Anchor 9001.T – The Tower of Ticks
The team entered a world without sound.
No wind. No voices. No pulse.
Only the endless ticking of unseen clocks.
Fast. Slow. Backward. Hollow.
The Tower of Ticks stood at the center — a spiraling, rusted colossus stretching from the ground to the stars. Each floor was a different language — spoken entirely in time.
And at its peak lived a being known only as Tymbré — the Timekeeper, the one who never spoke, only measured.
---
"Why are we here again?" Ghost Ronin asked, cautiously eyeing a pendulum the size of a subway train swinging above them.
Kael stared at the inscription on the wall:
> ⌛ "Before time can be broken, it must be understood." ⌛
Myra nodded. "This is where time was first taught. Not built. Not forged. Taught."
Aren whispered, almost reverently:
> "The first language was a clock."
---
Each floor they ascended had its own time rhythm:
Floor 1: Whisperseconds – where time passed only when no one was looking.
Floor 3: Dreadminutes – where each step forward aged your regrets.
Floor 6: Loopspeak – where every word repeated three times unless you lied.
By Floor 9, they began forgetting things — names, memories, timelines.
Kael had to tattoo his own name onto his palm just to hold onto himself.
But the deeper they climbed, the closer Tymbré watched.
---
On Floor 12, a chamber of hundreds of grandfather clocks surrounded them — each one ticking in a different tempo. At the center: a mirror. But not a normal one.
When Kael looked into it, he didn't see himself.
He saw everyone who ever waited for him.
Myra, 11 years old, staring at a ruined timestream.
Ghost Ronin, alone in a loop he couldn't escape.
Aren… still unborn, waiting to be found.
Then Tymbré finally appeared.
She was made entirely of gears and quiet — her face a dial, her hands clock-hands.
She said nothing.
But time itself shuddered when she turned to Kael.
---
He stepped forward. "We need to learn the core of time. To stop what's coming."
Tymbré held out a clock — ancient, brass, and cracked — with no numbers, just feelings in place of hours.
1 o'clock: Grief
2: Doubt
3: Wonder
6: Rage
9: Regret
12: Hope
Kael took it.
It began to tick in sync with his heartbeat.
Tymbré finally spoke — in tick-tocks, echoing across his mind:
> "Time is not your enemy.
It is your audience.
Make it listen."
Then she vanished.
---
As they descended, the clocks aligned — for the first time in centuries.
Myra smiled faintly. "We didn't just visit a place."
Ghost Ronin finished her sentence:
"We learned a dialect."
Aren looked up at Kael, eyes wide.
"You speak time now."
Kael nodded slowly.
> "Let's make sure it hears us."
---
Anchor 9001.T – DECRYPTED
ChronoLinguistics: Acquired
Entity Tymbré: Vanished Into Quantum Silence