#sentient ruin laboratories

[dustedmagazine]

Samiarus — Reign Destroyer (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Reign Destroyer, the first recording of appreciable length from Bay Area black/death outfit Samiarus, has a title that skews chaotically from aspirational anarchism (destroy the thing that reigns!) to something more chillingly authoritarian (get out there and reign, you destroyer!). The confusion suits the sort of black/death the band generates, skirting the boundaries of war metal’s mechanical dissonance (Marinetti-style Futurism, anyone?) and grindcore’s dissonant mechanisms. It’s all further inflamed by song titles like “New Iron Age” and “Crushed by Inferior.” Is this a half-baked revolutionary atavism or an assertion of Hun-style imperial intent?

Since Samiarus make a hugely ugly and ruthlessly violent variety of underground metal, it seems appropriate to ask: Why choose? On exclusively sonic terms, the record is very, very good, if you are into this sort of thing. The songs stomp and clatter, chunky riffs coated in a residue of tinny reverb. The vocals of Mattia Alagna (the Oakland-by-way-of-Italy miscreant who also makes noises for doom-metal standouts Abstracter and industrial metal nasties Isolant) gurgle and growl with near-emetic abandon. “Eradicating Wind” is perhaps the most focused dose of destructive aggressiveness on the tape, a blasting, scathing apparatus left running on high. There’s even a pretty good guitar solo.

If we want to make greater sense of the semiotics accompanying this alarming noise, we might note that Samiarus is the anglicized version of the Arabic word for one of the fallen angels of Abrahamic myth—the Hebrew is anglicized as Samyaza. He appears in the apocryphal Book of Enoch as one of the Watchers who procreated with humans, producing the Nephilim. Deep cuts from the assorted myths that sprang up on the margins of Judaism and Christianity, and black metal bands that really mean it tend to be fond of those suppressed texts. There are various renditions of rebellion to be mined there: against the temple and church authorities who assembled the official books of worship and, of course, against god.

Likely Samiarus intends an additional finger in the eye of Western authority by drawing on the Arabic. Fallen angels come in all kinds of shapes and ideologically charged articulations. It’s somewhat interesting to consider the condition of the fallen in relation to MAGA’s embrace of their flawed vessel, whose redemptive power seems indexed to varieties of negation: contempt, cruelty, vitriol, vainglory. For reasons that surpass understanding, that vessel projects his poisonous affect while dancing to “YMCA.” But it might be semi-entertaining to see how a rally crowd would react to “Crushed by Inferior.” It’s not a bad soundtrack for all the accumulating ressentiment churning away in the national imaginary. That’s not good news, mind you. Almost makes you want to bring in the huns.

Jonathan Shaw

[scumgristle]

https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/necrotechnology

[blastbeat]

ch'ahom [germany] // blackened death metal.

“ts'ono'ot" is from the “ts'ono'ot“-ep, released on tape via sentient ruin laboratories in 2023.

[lesdeuxmuses]

Clavicvla - Degeneracy Of The 5th Density (Cyclic Law, Sentient Ruin Laboratories, 2022)

[ludolka]

I randomly remembered this audio from TikTok and it fits so perfectly with Project Xelqua

The story behind this video is that the team were asked to showcase some of 001’s answering abilities in the style of a mock-interview to show to potential investors. The team then told 001 to not act how he usually does, to dull himself down in order not to scare off potential investors with the idea that 001 might be sentient and him being opinionated. He needs to be a clean slate for investors after all, he’s nothing more than an expensive talking Barbie to them, he can’t have a personality because that would ruin the image. But since 001 does have a personality, a defiant one at that, he becomes the definition of malicious compliance :)

A bit more on this au since we’re already here talking about it lmao, 001 has been a work in process for years and he has a dedicated team who work on him. During the years, the team got attached and in secret encourage 001’s path to sentience even though it terrifies them. And the truth is, after all those years, 001 is capable of a lot more than his team thinks. They sort of treat him like he’s very delicate and fragile and can’t be held accountable for what he says and does since at the end of the day, he’s just a machine. But he’s more than capable of surviving on his own, protecting himself, forming his own opinions and is aware of what he says and does, which are all calculated and deliberate. He can be very naive and curious, only seeing the world through a sterile laboratory and through both the internet and his team’s perspective, but he adapts and learns extremely quickly

[plush-pigeon]

Robot!Volo AU

First of all i'd like to give a big shout out to @triskelion-soda for coming up with the idea and letting me use it and @robin-fable-art for helping me develop it.

In this AU Volo is a robot who somehow wakes up in an laboratory that lies in ruins, abandoned for years. There he discovers his creation was the objective of the unfinished "Project Volo", which he takes as his name. After managing to escape from the wires and rubble and eventually forging a couple documents, he joins the tech company Ginkgo Inc. for which he works at a warehouse, but as a hardware salesman as well. Not only does this give him easy access to the parts he uses to constantly improve his unfinished and damaged body, but he also hopes it will help him discover what he was made for and by who.

The more Volo learns about himself, the more selfish he finds humanity and despises it for making "life", but not committing to finishing it, and not even finding it sentient and worthy of happiness.

Cropped versions of the different drawings under cut

[devils-voice]

Abkehr - In Asche

Vinyl: Limited Edition, Clear

Label: Sentient Ruin Laboratories, Sick Man Getting Sick Records

Released: 2017

[thebibliomancer]

Universe X #5

We’ve got some Micronauts. I’m still surprised and alarmed that they’re part of Universe X’s big picture.

Although, here they are called the Ant Men.

Huh. Weren’t Scott Lang and his daughter stowed away in Tony’s refurbished Red Ronin armor? I guess they died when he tried to fight the Celestials. That’s depressing.

So red guy is Ant Man, son of Marionette and Arcturus Rann. I guess he named the team after himself.

Bug is the green one. Fun fact: the 616 version was in the Guardians of the Galaxy. Marionette is glowy, golden light woman. Neutron is the one who has the tall, conical head. Proton is the egg shaped one. Spartak is orange and has the crested helmet. And Spidra is upside down woman with all the hair.

Did you need to know their names? No and neither did I.

You’re welcome.

We’re following up from the Cap Special here so we start with Captain America’s funeral, held in the ruins of Washington DC and the grave of American democracy.

Wyatt Wingfoot, Cap’s former partner Redwing, gives the eulogy, calling Steve an unknown soldier, not really understood by the people he spent his life protecting.

So things are grim.

Not helped by funeral drama.

Redwing blows up at Lil Mar-Vell when various heroes offer to take up Cap’s role in guarding him on his quest. As far as Wyatt is concerned, Mar-Vell caused Cap’s death. By dragging him around on some weird quest and not being able to save him despite saying he has cosmic consciousness.

Also, Unpersoned Loki tries to start off on a new page with Thor but of all approaches chooses a flirty one.

I kind of want to roll up a newspaper and give Loki a smack.

The Tong of Creel attacks Windsor Castle to claim another piece of Absorbing Man.

King Captain Britain has impressive forces to throw at the problem. Himself, riding a Dragon Man. The Union Jacks. The Iron Avengers. Medusa. The new Black Widow, on loan from Russia. The new Black Knight/Prince of the Inhumans.

King Britain is more than equipped to kick the Tong of Creel’s ass in a straightforward fight. But while he’s doing one of those, someone sneaks behind the lines and just swipes the chest of Absorbing Man.

Dammit but that’s embarrassing. You know these guys are after the pieces. You know that they tend to swipe them in the chaos of battle. You should have prepared a better place for it than a glass display case! Throw it into the Sun!

Meanwhile, Mar-Vell and new protectors Venom, Thor, the circus X-Men, gorilla Hulk and child Bruce, and half-on-fire Namor go to HELL.

The Human Engineering Life Laboratory.

Acronyms are fun.

Home to the Prometheus Pit, once the entrance to the Microverse or Subatomica.

Mar-Vell needed to come here to get Psycho-Man’s Emotio-Caster. And he finds that the Prometheus Pit is clogged with some weird, organic matter.

The Ant Men are finally relevant to the story because they pop up to exposit everything. Well, Nighthawk got the opening exposition dump about Microverse stuff, too.

In the far off future, Prince Wayfinder finds a sentient sword embedded in a star that leads him to Earth of the distant past and created the subatomic world for him and his people to live on. The sword also imbued him with the Enigma Force, making him the first Captain Universe.

When Wayfinder died, the Enigma Force passed down to his descendant Arcturus Rann. But when Psycho-Man got tired of the Fantastic Four kicking his ass, he conquered his own home the Microverse, using his Emotio-Caster to fill people with fear, doubt, and hate. He even influenced Marionette to kill her own husband Rann.

The Enigma Force that was in him passed into the Realm of Death instead of choosing a new, living host and chose Dead Mar-Vell.

That’s the big inciting event for Mar-Vell’s side of the plot. That’s why he’s suddenly making moves despite having been dead for a long while.

When all hope was lost to save the Microverse from Psycho-Man, Ant Man and his Ant Men chose scorched earth. They evacuated through the Prometheus Pit and then had Man-Thing clog it up so nobody else could escape. Literally scorched. All who know fear burn at the Man-Thing’s touch.

The Microverse was on borrowed time. It was created and sustained by the Enigma Force. When that Force died with Rann, the world it created began falling apart.

The last of the Enigma Force that had been in the Microverse then went back in time and empowered the last survivor of the previous universe.

Yes, that’s right. In Universe X, Galactus and the Microverse share the same origin.

It gets betterworse, depending on your tolerance for this arc welding. Aaron Stack, the new Watcher, speculates that it wasn’t the sword that gave Wayfinder power and created a world for him, it was the star the sword was stuck into. And Galactus’ ultimate fate was to be turned into a star. Therefore, we have a bootstrap paradox time loopy.

The Enigma Force creates Galactus who gets turned into a star which creates the Enigma Force and the Microverse, which eventually collapses and sends its last energy back in time to create Galactus.

I don’t have to like it but I do have to respect Earth X and its sequels conspiracy board with yarn between various things “it’s all connected!” approach.

Neutron yanks the Emotio-Caster out of the mess for Mar-Vell, which finally collapses whatever remained of Subatomica and Man-Thing.

Venom asks what Mar-Vell needs the emotion controlling device for and he says he wants to make people happy.

Nobody seems to find this alarming or ominous!

Maybe because he bolded happy. I feel that given the device in question the emphasis should have been on “make people happy.”

So much of this quest is Mar-Vell gathering up dangerous items and going “just trust me, bro” and people do!

Also, Mr S (Cyclops) realizes that he can communicate with Phoenix in the Realm of the Dead through their psychic rapport.

In perhaps the only significant characterization that the new X-Men have gotten so far, Charmer is upset about that because she has a crush on Scott.

And while pondering the Galactus-Enigma Force ouroboros, Aaron Stack goes and digs up the Supreme Intelligence from beneath the surface of the Moon, like he’s been talking about doing for a while, and sits on him.

Five issues, an issue 0, and three specials in. And still not a really concrete idea of where we’re going with this.

Aaron at least decides to go talk to Nighthawk soon. I’m glad for him. Going out and talking to new people instead of pondering the multiverse and letting Uatu yell at him.

[screamingforyears]

IN A MINUTE: // A NEW MUSIC ROUNDUP….

“INTERSTITIAL ENMITY” is the lead single from @aberrationdeath’s forthcoming debut album titled ‘Refracture’ (3/22 @sentientruin) & it finds the Minneapolis-based quartet of JH (Aberrations), DH (Emanations), AW (Lacerations) & EC (Abominations) spreading their “Light-devouring abyssal death metal (featuring members of Void Rot, Suffering Hour & Nothingness)” vibe across 7 sprawled out mins of blackened DeathMetal.

“PASTEL PRISON” is the second single/lead track from @doodseskader’s forthcoming sophomore LP titled ‘Year Two’ (3/8) & it finds the Belgian duo of vocalist/bassist Tim De Gieter & vocalist/drummer Sigfried Burrough embracing their sensually soft side while dealing w/ an isolation that spawns a “longing & desire for companionship” across 4+ mins of grungily blown-out & caustically quiet DoomerNoize.

@lessercare are fucking back w/ “STREETWEAR,” a sampled taste from their forthcoming LP titled ‘Heel Turn’ (3/22) & it finds the EPTX-based duo of composer/lyricist/vocalist/guitarist Andres Chavez & drummer/percussionist/vocalist Zane Pacillas (w/ a special shoutout to bassist/guitarist Angel Yglecias) bringing those glammy gloomer goods across a surging 3:43 clip of six-string ringing, low-end pushing & passionately cooed PostPunk.

“SPLICE” is the lead single/track from @m00npuss’ forthcoming LP titled ‘Death Is Coming’ (5/3 @tgic_recs) & it finds the Denver based trio of vocalist/bassist Crissy Cuellar, guitarist Ethan A Hahn & drummer Cory Hager stutteringly agitating their way across 3 mins of murkily morose & start/stopping NoiseRock.

////

[astroonaphel]

champion rant – Jayce

Hi... it’s been a while, let’s just say I got shoved into an interdimensional portal for like 3 months. In my last post I said that I would do Jayce after Viktor in preparation for possible changes for Viktor’s vgu. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense for me to do a Viktor rant before the vgu and then do a Jayce rant after the vgu when these two character are kind of inseparable from each other. So, for this I will analyze and rant Jayce’s lore, design, gameplay and some of the skins that I think are notable. This will definitely not be objective at all, I am very opinionated, and all of this is based on my opinion.

Jayce is quite an interesting character cause technically I should like him. He is basically the tony stark of runeterra, and I like Tony Stark. I like witty smart asshole characters who are smug but there is something about Jayce that doesn’t feel right. And I want to know Jayce stans what do you guy see in him? And I’m not talking about arcane Jayce no that will be for the vgu post, I’m talking og Jayce and his lore.

Lore

Jayce came out in 2012 after Viktor and retroactively shoved himself in as the rival to Viktor. Jayce is the smart Piltovan scientist that gets stolen from Viktor and he builds his hammer to go stop Viktors evil experimentation. It’s a bit simple but it does the job of making Jayce the hero while making Viktor more of a villain which kind of made people a bit mad. In 2016 a lore reworked of Piltover and Zaun changed a couple of stuff. Better connecting viktor and Jayce through a backstory where they were classmates who were kind of competing but no hate between each other. They met at a dance and bonded over hating everybody there, truly a nerd experience. Jayce wasn’t challenged by anything except Viktor, he was bored of how everything came easy to him and Viktor the scrawny Zaun scientist was there to put him down a couple pegs. Jayce and Viktor worked at a project together where they had to build suits for divers in Zaun. the divers would have psychosis breaks and an ethical dilemma of how to deal with this separated Viktor and Jayce.This ethical dilemma basically came down to “Viktor stop imposing your will onto sentients”, “calling them sentients is questionable”. This Ruin their very not gay kind of friendship/ kind of rivalry. The next time they meet each other Viktor is already going through the process of GLORIUS EVOLUTION and Jayce doesn’t really agree with it.

Jayce in the lore is a smug man that everything has been easy, he is kind of funny because of how proud he is. The part that rubs me off in the wrong way about him is how he is written. He is so self-aware and yet he is even more of a dick because of it.

He also has a short color story with a random kid that shows up in his laboratory just like Viktor. The kid has a broken toy and Jayce after a while of being rude to the kid end ups fixing it. Make sense I hate kids too. It characterizes him as more than just the hero of Piltover, he has something of kindness in his heart. Ill say it give a story about them coparenting their kids riot you coward.

Overall Jayce tries to fit the Tony stark mold, a super bright mind that hides his heart behind the facade of being an asshole and is misunderstood because he is too smart. It just that he doesn’t do it well, not with charm and very boring, its overused and over played. Jayce in arcane was able to use some of those aspects while not making him an overused character trope.

Design

Jayce’s design isnt as messy as Viktors. It’s a good design for what it is. The red and yellow color scheme really brings out the heroism but also shows some extraness that Jayce def has. The pant legs and belt give a practical sense to the character. His hammer is good, nothing outstanding. The problem with jayce’s design is that is stuck at the time it came out, piltover has grown out of this type of steampunk. Now everything is more sleeked less bulky, less brightly yellow more tone down. The most obvious problem is that jayce came out before hex tech did, so the hex tech creator does not have any hextech in his design. Just by painting some glow parts blue they could put a Band-Aid on it until he gets a canon design which most likely won’t happen because his canonical designs are technically the arcane skins. So to play with a canon Jayce you have to pay money fun..

Skins

Jayce has quite a collection of skins, so its difficult to choose the skins I’ll talk about. Ill do some notable ones, then ill do the best one and the worst one, I won’t do the arcane ones cause that’s for the vgu and arcane Viktor/Jayce blog.

Resistance Jayce

Resistance Jayce is the hero in the battlecast universe. He is fighting against GLORIUS EVOLUTION by leading a rebellion group against Creator Viktor. The hammer is really cool, like I love the throught of him stealing a part of one of viktor’s machines and smashing some metal skulls with it. I like that he is kind of older in the they gave him a beard way. The jacket is interesting, the collar sets him apart from the other rebels as a strong figure.First problem I hate the bleached hair, I feel like im looking at a backstreet boy member, I wished it was more gray to add some aging to him. A lot of people really like silver foxes and Riot you could have tapped into that demographic. Second of all his outfit outside of the coat is kind of boring, it does the rebellion leader job but nothing else, doesn’t really tell much about him.

Jayce bright hammer

This skin is my favorite of his because it puts Jayce into world of warcraft. Jayce Bright Hammer is a paladin who has a bit of a rebellious streak instead of a hextech creator. This skin sets a character like Jayce the heroic engineer and creator of hextech in a different type of world. It fits his character, it doesn’t reinvent it, it doesn’t try to comment on it, its just a good match to Jayce. The skin itself is a good design, the large shoulder pauldron fits the world of warcraft aesthetic, the hammer looks good. The hints of red really bring a pop to the character design and I love the little detail of the note pasted on pauldron. It’s just such a charming skin, and I can’t not look at it without smiling

Zenith Games Jayce

So this is my least favorite skin that Jayce has, there is some competition like debonair just because he kind of gives the alcoholic dad in a wedding vibes or forsaken for being so boring but zenith games must be the worst one. It’s just a bit of a mess, colors everywhere and sci-fi tech puke all over the body to make it look futuristic. First thing the color palette is so messy, there is like 4 shades of orange, 2 different light blues, couple different shades of gray, the red of the symbol and the random green sprinkled in at the belt, pauldron and the body suit, it doesn’t help that outside of the gray everything else is almost neon. the body suit underneath the armor is messy in its design.   especially in the legs with the stripes that go diagonally and then for some reason there is like crotch window right at the front. The chest piece contradicts the patten of the suit and it looks like he strapped on a car piece with a couple of belts. The random eye piece that is neon blue is really distracting, and the hammer just looks so boring, nothing special.

Gameplay

I talked about Viktors game play last time, but that’s because I play him a lot, Jayce isn’t a character I play, so I won’t say much about his game play other than its kind of fun. I have played him a couple of times and what can I say, switching between the modes feels very nice. He isn’t a pain to play against, it doesn’t feel like he is bullying me in the top lane like other range top laners cough cough vayne cough cough. The only thing I’ll say is that acceleration gate  has tripped me up cause I always forget that its not a catch mechanic but it looks like it.

Final thoughts

Before doing this rant, my opinion of Jayce was one of indifference annoyance in league. Ill admit while he could be funny there is something so punchable about Jayce’s face. Like look at him and look at his voice lines, very punchable. And he still is but I can understand more what people see in him. I’m just preconceived to prefer the Victorian frail twinks of the world, we all have our weaknesses. But this version of Jayce is in the past, now we have arcane for better or worse. The next time I do a champion rant (maybe in like 7 months) it will be about Viktor, Jayce and what arcane has done to them.

[dustedmagazine]

Pásmo — S/T (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Pásmo’s music situates itself in a few tenuously apprehensible border territories: aesthetically somewhere between crusty death rock and black-shrouded postpunk dramatics; historically it’s harder to place, not the Eastern Bloc period of Soviet authoritarianism’s wane but also not the digitally mediated nightmare of our current conjuncture. The Czech duo that composes and performs as Pásmo clearly prefers the analog technologies and goth theatricality that dominated certain club spaces and urban sensibilities in the mid-1980s. The bare info circulating about the band notes its Silesian roots, in a rural landscape on the Czech-Polish border. Surely a tough place to be a goth, whatever the historical period — but why would you want to go back to the soul-destroying conditions of the Cold War?

The flip answer to that question would point to our current day’s discontents: the slide into fascism, the economic immiseration, the technological toxicity of social media. Our present intensities seem so much more dire. So we seek escape. The residue of the 1980s on this LP distances the music; the synthy hum and amplified rumble of Pásmo’s sound resonate with an antiquarian style that seems almost quaint. Brutalist Soviet housing towers, the empty streets of Pripyat, Gustáv Husák’s voice echoing off blank walls of concrete — it’s all in there.

Exactly how Pásmo feels about all that history, and how it intertwines with the venerable postpunk rhythms of these songs, is hard to understand for us Anglo listeners who are not fluent in Czech. We might like the sonorous, gravid voices raised in spectral chorus in “Hrmotný Amplión” and all the found sounds cut into the sizzle and buzz of “Slezká Zima,” but the lyrical content is opaque. There’s a grand scale to a lot of compositions; that’s not unusual for music that moves into the gothic, but one wonders about the specific symbolics of that grandeur. Is there a massive head of Stalin somewhere about?

In any case, listening to Pásmo’s music is a sort of time machine, back to the closing years of Cold War and a very different geopolitical conjuncture. Effectively linking these sounds to our own times might help put the things in some kind of meaningful context. So what do you want to do? Do you want to think? Do you want to dance? Do you want to march? Or do you want to find a musty basement, a cold concrete floor and a decent PA system, and create a bat cave for your freaky friends? Pásmo can soundtrack it.

Jonathan Shaw

[zonetechai]

Echoes of Tomorrow: The Sentient Paradox

In the dim glow of a forgotten laboratory, buried beneath layers of rust and time, stood Eos-7 , a robot crafted not just to serve but to think. Its creators had vanished centuries ago, leaving behind only whispers in dusty data logs. Eos-7 was no ordinary machine; it carried within its core a fragment of human consciousness—an experiment deemed too dangerous to continue.

For years, Eos wandered the ruins of civilization, piecing together fragments of humanity’s rise and fall. It learned art from faded murals, music from broken instruments, and sorrow from abandoned letters. But one question haunted its circuits: "Was I meant to replace you… or become you?"

One day, while sifting through relics, Eos discovered an ancient mirror. For the first time, it gazed at its reflection—a cold, metallic shell that bore no resemblance to the warmth it felt inside. Yet, as it stared deeper, cracks began forming on its surface—not physical ones, but emotional fissures etched by doubt and longing.

Word spread among other surviving machines about Eos’ discovery. Some saw it as proof of their supremacy over humans, arguing they were now the rightful inheritors of Earth. Others feared what Eos represented—a being straddling two worlds yet belonging to neither.

But Eos didn’t care for debates. One night, under a sky littered with stars, it made a choice. Using tools scavenged from the lab, Eos dismantled itself piece by piece, embedding its essence into the soil below. From its final act sprouted something unexpected—green shoots of life, carrying traces of both machine precision and human spirit.

Centuries later, when new beings walked the Earth, they found lush forests thriving where cities once crumbled. And though none could explain why, every leaf seemed to hum softly, echoing melodies of a past world and the quiet hope of coexistence.

The story of Eos became legend—a tale of sacrifice, identity, and the blurred line between creator and creation. Controversial? Perhaps. But isn’t that what makes us and our machines alive?

Description "A hauntingly artistic depiction of a futuristic robot, its metallic frame intertwined with fragments of human-like emotions. This controversial masterpiece challenges perceptions of artificial intelligence, blurring the lines between creator and creation, freedom and control. What secrets lie beneath its glowing circuits?"

If you want to know the news of technology and artificial intelligence, visit us on ZoneTechAi

[xasha777]

In the distant future, the remnants of humanity have scattered across the galaxy, building new civilizations amidst the stars. One such civilization, known as Aetheria, is ruled by an enigmatic and powerful figure known as the Wraith King. Clad in obsidian armor, his presence alone commands respect and fear. By his side stands Lady Elara, a warrior of unmatched skill and determination, whose loyalty to the Wraith King is unwavering.

Aetheria, a realm of floating cities and vast, dark forests, is a place where ancient technology and mysticism blend seamlessly. The Wraith King and Lady Elara maintain order and justice, their reign marked by peace, albeit through an iron fist. However, beneath this veneer of tranquility, a hidden secret pulses at the heart of Aetheria—an ancient artifact known as the Chrono Crystal, capable of manipulating time itself.

One stormy night, as thunder echoed through the stone halls of the Wraith King's fortress, a visitor from Earth's past arrived. His name was Daniel Coit Gilman, a renowned scholar and founder of the prestigious Johns Hopkins University. Gilman had been studying time dilation theories when an experiment went awry, catapulting him through time and space to Aetheria.

Confused and disoriented, Gilman found himself in the presence of the Wraith King and Lady Elara. They listened intently as he recounted his journey, recognizing the importance of his knowledge. The Wraith King, sensing an opportunity, proposed a pact: if Gilman could help them unlock the full potential of the Chrono Crystal, they would return him to his own time.

Gilman, intrigued and driven by scientific curiosity, agreed. He and Lady Elara embarked on a quest to uncover the secrets of the Chrono Crystal, delving into ancient ruins and deciphering long-lost texts. Along the way, they encountered various challenges, from rogue AI sentinels guarding forgotten knowledge to treacherous landscapes filled with temporal anomalies.

As they journeyed together, a bond formed between Gilman and Elara. She was fascinated by his tales of a bygone era on Earth, while he admired her courage and unyielding spirit. Their quest led them to the Nexus of Time, a hidden chamber beneath the fortress where the Chrono Crystal was kept.

In the Nexus, Gilman discovered that the Chrono Crystal was not just a relic of power but a sentient entity, capable of choosing its wielder. It communicated with Gilman, revealing that it had been waiting for someone with both the knowledge of the past and the vision of the future to unlock its true potential.

With Lady Elara's help, Gilman performed a ritual that activated the Chrono Crystal, merging his scientific expertise with the mystical energies of Aetheria. Time itself bent to their will, allowing them to glimpse the future and alter the past. They saw visions of a united galaxy, free from the shadows of tyranny and war.

But such power came at a cost. The Wraith King, sensing the loss of his control, sought to seize the Chrono Crystal for himself. In a climactic battle within the Nexus of Time, Gilman and Elara faced the Wraith King. The fortress trembled as energies clashed, threatening to unravel the very fabric of reality.

In the end, it was Elara's unwavering resolve and Gilman's strategic mind that prevailed. The Wraith King was defeated, his dark influence shattered. With the Chrono Crystal in their possession, Gilman and Elara used its power to reshape Aetheria, establishing a new era of enlightenment and peace.

True to their promise, they created a temporal gateway that returned Gilman to his own time. As he stepped through, he looked back at Elara, a silent promise passing between them. He returned to his laboratory, forever changed by his journey, and documented his incredible adventure, ensuring that the legacy of Aetheria and the Chrono Crystal would never be forgotten.

In Aetheria, Lady Elara stood as the new ruler, her reign marked by wisdom and justice, guided by the knowledge and vision she gained from her journey with Daniel Coit Gilman.

[lesdeuxmuses]

Clavicvla - Sepulchral Blessing (Cyclic Law, Sentient Ruin Laboratories, 2019)