====== Hiram September ====== //Chromo-Magi • Native of Geb • Stranded on the Living Moon Mist// ===== Overview ===== Hiram September is a Chromo-Magi (time wizard) from the planet [[Geb]]. He is the first human William "Will" Davenport meets after being displaced to the living moon **Mist** by a time-magic accident. Hiram acts as mentor and cultural guide during Will’s time on Mist, teaching the basics of chrono-magics while sharing insights into Geb’s freer magical traditions and the curious inhabitants of the moon. ===== Appearance ===== Hiram is a scholarly, unassuming figure: * Salt-and-pepper hair and a short beard. * Wears a distinctive dark red hat. * Walks with a slight limp in his left leg, using a hybrid cane/staff. * Dressed in plain, full-length robes with no rank insignia or symbols — a stark contrast to Myrah’s hierarchical magi attire. * Expressive grey eyes that show warmth, curiosity, or quiet sorrow when speaking of home. His demeanor is approachable and grandfatherly. ===== Background & History ===== ==== Life on Geb ==== Hiram comes from **Geb**, a decentralized world of fiefdoms and kingdoms where magi coexist with non-magical people. Magic flows wild and vibrant through arcana currents and is integrated into everyday life rather than controlled by a rigid elite class. Vast lands remain unexplored, filled with dangerous creatures and ancient ruins. Chrono-magi are rare on Geb (roughly one in a hundred with the talent). Hiram trained under an exceptional teacher and specializes in treating time as non-linear and malleable. ==== The Accident: Displacement to Mist ==== While experimenting with advanced time magics on Geb, Hiram suffered a catastrophic accident. The backlash did not simply alter time — it shifted his very presence from Geb to its orbiting living moon, Mist. Conventional magic on Geb cannot achieve travel to Mist, making this displacement extraordinary and unintended. Stranded and cut off from his family and students, Hiram arrived some time before Will. In the isolation he lost precise track of days and seasons. ==== Life on Mist ==== Mist is both prison and strange paradise: lush, green, and saturated with magic that amplifies spells. Hiram adapted to its rhythms and found uneasy companionship among its native lifeforms — shape-shifting, curious creatures (hybrids of canine and reptilian traits) that Hiram calls “monsters.” Drawing on Geb lore, he explains that the **Eight Sacred Monsters** are reincarnated souls of the deceased, reborn to protect the world they loved. These beings on Mist are inquisitive and sympathetic rather than hostile. Despite the beauty of the moon, Hiram remains deeply homesick for Geb’s society, its people, and especially his family. ==== Displacement Theories ===== Hiram (and the story’s lore) offers several possible explanations for how a time-magic experiment could cause spatial translocation. These blend Geb’s magical systems with concepts inspired by real spacetime physics: **1. Spacetime Lattice Entanglement** Extreme chrono-magic can create ripples in the arcana field that binds matter, energy, and time. The accident entangled Hiram’s presence with Mist — a natural resonant “node” with its own strong magical biosphere. What began as an attempt to manipulate time instead opened a transient shortcut through the spacetime lattice (analogous to quantum entanglement creating effective wormhole connections in ER=EPR theory), re-phasing him to the moon rather than allowing a paradox on Geb. **2. World Clock Chronology Protection Feedback** Geb’s **World Clock** records all arcanic activity and enforces temporal consistency. Hiram’s experiment registered as a dangerous anomaly that threatened to create closed timelike curves or paradoxes. The Clock’s protective mechanisms (inspired by Hawking’s Chronology Protection Conjecture) did not destroy the event but offloaded the excess temporal signature and Hiram’s state outward along planetary arcana ley lines. Mist’s living, magic-rich environment stabilized the displaced presence like exotic matter stabilizing a wormhole mouth. **3. Partial Rebirth Cycle Hijack** Geb’s reincarnation system already involves a form of presence or information transfer — souls becoming Sacred Monsters to continue protecting the world. The experiment pushed Hiram’s temporal/spiritual state to a transition boundary. The backlash triggered a partial version of this mechanism. Instead of a clean rebirth on Geb, his information/state was transferred or “radiated” to Mist (the nearest compatible receiver with its own population of liminal shades), preserving continuity in a manner reminiscent of information preservation in Hawking radiation. These remain speculative; Hiram continues to ponder the true mechanism while stranded. --- ===== Abilities & Magic ===== ==== Chrono-Magics (Time Magic) ==== Hiram’s specialty is the perception and manipulation of time: * **Non-linear Time**: Time’s pace varies with perception and breath. A single heartbeat serves as the internal counter. * **Time Slowing**: Can halve a subject’s experience of time (demonstrated on Will). Requires external stimulus; risks include shutdown spirals, stasis, or death if focus or breathing is lost. * **Time Acceleration**: Speeds localized time on objects (e.g., rapidly aging a rock until it fractures). More taxing and better suited to precision work than combat. On Geb, skilled magi often forgo incantations, relying on mental focus and gesture. This contrasts with Myrah’s rigid, library-dependent tradition. Mist’s magic noticeably amplifies certain effects. Hiram could not sense anything unusual about Will’s Stone. ==== Other Arcane Skills ==== As a Geb magi he is familiar with the world’s wild, versatile magic — orbs of light, shields, elemental manipulations — though chrono-magic remains his focus. ==== Personality & Traits ===== Hiram is sincere and generous, offering help without expectation of reward. He is fascinated by other cultures and listens thoughtfully to Will’s accounts of Myrah. As a teacher he is patient, methodical, and safety-conscious. His homesickness surfaces often — especially when speaking of family or Geb — visible in the sorrow in his grey eyes. Yet he finds genuine joy in human conversation after long solitude and maintains an underlying optimism. He treats Will as an equal rather than a student from an inferior world and eschews rank or status symbols in dress and manner. ===== Connections & Relationships ===== * **William Davenport (Will)**: Mentor and brief companion. Provides time-magic knowledge and a model of integrity. * **Family on Geb**: Deeply missed; a source of ongoing sorrow. * **Monsters / Shades of Mist**: Curious companions. Hiram views them through the lens of Geb’s reincarnation beliefs. * **Geb**: Beloved homeworld and source of his magical tradition and personal ties. * **Mist**: Unwanted second home — a place of strange beauty, magical amplification, and isolation. * **The Stone**: Indirectly linked; Hiram observed its activity but could not analyze it. --- //Author's Notes:// Keeping Hiram Distinct To avoid Hiram reading as a simple “wise old man at the end of time” archetype (e.g., Gaspar from *Chrono Trigger*): * **Lean heavily into homesickness**: Make his longing for family, decentralized Geb society, and the familiar rhythms of home a recurring emotional through-line. Let it humanize him and create quiet moments of vulnerability rather than detached wisdom. * **Ground him in Geb’s unique magic system**: Emphasize wild arcana, the World Clock’s role in recording and protecting time, the reincarnation cycle that produces Sacred Monsters, and the contrast with Myrah’s rigid hierarchy. His theories about the displacement should feel rooted in these elements. * **Give him ongoing stakes and possible agency**: He is not merely a static mentor who teaches and fades. Allow him to research the accident, interact meaningfully with the shades, or potentially influence later events. * **Show cultural exchange as two-way**: He learns from Will as much as he teaches. His fascination with other worlds should feel genuine and reciprocal. * **Use the physicality of Mist**: The living moon, its magic amplification, and the curious ecology of the shades should shape his daily life and evolving understanding, rather than existing as abstract background. **Additional Notes & Lore Integration** * Hiram’s arrival highlights the risks of experimental chrono-magic. * His knowledge of the Eight Sacred Monsters and Geb’s rebirth cycle gives early insight into another world’s cosmology, potentially intersecting with the larger “Shatter the World” narrative. * The contrast between his plain robes and Myrah’s rank-obsessed culture underscores thematic differences between visited worlds. * Future developments may explore his family, the exact nature of the accident, his relationship with Mist’s inhabitants, or a larger role in conflicts involving oppressive magi systems and Stone/Void world-hopping. --- **Suggested Wiki Links** * [[story:chapter_3|Chapter 3: The Blind Warp]] * [[story:chapter_4|Chapter 4: Second Jump]] * [[story:geb|Geb]] * [[story:mist|Mist]] * [[story:will|William Davenport]]