The Glass Clockmaker

chapter three

As Jude struggled to come to terms with the weight of a Lord's aspirations, Slias Thorne found himself in a rather unusual location, standing three miles outside of Oakhaven, in a place that, technically, didn't even exist on any map. ​He was in the Glimmer-Fields, a land of wasteland where the Great Synchrony’s signal flickered and died. Here, time didn’t flow; it pooled in stagnant, iridescent puddles. Slias wasn’t there to fix a clock; he was there to harvest the wild seconds that escaped the city’s rigid heartbeat. ​

the sky was a bruised violet, and the grass felt like spun sugar underfoot. Slias had a Long-Necked Catcher’s Jar and a pair of shears fashioned from a frozen shadow. ​ Slias stepped carefully around a spot where the air seemed to shine. This was one of those moments that could have gone either way. You know, when someone almost tells you how they really feel, or they're about to do something crazy like jump into a river, but then they don't. These moments are like glass that hasn't been shaped yet , they're full of possibilities.

"Steady now," Slias whispered to himself. He made a sudden move with the scissors, cutting a shiny thread that was vibrating with a quiet, stifled laugh. He controlled himself, knowing this thread would be the key to getting clocks working again in a world that had become dull and unchanging. This special thread, known as a Prime Mover, that would bring life to the stagnant clocks, making them tick away once more on the Echo of the Great Silence.

As he ventured deeper into the fields, the air grew colder and the atmosphere changed. He had reached the edge of the Great Silence, a place where time seemed to stand still, frozen in eternity. Slias finally found what he was looking for, a Stray Pulse. It was a tiny, glowing seed that looked like a dandelion, just floating in the air. This wasn't just any ordinary moment, it was a Lost Sunday, a whole day that the Great Synchrony had accidentally deleted about a hundred years ago when it was trying to get everything in sync. ​To the city, this Sunday never existed. To Slias, it was the most precious substance in the world, Undated Time.

​

As Slias reached out to grab the Stray Pulse, a figure emerged from the purple mist. But it wasn't a person , it was a Warden of the Spire, a massive metal creature with a face that looked just like a clock, its surface smooth and blank.

"Citizen Thorne," the Warden bellowed, its voice a metallic screeching of gears.

" You are harvesting outside the Synchrony. These seconds are property of the State."

Silas didn't flinch. He shut his jar and shoved it into his pocket.

"The government only controls the time it can measure, Warden. You can't account for a day that's been erased. There's no record of a Sunday that never existed."

The Warden's head tilted, its mechanical parts humming as it tried to come up with a reasonable explanation. The Warden's words cut deep, "You deal in fantasies, Thorne," he sneered. "This city demands strength and rhythm, not the vague promises of dreamers. It need some breathing room " Slias made his point clear. He explained

" if you tighten a spring too much, it will eventually snap. I'm just giving it some flexibility," he said and walking away from the Warden.

​Slias didn't run. He knew the Wardens couldn't follow him once he entered the pooled time. He waded through a puddle of 4:00 PM from the year 1842 and came out behind a bakery on the outskirts of Oakhaven. When he finally got to the shop, his boots were covered in a thick layer of silver dust, and his heart was racing. He looked through the window and saw Jude fast asleep at the workbench. What caught his eye, though, was that the Gilded Sigh was fixed, and it was a job that only a Master could have done, not some apprentice. It was then that he realized his task was about more than just retrieving the glass. He had actually come to get the Undated Time, because he knew his own time was limited. He wanted to give Jude a special gift a "Lost Sunday" , which would give the boy some extra time, and this was especially important now that Jude had shown he could handle the sadness of the world.

The Warden didn't move but slid down the cobblestone streets of Oakhaven as it used magnetic rollers and brass cylinders inside were making a hissing noise as they worked to process the defiance of Slias's Thorne. It finally reached the bottom of the Great Synchrony spire, a towering pillar made of a mysterious, dark material that seemed to absorb the light around it, and yet, it still managed to pierce through the clouds. Down at the very foundation of the Spire, in a hidden chamber, the Chronometricians of Oakhaven were hard at work. Their job was to keep track of the rhythm of life for a staggering number of people one hundred thousand, to be exact. The Chronometricians were responsible for monitoring the beat of all these lives, making sure everything stayed in harmony.

The supreme high of the Chronometricians is a scientist who studies time and works in a large laboratory filled with clocks, computers, and other machinery equipment that helps him study time. Magus Valerius is a man who commands respect, with a presence that's hard to ignore. He's always impeccably dressed in a crisp white suit, his grey hair a distinguished touch that adds to his air of authority. His expression is usually serious, a look that says he's constantly thinking deeply about something. As someone who's clearly an expert in his field, he carries himself with confidence, always wanting to make sure people know that he's the one in charge.

At the lab, he's the one calling the shots, making important decisions about how to use his findings to drive things forward. There's no doubt that he's a man who knows his stuff, and he's not afraid to show it. The Warden stood before him, narrating the recent incident "At 16:42 Synchronized Time, I caught up with Slias Thorne trying to remove some strange, non-linear debris. It turned out that his Stray Pulse classification had been deleted back on Sunday, in the year 1756, and now he was trying to fight against being taken back. He used a logic loop, called a Paradox, to argue that the state couldn't own something it didn't even record. But what's really worrying is that Slias is showing signs of Prismatic Decay. His body is changing in weird ways - his physical density is shifting by 12% every hour when he's near unregulated chronal fields. It's like he's not just fixing glass anymore, he's actually becoming it"

The Warden moved closer "Subject Thorne influence is expanding i have observed his apprentice Subject Jude which indicates a successful repair of a Gilded Sigh, this is a problem. A Gilded Sigh is a type of mass by removing this mass Thorne and his apprentice are lowering the tethers mass of the citizen, a citizen without mass is a citizen who will not be bound to the Spire, during the confrontation the following illegal temporal artifacts were detected on the Subject Jude, Three jars of Raw Potential, one spool of Unspoken Words, trace amounts of Starlight Residue on his fingertips "

Magus, a master clockmaker, looked up from the report, his skin as pale as worn leather, his eyes hidden behind a maze of ticking clock parts. Magus's voice was barely audible, sounding like the soft crunch of dry leaves underfoot, as he whispered,

"He took a Sunday."

" Affirmative " the Warden answered

" a day the Spire suppressed to guarantee the optimization of the Industrial Quarters. If that is restored to the timestream, it will produce a gab of Idleness, citizen will ask where the time has gone. They will begin speculating"

Magus stood up, the fancy clothes he was wearing making a soft creaking sound because of the metal bits sewn into them.

"Slias Thorne is like a hole in a pipe that's under a lot of pressure. If we don't fix the hole, the whole system, the Great Synchrony, will lose its power and the city will be in big trouble.

We need to get a warrant for Slias Thorne, and it has to be for the Undated Sunday. The warrant should say that he needs to be taken back to nothingness, to the void, to fix the problem".