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Transmission Start
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Location: Iterative-14, Chronoshift Locus: Chateaugay Lac
Temporal Anchor: Unstable. Chronophage crystal readings fluctuate wildly.
Recipient: Central Chronosynch Authority (Designation: Unknown)
Subject: Anomaly X-73: The Wendigo Corruption
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Fragments of a lost narrative, a cascade of temporal debris spiraling from a shattered timeline, reach us like whispers from a ghost story no one remembers telling. This is no mere dispatch but a warning—a garbled cautionary tale from Iterative-14, a place where reality itself frays under the strain of insatiable hunger and temporal exploitation. Vartholox, the Wendigo-weaver, stands at its dark heart, pulling the threads of time until they snap.
Vartholox: The Weaver of Temporal Threads
Vartholox was never truly a man, nor was he ever entirely a beast. His origins are as murky as the time he inhabits: a dissonant echo of Chateaugay Lac, Iterative-14, where the frozen trees bend under the weight of glacial whispers, and the lake’s surface shimmers like a fractured mirror reflecting a thousand possible pasts. He is both harbinger and manipulator, not bound to any one timeline but instead moving between them, feeding on the temporal anomalies he creates. Each leap leaves a scar, each twist of fate frays the thread of reality a little more.
Around him, the Wendigo: ravenous spirits twisted by time, their hunger no longer just for flesh but for existence itself. They are infected with the Chronophage’s temporal sickness—a malady that devours moments as easily as it consumes lives. And Vartholox? He is their conductor, orchestrating the terrible feast that has no end.
A Fractured Bacchanal: A Feast Beyond Time
The transmission pulses, and we catch glimpses of an unearthly revelry, a celestial celebration gone horribly awry. On the banks of a distorted lake where snow falls upwards and time ebbs like a dying heartbeat, Vartholox has gathered his court. Among them are Olympian remnants, broken gods who’ve forgotten their names, lured by the promise of oblivion. Here, the divine is indistinguishable from the monstrous, and Vartholox’s Wendigo followers, masked in tattered vestments of forgotten eras, move like wraiths in a twisted parade.
Vartholox himself, draped in a cloak spun from the raw stuff of time—tattered, flickering, eternally shifting—sits at the head of a vast, impossible table. Each seat is filled with a being trapped between past and future, lost to the endless now of Iterative-14. The air buzzes with a dissonant hum, a constant reminder of the Chronophage’s presence, a rhythm that twists every second into something both intoxicating and terrible.
The gods and Wendigo share in a grotesque communion: cups of temporal essence pass between hands, each sip unraveling a different moment from a different life. A distorted Bacchus, his vine-crowned head a blur of colors from timelines that never converged, laughs as his goblet overflows with the impossible—wine made of forgotten choices and squandered futures. Vartholox smiles, though his eyes are empty, devoid of time’s reflection.
The Unraveling: Hunger Without Boundaries
The feast collapses into chaos. The transmission becomes erratic, flashes of grotesque imagery that refuse to hold shape. The Wendigo, no longer content with mere consumption of flesh, now devour the very structure of reality. Vartholox’s grand experiment spins out of control, his banquet descending into a frenzy of gnashing teeth and broken time. The gods scream, their voices twisted into raw, animalistic howls, as they are dragged into a vortex of endless hunger.
Time becomes an open wound, and the Wendigo’s monstrous appetite knows no bounds. They gorge on the fabric of Iterative-14, and the timeline distorts around their feeding frenzy—seconds elongate into eternities, years collapse into moments. What was once a world becomes a maw, swallowing everything indiscriminately. The great table disintegrates into fragments, each splinter a universe undone.
The Unheeded Warning: Echoes of Destruction
The transmission flickers, a dying ember struggling against the darkness. Vartholox’s face materializes, his expression inscrutable, caught between triumph and terror. Perhaps he sought dominion over time, to bend the Wendigo’s hunger into a weapon of conquest. Or perhaps he merely wanted to feel something—a perverse thrill in the unmaking of worlds. Whatever his intentions, the consequences are etched into the unraveling of Iterative-14, a realm now collapsing inward, devoured by the greed of its monstrous inhabitants.
The Chronophage crystal hums ominously, a constant reminder of the dangers it holds. Its glow intensifies as if mocking the very act of observation—what good is seeing if nothing can be done? Iterative-14 has become a grim testament to the folly of temporal manipulation, a cautionary fable encoded in the cries of gods who were not meant to die and monsters who could not be contained.
Further Investigation Required
The Chronosynch Authority must act. The Wendigo corruption threatens to bleed into our own timeline, a contagion of insatiable hunger that could unravel everything. Vartholox’s revelry, his twisted bacchanal, must serve as a final warning: when you dine with monsters, do not be surprised when you find yourself on the menu.
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End Transmission
What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?