The Ninefold Realms of Entropy

The scent of molten metal clung to Renn Ironember's beard as he shoved aside the embroidered tent flap. His boots crunched on frost-veined grass, the subzero wind of the Northern Wastes howling through his thermal armor. Yet the chill that gripped his spine came from the woman hunched over the crystal sphere, her right eye bleeding liquid starlight. 

"Your payment, stargazer." The dwarf slammed an obsidian token onto the prophecy table, its surface crawling with forbidden runes. "Though I'd sooner trust a magma wyrm's fart than that pretty-boy thief you're bedding." 

Alyia of the Voidgaze didn't flinch when the sphere exploded. Shards of enchanted quartz suspended mid-air, each fragment reflecting a different death – a blond youth impaled on a holy sword, time-sand pouring from his eye sockets, a burning city frozen at the moment of collapse. Her laughter carried the weight of collapsing dimensions as she caught a bloodied shard. "He's the key to thirtyfold profits, Renn. Or have you forgotten our deal with the Black Bazaar?" 

*** 

Kain pressed against the auction hall's marble pillar, his thumb tracing the cursed pocket watch's engravement – *Tempus Fugit, Mors Venit*. The artifact burned against his ribs, its inverted pendulum counting down to 03:47:21. Seventeen years of heists and narrow escapes had taught him two truths: this countdown never lied, and death always collected its due. 

"Lot 73!" The auctioneer's amplified voice echoed through gilded arches. "A curious relic from the Third Cataclysm era!" 

When the velvet cloth fell away, Kain's watch seared his flesh. The bronze hourglass floated upward, its sands defying gravity to climb toward the upper bulb. Every chronometer in the hall froze – except his. 

"Five hundred gold!" Kain's bid cut through the murmurs. His enhanced vision caught the subtle twitch of a noblewoman's pearl necklace, the glint of steel beneath a server's tray, the shadowed fingers weaving death-sigils in the VIP balcony. 

He tackled Renn as twelve obsidian arrows vaporized their former seats. Chaos erupted in a symphony of screams and shattering glass. Kain's fingers closed around the falling hourglass just as his watch buzzed its final warning. 

*** 

Time fractured. 

Kain tumbled through kaleidoscopic memories – Alyia coughing blood over star charts, his three-year-old self walking unscathed from burning ruins, a hooded figure in the auction balcony revealing the face of High Inquisitor Augustus. 

"Found you." Alyia's voice pierced the dimensional void. Her starfire eye blazed through collapsing reality, hauling him back into the present. 

The auction hall now resembled a divine battleground. Renn's magma hammer carved glowing runes into stone as he dueled three shadow-wreathed assassins. The stolen hourglass pulsed above them, golden sand creating a thirty-meter sphere of frozen time. 

"Rewind ten seconds!" Alyia shouted, energy fissures crawling up her neck. "What's the price?" 

Kain rotated the hourglass. "Worse than death?" 

The world inverted. 

Pearls restrung themselves. Arrows flew backward into crossbows. Kain watched in horror as liver spots bloomed across his hands while Alyia's right arm turned translucent, revealing swirling galaxies beneath her skin. 

*** 

Reality snapped back with the crack of breaking magic. 

Kain's boot connected with the server's dagger hilt, disrupting the kill-chain. Renn's hammer shattered the containment ward just as the hourglass projected a ghostly battlefield – a silver-haired woman in an observer's mask placing an infant into a starcrystal coffin. 

"Mother?!" Alyia's cry drowned in explosions. 

Platinum-armored templars stormed through crumbling walls. The lead knight's visor glowed with holy fire as he raised a hand, spatial bonds freezing everyone mid-motion. Kain's watch rebooted with a crimson warning: [30 DAYS]. 

"Surrender the artifact, chronomancer." The templar's blade hovered at Kain's throat. 

Renn's booming laugh cut through tension. "Catch, boy!" The dwarf tossed a glowing cube that erupted in prismatic light. 

Kain grabbed Alyia's disintegrating hand as spacetime tore open. His last glimpse of the material plane showed High Inquisitor Augustus removing his helmet – revealing mismatched eyes that mirrored the vision from the time rift. 

*** 

In the quantum storm between dimensions, Alyia studied their stolen prize. The broken hourglass throbbed with forbidden power, its upper bulb containing sand that hadn't existed since the universe's first breath. She bit her lip to silence the truth – her Voidgaze had shown one final vision before the escape. 

The starcrystal coffin's reflection had revealed not the infant, but the face of Augustus... wearing the Observer's mask.