It is night, about 79F(26C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. The mist is heaviest At Hawthorn and Sidney/span>/span There is a waning gibbous moon.

The narrow alley between the Gothic Revival buildings feels wrong tonight. Hester pulls her jacket tighter as an impossible breeze cuts through the humid summer air, carrying the sharp scent of salt water that has no business being this far inland. The single iron lamp flickers overhead, casting wavering shadows that seem to move independently of any light source.

Cadalie notices it first – the way her ears pop suddenly, as if she’s ascending rapidly in an elevator. The sensation repeats every few seconds, accompanied by a subtle shift in the air that makes breathing feel labored. Eloa steps back instinctively as a puddle materializes on the dry cobblestones near her feet, its surface reflecting not the lamp above but a sky churning with massive, spiral clouds.

Matias crouches beside the strange puddle, watching droplets of phantom rain splash into water that shouldn’t exist. The brick wall to his left shimmers for just a moment, revealing the ghostly outline of boarded windows and what looks like a civil defense poster warning of evacuation procedures.

Luka’s attention is drawn to a section of cobblestones near the alley’s center where one stone sits slightly askew, as if recently disturbed. The metallic scent grows stronger there, mixing copper with something else – ozone, like the air before a thunderstorm. Another impossible gust whips through the confined space, and for just an instant, the distant sound of crashing timber echoes from somewhere that isn’t there.

The temperature drops ten degrees in the span of a heartbeat, then returns to the oppressive summer heat just as quickly.

sighs softly as she stands behind of Cadalie and Matias and then shrieks as the puddle suddenly materializes at her feet. Like a cat allergic to water, Eloa jumps back as she looks into the puddle. “Is that… a different sky?” She asks as she looks up at the sky outside through the windows then at the puddle at her feet. Pulling her cross out from under her dress, she kisses it and grips as she watches the ground.

Matias crouches down next to the abnormal puddle of water, his fingers reaching out to touch just the edge getting them damp while the rosary hanging from his forearm drags around the ground near the phantom puddle. Straightening up there is a look around to the left and right. “If it is possession, will be someone nearby. If is tear, this is really odd spot for it. Why alley and not cemetary?” he says in a curious brazilian accented english.

Cadalie makes for a stress yawn to pop her ears. She follows the direction of Eloa’s searching look, fumbling for her harness- and not finding diddly squat. She looks around for signs of the possessed. The culture of Sirinia is rather one that even a foreigner could miss, and as the builder of bridges to Redstone’s Gate to Hell, she is most certainly not that. “..It is.”

Cadalie says “Which borough we in?“

Luka brings and arm across his chest, pinning it in place as he starts to stretch out his shoulder, limbering himself up as he gets ready for whatever the city had to throw at him today. There’s a slight wince with the movement though, Luka’s stretch reaching something in his body he wasn’t happy about. He squints his eyes as the environment becomes eerie, sniffing the air twice. “Got some strange smells in the air. Seems like we’re closer to the docks than we should be” Luka reports, crouching down to examine the slightly askew stone. He reaches out and gives it a shake, seeing if it was loose enough to be simply pulled free. “Hard to possess the dead?” Luka asks Matias, looking over his shoulder and shrugging his shoulders

“Ohhh, you and Miss Kane both,” Hester blinks over at Cadalie, though the breeze that blows soon gets her shivering. “O-oh my goodness, that smells like ocean,” she remarks, rubbing hastily up and down her arms. “Goosebumps, goosebumps… Sir, cemeteries are usually more peaceful, from what I’ve noticed,” she tells Matias with a wary glance around the alleyway. “The alleys are what’s got ehm, unfinished business. Uhh.. we’re in the Ivory Quarter, Sister.”

Cadalie meant couldn’t* miss.

Eloa’s cross catches the lamplight as she grips it, the metal warm against her palm despite the sudden cold that swept through moments before. The puddle at her feet ripples without any wind to disturb it, and within its depths, massive storm clouds continue their slow, hypnotic rotation.

Matias’s fingers come away from the phantom water feeling genuinely wet, droplets clinging to his skin that smell of salt and something metallic. His rosary beads click softly against the cobblestones as he moves, and for a brief moment, the sound seems to echo strangely – as if the alley has grown much larger than its narrow confines should allow.

Cadalie’s ears pop again, more violently this time, and she catches a glimpse of movement in her peripheral vision. A translucent figure – a young man in 1930s clothing – flickers into existence near the far wall, frantically adjusting what appears to be some kind of scientific instrument. He’s there for less than a second before vanishing, but the impression of desperate urgency lingers.

Luka’s fingers find purchase on the loose cobblestone, and it shifts easily under pressure. The metallic scent intensifies, now clearly identifiable as copper mixed with ozone. As he works at the stone, a sudden gust of phantom wind carries the distant sound of voices – people shouting warnings, the crash of falling trees, and underneath it all, the low rumble of something massive approaching.

The brick wall beside Hester shimmers again, more clearly this time. For several seconds, she can see through to 1938 – sandbags stacked against doorways, emergency notices posted in urgent black lettering, and the unmistakable signs of a community preparing for catastrophe. The vision fades, but not before she glimpses a brass plaque mounted near what would be the alley’s center, bearing the seal of Windermere University’s Meteorological Department.

The air pressure drops suddenly, making everyone’s ears ring, and the temperature plummets another fifteen degrees.

It’s exactly that, a glimpse. Cadalie begins to swallow as a yawn is reloaded, hurrying over with a forefinger massaging her ear to the instrument in question. “I’m seein’ a little bit the estranged psyche of.. Whatever it is.”

“Rift?” Matias says with a furrowing brow and then sighs. “Let us find some enlightenment.” the rosary is held up and aloft in front of him, the beads beginning to pass through his thumb and forefinger as he utters a litany in spanish. The classic o’ Lord we beseech you for wisdom and insight. Let us not be fooled by the illusions of the wicked nor the lies of the damned. A very classic appeal for revelation.

“Well.. at least is free air conditioning.” Eloa jokes as the temperature plummets, still holding onto her cross as she takes a step back. “There been storms recently Eloa hear.” Eloa mumbles a prayer as she steps backwards, still eyeing the storm inside of the puddle. “In some other district right? Think is portal to there?” Leaning forward, Eloa holds onto a pole as she dips her head forward for another closer look.

Luka is not quite aware enough to notice things like ghosts or visions or phantom water, but he does have a sharp nose, and his nose is telling him that he is no longer in New Have. At, least, not the New Haven he knew. “I don’t like this” The man says, standing up to his feet and spitting to the side. “There’s some witchcraft bullshittery going on here” Luka states the obvious “I’m smelling copper, and ozone and the sea.” Luka reports to the group “Those aren’t smells you usually find here.”

Hester turns real slow towards the shimmering brick wall, revealing a window into another time. Stunned at the unexpected sight, she’s frozen to watch the the scene lay itself out. The brass plaque draws her eye with an avian tilt of her head. “O-oh, oh, it’s part of Windermere?? It said Meteorological Department, look!” she points toward the center of the alley, taking steps that way – until her ears pop. “Hngg,” she shudders again, sticking pinkies into either ear to relieve it. “Oh my god, it’s getting colder and colder.. W-wait, maybe there’s something about ehm, time portals in my..” Out comes a thick tome stolen from a library, leafed through while no ill entities have yet presented themselves (or so she thinks).

“Windermere University Meteorological Department – Time Capsule – September 1938.” As she reads, another violent pressure change makes her ears ring, and the phantom wind picks up, now carrying the sound of rain that isn’t falling.

The loose cobblestone shifts on its own, revealing a glimpse of tarnished brass beneath.

In the midst of the prayer Matias is walking forward and… trips on a piece of brass that is sticking out between some cobblestones. He mutters a curse in spanish and then turns to look down at it. “Oh… What is, this?” and then loops the rosary around his wrist.

Matias says, by way of explanation, “God works in mysterious ways…“

“Is time capsule again? How many time capsules did our university drop? Jesus.” Eloa grumbles as she rubs her arms for warmth. She shrieks a little as the bat flies into the bar and flaps around, clinging to Matias a little as he examines the cobblestones.

“Time portal?” Luka asks Hester, raising his eyebrow at her “Fuck, we’re not, like gunna get zapped into the future are we?” Luka says with a sigh, reaching up to his head and shaking the hair at the top of his head. He looks over as Matias seems to find something of interest “You think it’s a good idea to open that up?” Luka asks

Matias looks down at Eloa touching his arm and gives her something of a look, “Did you just fright at a bat.” he asks in a judgemental baritone of a voice.

Seeing about as much as the instrument as she can stand, possibly a red herring of some sort, Cadalie turns from such a device and begins to move towards Matias. “..Uh-huh.” The ‘nun’ mumbles as she squints down, barely hearing. “All sorts of temporal rituals. Brass and bronze materials suit the components.”

“Yes bat in America have rabies! And it’s inside a building!” Eloa tells Matias crossly as if feeling judged. “What if it scratches someone and gives rabies.”

Cadalie says “Tarnished is an aspect of age, anyway.“

“There are what. One hundred cases of rabies in the US per year. Is like getting hit by lightning… or getting affordable housing in New Haven… or seeing an African Swallow carrying coconut.” Matias points out a list of supposedly improbable things.

“M-more like ehm, zapped into the -past-,” Hester warily answers Luka, lacking just a ‘jinkies’ at the end for this to turn into a Scooby Doo mystery with the gang. Eyes to the ground, she misses the bat entirely, drawn right to where Matias seems to have noticed something. “I feel like maybe ehm.. you know how you kill cockroach nests? Open it up, drop the bug poison in, close it again. So…” The only thing she asks is of Cadalie aside, “If we’re gonna do this, do you have holy water bombs, Sister?”

As Matias crouches over the brass object, his fingers brush against what feels like a cylindrical container about the size of a coffee can, its surface etched with the Windermere University seal. The moment he makes contact, the phantom wind becomes a howling gale that exists only in their minds, and the scent of salt water intensifies to the point where everyone can taste it on their tongues.

Hester’s occult knowledge tells her this isn’t a simple time portal – it’s a temporal anchor, something that’s holding a specific moment in place and bleeding it into the present. The brass container is likely the source, and disturbing it without proper preparation could either seal the breach or tear it wide open.

Cadalie’s glimpse of the ghostly meteorology student becomes clearer as she approaches. The young man appears to be desperately trying to secure equipment before a massive storm hits. His mouth moves urgently, but no sound reaches them across the decades. In his hands, he clutches what looks like a glass orb filled with crystalline formations – a storm glass, the kind used to predict weather patterns.

The puddle at Eloa’s feet begins to churn more violently, and phantom raindrops start to fall throughout the alley – not real water, but the sensation of being pelted by a torrential downpour. The temperature drops another ten degrees, and frost begins to form on the brick walls despite the summer heat just beyond the alley’s mouth.

Luka notices the cobblestones around the brass container are arranged in a deliberate pattern – not random placement, but a careful geometric design that seems to focus on the buried object. The metallic scent is strongest here, and he can hear what sounds like wind chimes or glass breaking in the distance.

The air pressure fluctuates wildly now, making everyone’s ears pop every few seconds. Through the shimmering walls, more glimpses of 1938 become visible – people boarding up windows, sandbags being stacked, and emergency vehicles racing through streets that look subtly different from the modern layout.

Matias’s fingers brush against the brass surface, and immediately the temperature plummets another twenty degrees. The phantom wind becomes a howling gale that whips through the alley, carrying with it the unmistakable sound of a hurricane making landfall – the deep, bone-shaking roar of wind that has traveled hundreds of miles across open ocean.

The loose cobblestone lifts away easily now, revealing a brass time capsule about the size of a shoebox, its surface green with age and cracked along one seam. Through the crack, a strange blue-white light pulses rhythmically, like a heartbeat. The metallic scent intensifies to an almost overwhelming degree.

Eloa’s cross grows ice-cold in her grip as the puddle at her feet expands, now reflecting not just storm clouds but the actual eye wall of a massive hurricane. The water begins to churn, and she can hear voices from within – people screaming, calling for help, the desperate shouts of rescue workers.

Cadalie sees him clearly now – the young meteorology student, no longer translucent but solid, real, frantically adjusting instruments that flicker in and out of existence. He’s wearing a rain slicker and thick glasses, his hair plastered to his head by phantom rain. He looks up at her with wild, terrified eyes and mouths words she can’t quite hear over the growing storm sounds.

Hester’s tome flips open to a page about temporal anchors – objects that can trap moments in time, usually created during events of extreme emotional or physical trauma. The text warns that disturbing such anchors without proper preparation can cause the trapped moment to “bleed through” into the present with increasing intensity.

Luka catches movement in his peripheral vision – debris from 1938 beginning to materialize and dematerialize around them. A broken tree branch phases through the brick wall, a torn civil defense poster flutters past his head, and somewhere in the distance, the sound of crashing glass echoes through time.

The brass capsule pulses brighter, and suddenly everyone can feel it – the crushing weight of barometric pressure dropping catastrophically, the sensation of standing in the path of something immense and unstoppable.

Cadalie isn’t a meterologist, and shoot, she isn’t about to be. But monkey see monkey do. she moves over to inhabit the space where she sees the student, saying nothing of her intent to the others, and begins to adjust the instruments just to empathize with the touch, to evoke more the lost psyche’s fixation on this object- to bring it clarity by applying to it its design.

Matias pulls his hand back from the brass item and steps back, “Someone with a bit more arm strength pull out of cobblestone, do not have shovel.” he explains in a resonating baritone of a voice while pulling out a saint minted coin in his other hand. “Uh… Temporal cleansing is..” holds up both hand over his hand and flicks the coin causing an echoing thrum as if a tuning fork had been hit, attempting to attune to the temporal energies in the time capsule for a counter rite.

“Oh my god.” Eloa puts her hands infront of her breasts for some reason when the downpour starts only to be thankful that it ISN’T a real downpour given she’s wearing white. She sniffs the air, frowning a bit at the brine that she can taste even and then moves back when Matias does from the cobblestones. “Think we need to destroy the capsule?” She asks, shouting over the gale as it starts up.

“Hey, uh …” Luka says, noticing the smell is strongest around the copper pipe “This piece of copper smells like copper.” Luka informs the group, pointing at the pipe. His snarky remark is cut short however as the man ducks down with a sharp ‘OH SHIT’ as stuff starts appearing around him, looking around for some kind of cover to dart towards before stopping as he realizes he can’t tell what’s phantom or not, each piece of cover he identifies disapearing a moment later.

He looks over to Matias as the man asks for some help with the brass item and makes his way over, keeping his head low, panicking slightly less now the initial shock of the witchcraft had died down. “Ah, I can give it a try, but I’m not so strong myself.” Luka says, crouching down as he tries to get his fingertips underneath the brass object and lift it out of the hole …

“A-AH, FUDGE!” Even as danger shrieks in their minds’ ears, Hester still censors her curse words. Bracing closer to the others, the fat freshman tries to peer through the wind bleeding out of her imagination. “Awh no, this feels so bad, ughhh,” the lass complains, her tome’s pages parting over a passage she summarizes in warning. “WAIT! Wait wait, no- DON’T TOUCH IT! E-ehm, if we nudge it without prepping it right first, i-it’s gonna rip into -this- time and destroy town and then apocalypse!” She gets a bit extra there, but she’s in a panic. “It’s a temporal anchor or something like, it’s ehm, been rooted right here in this spot.”

“The readings are impossible… the pressure’s dropping too fast…

“Huh?” Luka asks, looking over his shoulder at Hester, too committed to his motion to stop now!

Cadalie finds a perverted satisfaction in doing someone else’s long dead work for them, by them. Clearly, given the start of a smile that breaks her otherwise dull expression from the day. The apocalypse could happen right now, and she’s only love to hear the accompaniment of panic as she did her job.

“W-who’s saying that.. was that you, Eloa? Oh, couldn’t have been Eloa. Where’s Luk– DON’T, I DON’T WANNA DIE BEFORE I WAS BORN!” Hester widens her eyes as she spots Luka lifting the brass thing out of its crevice.

“Is need containment ritual?” Eloa asks Matias as she clings to him, her dress whipping up dangerously high along with her hair behind her in the gale forced winds. “Eloa can try assist.” She tells the man doing some sortof temporal ritual thing.

Indeed the pressure is dropping way to fast and Matias’s ears become quiet deadened as the minor vaccum impairs hearing. He looks around at lips moving and can even no longer hear the tuning noise of his focus. Frowning he stops the resonating sound and looks at Hester with her panic and the time capsule. There is a quick gesture as a ward forms over the entire area against magic while magically dampening the artifact with a second hand gesture… The pressure dropped and so there was naught else that could be done. Until someone pulled it free or the world ended.

Indeed the pressure is dropping way to fast and Matias’s ears become quiet deadened as the minor vaccum impairs hearing. He looks around at lips moving and can even no longer hear the tuning noise of his focus. Frowning he stops the resonating sound and looks at Hester with her panic and the time capsule. There is a quick gesture as a ward forms over the entire area against magic while magically dampening the artifact with a second hand gesture… The pressure dropped and so there was naught else that could be done. Until Luka pulled it free or the world ended. When Eloa speaks he goes, “What?”

“The storm glass! It’s been struck by lightning – the crystalline matrix is holding the entire eye wall in temporal suspension! If the containment fails…” His words are cut off as debris from 1938 begins materializing more solidly around them.

Matias’s ward flickers into existence just as the time capsule’s crack splits wider. His magical dampening slows the temporal bleed but doesn’t stop it – the artifact is too damaged, too unstable. The saint’s coin in his hand grows burning hot, resonating with energies that predate the Church by millennia.

The alley fills with phantom storm surge – ankle-deep water that feels real but casts no reflection. Emergency sirens from 1938 wail through the air, mixing with the crash of falling trees and the desperate shouts of civil defense workers. The temperature has dropped to near freezing, and everyone’s breath mists in the suddenly arctic air.

Eloa’s cross blazes with cold fire as she clings to Matias, her white dress whipping in winds that exist across two different time periods. Through the churning water at her feet, she can see the faces of hurricane victims – people who died that terrible September day, their final moments trapped in the storm glass’s crystalline prison.

Hester’s tome flips open to a new page, as if guided by unseen hands. The text describes emergency containment procedures for temporal anchors, but the ritual requires either destroying the anchor completely or providing it with a new emotional anchor point – someone willing to take on the trauma and let it finally pass into history.

The ghostly meteorology student looks directly at Cadalie now, his rain-soaked face desperate: “The readings…

“Fuck.” Matias says with his fingers flicking the saint minted coin up and he quickly shakes out his hand before catching the still searing coin and then tossing it again with another “Fuck. Hot.” on the second catch he quickly pockets it and uncurls the rosary. “Miss Flanangan, you said something about end of world. I am seeing tear here, what else do you have?”

“Fifty-four thousand numbers on the channel thang,” Cadalie announces with the utmost confidence, giving the weather to folks. “Big ol’ jack-diddly shit in this thang here-” she points the atmospheric pressure gauge. “And I reckon the Accelerometer transducer Pas bon du tout.” The Cajun even comes out of her.

Luka jumps back from the time capsule as it starts to crack and a storm surges into the alleyway, falling to his ass and pushing his heels to the ground to scramble back as he scowls at the thing “Fuck! I literally just stopped being dead!” Luka shouts in frustration as water starts to form up around the group. He slips getting to his feet, falling back into the water for a moment before he jumps up and tries to grab the bottom rung of the metal fire escape structure attached to the side of the building whose alleyway they were in!

Ducking her head as her cross glows white hot, Eloa yelps a little and holds her cross by the chain. “We should just destroy it!” She screams as she starts to summon her minion… a capybara starts wriggling it’s way through a rift behind her in the wall.

“Oh no, oh dear, oh my goodness,” Hester whimpers as more of 1938 comes into reality. Trembling fingers paw through her tome’s fresh page, the chubby one stuttering to Matias and the others, “E-ehm, okay- okay! There’s an emergency containment ritual we can do b-but we need to either smash it until there’s nothing left or… have someone b-be a new anchor point for all the traumatic emotions t-that happened at this point in time, in 1938.” Her head turns left and right, and then up right as Luka plots to escape, “LUKA WAIT! …. Have you ever eaten a time capsule?! Munch munch, chew chew??” Of course, this one would suggest the way to destroy something would be to devour it.

“The eye wall’s collapsing! The barometric pressure – it’s going to kill everyone in the path!” His voice cracks with the weight of knowing hundreds will die.

Cadalie’s adjustments to the phantom instruments seem to stabilize them momentarily, and through her work, she can feel the student’s desperate hope – he believed his readings could save lives, could warn people in time. His name surfaces in her mind: Thomas Whitmore, age 22, graduate student in meteorology.

Matias’s ward flickers under the increasing temporal pressure. The rosary beads grow ice-cold in his hands, and he can sense that the magical dampening won’t hold much longer. The saint’s coin in his pocket burns like a brand even through the fabric.

Eloa’s capybara emerges from the rift just as a massive piece of 1938 debris – a street sign reading “EVACUATION ROUTE” – materializes and crashes into the brick wall beside her. The animal looks around with typical capybara calm, seemingly unbothered by the temporal chaos.

Hester’s tome shows her the truth: someone needs to willingly accept Thomas Whitmore’s emotional burden – his guilt over not being able to save more lives, his terror during the hurricane, his final desperate act of sealing the time capsule before the storm surge took him. Only by allowing someone in the present to process and release these trapped emotions can the temporal anchor be broken.

The storm surge rises to waist-deep, and through the churning phantom water, the faces of the hurricane’s victims become clearer – men, women, children, all trapped in that terrible moment when the Great New England Hurricane claimed their lives.

“Yes yes Miss Flanangan… READ the ritual or the schema for it… I cannot just ‘contain’ time.” Matias calls out over the pressure drop and the rising illusion or reality of the storm winds and phantom water.

“Capy! Eat the capsule!” Eloa calls out to the capybara whose looking around calmly. “Eat it!” She calls out as the water starts to rise getting her white dress very wet and see through and clinging to her body if it was actually water.

Luka manages to pull himself up onto the fire escape structure, but double takes as Hester tells him to /eat/ the time capsule. “Are you fucking cra-” Luka begins before letting out a deep sigh “Alright, fucking, fine!” Luka says, pulling off his clothes as hair starts to press out of his skin. Fully a wolf by the time he was done dressing, it launches it self down from the fire escape claws first, sinking it’s fangs into whatever purchase it could find before assisting the Cappybara as it starts to thrash the thing about like a chew toy!

“Wait let the wolf eat the time capsule!” Eloa calls out to her minion who stops mid nom of the time capsule. One capybara eye looks at Luka(wolf) and gives way to the wolf to eat the horrible metal that probably gives indigestion.

Cadalie agrees entirely with Matias’ conclusion, accepts the world’s horrible conclusion as the strange sensation of cool water manages to get past her Force Shield. This sort of flooding seems just about half empty, she’d say. Could use a little bit more. She does take note of the transformation- it’s hard to miss amongst it all.

Hester looks hopeful as Luka(wolf) joins the fray, even if the sight of the shifting brings a chill to her blood. She locks eyes with Cadalie, puzzling out her cryptic divined, and then seeks Matias out when the nun’s gaze shifts his way, too. Just in case the chomping doesn’t pan out as they planned, she attempts precautionary measures. Though rather than warn the others of what the ritual entails, the teary-eyed ginger takes action and just read the damn words – enunciating as best she can as an amateur ritualist from the Windermere college itself.

his terror as the hurricane approached, his desperate hope that his readings could save lives, his crushing guilt as he realized how many would die.

Cadalie, still adjusting the phantom instruments, becomes the conduit for these emotions. She feels Thomas’s final moments – sealing the time capsule with shaking hands as the storm surge rose around his ankles, whispering a prayer that someday someone would understand what he tried to do.

The phantom water begins to recede as Hester’s ritual words take effect. The temperature starts to rise. The ghostly figure of Thomas Whitmore looks directly at Cadalie one last time, his rain-soaked face peaceful now, and mouths “Thank you” before fading away.

The storm glass in Luka’s jaws cracks once, twice, then shatters completely. The blue-white light disperses like morning mist, and the oppressive weight of 1938’s tragedy finally lifts from the alley.

The cobblestones are dry. The air smells of summer night instead of salt water. The only sound is the distant hum of air conditioning units and the settling of old masonry.

In Luka’s mouth, only fragments of ordinary brass and broken glass remain – no longer a temporal anchor, just the remnants of an old weather instrument from a long-ago storm.

The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 has finally passed into history, taking Thomas Whitmore’s trapped soul with it.