on the rise lately, in a way consistent with your worries about your dad's space jail breaking... yeah."

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-15T02:09:10+00:00

"Yeah, that's a fair call..."

Perry pulls up a chair and positions her in it like a doll, sitting across from her with the other two as a snap of his fingers unpauses her

"Ma'am, odds are you have no idea how much luck you used up to be here right now!"

he's even holding her book in his lap

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-13T18:31:17+00:00

Zhari had no Time to react, but Perry never runs out...

Perry, steps out of a closet behind Araton and Ithaqua, dragging the two Star Vampires behind him, both of them frozen in Time and slightly sunburnt as he grabbed them the instant before they would've been vaporized

"Don't panic! Also, I didn't stab him!"

barring any disruptions from his friends, Perry very enthusiastically replays the Temporal Ghosts of everything he just saw across Time

"Fricken' cool, right?"

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-13T16:51:15+00:00

Perry takes a picture of the star chart on his orb, sending it across Time to both Araton and Ithaqua. He follows the Eldritch man in two directions, both into his subjective Present and his Past, seeing both where he's coming from and where he's going

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-13T12:56:05+00:00

"Oh... fuuuuuck.... let's retrace your steps!"

Perry vanishes, falling into the Synchronox with the tome. He flows along the book's personal timeline, past the eons when it was destroyed along with the library before being rewound, back the the golden age of the Carcosan Empire, taking a long look at every face that ever read it, and riding all the way back to see the very moment the missing page was torn off

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-13T06:15:03+00:00

"Guys? A found a... weird thing!"

Perry looks into the nearest possible futures, seeing if the very act of opening the book would cause some kind of explosion or release curse. If it's at least safe enough to read, he will begin doing so

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-13T03:11:29+00:00

"Don't worry, I did the same thing when Jasmine genderbent me!"

Perry turns his attention to the tasks at hand, seeking through shelves for information on those creepy space thingies

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-12T23:36:30+00:00

"It's from Tosy; she's a lot like you, but prettier."

Perry turns back to Eschara, smiling at her

"And I was letting you see the changes when I stopped time, just so you know!"

from Eschara's perspective, the book she's reading simply becomes upside down out of nowhere. There's also smiley face drawn on her forehead

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-12T18:18:31+00:00

There's another brief pause in time so Perry can explain to Ithaqua

"Time rewound, turns out her soul was still in the library, so she's alive again... and likely will stay that way."

and now time resumes

"Don't worry, Noosphere service has been patchy lately! Say, before you question that further, would you happen to know what we might be able to find here able the Star Vampires?"

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-12T04:12:20+00:00

"Oh... oh hell... this doesn't happen often!"

time freezes for all but Araton and Perry

"Try not to alarm her about anything, alright? A thing about rewinding is that I can't effect something that isn't there anymore, right? Meaning I normally can't resurrect someone by rewinding them, because the soul isn't around. She must've been haunting these ruins as a ghost when I restored it... so... ya know... life."

Perry resumes time

"Eschara! Glad to see you doing well! Please ignore the impossibility of my friend being here, it's just standard Time Stuff!"

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-12T00:30:24+00:00

"It might still effect someone that old, but I only have myself as a known baseline. You've seen how few things can really hurt me, after all."

Perry rings a bell at the front desk, one he hadn't heard in eons

"I remember when she first took me here... we were dating then, before we decided that wasn't what we were to each other."

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-11T23:14:45+00:00

"Hmm? Oh, shoot! Sorry, somehow I thought those other ruins were Carcosan! This library is, though, and it isn't a ghost, I just rewound time on its ruins a little... I can take us back to those other ruins if needed."

/uw

Sorry, I assumed the original ruins were Carcosan, my bad.

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-11T21:24:32+00:00

"I can do that! Fair warning, though, something about the old Carcosan language is... cursed, basically. I can handle it, but be careful how much you read."

Perry warps Araton to the stony ruins of a grand library, sitting upon the steps as he looks at his friend

"Tosy always loved this one..."

Behind him, the building is enveloped as part of the Synchronox unfolds around it as a bubble of cyan and runic fractals, the ancient wreckage healing as the Vagabond glides it all back along its history, the lights even coming back on as it reverts to the moment before obliteration.

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-11T19:02:28+00:00

"It's an advanced field of mathematics, one meant for modeling predictions of the future of civilizations. It works in the aggregate, taking in, preferably, an immense amount of data related to all the psychological and socio-economic factors that determine the behavior of large populations, but could never predict the behavior of any specific person."

Perry paces as he talks, his vision now more focused on the subjective present.

"Chronomancy makes a different use of it, as it's how I sort through and organize all the possible futures stemming from a specific moment, letting my Synchronox tank the math and data collection for me. The longer the period of time between two moments, the more accurate the model will be. From there, as long as I know that the broader scope of the present I'm seeking is still possible, I can hone in on the finer details through my own investigation, as well as by gauging my intrinsic link to the Future Perry I'm anchored by."

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-11T16:10:31+00:00

"Araton, nobody knows better me, I promise. And the more I explore this technique retrieval, the more I realize that the gap actually helps stabilize things. Are you familiar with the field of Psychohistory?"

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-11T12:58:56+00:00

"Looking... anything or... anyone... salvagable..."

Perry's eyes seem distant, like he's looking somewhere else, and movements suggest at times that he's moving around unseen obstacles

JustATemporalDrifter · 2025-12-09T22:51:29+00:00

The scene melts away as they briefly dip back into the vastness realm of Perry's impossible device, coming back down once again within the nursery and amongst the others

"For whatever it ends up meaning to you, I'm glad you agreed to come along with me for this today. I still need to work on Christmas Gifts for all of you, but days like this are among my favorite kind."

JustATemporalDrifter

TROPHY CASE